Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Helen Hayes
I agree with my right hon. Friend entirely. The level of pressure our schools are being asked to bear would be unacceptable in any circumstances, but in order to understand exactly how damaging the proposals are, and why parents in my constituency and across London feel so strongly about them, the Government must understand the journey that London schools have travelled in the 14 years since the Labour Government introduced the London challenge programme of improvement for London schools in 2003.
I moved to London in 1996. At that time, parents in the same situation as I am in now, with their oldest child approaching secondary school age, were often trying to do one of three things: move close to a high-performing state or church school; move out of London to a part of the country where schools were better; or educate their children privately. Children whose parents were unable to make any of those choices often attended local schools, which despite the best efforts of their teachers substantially failed generations of children. In my constituency at that time, we had William Penn boys’ school and Kingsdale school, both of which were failing schools that became notorious. William Penn subsequently closed and successfully re-opened as the co-educational Charter School, and Kingsdale was completely remodelled under a change of leadership. Those are now outstanding and good schools respectively.
I have spoken with many parents in my constituency who attended failing schools as children. They remember the crumbling buildings, leaky roofs, shortages of books and materials, very large class sizes and poor discipline. They tell me that any success in their educational outcomes was due to the hard work that they and their teachers put in and happened despite, not because of, the funding and policy environment in which the schools were operating.
The situation could not be more different across London now: 94% of London schools have been judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted. While London schools were the worst in the country in the 1980s and 1990s, they are now the best. That transformation was achieved through a combination of political leadership, appropriate resourcing, stringent accountability and—most importantly—the hard work of teachers, governors, support staff and parents. I think I speak for all London MPs from across the House when I say that we are deeply proud of our schools and everything they deliver for London children.
Our schools in London deliver for every child. They are not reliant on selection, and as a consequence London children also benefit from being educated in a diverse environment, which helps to build understanding and community cohesion. My children are receiving an excellent education alongside children from every possible walk of life, and their lives are enriched as a consequence. It is that approach, not grammar schools, that delivers the social mobility the Government say they want to see.
London schools are the best in the country, despite having the most complexity among their intake. They have the highest levels of students with English as an additional language, special educational needs and children from deprived households, and they have very high levels of churn, in part due to the large numbers of families now living in the private rented sector, who often have to move when short-term tenancies come to an end.
London schools are able to deliver in that context when they have the teaching and support staff to provide the help and support that every child needs, so that those who need extra help in the classroom can receive it, those who need to be stretched more to fulfil their potential can thrive, and a rich, imaginative curriculum can be offered to all students. The headteachers in my constituency increasingly talk about the new challenges their students face. Chief among them are mental health issues, which are growing in part as a consequence of the pressures children face on social media. They feel the need for additional support in school that students can access, but they are already unable to afford that.
I wrote to every headteacher in my constituency to ask about the impact that they anticipate the national funding formula will have on their school. I want to share just two examples of their feedback today. A primary head wrote to me and said,
“in order to balance the budget this year we had to lose six members of staff. Prior to this academic year we employed one Teaching Assistant per class. This year we have a Teaching Assistant per year group. I can see a time when schools will not be able to afford Teaching Assistants at all. Our building is shabby because we cannot spare the funds to redecorate and carry out minor repairs. Cuts in funding will mean that Headteachers will become more and more reluctant to accept pupils that put a strain on the budget.”
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady and, as I did at the meeting with her and her colleagues, I have paid careful attention to what she is arguing. Is she interested in knowing that in Lambeth, under the new national funding formula, the funding per pupil is £6,199 and in Southwark it is £6,271, whereas in Waltham Forest it is £5,129 and in Surrey it is £4,329? It is that discrepancy that the national funding formula tries to go some way to dealing with.
Helen Hayes
I thank the Minister for his intervention. If he bears with me a little longer, he will hear that I am not arguing that schools elsewhere in the country—or indeed in outer London—should lose out as a consequence of the funding formula; what I am interested in is a funding formula that is fair for all schools.
