Grammar School Funding

Debate between Edward Leigh and Steve Baker

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. It is a convention to say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, but in this case it is heartfelt.

This debate is about the funding not only of grammar schools, but of successful, well performing comprehensives with good sixth forms. I am proud to declare that one of my children attends a grammar school, and I am proud to have two excellent grammar schools in my constituency: Caistor grammar school and Queen Elizabeth’s high school. They are centres of excellence, and I salute the Lincolnshire county councillors who have always kept in mind the importance of our grammar schools and saved them.

The phasing out of grammar schools in most of the country was one of the greatest policy disasters of the post-war era. By the 1960s, grammar schools were so successful that we achieved an unqualified and unprecedented level of social mobility—it was greater than anything this country has achieved in its long history, before or since. Many of the nation’s poorest, most deprived people were given their first great chance to move up. Those schools were so successful that the independent sector feared that it would fade and decline into irrelevance, barring the odd Eton or Harrow. Across the country, we need to nurture those centres of excellence and learn lessons from them that we can apply across the state sector as beacons.

The purpose of this debate is not to honour grammar schools, but to ensure that they are not buried by stealth. A growing concern has emerged recently about the disparity of per-pupil funding for grammar schools, which also affects high-performing comprehensives with large sixth forms. Changes in the past three years have adversely affected grammar schools disproportionately in comparison with other state schools. The minimum funding guarantee of minus 1.5% gives the appearance of preserving per-pupil funding. However, as Mr David Allsop, the headmaster of Queen Elizabeth’s high school in Gainsborough, notes:

“Sixth form funding has been dropping much more significantly and we have managed to maintain our funding as flat by increasing the number of students in the sixth form.”

In 2013, Mr Allsop analysed Lincolnshire schools that were not academies, and looked at per-pupil funding. The grammar school that he heads was the least well funded school per pupil in the county. It receives £4,474 per pupil on average, while a similar sized comprehensive school in Lincolnshire receives £6,481 per pupil. Those figures are from the Government’s consistent financial reporting data. If we are to promote educational excellence, it is not a good idea to give the best school in Lincolnshire, which everybody tries to get into, only £4,000 per pupil per year, while giving the worst performing comprehensive in Lincoln, which nobody wants to go to, £7,000 per head per year. That is a daft way to run our education system.

We are asking only for fairness. Back in the 1960s, one of the criticisms of grammar schools was that they were treated unfairly well by county councillors. It is ironic that the reverse is now happening. Grammar schools are in a uniquely bad position, in terms of state funding.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling case. Is not the reason why grammar schools are so badly funded comparatively that they have disproportionately high numbers of pupils at sixth forms? Is not the real issue the way in which the Government have dealt with sixth-form funding, rather than with grammar schools funding per se?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is exactly right, and I will come to that point in a moment. Mr Roger Hale, who runs the successful Caistor grammar school, wrote a heartfelt plea to me. Of course, he will struggle on and do his job—that is what teachers do—but he said:

“We were one of many schools who answered the call from Michael Gove to set off on our own as an Academy so that we would have better control over our resources. In the first few years, this worked very well. However in the last 18 months, the funding we receive to be an Academy has been sharply reduced.”

I have read letters from grammar schools from all over the country that say the same thing.

On the face of it, it seems fair that the Government equalised post-16 per-pupil funding between schools with sixth forms and further education colleges. A lot of the problems are due to the law of unintended consequences. I do not think for a moment that Ministers intended to hit grammar school funding adversely, but their laudable aims had unintended consequences. The funding for FE colleges and schools was equalised, which was fair enough. However, that ignored the significant further pastoral support and enrichment programmes for pupils in sixth forms. Sixth formers take on a broader programme of AS and A-levels, in addition to supervised study, sport and other programmes, in contrast to FE students. Per-pupil costs for sixth forms are in many cases higher than they are for further education colleges. Sixth formers, on the whole, have between 20 and 25 taught hours per week, while the figure for those in further education colleges is closer to 17. Furthermore, that equalisation was achieved not by choosing a figure in the middle of the previous levels of sixth-form and FE funding, but by brining sixth-form funding down to the same level as further education.

