Department for Education

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I am going to talk about the funding issues for schools and colleges in a bit, but I think we should welcome the fact that all the candidates—the last two and the ones who have been knocked out—have talked strongly about increasing education spending. I greatly welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said yesterday on the Sky show with Sophy Ridge that he would be spending over £4.6 billion. It is very good news that education has featured as a priority for the potential new Prime Ministers.

As I said, my Committee will be publishing a report on school and college funding with a view to helping the DFE to make the strongest possible case for the upcoming spending review. The Government have not been idle, to be fair. The national funding formula has been a highly welcome first step towards overcoming the postcode lottery of school and college funding.

The Department has announced almost £900 million to fund teachers’ pension contributions, and the introduction of T-levels promises to make a substantial difference to the provision of technical education across the country. I am glad that total funding for high needs will reach £6.3 billion this year—a £1.3 billion increase from 2013. I pay tribute to the work of the Minister for School Standards, and particularly the work he has done to improve literacy in our schools, which will be remembered for years to come and will have a huge influence on the life chances of thousands of children across our country.

However, as our inquiry has shown only too clearly, the education funding landscape for schools and colleges is still bleak. Expanding student populations, education reforms and increasingly complex special needs requirements have put a significant strain on the education sector. Costs have increased across a wide range of areas, and funding has not kept pace. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, total school spending per pupil has fallen by 8% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I visited three rural primary schools in my constituency on Friday, and a common feature was the £6,000 initial cost of an education, health and care plan. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one thing the Government could do immediately is abolish that? It is so counterproductive. It puts schools in an enormously difficult position, with parents against them, and if children do not get an EHCP, schools are blamed every which way. Does he agree that that could happen straight away?

[Robert Halfon]

As my Education Committee colleagues who are here today will know, we are doing an inquiry into funding for children with special educational needs and the implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014. The Act is very good, but there are significant problems with implementation, funding and many other areas. We will hopefully publish a report by September, and I think the hon. Gentleman will be particularly interested in what we say.

I would like to draw particular attention to the plight of further education funding, which is close to my heart. For too long, this area of education has been considered the Cinderella sector. Participation in full-time further education has more than doubled since the 1980s, yet across 16-to-19 education, funding per student has fallen by a full 16% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2018-19. That is twice as much as the 8% school funding fall over a similar period and, as I mentioned, it is decreasing again this year. This dip in 16-to-19 education makes no sense, given the importance of further education and sixth-form colleges in providing a gateway to success in later life. Those who call it the Cinderella sector should remember that Cinderella became a princess, and we should banish the two ugly sisters of snobbery and underfunding.

Sure Start: IFS Report

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

With typical generosity, the Minister has elevated the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) to membership of the Privy Council. As far as I can discern or guess, it can only be a matter of time.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the great successes of Sure Start was that it reached out to rural areas. We saw that particularly in Dursley and the Top of Town in Stroud. The problem with the cuts is that they have come along with other cuts in, for instance, the number of health visitors. All the increases that were put in place by the Government post-2010 have gone. We also see all sorts of problems in the private and voluntary sectors. Will the Minister agree at least to look at the impact on rural areas? There may not appear to be great areas of deprivation, but to people in those areas who are suffering as a result of deprivation, this matters just as much.

[Anne Milton]

Perhaps, Mr Speaker, that was because I believe that all women should be Privy Counsellors. They are very under-represented on the Privy Council.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about rurality. As I said at the outset—and I did not make the comment flippantly—we will ensure that all that we do is evidence-based, and that our evidence is robust.

Timpson Review of School Exclusion

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I do say, as I said earlier, that funding is tight in schools, and managing school budgets can be challenging. It is also true that we are holding real-terms per pupil funding constant at the macro level. It is also true that, internationally, we have relatively high state spending at primary and secondary level. It is also true that the high-needs budget has risen from £5 billion to more than £6 billion. All those things are true simultaneously. There has been more money going in, but it is very difficult. There have been specific cost pressures for schools. I recognise that, and the hon. Lady has my continued commitment to ensure that we get the right level of resourcing that we need for an excellent education for everyone.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is reported that Gloucestershire has the highest level of exclusions in the south-west. The one thing that is missing from this very good report is any quantitative evidence. It would be useful to know that the Secretary of State is prepared to look at the differences between not only schools but local authority areas, to ensure that we bear down on areas that do not seem to have an appropriate strategy.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman has my commitment on that. We have looked, and Edward has looked in his analysis, at not only the differences between schools within an area but the differences between local authority areas, at different levels of geography and in different segmentations and typologies.

School Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), not least because I was the Minister for Schools when we introduced the London challenge. It is worth reminding the House that, prior to the London challenge, the performance of London schools was below the national average, even though their funding was above the national average—so the improvement was not simply a consequence of the London challenge. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to speak up for rural and coastal schools. The suggestion of a coastal challenge, similar to the London challenge, is welcome and I would be delighted to support it.

Investment in education is crucial for social justice, for tackling inequality and poverty and, of course, for our national economic future. When Labour took office in 1997, UK public spending on education as a proportion of GDP was at its lowest since the early 1960s; we lagged behind many European neighbours and other advanced economies. By 2010 we had overtaken key countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Australia, delivering real change with smaller classes, modern school buildings, higher per pupil funding and a big increase in the numbers of teachers and support staff. Yet since 2010, that progress has been reversed. Education spending as a share of national income has fallen from 5.8% to 4.3%. That is a shocking decline in our national investment in education.

In Liverpool, the council expects 16 schools that are currently in surplus to go into deficit and 24 schools to go further into deficit. Despite the funding challenges that schools across my constituency face, the situation would be much worse if it were not for the pupil premium. The pupil premium was a welcome initiative introduced by the coalition, aimed at improving opportunities for children from the poorest backgrounds. However, headteachers are increasingly saying to me and to other Members, as we have heard today, that they have no alternative but to use pupil premium cash to offset budget cuts elsewhere.

The head of St Margaret’s Anfield Church of England Primary School told me this week:

“without pupil premium I would be unable to deliver an effective curriculum and a safe working environment.”

I am particularly concerned that the children who most need extra support are bearing the brunt of changes. The head of St Paul and St Timothy’s Catholic Infant School told me:

“it is the most vulnerable children in our schools who are suffering the most as a result of this funding crisis.”

I want to echo what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said about high-needs funding. According to analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research, in north-west England, funding per eligible child through the high-needs block has fallen in the last five years by 24%—a quarter of the funding cut. Liverpool forecasts a budget deficit in that block of more than £3 million.

Bank View High School, a great special school in my constituency for students with complex learning difficulties, has seen an increase in its pupil numbers from 160 to 200. Next door is Redbridge High School, which caters for children with severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning disabilities. It has also experienced an increasing number of pupils, yet it does not have the funding to match the demand. The head tells me that, as a result, the school has had to make cuts.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a fundamental point, which I have raised with the Minister on a number of occasions, is that too much of the funding does not reach the schools but gets stuck somewhere on the way? We have to make sure that the funding is in the schools.

[Stephen Twigg]

I absolutely agree.

Despite the challenging environment that Bank View and Redbridge schools face, I am delighted that have they have again been ranked outstanding by Ofsted. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate both schools on that fantastic achievement.

Schools in Liverpool are highly dependent on the minimum funding guarantee, but that has not been confirmed beyond 2020-21. As the Chair of the Education Committee rightly said, schools need long-term certainty. Another headteacher has raised the issue of having to put forward three-year budget plans without confirmation of future funding arrangements due to the delay in the comprehensive spending review. Surely the message of this debate is that education deserves the same kind of long-term planning that we see for our health system.

I thank all the teachers and support staff who work so hard and go above and beyond. The headteacher of Clifford Holroyde School, Jane Pepa, said to me:

“I have spent large amounts of my time seeing how we can do more with less, applying for grants to keep us afloat and even selling Christmas trees to try to generate funding.”

The burden should not be on headteachers such as Jane to do that. As the Government expect more from our schools, they need to back that up with significant increases in funding and resources. We need a serious, long-term settlement for schools funding.