A secondary headteacher wrote to me and said:
“Effectively our budgeting will be reduced by £500,000 in real terms in the next three years...it will make it very difficult for us to continue to provide a high quality education for our students, and will undoubtedly affect our ability to support student achievement and wellbeing. It will also have a negative impact on the workload of our staff who already work incredibly hard day in day out to support our students.”
Those are experienced headteachers, looking at a spreadsheet in the cold light of day and working out the choices they will have to make to accommodate the Government’s funding cuts.
Helen Hayes
My argument is about the cumulative impact of unfunded cost pressures in recent years, and some still to come because of the apprenticeship levy, in addition to the impact that the new funding formula will have.
Seventy per cent. of schools’ budgets are spent on staff, so it will be teaching assistants, speech and language therapists, learning mentors, family support workers, school trips, sports clubs, music specialists and teachers that will have to be cut. Heads across my constituency say that the formula does not work. London schools also face a recruitment crisis, fuelled by the high cost of housing and childcare in the capital, as well as the Government’s failure to meet teacher training targets. More than 50% of London heads are over the age of 50, and the current budgetary pressures, combined with the new inspection regime and changes in the curriculum, are making it harder and harder to recruit. Further reductions in funding will only exacerbate the situation, making it harder for schools to retain experienced teachers and creating a level of pressure in the profession that will cause many hard-working teachers to look elsewhere.
The Government’s stated aim in revising the schools funding formula is fairness. I agree with that aim. There are problems with the current formula in some parts of the country, because of the embedding of resourcing decisions made by local authorities many years ago and their use as the basis for calculating future increases. However, there is nothing fair about a proposal under which funding will be cut from high-performing schools in deprived areas. A fair approach would take the best-performing areas in the country and apply the lessons from those schools everywhere. It would look objectively at the level of funding required to deliver in the best-performing schools, particularly in areas of high deprivation, and use that as the basis for a formula to be applied across the whole country.
London schools should be the blueprint for education across the whole UK, but school leaders in London are absolutely clear that quality will inevitably suffer as a consequence of the funding changes that the Government are implementing. It is simply irresponsible for the Government to put the quality of education in London at risk. Children are growing up in a time of great global change and uncertainty. We feel that today perhaps more than ever, as article 50 is triggered. They need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills and confidence to navigate and compete in a post-Brexit economy. Our schools are essential to that, and to ensuring that children make the maximum possible contribution to the economy and public services in the future.
I ask the Minister this morning to think again and, as he reviews the 20,000 consultation responses that have been submitted, to consider the impact that the changes will have on London schools. I have two specific asks. When I met the Minister last week, it was not clear from what he said that he had recently visited high-performing London schools, so I invite him to visit a primary school and secondary school in my constituency to see at first hand the great work that our local schools do and to understand the current financial pressures that they face.
Helen Hayes
I thank the Minister; I would dearly love to welcome him to high-performing schools in my constituency, so that he can hear at first hand about the pressures that headteachers are talking about.
Secondly, I ask the Minister to go back to the Treasury and to negotiate again. Spending on schools is an investment that the Government make in the future of our economy. It would take just 1% of the education budget to ensure that no school loses out through the introduction of the national funding formula. I ask him please to think again and not to put the success of London schools and their ability to deliver for future generations of London children at risk.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you presiding over us this morning, Mr Hanson. I am not sure I have had the privilege of serving under your chairmanship before. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and commend her for her excellent speech, which detailed the problems we all face.
I do not have a long record of speaking in education debates over the years. As the Minister knows, my main engagement with his Department has been about fire sprinklers in schools and trying to improve the guidance on their installation. We have not cracked that yet. However, I have been contacted by a number of primary school heads in my constituency. Their comments need to be registered not only with me but by me in this debate. I will do so briefly, in line with your request, Mr Hanson. I have also written to the Secretary of State.
