School Funding

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Royston Smith]

That is exactly the point, and it should be what we talk about. We should be talking about our children, their outcomes and their future and not constantly make it a political battle.

School budgets have increased, but I concede they have not increased enough. [Interruption.] If Members could just allow me to get on to the points they might agree with, we might make some progress. The teacher and teaching assistant to pupil ratio in my Southampton constituency is around 10 children to one adult. When I went to school—I concede it was a long time ago—it was 30 kids in a class, sat in rows with one teacher and a blackboard. I know we do not want to go back to those days, but things have changed beyond all recognition even from, when my daughter went to school about 10 years ago. We never seem to do anything to acknowledge that, and we should, because otherwise we sound like we are moaning and whining and nothing is ever good enough.

I concede—this is important, because this is what people say, and they are right to say it—that pension contributions and national insurance are increasing. The national living wage has increased. Pupil numbers are rising. Inflation has not stood still. Pay has been held down and is quite rightly starting to rise. They are additional pressures, and they need to be funded.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a huge additional pressure is the complexity that some pupils are presenting at school with? Whether that is behavioural problems or emotional problems, those are significant additional pressures that schools are being required to address.

[Royston Smith]

I absolutely agree. How schools deal with children who have significant and complex special educational needs or disabilities has changed beyond all recognition from how things used to be. We are doing so much better. [Interruption.] Members shake their heads, but things are so much better than when I went to school and when my daughter went to school. The reality is that it could be better still. If all we ever do is refuse to acknowledge what is happening, we will never make the progress we all want.

Instrumental Music Tuition

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. The Moray Youth Orchestra meets every Saturday, and transport is provided to take in kids from all schools from all over—they come from Aberlour and Milne’s to Elgin. They meet once a week to get excellent tuition, but they also bond with other pupils from schools across Moray.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the financial dividend, but does he agree there is a social dividend, too, in allowing individuals to build their confidence? All too often, we see young people who seem to struggle with their confidence at an age when they have to deal with Instagram, exam pressure and all that sort of thing, and this is a great opportunity to allow them to blossom, to grow in themselves and to gain confidence.

[Douglas Ross]

My hon. Friend gives me a great opportunity to introduce the last piece of evidence I want to highlight. Alice Ferguson, a Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, said that, as a result of learning to play a musical instrument, she felt she became more resilient, confident and open-minded in everything she does. Importantly, she also said that she benefited from the creativity and from the feeling that she was part of a community, part of a band, and that it was really good for her mental health.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on securing this important debate. In my three minutes, I will touch on school funding, school choices and another area that I passionately support.

On school funding, I ask the Minister to focus particularly on recent changes to the allocations between school block, early years block and high needs block. Previously, it was a notional figure that could be switched across blocks, and now the limit is just 0.5%. I am concerned about the knock-on effect, as it creates a perverse incentive for mainstream schools to see children moved out of mainstream into specialist schools. Previously, they would have complained that they would be salami-sliced and would have to pay for that—now, they would not have to. I ask the Minister if it would be possible to see data on whether that is actually forcing more young people out of mainstream into specialist schools. Mainstream should be where we start. It is where these young people will return to after they have finished school, in their communities and workplace. Anything that creates an incentive away from that is a concern to me.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Balcarras School in my constituency takes a number of SEND children—more than 20—yet because of a quirk of the system that means it has to pay the first £6,000, it is disincentivised from doing the right thing. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if the Government looked constructively at changing that funding arrangement?

[Huw Merriman]

I do indeed. My constituents living in east Sussex are less likely to be in a maintained mainstream school than children living in any other county around us, so I absolutely agree. The difficulty is that we have received a 3% real-terms cut to school funding in my constituency of Bexhill and Battle. We are at 4,334, whereas the figure is 5,157 in Birmingham, Edgbaston, and 5,123 in Nottingham North. I am afraid that my constituents are worse off living in my constituency. I have some fantastic primary schools that do an amazing job with young pupils with EHCPs, but in reality they are now reaching into a deficit. If it costs an extra £8,000 to £10,000 for those schools to educate those pupils, the incentive is moving away from their doing so.

