Knight: Tory plans hide major spending commitment

Schools minister Jim Knight has claimed Conservative funding proposals relating to excluded pupils mask a "massive spending commitment".

His comments came after the Tories published a policy paper on boosting school discipline, which features the pledge that schools which have excluded a pupil will not see funding for that child withdrawn.

Mr Knight believes the Conservatives are now pledging to maintain the funding for the school while additionally providing money for the pupil referral unit to which the excluded child would be removed.

"It is effectively an incentive on heads to exclude and a massive spending commitment by the Tories that they are not telling us how they will fund," Mr Knight said on the Today programme.

"All that happens at the moment is there are no fines for heads who exclude; there is no disincentive," he insisted.

Mr Knight downplayed Conservative concerns about problems relating to appeals on exclusion, pointing out only 1.4 per cent of all exclusions are overturned at appeal.