Heads from Cubitt Town Junior School, Mayflower Primary School, Cyril Jackson Primary School, Lansbury Lawrence Primary School, Arnhem Wharf Primary and St Peter’s London Docks Primary School, as well as constituents, have contacted me on this issue. One letter said:
“the national funding formula has the potential to make school funding fairer, but it will fall short unless it is given sufficient resources to succeed. School budgets are being pushed beyond breaking point.”
That brief quote says a lot. Given the pressures faced by schools, the writer of the letter is still able to see the positives in the funding formula, but refers to how it is let down by the sheer lack of resources. In her letter to me, the headteacher of Cyril Jackson Primary School listed 12 ways in which the school was forced to act to reduce overheads in 2015-16, meaning reduced staff numbers, less guidance, less encouragement and fewer opportunities to see new things, and experience other environments and be inspired by them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood has previously said, and may have said again this morning:
“The government is putting our excellent local schools at risk, with a change in the funding formula which will see money taken away from our local schools to give to schools in other parts of the country.”
Neither I nor any other colleague, I am sure, would wish to see schools in other parts of the UK short-changed, but giving them what they need to deliver a great education service should not be at the expense of London schools. Children everywhere should have and must enjoy an equally high standard of education. Whether they live in Dulwich, Docklands, Dudley or Droitwich, children deserve well-funded schools that enable them to reach their potential. It is as simple as that.
Those on the ground are telling me that school budgets are being pushed beyond breaking point. One of our local representatives in Tower Hamlets, Councillor Danny Hassell, recently tweeted that he had just seconded a Labour motion at the council against Government plans to cut funding in our schools that will mean a staggering loss of £511 per pupil in Tower Hamlets. Children such as those at Cubitt Town Junior School cannot afford the Government’s proposals. Their headteacher tells me it is calculated that Cubitt Town pupils will lose up to £746 per pupil.
Mr Gibb
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Does he acknowledge that Tower Hamlets was the highest funded local authority in the country on a per-pupil basis before the national funding formula and remains so, even after the national funding formula is implemented, with funding of £6,718 per pupil, compared with £4,329 in Surrey and £5,129 in Waltham Forest?
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am grateful to the Minister for citing those statistics. I was citing one myself from the headteacher of Cubitt Town Junior School, who said that Cubitt Town pupils will lose up to £746 per pupil. I do not doubt that Tower Hamlets’ schools are well resourced and well funded by the Government, but the cuts being introduced will be unsustainable. The headteacher says that it could mean the school losing up to six teachers. How will that Isle of Dogs school withstand such a reduction without significant negative consequences for the quality of education it can give to local children?
Along with parliamentary colleagues, I urge the Government to acknowledge that their funding plans do not work for Cubitt Town, for the other schools I have mentioned or for all those left unmentioned. They certainly do not work for Tower Hamlets.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on her brilliant exposition of the issues currently facing London schools.
In May, I will have been the MP for Mitcham and Morden—the place of my birth—for 20 years. One of the biggest and most satisfying things during those 20 years has been seeing the blooming of our schools. Schools that were universally performing so poorly have been transformed into schools that, in the main, although not exclusively, are doing really well. School buildings are now places that people would want to enter, rather than fearing to enter. I want to see that continue, and I want to see that mostly for those who have least. What concerns me is the number of teachers who come and see me at my Friday advice surgery from schools where children are in temporary accommodation and finding it difficult to get to school. As has been mentioned, more children than ever suffer from mental health problems and are self-harming. These demands on schools at this time make it difficult for them to cope from where they are, let alone if they lose any funds at all.
Mr Gibb
Let me gently point out to the hon. Lady that 96.2% of the schools in her constituency, Mitcham and Morden, gain funding under the new national funding formula. That amounts to a 6.6% increase once the formula is fully implemented, and that is £3.5 million. Schools should not be coming to the hon. Lady to talk about cuts in funding, because 96% of her local schools will see an increase in funding under this formula.
