Schools: Spending per Pupil

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies 2020 annual report on education spending in England: schools, published on 18 September, what plans they have to increase school spending per pupil.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, we are investing more in schools over the next three years, starting with an additional £2.6 billion this year and rising to £7.1 billion by 2022-23, compared to 2019-20. This will ensure that per pupil funding for every school can rise at least in line with inflation this year, and faster than inflation for most. The IFS has said that this investment will near enough restore schools’ per pupil funding to previous levels in real terms.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer, but schools in England have suffered the most severe funding cut in 40 years, with the biggest brunt falling on secondary schools in areas with the lowest 20% of incomes. School spending has decreased by around £1,000 per pupil over the past 10 years, and even the extra £7.1 billion which the Minister just mentioned will not reverse those cuts; there will still be a 1% in gap in funding since 2010. I should say that 1% equates to around £500 million per year.

With the Covid catch-up fund due to be spread across all schools, regardless of disadvantage, I ask the Minister when the Government’s commitment to levelling up educational opportunity will be translated into a greater targeting of additional funding to schools in more deprived areas, and a real increase in funding per pupil.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the national funding formula obviously takes deprivation into account, and 18% of that formula—£6.2 billion—is aimed at disadvantaged students. That is in addition to any supplementary funding such as that for music hubs, which is also directed funding to free school meal areas. There is also, in the catch-up fund, the £350 million national tutoring programme, aimed at disadvantaged students. Some of the figures that the noble Lord outlines, in relation to schools in the most deprived areas, relate to the fact that the most deprived students are now spread across more areas of the country. That is why there has been a decrease in funding in some of the most deprived areas, because the most deprived students—for whom the funding is there—are spread more evenly across the country. Therefore, the funding formula has taken that into account.