Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick and David Laws(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Laws
The pupil premium has to be passed down properly to all schools, and before it existed, many young disadvantaged people were not getting any proper additional funding in many rural areas. My hon. Friend may wish to know that we also recently widened entitlement to the pupil premium to include pupils in families who had been entitled to free school meals at any time in the past six years. She will be pleased to know that as part of our recent funding review, we have introduced a sparsity factor of up to £100,000 that will allow local authorities to give extra money to schools in rural areas, and one of the big gaining authorities will be North Yorkshire.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Given that the Secretary of State has had meetings with devolved Education Ministers in Northern Ireland and Wales about other examination matters, will the Minister confirm whether the Secretary of State had discussions with them about the potential for rural schools, their potential closure and the need for them to be sustained?