Gillian Keegan says schools don’t have enough maths teachers to implement Sunak’s plans – UK politics live

The prime minister is expected to restate his desire to ensure all pupils study maths up to the age of 18

Good morning. Rishi Sunak will give a speech this morning restating his desire to ensure that all pupils study maths up to the age of 18. You could argue he is Britain’s first geek prime minister (he loves data and spreadsheets etc), and he first set out this ambition in a speech in January. But today he is going a bit further.

It is normal for prime ministers to change policy. But Sunak is trying something more ambitious. He wants to change social attitudes. According to the No 10 overnight briefing, he will complain that being bad at maths is regarded as “socially acceptable” (in a way, perhaps, that being unable to read or write is not regarded as socially acceptable). He will say:

We’ve got to change this anti-maths mindset. We’ve got to start prizing numeracy for what it is – a key skill every bit as essential as reading ….

I won’t sit back and allow this cultural sense that it’s ok to be bad at maths to put our children at a disadvantage …

We certainly need to do more to build up our maths teachers. That is why very recently we put in place a bursary for maths teachers and also physics and computer science as well of £27,000.

We have also increased what we call levelling up payments of £3,000 in certain areas to attract more maths teachers.

It depends on what the expert panel say they’re actually going to be learning.