Funding and Schools Reform

Dan Rogerson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend anticipates me, because that is precisely the issue that I was about to come on to.

The big issue facing all schools is the effect that the pupil premium will have on their budgets. The rush to bring in this new system could cause real volatility in budgets. I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us how he is planning to avoid that. It happened to us when we made changes to school budgets; these things need to be done carefully. We acknowledge that problems can arise, but I hope that he will give me, and schools, some reassurance that the Department will have measures in hand to protect schools from very marked swings in their budgets.

As I told the House on Monday, experts are predicting that schools in the most deprived parts of the country stand to be the biggest losers from the much vaunted pupil premium—amazing, given all the claims made for it by the Liberal Democrats, but, it would seem, true. Today I visited a secondary school in Walthamstow which, by any measure, faces some of the biggest challenges of any school. It has double the national average of pupils on free school meals and with special educational needs. It is very important that the House hears what the pupil premium might mean for them—might mean, because we do not know yet. The school estimates—[Interruption.] I do not know what the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), is chuntering about. This is coming directly from schools. If she listens to this, she might be able to change things and do something about it. The school estimates that it is set to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds under the pupil premium. That is supported by the IFS, which has calculated that the pupil premium could be 2.5 times higher in Wokingham than in Tower Hamlets. It says that schools in more deprived areas would receive noticeably less in percentage terms than similarly deprived schools in less deprived areas.

May I ask Liberal Democrats to examine their consciences before final decisions are made on this issue? Is this really the effect that they wanted for their pupil premium—to take money off kids for whom life is already hardest?

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I have been listening closely to the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about what may or may not be in the pupil premium based on the suppositions that he is making. After more than a decade of his Government, pupils in my part of the country were getting much less than the national average despite its having the lowest wages in the country. What did his Government do about that when they had the chance? At least the pupil premium is an attempt at a better suggestion.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman cannot say that the Labour Government did nothing for education funding in Cornwall—that is an astonishing claim. I hope that he accepts that the needs of schools vary in different parts of the country. I am not arguing that we had perfection, but we did take steps to improve funding for schools all over the country.

Let me deal, right now, with what the pupil premium will do to schools, including those in the hon. Gentleman’s area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We have had a very good debate, which has included contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley), my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) and the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). The debate has been well informed, with Back Benchers in particular bringing their expertise to the subject.

The Government are embarking on an ideological experiment with the children of this country. Let us look at some of the measures that have been discussed this afternoon. The pupil premium has featured quite largely. It is supposed to be the Liberal Democrats’ flagship contribution to the coalition Government, so important that any funding for it would be in addition to planned spending on schools. That is what the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) said was the benchmark, and that is what the Prime Minister said. He said that it would be additional. That is what a premium is, after all: something on top. Then along came George, and the Treasury boffins.

I know that the Secretary of State is a very cultured man. I would say that he is a very literary man. Some might say that he is sometimes a self-dramatising man. However, no one would ever be so vulgar as to suggest that he is a man with an eye for detail, or with his finger firmly on the figures. How else can we explain the fact that he was popping open the champagne when he received his settlement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite having just been done up like a kipper?

Let me give the Secretary of State some advice. If the Chancellor offers the same amount of cash next year as this year, that is a cut in real terms. If he then offers to top it up so that, per pupil, it does not keep up with cost increases over the next few years, that is not a pupil premium, but a real cut per pupil. It is not a pupil premium, but an old Treasury con. The Secretary of State should have known better.

[Dan Rogerson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I have not enough time, I am afraid. Well, I might give way in a minute.

One can accept that the Secretary of State, with his challenged grasp of numbers, might be beguiled by the Chancellor, with all his confusing charts and tables—that is perfectly possible—but how can we explain the reaction of his Liberal Democrat chum in the Department? How does the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), respond to this absorption of the supposedly additional flagship pupil premium into a schools budget that has been reduced per head in real terms? Answer: she brags about it. She will have trouble bragging about it when she starts trying to explain to head teachers in Brent Central why their budgets have been cut despite the introduction of the so-called pupil premium. She will have to use all the expertise that she has built up over the years in preparing dodgy bar graphs for Liberal Democrat focus leaflets.