Further Education Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

Absolutely. In the past 10 years, we have seen enrolments for adult education drop from 5.1 million to 1.9 million. Funding for students aged 16 to 18 has also been cut by 8% in real terms since 2010. The current base for 16-to-18 education is just £4,000 a year, as it has been since 2013, with no increase.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

One simple thing that could be done today would be to fund 18-year-olds at the same rate as 17-year-olds. It is absolutely wrong that they get less funding than children a year younger than them. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I absolutely agree. We also found that the budget did not increase when education became compulsory until 18. It just does not reflect the current cost of high-quality courses, including the new T-levels, as we heard from a Government Member.

I do not know whether the Minister wrote to everyone, but I got a letter from her last week, in which she said:

“A strong FE sector is essential to ensuring everyone in our society, whatever their background, has the opportunity to succeed…At its core this means colleges need strong leadership and must be financially sustainable and resilient, so that they can invest in learning and respond to changing demands.”

Given that acknowledgement from the Minister that FE must be financially sustainable and resilient, can she please justify her Department’s constant budget-slashing of FE?

As we all know, education is the key to a bright future. We must ensure that everyone, no matter their age, has the opportunity to learn and develop new skills. The only way we can achieve that is for the Government to invest. I hope they are listening, and I hope the Treasury is watching, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said. People in Sunderland and across the country deserve better than the current funding model.

Special Educational Needs

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) for covering so many points in his introductory remarks.

I have just two simple requests for the Minister, which I have raised with the Minister for School Standards and with the Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) will not be surprised to hear what I have to say. My first request relates to the point made by the hon. Members for York Outer and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron): the £6,000 is a completely perverse incentive. It is unfair. It is effectively a tax on inclusive schools: they are trying to take pupils and help them, yet they are being hammered by that £6,000. If the Government could do something about that by losing that £6,000, that would be the fairest thing of all.

My other point is that much of the deficit for schools in Gloucestershire is now due to the fact that the additional needs element is not reaching those schools but getting stuck somewhere in the system. If the Government could ensure that the additional needs element reached the schools so that they were able to defray the expenditure in the most appropriate way, it would make a dramatic difference and stop some of the deficits that are beginning to rise.

School Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall keep my remarks brief because there are Members who still want to speak.

As the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson)—a friend in this respect— said, we spent Saturday morning being assailed by governors and headteachers in Gloucestershire. It was a salutary experience, if not a harrowing one, because the message, which we have heard loud and clear from everyone here, is that it is very difficult out there at the moment. Most Members, if not all, would agree that it is more difficult than it was previously.

We had our own debate about Gloucestershire on 30 January, which the Minister responded to. I will not rehearse the same arguments now, but I will give him some specific ideas that came from Saturday’s meeting, which the Government could do fairly quickly. It was unanimously agreed that two things would help special needs across the board, at both mainstream and special schools. First, the additional needs budget should be ring-fenced, because schools feel that too often it does not reach the areas that it should. It is important that it reaches the schools that need it.

Secondly, there is the issue with the £6,000 for the education, health and care plan. That is a perverse incentive. As is happening in Gloucestershire, it means that there is a huge rise in the number of children being taken out of school to be home educated, as well as in the number of exclusions. Sadly, in the south-west we are now top of the tree, which is unusual as we have usually been in the average range.

I contend that those two issues have arisen because we are not getting quick enough diagnoses, which would make parents confident that their children were getting the support that they needed. Can the Minister make some noises? Clearly, this is about talking to the Treasury, but it is a specific funding request—not just about more money in education. It could be targeted in the way that we were led to believe would make a dramatic overnight difference to schools in Gloucestershire. A lot of their deficits have begun to arise from that.

I hope the Minister will respond to that, think about it, and go out and try to allay some of the fears of those schools. Schools do not believe that there is an understanding of how bad things have become. All schools —even grammar schools, dare I say it—stand to gain if there is clarity over how the SEN funding mechanism could be targeted at children who need it, and quickly. Then we could deal with some of the other, wider problems.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered special educational needs and disabilities funding.