Siobhain McDonagh
I invite the Minister to come to William Morris Primary School, in Pollards Hill, which is going to lose £487 per pupil, which is the equivalent of four teachers, or to Singlegate Primary School, which will lose £424 per pupil; or perhaps he would like to go to Morden.
Mr Gibb
Again, the hon. Lady takes the misleading figures from the National Union of Teachers, which is conflating the cost pressures that all of the public sector is incurring over this year and the next three years—amounting to 8% in total—with the national funding formula. The national funding formula is good for schools in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I hope very much that her local headteachers and she herself will support the new national funding formula, because it is fairer, and fairer for her schools.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate. I think that the tone has been very measured, but I say to the Minister that back in communities across London there is tremendous fury, frankly, at what the Government are proposing. I really want to warn him. I went to school in the 1970s in London; I have seen schools in the 1980s in London, and I am deeply worried that we will be returning to that story in this city. When London slips back, as night follows day, the nation slips back on education. London’s contribution to our GDP is bigger than at any time since 1911. In the Brexit environment that we are now going into, this is a very dangerous move. The Government simply cannot talk about social mobility and about families that are just getting by, and see the sorts of devastating cuts that we are hearing about right across the city.
Mr Lammy
No, I will not give way. I think of the Willow Primary School on the Broadwater Farm estate—no one at that school is well off—and of the six teachers and all the learning mentors that it might have to lose. I ask the Minister, with all sincerity, how he can stand by the cuts. When he says to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) that Tower Hamlets is the best-funded local authority in the country, has he knocked on doors in Tower Hamlets? Has he seen the deprivation that exists in Tower Hamlets?
The Minister knows, as we all do, that the education debate in this country is not between state schools in deprived areas of the country, but between the state schools and private schools. That is the big gap, and that is what any Government with any ambition to raise the standards of children across the country should be seeking to match, not cut. Let us not have this fake debate about redistribution across already deprived constituencies, when the real debate is how we level up to the standard of private schools. When he says, “Look, you are getting just under £7,000 in Tower Hamlets,” let him remember that a child that goes to Eton means £33,000 a year. That is the debate. If he is sincere about social mobility, he will go back to his friends in the Treasury and ask for more.
I have been asked by this Government to do a review into the disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority young people and adults in our criminal justice system. I have to warn the Minister that this situation will lead to more young people in our pupil referral units, and more young people in our young offenders institutions and prisons as a direct result. That is because teaching assistants help to keep the peace and order in our schools, and help with kids with special needs, and they will have to go. It is because a class size of 30 or 32 kids is hard on one teacher. I commend all teachers committed to teaching in deprived constituencies; it is a vocation that none of us should forget about in this debate.
I say to the Minister, do not just interrupt Members and quote the figures blindly at us. We know what this is about. This is a direct cut of the education budget. The Government are turning their back on a commitment they made when they first came into office, and we must and will hold them to account.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate. I trust that she would agree that we share the ambition to have a country that works for everyone, where all children have the opportunities for an excellent education that unlocks talent and creates opportunity. That should be regardless of their background or where they live, which is why today 1.8 million more pupils are in good or outstanding schools than was the case in 2010, and why 147,000 more six-year-olds are now reading more effectively this year compared with 2012 as a result of our reforms.
The Government are prioritising spending on education and have protected the core schools budget in real terms so that, as pupil numbers increase, so will the amount of money for our schools. School funding today is at its highest level on record at more than £40 billion in 2016-17, and is set to rise to £42 billion by 2019-20. However, the current funding system is preventing us from ensuring that the money is allocated fairly. In the current system, similar schools and similar local authority areas receive very different levels of funding with little or no justification. For example, a secondary school in Wandsworth that is teaching a key stage 3 pupil with English as a second language and low prior attainment would receive £7,699, but if that same pupil were in a school in the neighbouring Borough of Lambeth, the school would receive £10,263, which is a difference of more than £2,500. There is no reason why moving just a single mile should lead to such a change in funding.