On school choice, I absolutely support the belief that mainstream is best, but I am very concerned that my constituents are reporting that they almost have to fail in a mainstream in order to get to the school of their choice. As I think has been touched on, there is real difficulty in having a system in which the local authority is incentivised financially to put the child in a mainstream school, the mainstream school is incentivised financially to put them in a specialist school, and independent schools are incentivised to have the pupil in that particular setting. It is no wonder that we end up in a tribunal system as a result. Surely through reform we could have more independent assessment at the very outset, perhaps more informally, rather than waiting for a tribunal.

Finally, I am grateful to the Department for Education for accepting the recommendations of “Autism and education in England 2017”, the report of an inquiry that I co-chaired last year. We made some recommendations, and the Government have listened and announced that they will extend the autism strategy to young pupils in education. That is a great step forward—it is all about the training of staff. My last ask is whether it is possible for every new specialist school to be built within a mainstream perimeter, rather than having the apartheid system that we have at the moment.

School Funding: Gloucestershire

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share the experience I have encountered in schools such as the Ridge Academy, Belmont School and Bettridge School? Those schools have to deal with a cohort of pupils whose needs are far more complex than ever before, and that underlies part of the increased demand on their resources.

[Dr Drew]

That is a very fair point and I concur, but of course those other pupils who might have gone to Belmont and so on are now in mainstream schools, which is causing additional pressures on schools across the board. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that there was something like an 8% cut in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Although the Chancellor’s little extra might go some way, in reality it is only £50,000 per secondary school.

Let us come on to what we are really interested in: Gloucestershire and the national funding formula. In Gloucestershire, the national funding formula is still not producing a fairer redistribution of funds, as my neighbour the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) pointed out. Gloucestershire secondary schools remain near the bottom in league tables of school funding, ranked 130th out of 149 on schools block funding. According to the House of Commons Library, Gloucestershire secondary schools received £4,886 per pupil compared with the English average of £5,229, and primary schools received £3,949 compared with the average in England of £4,059.

[Alex Chalk]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that some hon. Members in this House whose schools get far more than £5,200—some of them, I am afraid to say, Labour Members—were very indignant at the idea that schools in places such as Gloucestershire should get a bit more?

[Dr Drew]

There is a need to raise this issue for all our colleagues, which is what I am trying to do. I agree; it is not a party political issue, but crosses the spectrum, and we must all work together to do something. I am sure the Minister will have something to say about that in a minute.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies; I look forward to the 10 or 15 minutes ahead of us. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) on securing this important debate and on his introduction of it. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) for their important contributions. All of them continue to make strong representations to the Government about school funding in their area.

The Government are determined to create an education system that offers opportunity to everyone, no matter their circumstances or where they live. Schools must have the resources they need to make that happen. That is why we are investing more money in our schools, helping them to make the most out of every pound they receive, and delivering on our promise to make funding fairer through the introduction of the national funding formula. In 2017-18, funding was for the first time distributed to local areas based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. That will also happen in 2018-19, for the second year running. This historic reform is the biggest improvement to how we allocate school funding for a decade and directs resources where they are needed most.

We all want to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live, receive a world-class education. We have made significant progress on that, thanks in part to our reforms. The attainment gap between rich and poor children is shrinking, the proportion of pupils in good or outstanding schools has increased from 66% in 2010 to 84%, and primary school children have achieved their highest ever score on international reading tests.

While more money is going into schools than ever before, we recognise the budgeting challenges that schools face and that we are asking them to do more. Because of that, and because children only get one chance to have a great education, the Government have prioritised school spending, even while having to take difficult public spending decisions in other areas.

In total, across the country, core funding for schools and high needs will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion in 2019-20. Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that real-terms per-pupil funding for five to 16-year-olds in 2020 will be more than 50% higher than it was in 2000. We can compare ourselves favourably to other countries. The UK spends as much per pupil on primary and secondary state education as any major G7 economy in the world, apart from the United States of America.

