Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Pat Glass

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

That unfortunate intervention was not helpful and exemplifies why people out there get so angry about people in here. This is about something bigger than ourselves.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The anger goes beyond political parties. In my constituency, the nonsense of putting two wards from Sheffield South East in with wards from Rother Valley will create a constituency where we cannot drive from one side of it to the other without going through a second constituency. Indeed, one of the roads goes through a third council area and another region. As a result, 2,500 local people have already signed a petition against the proposal, because they see a constituency being created with no community of interest at all involved in that creation.

[Pat Glass]

That is what we are hearing in the debate today—cities being split, communities being split, and that is not good for our democracy.

We in Britain pride ourselves on being the home of democracy. However, can we really talk about democracy when we have an antiquated system in which the larger House in Parliament is made up of people who are unelected? The unelected House is large and growing, and can be enlarged further at the political will of a retiring Prime Minister.

I have huge respect for the other place, where sensible decisions are often made and where many bring their lifelong experience to bear, but we cannot get away from the fact that it is unelected, significantly bigger than the elected House and subject to patronage. Is that what we mean by democracy in the 21st century? If we are the mother of Parliaments, I respectfully suggest that many of the children of this mother of Parliaments have outgrown us and are now showing how it is done.

Services for Young People

Debate between Clive Betts and Pat Glass

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

Given the speech that you just made, I find it difficult that you are asking me to justify—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. May I say to the hon. Lady that I am not asking for anything?

[Pat Glass]

Sorry, Mr Betts. I am discussing services for young people, and EMA and its abolition are as much a part of that as services through youth centres or careers services.

There is clear evidence that the pupil premium, for all its good intentions, recycles money from schools with concentrations of the poorest children and young people and siphons off resources to richer parts of the country with fewer poor children. That is because the pupil premium has largely replaced additional education needs funding, which, although it was called different things in different local authorities, was needs-based funding for schools to support their least able and most vulnerable pupils. The AEN formula in each local authority was made up of different factors, but was legally required to include a deprivation factor. Some local authorities used the index of multiple deprivation while others used free school meals, but the basis of AEN funding was a needs-based deprivation factor.

AEN also had an accumulator effect. Schools with fewer than 15% of children on free school meals got nothing in most local authorities, on the basis that that was the norm and that need could and should be met from existing school funding. Schools with between 15% and 24% had a basic level of AEN funding, but then the level escalated massively between 25% and 35% in acknowledgment of the need for additional resources to deal with more complex issues in driving improvement. Any school where more than 35% of children received free school meals was given a huge step in funding, in recognition that those schools were dealing with complex issues needing additional capacity.

The pupil premium gives a basic amount per pupil, drawing money from schools and areas with the highest concentration of free school meals and of poorer children and giving it to wealthier areas with fewer free school meals. If anybody wants evidence of what is happening in their local authority and whether they are winners or losers when it comes to the pupil premium, I can give them a breakdown, courtesy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who has researched the matter in detail.