Opposition Members complained about the debate. They do not like their figures being challenged, but I am afraid that I am going to do so, because they repeatedly cite misleading campaign data from the National Union of Teachers. First of all, let us take the hon. Member for Nottingham—
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Gibb
I will not give way. Haringey will remain the 11th highest-funded authority.
Allocations are based on 10-year-old data—2005 data—but during that 10-year period deprivation in London has been reduced. In 2005, 27% of pupils in London were eligible for free school meals; today, that figure is 18%. By ensuring that we allocate funding on the basis of up-to-date data and fairly, we can allocate £5 million more to boroughs such as Merton, the funding of which will rise from £114 million a year to £119 million a year, reflecting the fact that Merton has been underfunded in the past. It was disappointing—
Mr Gibb
I will not give way to either of the hon. Gentlemen. It was disappointing that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) did not acknowledge that, directly as a consequence of this fairer way of allocating funding—this new funding formula—her schools are receiving £3.5 million more.
The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who is itching for me to give way, said that his borough of Redbridge was seeing a reduction in funding. I am afraid that that is simply not the case. Redbridge’s school funding will increase from £201,600,000 to £209,859,000, a 4.1% increase, as a direct consequence of the introduction of a national funding formula.
Mr Gibb
I will not give way.
These anomalies will be ended once we have a national funding formula in place, which is why introducing fair funding was a key manifesto commitment for this Government. Fair funding will mean that the same child with the same needs will attract the same funding, regardless of where they happen to live.
We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming the schools and high needs funding systems in March last year. We set out our principles—
Mr David Hanson (in the Chair)
I am afraid, Mr Kane, that that is not a point of order for the Chair. The Minister is entitled to give way or not give way according to his own preference.
Mr Gibb
Thank you, Mr Hanson; I want to respond to all the points that were made in the debate.
We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming the schools and high needs funding systems in March last year. We set out the principles for reform and proposals for the overall design of the funding system. More than 6,000 people responded to that first stage of our consultation, with wide support for those proposals. I acknowledge the support that the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) has given to the principles of this formula.
We have just concluded a 14-week second stage consultation, covering the detailed proposals for the design of both the schools formula and the high needs formula. Our proposals will target money towards pupils who face the greatest barriers to a successful education. In particular, our proposals will boost the support for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and for those who live in areas of deprivation but who are not eligible for free school meals—those ordinary working families who are too often overlooked. We are also putting more money towards supporting those pupils in both primary and secondary schools who have fallen behind in their education to ensure that they have the support they need to catch up.
Overall, 10,740 schools would gain funding under our proposals, and the formula will allow those schools to see those gains quickly, with increases of up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19 and of 2.5% in 2019-20. Seventy-two local authority areas will quickly see an increase in their high needs funding, and no local authority will see a fall in its funding.
As well as providing those increases, we have listened to those who highlighted in our first stage consultation the risks of major budget changes for schools. That is why we have proposed to include significant protections in both formulae. No school would face a reduction of more than 1.5% per year or of 3% overall per pupil and, as I have said, no local authority will lose funding for high needs. The proposals will limit the otherwise quite large reductions that some schools, including many in London, would see as the funding system is brought up to date.
The real-terms protection of the core schools budget underpins these proposals. As a result, we are able to allocate some £200 million to schools in both 2018-19 and 2019-20, over and above flat cash per pupil funding. That will combine significant protection for those facing reductions with more rapid increases for those set to gain under the fairer funding formula. High needs funding will see an equivalent real-terms protection.
London will remain the highest-funded part of the country under our proposals. Schools in inner London will attract 30% more funding per pupil than the national average, which is right. Despite the city’s increasing affluence, London schools still have the highest proportion of children from a deprived background and the highest labour market costs, as has been acknowledged in the debate.
