Business of the House

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will certainly be happy to write on my hon. Friend’s behalf to my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary. I am interested to know whether it is true that the strawberries for Wimbledon are being grown underground in Clapham; I wonder whether my hon. Friend can enlighten the House on that. He is exactly right to say that Crossrail 2 will be a very important measure to get people in London moving, and I am personally supportive of it.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I was shocked by the complete lack of clarity on school funding shown by the Secretary of State for Education on Tuesday. The claim by the Leader of the House that the funding formula for schools is fair simply will not ring true in my constituency, where school budgets have been squeezed year on year and our fantastic boys’ secondary school, Forest Hill School, has a deficit of £1.3 million. May we please have a proper statement and a debate on school funding before the summer recess?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place and wish her every success in her new role. We are proud of the top-line achievement that there are now 1.8 million more children in good and outstanding schools than in 2010, but she is exactly right to point out that there are pressures on school budgets. That is being looked at very closely by my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary, and I will happily take up the issue with her.