It is a privilege to speak on this subject, which is of immense concern to a large number of us and to our constituents, and that is reflected in the demand to speak. It is rare that we get a Brexit-free zone in Parliament at the moment, but this is one, and it is right that we pay attention to it. Far too many Government problems have been squeezed out by the attention given to a single issue, but how we treat children with special educational needs will have enormous implications for decades to come.

Essentially, I will speak about the conflict between two sets of pressures: an irresistible force and an immovable object. The irresistible force is, of course, the demand of parents of children with special needs, who have been led to believe, by the very progressive Children and Families Act 2014, that their children’s needs will be met and their full potential realised through education, health and care plans. The immovable object is money, manifesting itself now in a serious financial crisis for local authorities, which are expected to meet statutory obligations, but find that demand is rising and becoming much larger than the funding available through the special needs block. In some cases, those local authorities are in extreme difficulty.

I will introduce the debate by quoting a parents’ group called Richmond SEND Crisis, which wrote to me yesterday, describing the problem from the parents’ point of view. The group said:

“The crisis in funding has consequences. It means more stress and mental health issues for both parents and children, parents being forced to give up work, increased levels of family break up, increased levels of children being disruptive in school, failing in school or not being in school at all. It means that schools and the wider school community suffer, as children without proper support tend to absorb a disproportionate amount of time from school staff and may be disruptive in class.

All of these consequences inevitably hit the most vulnerable… families the hardest.”

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one significant change is the growth in home-school education? Given the amount of time it takes to get an assessment, parents are now just taking their children out of school. That cannot be a good thing.

[Sir Vince Cable]

Indeed. That is happening on a growing scale, and is augmented by the fact that many children are being excluded because of the lack of support. That, in turn, contributes to home education, which may be inferior.

Secondary School Opening Hours

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. There has been good research recently suggesting that is the case, particularly with regard to the hours immediately before sleep. There is a range of issues about how we boost young people’s quality of life, and I fully admit that this is only one of them.

I am not an expert, but there are quite a few experts in Cambridge, which I represent, so I know people who are. Sensibly, I would suggest, I sought their advice. I am particularly grateful to the headteachers of Hills Road and Long Road sixth-form colleges, of Coleridge, Netherhall and Parkside secondary schools, of Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology, and more. I was struck by the alacrity and thoughtfulness of the responses that I received from all those institutions; they were really well considered and well thought through, and of course they pointed out both the advantages and the potential pitfalls of this proposal. I suspect that any Member who asked their local colleges and schools about the subject would get similarly well considered responses.

Cambridge headteachers and principals mentioned plenty of positives. The proposed change could provide opportunities for childcare relief for staff, allowing teachers more time with their children in the mornings, which in turn may improve recruitment and retention—a key issue in my area. A lot of people pointed out that starting school later could significantly reduce traffic problems, which are particularly acute in university cities such as Cambridge, and delaying the start of the school day for teenagers could make a substantial change to public transport peaks. Many of us notice the difference getting in and out of Cambridge outside term time.

However, one local headteacher told me that he thought the proposal would work only if it was

“co-ordinated across the system. That is the big issue, as with the current term structure. Because of the need to co-ordinate with primary schools on childcare, working patterns of parents by and large running 9-5, it is hard for individual institutions to step outside the norm.”

His point is well made. I agree with him about co-ordination, although I have to say that I am less convinced that everyone works nine-to-five these days. I note that better employers are introducing more family-friendly flexible working. That should be encouraged, and it could be part of the answer when it comes to staggered school start times.

Let us look at some of the downsides. Although across-the-board change may be positive from an organisational perspective, the context of the school in question is key. Another Cambridge head, who I think has experience from a previous posting, said that although starting later has worked well at Portsmouth College,

“it is very context dependent as a stand-alone solution”.

Clearly, different communities have different requirements and preferences, and any change must take that into account.