As well as providing additional funding for schools, we have made funding fairer by introducing the national funding formula. Under the previous system, schools with similar pupil characteristics received significantly different levels of funding for no good reason, meaning that some schools were not getting the resources that they needed. That is why it is so important that we have delivered on our promise to reform the unfair school and high-needs funding systems and introduce a national funding formula. Government Members have been particularly active over the years, through the f40 group, in ensuring that we have a fairer funding system.

Schools are already benefiting from the gains delivered by the national funding formula. Since 2017, we have given every local authority more money for every pupil in every school, while allocating the biggest increases to the schools that have been most underfunded. The underfunded schools will attract up to 6% more per pupil by 2019-20, compared with 2017-18. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester is absolutely right to insist on care in how we use language. He will be aware that the School Cuts website has been criticised by the UK Statistics Authority for some of the things stated on that website.

Gloucestershire schools will receive gains of 3.1% per pupil by next year, compared with 2017-18. That will mean an extra £19 million in total when rising pupil numbers are also factored in. On high needs, we have recently announced that we will provide £250 million of extra funding across England over this financial year and the next. In Gloucestershire, that means that the local authority will receive an additional £2.7 million across this year and the next, on top of the increases that were already promised.

It is important to keep it in mind that the purpose of the national funding formula is not to give every school the same level of per-pupil funding. Although that would be simple, it would not be fair. It is right that schools that have pupils with additional needs, such as those indicated by measures of deprivation or low prior attainment, should get extra funding to help those pupils. In addition, schools in more expensive areas, such as London, require higher funding per pupil to reflect the higher costs that they face. That extra funding is vital to support children who face greater barriers in education, be that because they come from a disadvantaged background, have low prior attainment or speak English as an additional language. Every child deserves to get the help that they need to reach their full potential, and that is why the national funding formula has protected the £5.9 billion of funding for additional needs across the system.

We do recognise the challenges faced by the lowest funded schools. In the national funding formula, we have included minimum per-pupil funding levels to guarantee that every school will attract a minimum amount of funding for every pupil. In 2019-20, the formula will provide at least £4,800 per pupil for every secondary school and £3,500 for every primary school. In Gloucestershire, secondary schools in particular benefit from that measure, with about half of secondary schools attracting extra funding as a result. We have not limited gains for schools benefiting from the minimum amounts, so the very lowest funded schools will see their funding increase fastest, and some schools will attract gains of 10% or more by 2019-20.

[Alex Chalk]

Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that it is very important that we look into the causes of why high needs provision, in particular, is coming under the pressure that it now is? We have the Milestone School, the Ridge Academy, Belmont School and Bettridge School—so many excellent special schools—but the reality is that they face such huge demands now and we have not really got to the bottom of the reason for that. Is it issues in childbirth? Whatever it is, we need to get to the bottom of it.

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. That is something that the Department is looking at very carefully. There are reasons for it, and we know what they are. They are to do with medical advances, the use of private schools—private special schools—and so on. We are providing capital funding to help particular local authorities that have much higher high needs expenditure to address those issues. There is a capital pot and also a development fund, to help them to make those important decisions.

We acknowledge that the national funding formula represents a big change to the funding system. We understand the importance of stability to schools and we want to ensure that there is a smooth transition. We have therefore confirmed that for the next two years, local authorities will continue to be responsible for setting school budgets at local level. I may have got my years wrong at the beginning of this contribution: 2018-19 is of course the first year of the funding formula and 2019-20 is the second year. We have also confirmed that, in 2020-21, we will allow local authorities to use their local funding formula to allocate the funds. But we will allocate the funds to local authorities on the basis of the national funding formula.

We are pleased to see significant progress across the system in moving towards the national funding formula in its first year. Many local authorities have chosen to move towards the national funding formula locally, with 73 local authorities moving all their factor values towards the NFF, and 41 matching the NFF factor values almost exactly. It is the case that 112 authorities, including Gloucestershire, have introduced a minimum per-pupil funding level factor in their local formula. I am very pleased that so many authorities across the country are showing such strong support for our national formula.

Alongside the local flexibility, we recognise that there needs to be a degree of discretion locally to change the balance between schools and high needs funding. Although we want schools to benefit from all the gains and protections afforded by the national funding formula, it will take time for spending to be aligned to the allocations calculated at national level. The ongoing flexibility will help to ensure that the transition to the formula takes place in a way that best meets the needs of local schools and pupils.

