Andrew Mitchell has welcomed the announcement this week that the Government will give £2.35 billion to create new school places across the UK. This is on top of the £5 billion that is already being spent during this Parliament. This means that between 2014 and 2017 schools in Birmingham will receive £107,245,072 – part of the Government’s long term plan to give each and every young person the chance to fulfil their potential. This announcement is the first time that councils have been given 3-year allocations of funding to spend on school places, so Birmingham City Council can plan ahead and ensure that every child has a school place. The Government has already created 260,000 new school places and this announcement means that thousands more are on their way. Andrew Mitchell commented “I see in my meetings with constituents and my correspondence with them how strongly they feel about this issue and how often families have trouble trying to find school places for their children. I very much welcome this week’s announcement that the Government is trying to improve this situation, and look forward to seeing the benefits of this funding in Sutton” Education Secretary Michael Gove said “Labour were warned repeatedly that they hadn’t done enough to plan for a growing population – and once more it’s been left to the Coalition Government to clean up the mess. “Labour cut 200,000 primary places, slashed the amount spent on areas of population growth, and let immigration soar – and all this in the middle of a baby boom. “The Coalition Government has, however, taken swift action to repair the damage. We have more than doubled funding for new school places and we are also setting up great new free schools, which are giving parents a choice of high quality school places in areas Labour neglected”.