A LEADING Labour MP has spoken up for teaching assistants who face having their contracts terminated and new terms introduced in a row over school holiday pay.

Tristram Hunt, a historian and educationalist who served as Shadow Education Secretary under Ed Miliband said teaching assistants (TAs) could make a “real difference” to schools but if they did not feel “ownership and belonging” results would suffer.

He was speaking after Durham County Council warned it could terminate TAs' current contracts and introduce new terms if a dispute over proposed changes was not resolved.

The council wants to pay its 2,700 TAs during school term time only to ensure “fairness and parity across the workforce” – a plan Unison says would reduce their salary by up to 23 per cent.

A final decision on the issue will be taken by an extraordinary full council meeting on Monday, May 16.

Mr Hunt said: “Teaching assistants if used effectively can make an important difference to learning.

“If teaching assistants are regarded as a valuable part of the classroom environment and the school structure and system, and are given the training and development they need to help the class, then the outcomes are really positive.”

He stressed he did not know the details of the dispute, but commented: “If you have a situation whereby teaching assistants don’t feel a sense of ownership and belonging to the success of the school, that isn’t going to achieve the results we want.”

The MP also expressed sympathy for those balancing education budgets at County Hall, saying school funding was being cut by nine per cent over the course of this Parliament and hundreds of millions of pounds were being wasted on “mass academisation” – a move he warned could force the closure of small, village schools.

“I absolutely understand the anger local authority officials feel at the waste of money in the Education Department and the kind of decisions they’re having to make,” he said.

Mr Hunt was speaking while making the case for Britain remaining in the European Union. He said a "Brexit" would hit jobs, businesses and prosperity and the region’s universities could miss out on vital research funding and cultural connections such as the Erasmus programme.