Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the financial sustainability of school budgets.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for schools.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Congratulations on your 10 years in office, Mr Speaker.

We are spending £43.5 billion on schools this year, but we recognise the budgeting challenges that schools face and will continue to listen to teachers, to help us to inform decisions about future funding. As we prepare for the spending review, the Government are determined to ensure that schools have the resources they need to deliver high-quality education and that our reforms continue to drive up education standards.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I thank the Minister for meeting me and local headteachers from my Enfield, Southgate constituency last week. I know that he gets the problems with school funding, but I do not believe that the Chancellor does. Will the Minister join me in demanding more funding for schools from the Chancellor?

[Nick Gibb]

It was a real pleasure to meet all the headteachers to whom the hon. Gentleman introduced me on Wednesday, including Kate Baptiste, the headteacher at St Monica’s Primary School, where 78% of pupils achieve at least the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. That is way above the national average of 64%. In fact, all the headteachers were from schools with high standards. We had a constructive discussion about the challenges that those heads face in respect of school funding, and we will take all those challenges on board, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, as we prepare for the spending review and our discussions with the Treasury.