School Funding

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I want to make some progress.

Let us consider the context.

“Britain has a deep social mobility problem, and for this generation in particular, it is getting worse not better”—

as a result of—

“an unfair education system, a two-tier labour market, an imbalanced economy, and an unaffordable housing market.”

That was the conclusion of the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission. And what about our education system?

“We still have too many underperforming schools and low overall levels of numeracy and literacy. England remains the only OECD country where 16 to 24-year-olds are no more literate or numerate than 55 to 64-year-olds.”

Again, that is not my conclusion, but that of the Government’s own industrial strategy Green Paper, which quite rightly makes it clear just how central education is to our economy, especially following Brexit.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is talking about the broken pledge on increasing funding for schools. Is she aware that 74 out of 77 schools—that is 96% of them—face real-terms cuts of more than £200,000 by 2019? How is that defensible? How is it evidence of a Government who care about education?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend—there is no justification for these cuts.

The Secretary of State has, of course, unveiled the proposed solution, her so-called national fair funding formula, which she presented to her Back Benchers as a kind of reverse distribution. On the Government’s own figures, they are quite literally robbing Peterborough to pay for Poole, but it will not take long for Members on both sides of the House to discover that not only is there nothing fair about the proposed funding formula but that it will not make up for overall real-terms cuts. Concerns about what that means for our constituents are shared on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) has said that his message to the Minister for School Standards is:

“I don’t get this and I don’t think it’s particularly fair.”

I hope that we will see the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle in the Chamber this afternoon and that he will put his concerns forward. I hope he will speak.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) has said:

“Every secondary school in Trafford will lose funding, even though it is one of the places famously underfunded for education.”

Perhaps we will hear from him, too. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who of course co-chairs the f40 group of historically underfunded local education authorities, said just this morning:

“The bottom line is that it’s created some distorted outcomes which we think require some significant remodelling.”

No wonder he is concerned, because nearly half of the f40 group face further cuts, rather than increases, under the Minister’s national funding fiddle.

Of course there is one Government Member who seems quite happy to accept the cuts in her own constituency: the Secretary of State herself. Schools in her own constituency are set to lose some 15% of their funding per pupil. Perhaps she will be lobbying herself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The formula recognises that different schools face different costs, particularly in rural areas, so the sparsity factor recognises that rural schools often have a higher cost base. That sits alongside a lump-sum element that is built into the formula to make sure that schools have the money that they need to be able to function effectively. Colleagues in rural seats will recognise that small rural schools have gained an average of 1.3% under the formula. Primary schools in sparse communities will gain 5.3% on average.

[Clive Efford]

There was a manifesto commitment to increase school spending per capita, but secondary schools in Greenwich face the prospect of having to make on average £1 million savings between now and 2019, with primary schools saving more than £200,000 each. Some 74 out of 77 schools face those cuts. Is that consistent with what the Conservative party told parents in my borough before the election?

[Justine Greening]

We said that we would protect the core schools budget in real terms, and that is exactly what we are doing. In relation to the hon. Gentleman’s local community, the change in the funding formula partly reflects the fact that, for a long time, we have used deprivation data that are simply out of date. It is important that we use up-to-date deprivation factors. For example, in 2005, 28% of children in London were on free school meals. That percentage has now fallen to 17%. It is right that we make sure that we have consistent investment for children from deprived communities, because that is where the attainment gap has opened up. It is also important that funding is spread fairly using up-to-date information.