BRITAIN’S young people are being failed by Tory lies designed to protect private profit and billionaires while school budgets are decimated, teachers warned today.

Children are missing out on educational visits, musical instrument tuition and other life-changing opportunities as Gillian Keegan “shrugs her shoulders and claims the cupboards are bare,” the National Education Union’s (NEU) annual conference heard.

The Tory Education Secretary praised Chancellor Jeremy Hunt for finding an extra £2 billion for primaries, secondaries and colleges in November’s Autumn Statement, but Redbridge NEU member William Stockwell urged her to check her working-out.

He told his fellow delegates at the Harrogate Convention Centre: “It sounds like a lot of money but it doesn’t go very far as inflation, fuel and heating prices go through the roof.”

To laughter in the hall, Mr Stockwell parodied a teacher giving verbal feedback to students by suggesting Ms Keegan “could do better” as nine in 10 schools prepare for more real-terms funding cuts by next year. 

He said: “She claims there isn’t enough money left in the pot, but we know this is a lie. We know that energy companies have made £170bn during the [Covid-19] pandemic.

“We know that the four biggest banks will make a profit of £33bn this year alone and we know the number of billionaires has risen from 29 to 177 in the last decade — all while schools’ funding has been decimated.”

In a rousing speech, Tower Hamlets delegate Paul Robert McGarr said: “It’s the same old story. We know the money’s there, but who is it going to?”

A 10 per cent wealth tax on Britain’s richest could double the education budget at the stroke of a pen, he noted, to massive applause in the North Yorkshire spa town.

Denbighshire delegate Liz Mclean warned that there is no fat left to cut following a decade of austerity, adding: “Education is in a truly perilous state.”

Further school strikes in Wales have been avoided following a much-improved offer from devolved Labour ministers in Cardiff, but Ms Mclean said that budgets are still under massive pressure.

She urged members to hold both Westminster and Cardiff “accountable as they have a duty to properly invest in the education system as a matter of urgency.”