School Funding: Special Educational Needs

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We give schools a great deal of discretion over how they use their budgets. It is right that we want the experts who know their community to use funds as they see fit, and the noble Lord knows from his own experience that schools use these budgets in very different ways. I was in a school recently which actually no longer used teaching assistants, but had dropped the class size dramatically as a result. It had teachers but a much smaller number of pupils in the class. The underlying principle, that we should trust our trusts and school leaders on how they spend the budget, is the one that any Government should support.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, we are talking about pupil premiums, and the Government once promised the introduction of an arts premium, which was never delivered. It may be a bit late now, but I hope that whatever Government are in charge on 17 July will reconsider that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Earl may be right that we are timed out on an arts premium.