Education and Local Services

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) on making such a powerful, gracious and eloquent speech. It was a powerful reminder, if any were required, of the great talent that exists in our teaching profession, which I am pleased to say is now in this House.

I am sure the hon. Lady would agree with Benjamin Disraeli, who said:

“Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.”

What applied then applies now. There is no better vehicle for social mobility, social cohesion, cultural appreciation, tolerance, prosperity or, indeed, quality of life. As a nation we can take pride in acknowledging that there are now a total of 6.6 million young people in good or outstanding schools. That is up by 1.8 million since 2010—an increase of more than 35%. There are now 147,000 more six-year-olds on track to become fluent readers than in 2012. What a remarkable achievement by schools, teachers, parents and governors.

I want to pay particular tribute to teachers in my constituency. They work immensely hard. They follow their calling and give a huge amount of themselves. They include teachers in schools such as St Gregory’s, which takes an increasing number of school children from eastern European backgrounds and in doing so fosters a tolerant and unified society in Cheltenham; Balcarras, which now sends 50% of its pupils to Russell group universities; and Pittville, which successfully addressed challenges in the past and is now going from strength to strength.

What is so remarkable about those achievements is the funding context in which they have been made. For decades now, Cheltenham schools have been significantly underfunded compared with the national average—and not by a small sum, either. In 2014-15, the block allocation for Cheltenham schools was £4,195. The England average was £4,545—a difference of £350—and yet we have Opposition Members such as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who made a very eloquent speech last week, complaining that funding in her constituency is planned to rise from just over £5,400 to £5,500. Those are figures that in Cheltenham we could only dream of. They amount to just under 30% more. If I turned up to a meeting of my headteachers in Cheltenham with a promise of an additional 30% in funding, I would be welcomed like Moses.

All that might be tolerable if the cost pressures were manageable, but they are not. Schools are facing increasing cost pressures—salary increases, increases to employers’ national insurance contributions and so on. It is so welcome that the Government are facing up to that injustice. Unravelling the formula and starting from first principles is a task of almost unimaginable complexity. Lesser statesmen than my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education would have run a mile, but she has taken up the challenge and has already delivered meaningful improvements, with £390 million put into the baseline.

However, it is also the case that the current proposal that officials have come up with needs some surgery. Let me deal first with the impact. Although Cheltenham gains overall from the proposals, albeit modestly, the way in which the cake is divided creates distorted outcomes and risks fostering resentment. Some schools, such as All Saints’ Academy and Pittville, do very well, but others actually lose—and those are schools that are located near to each other. All that poses the risk that regional geographic inequity will be replaced by neighbourhood geographic inequity.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is making a good point about the way in which the funding system was going to work, but during the general election the Government made it very clear that no school would receive less money than it was currently receiving. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should give all our schools, in Gloucester and elsewhere, enormous confidence in the future?

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[Alex Chalk]

That is precisely the point, and it was a welcome point that was included in the manifesto. I entreat the Government to ensure—as I know they will—that there is no risk of potential resentment that might lead schools to retreat to the core subjects that they are statutorily required to provide; other subjects might suffer.

What we need is a funding settlement that allows all schools to provide a full and rounded education, not just those that are able to satisfy the criteria for funding uplifts. The core funding element must be sufficient to achieve that goal. We need a funding settlement that consolidates the extraordinary progress that has been made over the last seven years, and lays the ground for still more progress. The prize is great. If we get this right, the future for education in Cheltenham and in our country, based on the work that has already taken place, can become even brighter.