There are also questions to do with the impact on the wider community and families—many parents who do the school run on their way to work may find a later start disruptive—and at what age such a change would best suit students. Parents who allow their children to walk home alone may feel uncomfortable with the school day starting at 10 am, as it may mean children returning later in the afternoon or early evening. Clearly, some parents might not feel comfortable with their 11-year-old travelling home in the dark in winter.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. We cannot exonerate the parents. For good or bad, I have two grammar schools in my constituency. Children come to Stroud’s grammar schools from the other side of Swindon. That means there are 11-year-olds who have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning. We can talk about putting the start of the school day back to 10 am, but at the moment, the days of some 11-year-olds start at 5 am and do not end until at least 9 pm, by the time they have finished their homework. That cannot be good for children. We need to look at what makes a school accessible, rather than letting the free market go mad and letting parents make the choice.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Many of us continue to argue for a good local school in every area. Parental choice sometimes leads to difficult journeys for children, as my hon. Friend explained. That may be the choice people make, but the impact on children may not be as positive as one might wish.

The proposed change would affect not just children and parents but teachers, many of whom already work very long hours. They may prefer school to finish earlier, because they have more to do when the school day finishes. Of course, the change may cause complications for families with children at both primary and secondary school. It may also impact after-school extracurricular activities, particularly in winter, when inter-school sports games may be affected by darkness. Of course, other voluntary sessions happen after school, including exam revision, music classes and community outreach. There is a range of potential pitfalls.

As I mentioned, others in the world do things differently. There have been changes to school start times in other countries. In fact, some of our European neighbours start their days even earlier; some schools run from 7 am until 1 pm. Of course, that depends to some extent on the local climate, but that all shows that this is a very complicated range of issues.

That complexity is not always understood by everyone. Some people have characterised this debate as somehow being about lazy teenagers. Today I was on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s excellent morning programme with Thordis Fridriksson. I am told that many people who contacted the show had little sympathy for what they described as “sleepy teenagers”, and thought that getting up on time was good practice for the world of work. That is pretty unsympathetic. People of my generation and older should try to remember what it was like for us when we were teenagers. I am afraid that similar grouchiness can be found in some of our national media, which may be dominated by grumpy old men from a certain background—but maybe I am stereotyping, too.

Having said that, some teachers have questioned whether we would risk undermining the work ethic by accommodating difference. One teacher told me she was concerned, and questioned whether, if young people started later at school, we would not be training them to be up and ready for a job, which would often start earlier. I am not that sympathetic to that view; better employers are generally more open to flexible working. However, I recognise that there are jobs that have to be done at particular times, and many of us have been frustrated by colleagues who struggle to get to work on time, Mrs Main—and not always teenagers. There are always extenuating circumstances.

Moving on to the more detailed practicalities, evidence shows that the term “teenagers” does not do justice to the complexity of the issue. What works for older teenagers may not be so beneficial to younger people. A local headteacher pointed out to me that although there is some

“evidence that for 14-18-year-olds a later start to school is beneficial…the same is not true for 11-13-year-olds. This introduces a bit of a dilemma as meeting the needs of all would mean extending school hours and so adding costs. Given that we are currently unable to meet our costs due to inadequate funding”—

a point I think she particularly wanted me to relay to the Minister—

“any move in this direction would be impossible to deliver with our existing resources.”

This is a key point, particularly for state schools. I suspect that the proper funding of education is the main issue for almost every state school, so questions about the timing of the school day come lower on their list of priorities. Although this debate is not party political, I highlight the difference that sufficient funding would make to schools. It would give them the ability to experiment and to find what suits them, which would arguably lead to the best outcome for this debate.

I conclude by saying a little about the public response; as I said, there has been huge interest. The Petitions Committee Clerks have engaged with the public on this matter, and they have done an excellent job. Last week, they surveyed nearly 5,000 people, some 92% of whom identified themselves as secondary school students, and who were much more enthusiastic about change. The key themes that emerged touched on the academic research that I have mentioned, the effects on family life and transport, the potential mental health benefits, the potential challenges for teachers, and the effect on those with illnesses and disabilities. The Clerks of the Committee told me that the story about this petition was the most engaged-with post ever on Parliament’s Instagram account. When the survey closed, it had had over 5,000 responses in under 48 hours. Clearly, this is an idea that has captured both hearts and minds.

I will read one of the contributions from a parent, which puts the point very well:

“I have five teenage children and it is an absolute nightmare getting them all ready for a 9am start every day. In order to start school at 9am they have to leave the house at 8am and therefore get up at 6.30am.”