We are committed to supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities to reach their full potential, and we expect all schools to play their part. That is why we have reformed the funding system to take particular account of children and young people with additional needs, and introduced a new formula allocation to make the funding for those with high needs fairer. As mentioned previously, we have recently announced that we will provide £250 million of additional funding for high needs throughout England over this financial year and the next. We recognise that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham has said, the high needs budget faces significant pressures, and that additional investment will help local authorities to manage them.

Of course, the response to pressures on high needs budgets cannot just be additional funding. That is why we have also set out plans to support local authorities in their role of providing strategic leadership and oversight of the provision for children and young people with SEND. We have announced other measures to support local authorities: a £100 million top-up to the special provision capital fund for local authorities in 2019-20 for new places and improved facilities; the removal of the cap on the number of special and alternative provision free school bids that we approve in the current wave; reviewing current SEND content in initial teacher training provision; and ensuring a sufficient supply of educational psychologists to carry out the statutory functions in relation to the EHCP process, and to support teachers and families. We will continue to engage with local authorities, health providers, families, schools and colleges to work together to manage the cost pressures on high needs budgets and ensure that children with special educational needs and disabilities get the support that they need and deserve.

We recognise that schools have faced cost pressures in recent years. That is why we have announced a strategy setting out the support that we will provide—current and planned—to help schools to make savings on the more than £10 billion of non-staff expenditure across England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, I recognise that many providers feel that the base rate is too low, and I am sure that he will use whatever opportunities arise to make sure the Treasury is aware of his concern, as indeed will I. We will look to make additional funding available for the teachers’ pension scheme. I am very aware of the current issues.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to be satisfied that our schools are getting a proper allocation of funding. Will my right hon. Friend indicate how UK education spending compares to the OECD average?

[Mr Speaker]

In relation to sixth-form students.

[Alex Chalk]

Precisely, Sir.

[Anne Milton]

Certainly with regard to schools, it compares very favourably. It is important to recognise—

Speech, Language and Communication Support for Children

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her inevitable intervention. She is right: the more we can get parents reading, the better. My predecessor, Tristram Hunt, did a piece of work with every primary school child in Stoke-on-Trent Central. He arranged for them to receive a copy of H. E. Marshall’s “Our Island Story: A Child’s History of England” as they transitioned from primary to secondary school, so he could be certain that they would have something to read over the summer period. Those small things can go on to develop language skills.

There is also a wonderful organisation in Stoke-on-Trent called Beanstalk, which arranges for volunteers to go into school and read with children. I believe that the mother of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North is a volunteer with that programme. Whenever I go round schools I see teachers and headteachers who have used their pupil premium money in very innovative ways to get young people reading and understanding where language comes from. I must admit that I was somewhat confused when my seven-year-old daughter came home, having done phonics in her year 1 class, with “oohs” and “aahs” and lots of new language sounds that I certainly did not learn when I was at school.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

We can tell!

[Gareth Snell]

Yes, thank you—I was almost there.

That demonstrates to me that there are some wonderful ways in which we can start to tackle this problem, but the work has to be systemic and it has to be continued.

I will ask the Minister some important questions. How do the Government see early intervention work continuing, particularly for young people who are not in nursery provision before going to school?

Schools: National Funding Formula

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Absolutely. In some areas we should be able to set politics aside and work broadly on what we think is the right solution for our country as a whole. That is exactly how I have tried to approach this issue. I have welcomed the engagement we have had from all parties, including some Labour MPs—I just hope that that can transfer steadily to the Labour Front-Bench team. Perhaps it would be helpful just to have some transparency with a simple confirmation from the Labour Front-Bench team on whether they think this is a good funding formula. If they think it is not, they should be clear about whether they would rescind it should they get into power.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and her team for grappling with a formula of labyrinthine complexity that penalised my constituents in Cheltenham and for listening to me and others and then revisiting the original iteration, which many of us thought needed further attention. The new formula means that per-pupil average funding for secondary schools in my constituency will rise from around £4,200 to £4,800, and that will change lives in Cheltenham. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to recognise that the average in many Labour seats will continue to be higher than £4,800? In those circumstances, it seems somewhat churlish for Labour Members to have responded as they have.

