Education Funding in London

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Lady. I say to the Government that I hope that this could be reflected the formula without causing any damage to the overall principle. That is for the very good reason that because inner-London boroughs are geographically so small, and part of one single housing market and one single jobs market, people will very frequently move across them. In my constituency, one can move a quarter of a mile or half a mile down the road and be in one of two other London boroughs. London boroughs experience much more cross-border mobility than in a shire county where one could move 20 or 30 miles and still be within the same county. I would urge that that matter could fairly be taken into account.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his remarks. The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) mentioned turbulence as a reason for funding certain schools, particularly in London. Does my hon. Friend agree that London is not the only place where turbulence is suffered, and that the pupil premium that the Government rightly introduced to allow for the fact that service families move all the time is germane to this debate and needs to be reflected in the funding formula?

[Robert Neill]

I supported the introduction of the pupil premium, as did my hon. Friend. It is worth stressing that although turbulence occurs in other places, it is particularly acute in London owing to the size of its population and the churn of its population as a whole, with people moving in and out of London, and people moving within London, and therefore families and children moving and London authorities having to cope with far more cross-borough placements than other areas. That issue, together with the artificial distinction I mentioned, could be sensibly incorporated into the formula to reflect the position in London.

Many other hon. Members want to speak and I do not want to deny them the opportunity, but I just want to touch on a few other matters. We have discussed the two key issues, namely the churn and mobility and the inner-outer distinction, which is out of date. There is also pressure on how the question of deprivation is measured. It is currently done by postcode, but there can be massive extremes of wealth and poverty within some London borough postcodes. That is very apparent in some places in docklands.