That echoes the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). She carries on:

“I would defy anyone to try and get 5 teenagers out of bed every day at 6.30am and not feel, as I do, that this is far too early!...Having to wake 5 teens at 6.30am each day is like trying to raise the dead. I can see that it’s not that they don’t want to get up—they enjoy and look forward to school—but they genuinely can’t get up. Being forced to wake up before they are ready has a massive impact on their health and well-being, which suffers hugely, and moreover so does mine! The school morning is without question the most stressful time of the day for children and parents.”

I have some sympathy for that account, and I am sure others will recognise the situation.

As for the quantitative response to the questions in the survey, the figures are pretty stunning. One of the questions was:

“How often do you feel drowsy or sleepy during the day?”

That is not a question for MPs, Mrs Main, but a question for teenagers. More than 85% of teenagers said that they often or always felt drowsy or sleepy during the day. That is a message that we should take seriously. The next question was:

“How often have you been bothered by trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?”

Some 60% were often or always troubled by sleepiness. There is something going on out there that we clearly need to pay attention to.

I hope that I have been able to lay out just some of the arguments made for and against teenagers starting the school day later, and to show that although some might swiftly dismiss such a suggestion, when you look into matters more deeply, they are never as simple as they seem. My conclusion would be that schools and colleges must make their own decisions, but within a co-ordinated and organised local framework, and with sufficient funding to make it possible. We are a long way from having either of those, but we are a rich country, and it does not have to be this way; it is a matter of political choice.

The time may soon come when these issues should be addressed by a radical and reforming Government. We are living through a world of dramatic technological change; knowledge is more universally available than ever before, through every smart phone. Within a couple of decades, the context has changed beyond recognition, yet our organisational structures for learning remain very much as they were half a century ago. As we learn more about ourselves—how we learn, and how we are different at different stages of our lives—why not reform our structures to meet our needs? Why always say that is too difficult? When hundreds of thousands of young people are telling us that they want change, perhaps it is time to create a system that works for them, instead of telling them why it cannot be done.

School Funding: Gloucestershire

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered school funding in Gloucestershire.

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I welcome the Minister to his place, and I welcome my Gloucestershire colleagues; I am sure they will have things to say, but I know they will be very brief, because I want to make some points.

I will start with the caveat that this debate is about schools funding. There was an excellent debate on a petition on college funding a couple of weeks ago, so I have restricted my remarks to schools funding, but many of them also apply to the college situation in our county. I will begin with four quick quotes:

“We are no longer at the ‘reduce your photocopying stage, provide your own pens and pencils’ stage in Gloucestershire. We are at the ‘don't expect a TA but do expect a class size of 35 and certainly don’t expect a payrise’ stage.”

Secondly:

“Inclusive schools like ours have to use 85% of the money intended to support vulnerable children with additional needs, to top up the Per Pupil Funding just to reach the same level as local selective schools. This is resulting in a two-tier education system where inclusive schools receive less money.”

Thirdly:

“One of the more tragic results of the cuts for our more vulnerable pupils will be the financial disincentive to give these children places. In an increasingly ‘competitive’ climate there will, sadly, be schools actively finding ways to turn these children away so they become someone else’s problem.”

Finally:

“Like many schools, we have had to set a deficit budget to protect the education of the children in our school. We are finding more children with significant complex educational needs are being placed with us who must be supported from existing budgets with a knock-on effect for the rest of the children within school.”

Those quotes were from a teacher in Gloucestershire, a headteacher of a comprehensive in Gloucestershire, a headteacher of a village primary school and, lastly, a governor.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my neighbour, for giving way, and I have a lot of sympathy with the people he is quoting. Does he agree that we are spending a record amount on education, but the distribution system is totally unfair, and the difference between the highest-spending local authority and one of the lower-spending local authorities, such as Gloucestershire, is completely unfair?

[Dr Drew]

It is unfair. I will outline my own views on that; as someone who supported the f40 group for a long time, as did the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members, I think we have a distribution problem as well as a problem of how much money is in the pot.