I am grateful for the argument made to me by Mr Önaç, the headmaster of St Olave’s school in Orpington. He said that the scale of the reduction that the change has brought has been huge, and that it often amounts to a whole fifth of the per-pupil budget. Although it has applied across schools, it has affected grammar schools, because almost all of them have sixth forms that comprise a much larger proportion of their total school population than other schools. That is why we have this problem. I am not sure that it was envisaged at the start of the changes.

Prime Minister (Replacement) Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Steve Baker

Friday 29th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I have enormous respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and think that he is perfectly entitled to raise these sorts of issues, but I must confess that I have severe doubts about the Bill. If one looks back over history, one must come to the conclusion that it is wrong in our system, in which we do not have a written constitution, to lay down rules. It is much better to rely on people’s good judgment. That is what our system is based on.

I can illustrate that argument by referring to the events of May 1940, when Neville Chamberlain ceased to be Prime Minister. Although he resigned voluntarily following a vote in the House of Commons in which his majority was severely reduced, I cannot help noticing that, according to the list set out in the Bill, the next person in line to succeed him in the event of his having become incapacitated, after the Deputy Prime Minister, would have been the Home Secretary.

Just imagine what would have happened in May 1940 if such a Bill had been passed and if Neville Chamberlain had sadly passed away or become incapacitated. It would not have been Winston Churchill, the saviour of the nation, who took over, but the Home Secretary. For the moment, I cannot remember who that was. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of these matters, probably remembers. [Interruption.] I think that it was Lord Anderson—it has come back to me—of the Anderson shelter fame. Certainly he was not the charismatic leader who saved the nation. Any student of history knows that it was touch and go whether Winston Churchill would take over. Lord Halifax was the favourite, both of the King and of the outgoing Prime Minister.

Why do I make those points? We do not want a written constitution in which rules are laid down. We want people to use their good sense. That is what the British parliamentary system is all about. I do not think that it is particularly instructive to follow precedents from other countries. My hon. Friend mentioned the American constitution, which is an entirely different state of affairs. The President of the United States is the Head of State and commander-in-chief, elected by all the people, so there has to be a procedure that lays down exactly what happens if he dies or becomes incapacitated. It is not a parliamentary system.

The same goes for the French system, in which, unlike in the American system, if the President dies—President Pompidou died in office—there is an immediate presidential election. The Americans, in their wisdom, determined that the Vice-President should take over automatically, and that there should be an election for a new President, but that is a matter for them and their constitution.

Our system is completely different. If the Prime Minister resigns, as Margaret Thatcher did in more recent times, or sadly passes away or becomes incapacitated, the most senior member of the Cabinet would take over as acting Prime Minister. In the present Cabinet—I will hazard a guess—that is probably the Foreign Secretary. Nobody doubts that he could perfectly adequately, and indeed immediately, take over all the reins of government. There would be a rapid election among the majority parliamentary party, and the person best fitted to become Prime Minister would be elected by his colleagues. They would elect him not on the basis of some written constitution or some arbitrary list of the sort my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has devised, but on the basis of their good sense. That is what our system is about.

[Steve Baker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the crucial test is whether such a person can command a majority in this House? That is easily tested by the introduction of a confidence motion, and could be very quickly resolved by the House of Commons.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend is of course right to make that point. In our system, which is parliamentary as opposed to presidential, the whole point is that, as in the past, the Head of State—the Queen—appoints as Prime Minister someone who can command a majority in the House, which is what being Prime Minister is all about. There is no mystery about the job: it goes to the person best equipped to command a majority in the House, and the best way to determine who can do that is based not on some arbitrary list laid down, in all his wisdom, by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, but on the good sense of those who sit in this Chamber.