[Justine Greening]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to him for all he has done in his local community and, of course, with the f40 group to help to improve the formula and to make sure that what was, as he says, an incredibly complex piece of work ended up in the right place. We have today a strong national funding formula that can work for some very different schools and communities throughout the country, and I am proud that we are finally able to launch it.

Schools Update

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to get some politics out of what is basically a sensible announcement that I have made on more funding for schools. I am interested in what we are doing practically to improve education, rather than in the politics around it.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State and her Ministers for taking so much time to listen to my concerns about Cheltenham’s schools and the concerns of f40 schools up and down the country affected by historic unfairness. This is a huge step forward. Will she confirm that every secondary school in Cheltenham will receive at least £4,800 per pupil regardless of additional needs funding for which individual pupils might be eligible?

[Justine Greening]

I have set out today that we will put in a floor of £4,800. I think that that is important. I should put on the record my tribute to my hon. Friend and the campaign setting out his local community’s concerns in Cheltenham. He has done a very good job of being clear about local needs, and that has helped form today’s statement.

School Funding Formula (London)

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

May I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on his first speech in this Parliament and welcome him back to the House of Commons?

The Government want to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live, receive a first-class education. Over the past seven years, we have made significant progress. There are now almost 1.8 million more children in schools that are rated good or outstanding compared with 2010. Thanks to a curriculum that ensures that all children are taught the core knowledge that they need to be successful, to the promotion of evidence-based teaching practices such as Asian-style maths mastery and systematic synthetic phonics, and the hard work of hundreds of thousands of teachers, standards across England are on the rise. According to the latest international figures, secondary school pupils in England outperform pupils in the other nations of the United Kingdom.

The anachronistic way in which funding is distributed across the country is not fair and is in need of reform, so over the past six months I have spent a lot of time meeting teachers, headteachers, parents, governors and hon. and right hon. Members to discuss fairness in the school funding system. As a result of those conversations, I have never been more convinced of the need to grasp the nettle and address the unfairness of the current funding system. The data that are used to allocate funding to local authorities are over a decade out of date. Over that period, for example, the free school meals rate has almost halved in Southwark and has more than doubled in Dorset, but the funding that each local authority receives has not responded. It is not right that local authorities with similar needs and characteristics receive very different levels of funding from central Government. That results in a situation where, for example, a school in Barnsley would receive 50% more funding, with no other change to its circumstances, if it were situated in Hackney. That is not a rational, fair or efficient system for distributing money to our schools.

That is why the Government have gone further than any previous Government in reforming school funding, and why the Queen’s Speech made it clear that we are determined to introduce a fairer distribution of funding for schools. In doing so, we will ensure that all schools in England are funded on a consistent and transparent basis that reflects local needs. We will set out our plans shortly, and, as outlined in our manifesto, we will make sure that no school budget is cut as a result of the new formula. That will be particularly important for six schools in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The other 23 schools would all see a rise in funding as a result of the national funding formula. I hope that that addresses one of the concerns that he expressed.

In March 2016, we launched the first stage of our consultation on the national funding formula. We asked for views on the principles that should underpin it and its overall design. Those principles included using robust data to ensure that funding is matched to pupil characteristics and the importance of transparency in the way in which funding is allocated. Over 6,000 people responded and there was widespread support for reforming the current system and for the principles that we set out, including the issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised of low prior attainment, which he queried. Allocating extra funding for pupils who begin school behind their peers is, I believe, absolutely right. There is no perverse incentive, because it is the child’s attainment in the predecessor school that is relevant: nursery school if they are going to primary school, or primary school if they are going to secondary school.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

It is absolutely right, of course, that we should invest in pupils with low prior attainment, but does the Minister agree that that should not be at the expense of schools that, for whatever reason, do not hit the criteria on low prior attainment, English as an additional language or free school meals? They should have the funding they need to provide a full, rounded, liberal education.

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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.