The national background is a lack of funding. The Minister might have something to say about the 3.5% pay award, which is having a dramatic impact in all our schools. Staffing costs are rising, and we have faced particular downward pressure on pupils aged 16 to 18, with a 20% cut since 2010-11. I emphasise the cuts to special educational needs and disabilities provision, which mean that it has in no way kept pace with rising demand.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share the experience I have encountered in schools such as the Ridge Academy, Belmont School and Bettridge School? Those schools have to deal with a cohort of pupils whose needs are far more complex than ever before, and that underlies part of the increased demand on their resources.

[Dr Drew]

That is a very fair point and I concur, but of course those other pupils who might have gone to Belmont and so on are now in mainstream schools, which is causing additional pressures on schools across the board. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that there was something like an 8% cut in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Although the Chancellor’s little extra might go some way, in reality it is only £50,000 per secondary school.

Let us come on to what we are really interested in: Gloucestershire and the national funding formula. In Gloucestershire, the national funding formula is still not producing a fairer redistribution of funds, as my neighbour the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) pointed out. Gloucestershire secondary schools remain near the bottom in league tables of school funding, ranked 130th out of 149 on schools block funding. According to the House of Commons Library, Gloucestershire secondary schools received £4,886 per pupil compared with the English average of £5,229, and primary schools received £3,949 compared with the average in England of £4,059.

[Alex Chalk]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that some hon. Members in this House whose schools get far more than £5,200—some of them, I am afraid to say, Labour Members—were very indignant at the idea that schools in places such as Gloucestershire should get a bit more?

[Dr Drew]

There is a need to raise this issue for all our colleagues, which is what I am trying to do. I agree; it is not a party political issue, but crosses the spectrum, and we must all work together to do something. I am sure the Minister will have something to say about that in a minute.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. Is not one of the problems the fact that Gloucestershire is viewed as being a very rich county, but, although there certainly are areas of affluence, there are many that have special needs and deprivation? We need only look at the very different reading levels between schools even within one constituency. It seems to me that the current formulas do not take that properly into account.

[Dr Drew]

I agree; we know our county has areas of deprivation, which I will touch on. The new national funding formula suggests that about half of Gloucestershire’s 40 secondary schools will receive the minimum per pupil spend of £4,600 in 2019-20 and then £4,800 in 2020-21. We are not really catching up. That does not take into account the broad spectrum of need across our county.

I will move on to the acute problem of SEND. Gloucestershire has a special needs crisis; I do not use that word in anything other than its genuine definition. Gloucestershire’s predicted overspend on SEND is now set to be £4.7 million, up from £3.3 million last year. The number of children with education, health and care plans in Gloucestershire has almost doubled since 2015. The Government’s announcement in December of extra funding for SEND resulted in £1.35 million for Gloucestershire and led the council to withdraw its request to transfer funds from the schools block into high needs, which had led to some controversy, as my Conservative colleagues will know.

However, that was only a sticking-plaster; it is not a long-term strategy for addressing high needs overspend. As Gloucestershire County Council’s lead education officer, Stewart King, told the schools forum in January, the overspend puts Gloucestershire in

“a very serious and challenging position”.

GCC has also now reduced the financial support it provides for individual children with SEND. Schools are forced to pick up the financial burden of SEND support and are using general funds to meet additional needs, or are unable to meet the need of individual children. Even the Conservative-run county council has identified the problem. Councillor Richard Boyles, in letters that I have now received, identifies how much of a problem this is, and the council continues to ask us as MPs to lobby for a fairer funding formula. The impact of this funding crisis is clear: increased class sizes; a reduction in the number of teaching assistants; less support for SEND students; and a reduced curriculum. Many schools will also not be able to implement the full 3.5% pay rise, or if they are able to, they will have to make redundancies.

The pressure on places and rising class sizes, particularly in special schools, is where the acute need is most felt, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said. We have to be sympathetic to that. However, there is also an issue with inclusivity, with schools that have taken the most vulnerable children facing the most difficult consequences, because we do not fund those children. High numbers of SEND children are hidden in the system.

