Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

North Yorkshire is a very sparsely populated rural county, and is one of the 40 least well funded. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the problem of funding small schools in rural areas of that kind—which includes the problem of sixth-form funds—and will he address it?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. As she knows, North Yorkshire is one of the areas that will gain from the measures that we proposed a couple of months ago. It was set to gain by £7.2 million under the proposals on which we have consulted. The sparsity issue is also extremely important in areas such as North Yorkshire, and we have therefore introduced a sparsity factor to allow local authorities to protect schools in areas where children would otherwise have to travel an unacceptable distance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the likely effect of his funding proposals on rural schools.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Supporting successful rural schools is an important principle of our funding reforms. My Department has just concluded a review of funding arrangements for 2013-14, which included visits to North Yorkshire and several other rural authorities.

[Miss McIntosh]

Does the Minister accept that the pupil premium has not worked its way through to rural schools in perhaps the way he had hoped, and will he join me in helping North Yorkshire council to put in place fairer funding for rural schools, particularly those with many service children?