We are using a broad definition of disadvantage to target additional funding to schools, comprising of pupil and area level deprivation data, prior attainment data and data on English as an additional language. No individual measure is enough on its own. Each factor reflects different aspects of the challenges that schools face, and they work in combination to target funding. Where a child qualifies for more than one of those factors, the school receives funding for each qualifying factor. For example, if a child comes from a more disadvantaged household and they live in an area of socioeconomic deprivation, their school will attract funding through the free school meals factor and the area-level deprivation factor—the income deprivation affecting children index.
The additional needs factors in the formula are proxies for the level of need in the school. We are not suggesting that the funding attracted by an individual pupil must all be spent on that pupil, but that schools with high numbers of pupils with additional needs are more likely to need additional resources. Using the proxy factors helps us target funding on schools that are more likely to face the most acute challenges. I will give way to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who introduced the debate, if she wants to come in on that point. If not, I will press on.
Mr Gibb
Very good. In addition to the formula, schools will continue to receive additional funding through the pupil premium to help them improve the attainment of the most disadvantaged pupils. We have also included a mobility factor in our formula to recognise the additional costs faced by schools, many of which are in London, where a high proportion of pupils arrive at different points through the year. We were influenced by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in making that change. London schools will receive additional funding to reflect the higher cost base they face from being in London, which is particularly important given that so much of schools’ spending goes on staffing costs. The higher funding for London schools will support them to continue their success in recent years, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
I understand the reactions of those Members who are disappointed by our formula’s impact on their constituencies. The formula is not simply designed to direct more money to historically lower-funded areas or areas with the highest levels of deprivation. It is designed to ensure that funding is properly matched to need using up-to-date data, so that children who face entrenched barriers to their education receive the support they need. That includes pupils who do not necessarily benefit from the pupil premium but whose families may be only just about managing.
Andy Slaughter
The debate is about schools funding in London and the Minister is almost exclusively talking about the formula. Does he not understand that the additional cost pressures talked about by my headteachers in the letter they sent to the Secretary of State are having an effect on all schools in addition to the funding formula? It is that combination that is causing these difficulties.
Mr Gibb
I recognise that schools are facing cost pressures, including salary increases, the introduction of the national living wage, increases to employers’ national insurance and pension scheme contributions, and general inflation. We have estimated, as has been acknowledged in the debate, that national pressures will add about 8% per pupil between the start of 2016-17 and 2019-20, but it is important to note that some of those cost pressures have already been absorbed, and 8% is not an estimate of pressures to come. Over the next three years, per pupil cost pressures will on average be between 1.5% and 1.6% each year.
The current unfair funding system makes those pressures harder to manage. We felt very strongly that introducing a national funding formula will direct funding where it is most needed. That will help schools that have historically been underfunded to tackle those cost pressures more easily. We will continue to provide advice and support to schools to help them use their funding in cost-effective ways and improve the way they buy goods and services so that they get the best possible value for their pupils. We have published a wide range of tools and support, which are available in one place on the gov.uk website and include tools to help schools assess their level of efficiency and find opportunities for savings, guidance on best practice, including on strategic financial planning and collaborative buying, and case studies from schools. We have launched the school buying strategy to support schools to save more than £1 billion a year by 2019-20 on their non-staff expenditure.
In addition to those pressures, I appreciate that schools will be paying the apprenticeship levy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) pointed out, the apprenticeship levy comes with real benefits for schools. It will support schools to train and develop new and existing staff. It is an integral part of the Government’s wider plan to improve productivity and provide opportunities for people of all backgrounds and all ages to enter the workplace.
In conclusion, I am grateful for this opportunity to debate school funding in London. I hope Members are reassured to some extent that the Government are committed to reforming school funding and delivering a fair system for children in London and across the whole country—a system where funding reflects the true level of need of pupils in schools.