The reality, as we now know, is that the majority of our primary schools are likely to face an in-year deficit. Quite simply, Minister, the schools do not have enough money. We can argue about the distribution issue, but at the moment the acute problem is that we need more money, particularly for SEND education.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes several good points. We would all like to see more money for schools in Gloucestershire, and he is right that secondary schools have faced considerable pressures. He is also correct to mention the £1.35 million SEND funding that the Government have given for both this year and next year. Those two years are guaranteed, and the Minister will no doubt want to say more on that. However, I am a bit puzzled by my distinguished constituency neighbour’s occasionally rather strong language. He referred in a tweet to deep, unjustified and ongoing cuts. That is not actually true, is it? The amount of money per primary and secondary school pupil in Gloucestershire has gone up and will go up further. Would he like to comment on the language we use as we lobby for more money?

[Dr Drew]

I will comment on that. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Although Brexit has completely overwhelmed Parliament, I have been inundated with comments from headteachers, teachers, teaching unions, parents and even some pupils. Their message is that they face cuts. We can argue about how much those cuts are and how they came about, but the reality is that they face cuts. That is what they say. I have another page of quotes that I could read out that say what the situation is like.

I hope the Minister does not feel that we disagree in any way generally. We are saying that, specifically because of the SEND situation, we now face a very difficult problem in Gloucestershire, which is having an impact across all schools. We need to do something about it, and I hope that the Government are sympathetic.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) about those people’s feelings. I suggest he talks to people from schools in his constituency, whom I presume feel very much the same as those in schools in my constituency: that is, that they have faced a lot of pressure, which is now beginning to feed into the system with dire consequences.

[Richard Graham]

The point is not what our constituents tell us. It is understandable that every parent, teacher and school should ask for more. The point is the language that we use. When the amount of money is actually going up, to talk about deep, unjustified and ongoing cuts is surely wrong. In a sense, the hon. Gentleman has confirmed that himself, because he removed that tweet within about four hours of posting it. Will he confirm, for the record, so that all our teachers and parents are clear, that there are not ongoing per-pupil funding cuts in Gloucestershire? That money is going up and will continue to do so, on which the Minister will no doubt tell us more.

[Dr Drew]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. There are cuts. He should go into schools in his constituency and see what is happening. I have now received hundreds of responses from people at the sharp end who believe, maybe wrongly, that there are cuts. We can argue about the figures—the absolute figures may look better than the reality—but the situation is that the schools that I represent face some dire situations. That is why I am here today.

The hon. Gentleman can secure his own Adjournment debate and defend what is happening. However, I think I have more of the moral high ground, and I defend what I say because I believe that there are cuts. I do not think that it is in any way justifiable to conclude anything other than that we face a very difficult situation. I came here to pinpoint a particular problem—SEND funding—but within the wider environment of a difficult funding outlook for our county.

I intend to give the Minister plenty of time to respond, so I will not say much more. I will make three points in conclusion. First—the point I have really concentrated on—increasing SEND need has demanded a funding response that Gloucestershire has not been able to meet. That is why, despite what the hon. Gentleman says, our SEND funding will still be in deficit. That may be because more people are applying for EHCPs, but the reality is that they have to be able to meet the genuine demands of people who see their children suffer.

Secondly, this is not about scaremongering but about the reality of the impact of what has happened over a long period. The unfairness of the system dates back to the previous Labour Government, which is why I have always supported the national funding formula. The difficulty is that we are not there yet, and we will not get there for some considerable time. The reality is that the differential is getting worse in the short run, and we stand to be worse off. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds is nodding. I hope the Minister will do something about that.

Thirdly, I have just come from a drop-in session on children’s mental health. Children’s mental health is having a real impact on what we need to meet additional needs in our schools. These issues are having a real impact on our children at the moment, whether on their mental health or through our inability to deal with their special needs.

I hope the Minister is listening and that we can move forward on this. Even though we might disagree on certain aspects, five MPs from the county are here to say that the funding situation is not right and that it is affecting our pupils, staff, and parents and so on. I hope that the Minister will pay some urgent attention to us, so that we can begin to deal with this. I hope he will give me some good news.