We can all imagine the scene. Brent head teacher: “But my budget has gone down! Where is the pupil premium?” The hon. Member for Brent Central: “Let me just show you this bar graph. It clearly demonstrates that although you have less money, you have more money than you would have had if we had cut the budget more deeply. You have therefore benefited from the pupil premium.” Brent Head Teacher: “Oh, well, that’s all right then.” Come off it! The hon. Lady must think that head teachers in her constituency were born yesterday. It is a con. When the final budget figures land on head teachers’ desks across the country, it will take more than a few dodgy bar graphs from the hon. Lady and a few flowery flourishes from the Secretary of State to con professional school leaders into swallowing this nonsense.

It is no wonder the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) walked out when the Secretary of State admitted that this was simply an increase in cash terms. [Hon. Members: “Stormed out!”] Stormed out, indeed. According to the hon. Gentleman’s website, he fights for schools in his area. I believe it, after his reaction to the Secretary of State’s announcement to the House. I know that the Minister who will be winding up the debate loves a bit of poetry, so I will give him some Yeats. It was a case of

“I will arise and go now”

when the hon. Member for Bradford East heard what the Secretary of State had to say.

[Dan Rogerson]

rose—

[Mr Graham Stuart]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman knows that it is not increasing in real terms per head over the next few years, but that is not the point. I would accept that if that were the Government’s explanation for what they are trying to do, but they are trying to con people into believing that the pupil premium is truly a premium, an additional sum of money. That is what they promised; that is what the Prime Minister promised, but it is not what is being delivered.

What else do the Lib Dems get out of this?

[Dan Rogerson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I have not got much time, but I might give way before the end of my speech if the hon. Gentleman is lucky.

What else do the Lib Dems get out of this deal? They get free schools that bypass local democracy, which they used to be so keen on, and that can be set up without any planning permission. They can be set up in an undertaker’s if that is what people want, which would make for an interesting school run. The Lib Dems also get a 60% cut in the capital programme, with resources diverted to the Conservatives’ peripheral ideological experiment, and a systematic dismantling of any system or programme that promotes collaboration and working together within the family of schools. No school is an island. Yes, by all means give schools freedom and autonomy from unnecessary bureaucracy, but let us please acknowledge that, without any structure for co-operation, standards ultimately suffer.

Let us look at school sports partnerships, which were mentioned in the debate. This morning at a meeting in the House of Commons we heard from Jo Phillips, a school sports co-ordinator in the Prime Minister’s Witney constituency, who is about to be made redundant by the Secretary of State. Along with others, she described the transformation that school sports partnerships have brought in Oxfordshire and across the country. She absolutely dismissed the guff we heard from the Under-Secretary of State at Education questions on Monday, and said she could not believe that the Prime Minister could possibly have been told what the full consequences of the complete withdrawal of funding would be for his constituency and the country as a whole.

I hope the Secretary of State has explained to the Prime Minister what he is doing with school sports partnerships. We all saw his dramatic transformation from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde when the Prime Minister walked into the Chamber in the middle of Education questions on Monday, so powerful was his zeal to please his boss. Perhaps the Government were a bit hasty in getting rid of those relaxation pods they lampooned before they came into office, because the Secretary of State looked badly in need of a place for a nice lie down at the time. I hope he has explained to the Prime Minister that, for the sake of funding a peripheral ideological programme, he has cut a system that has enjoyed near-universal support among teachers, sports people, parents and pupils, and that has transformed pupils’ lives—and that he did so on a day when the International Olympic Committee was visiting London means he has also greatly endangered Britain’s Olympic legacy.

[Dan Rogerson]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I will briefly give way to the hon. Gentleman before concluding my speech.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Along with his colleague the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), he might want to stay behind for some extra tuition about how to square the cuts proposed by the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), with the situation that all Departments would be facing had Labour got back into office, unlike what we have secured in this coalition, which will be extra money for education.