Andrew Gwynne
Main Page: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)Department Debates - View all Andrew Gwynne's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gibb
Unlike the Pope, the bishops are not infallible. We believe that there is plenty of room in the English baccalaureate curriculum to continue to study subjects such as RE, economics, music, art and vocational subjects, and we have deliberately kept the English baccalaureate small to enable that to happen. In addition, RE is a compulsory subject, and we have seen a very large rise in the proportion of the cohort taking religious studies to GCSE, whereas we have seen a fall in the numbers and the proportion taking geography and history to GCSE.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
6. What recent estimate he has made of the likely number of redundancies of school staff in 2011-12.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
No such assessment has been made centrally. The funding settlement for 2011-12 protects school funding in the system at flat cash per pupil and provides funding for the pupil premium on top of that.
Andrew Gwynne
Is the Minister aware of the report in The Times Educational Supplement showing that almost four in 10 schools in England plan to reduce staff numbers in the next year, meaning a possible drop of almost 17,000 staff across England? With a reduction of that order, is it not the case that many schools will struggle, particularly when it is linked to reductions in school budgets, which will fall in real terms over the next three years, meaning that those pupils most in need will be disadvantaged the most?
Mr Gibb
It is very difficult to take Labour Members seriously on the issue of funding, because we inherited a record Budget deficit that had to be tackled, and despite tackling a £156 billion Budget deficit, we have managed to maintain funding for schools at flat cash per pupil over the spending review period. In addition, we have introduced the pupil premium, which will rise to £2.5 billion by 2014-15. Having said that, and although this is a good settlement in the context of what we inherited, schools will have to find efficiencies in procurement and other areas; we absolutely recognise that. Coming from the hon. Gentleman, the question is rich, given what we inherited from his Government.