Oral Answers to Questions

David Laws Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

9. What steps he has taken to implement fair school funding for Solihull.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Past school funding levels have been very unfair to some parts of our country, and we have announced that we will significantly boost funding in 2015-16 by more than one third of a billion pounds for the 60 least fairly funded local authorities.

[Lorely Burt]

The formula funding protection for Solihull sixth-form college, as with all sixth-form colleges, runs out in 2015-16. What advice would my hon. Friend give to the principal and governors in developing their strategic plans?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend will know that funding after 2015-16 will be determined in the next spending round, and we cannot make precise commitments now about funding in that period. We have been considering the options for funding large programmes such as those containing five or more A-levels, the international baccalaureate, and large vocational programmes, and we plan to announce how those will be treated after 2015-16 in the near future.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I welcome enormously the real progress made on fairer funding, and I salute the Minister and the Secretary of State for delivering in this Parliament on an issue that went unaddressed for decades. May I encourage the Minister to keep on engaging with the F40 campaign, which includes Solihull, Staffordshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire, and to ensure that all areas that have suffered from unfair funding for too long can hope to benefit—as Worcestershire and Buckinghamshire already have—from fairer funding?

[Mr Laws]

We will certainly remain engaged in that debate, and I am delighted to congratulate my hon. Friend on the leadership that he has given to this campaign over a sustained period. That has led to our recent announcement, which has sought to resolve the issue in those parts of the country that have traditionally been very badly funded.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

10. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision of primary school places.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision of primary school places.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We have more than doubled the allocation of money for basic need to more than £5 billion in this Parliament, and 260,000 additional places were created between May 2010 and May 2013, including 212,000 primary places.

[John Woodcock]

May I declare my interest as a student working towards a level 3 teaching assistant qualification? I am currently undertaking placements in Victoria junior school in Barrow, and Oasis Academy Johanna in Lambeth. Barrow is one of the few areas of the country that has a surplus of places as a result of population decline in recent years, yet too many pupils are still being denied their first choice of school. If the Government were serious about making the education system work for pupils, and not for the convenience of producers, would they not give parents the right to send their child to the school of their choice, and place a duty on that institution to expand?

[Mr Laws]

We are so serious about this issue that we have doubled the amount of basic need funding going to the hon. Gentleman’s local authority compared with the period under the Labour Government. We are seeking not only to improve the quality of existing schools but to make sure that parents can exercise their choices effectively.

[Gavin Shuker]

In Luton we are 630 primary places short of the number we require—a situation that would be much worse had a free school not been built by an arms-length council body that had to jump through all the hoops of the free school system. Is it not perverse that local authorities are not allowed to build schools?

[Mr Laws]

Local authorities are allowed to build schools. We have allocated £37 million to the hon. Gentleman’s local authority to do precisely that.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is quite right to give local authorities the freedom to decide how to allocate this extra funding for places based on local need and local knowledge?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Local authorities do have that knowledge of local need, and they have the money from us to address this issue.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I recently attended a meeting with all the head teachers from the Otley family of schools, which covers Otley, Bramhope, Pool-in-Wharfedale and Adur, and they expressed concern about the chronic shortage of school places at primary level. After the debacle of Labour-run Leeds city council closing schools a number of years ago, and now that we need some, what work is going on to have discussions with the Department for Communities and Local Government about how this problem can be avoided in future?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. One of the reasons there are pressures in some parts of the country is that under the previous Government over 200,000 primary school places were eliminated after 2003. He will be aware that Leeds is one of the areas to which we have given significant amounts of basic need funding, and it is now using that money effectively. I will be happy to meet him if it would be helpful to discuss this in further detail.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

20. Acre Hall primary school in my constituency is growing, and it is well placed to expand its offer of small specialist classes for special educational needs pupils. However, the school is in a very poor state of repair and is in desperate need of rebuilding. Will the Minister urge the Education Funding Agency to reach a decision at the earliest possible opportunity on its application for capital grants?

[Mr Laws]

I will certainly look into that particular case as a consequence of the hon. Lady’s question and write to her about it.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Local Government Association recently warned that there is a need to create 130,000 new places by 2017-18. It also warned that because of the Minister’s ideological insistence that these places have to be in free schools and academies, they will not be created where they are actually needed. On what evidence does he believe that community schools and local decision making are always bad?

[Mr Laws]

We do not believe that. Indeed, local community schools are expanding right across the country; the difference between the situation under this Government and under the previous Government is that they have the money to do so.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What plans he has for regional school commissioners.

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[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

T3. Last summer the Minister visited Northumberland, where schoolchildren have, historically, been chronically underfunded, compared with those in other areas, by central Government. May I welcome the 6.4% increase in early 2015 and the ongoing consultation, and observe that the case for fairer funding is absolutely overwhelming? The Minister should prepare for a lot of representations from my head teachers.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome of our announcement. I congratulate him on his robust campaigning over a period of time to ensure this fairer funding settlement. As he knows, under our plans Northumberland’s per pupil funding rate will increase by around £269 per pupil per year, which will mean over £10 million more for schools in his area.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

T2. Following a special educational needs tribunal ruling that children were unsafe in January 2013, at a ministerial meeting in March 2013 parents of abuse victims told a Minister that Stanbridge Earls independent school remained unsafe. I wrote to the Secretary of State in the same month to warn him that the situation was urgent. Despite this, a further child was sexually abused in July 2013. The school has now closed. Ofsted has apologised for its failures. Will Ministers now urgently consider adequate research into the funding of mandatory reporting in regulated settings?

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

T4. Ministers are to be commended for their work to drive up educational standards for pupils in receipt of free school meals, and in particular for the appointment of John Dunford as pupil premium champion, whom we saw on his recent visit to Peterborough. What further work are Ministers doing to focus on this area of work with children in receipt of free school meals?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We are doing two things in particular. As my hon. Friend is aware, we announced in the Budget that we are extending the pupil premium into the early years, which I think has been widely welcomed. We are also ensuring, through Ofsted, that while schools have the freedom to spend that money in the most sensible way they think appropriate, they will be held to account and fully supported by Ofsted and the Education Endowment Foundation.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

T5. The Minister is, I hope, concerned about the literacy levels of prisoners, 40% of whom have an average reading age of 11. Does he think that the policy of the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to ban sending books to prisoners will make that better or worse?

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[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

I welcomed last week’s announcement of an early-years pupil premium. Schools have benefited from access to the Education Endowment Foundation toolkit to use the pupil premium to best effect. Will the Department consider how best to make early-years pupil premium research available to providers?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We will ensure that early-years settings have the necessary information about interventions that make a difference, so that the new money that is going into the system can have an effect, especially for some of the most disadvantaged pupils.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The Under-Secretary of State rightly says that she is worried about the number of girls taking A-level maths, given that two thirds of A-level maths students are boys. Is she also worried about the fact that level 6 key stage 2 entrants are consistently more often boys than girls? She has announced changes in the maths curriculum, but what elements of that curriculum, or of teaching, will help to deal with this issue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I welcome the new advice on the summer-born starting school at age 5 in a reception class, but are Ministers aware of just how varied the response to parental requests is between different school admission authorities, and what action will they take?

[Mr Laws]

We are keeping the matter under close review. If my hon. Friend has any information on the way in which schools are implementing their responsibilities, I would be keen to hear from her, because we will take action if we find that schools are not paying attention to parental demand.

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, Andy Sawford.