School Funding: Stockport

Georgia Gould Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I appreciate the hon. Member for Stockport opening this important debate.

[Navendu Mishra]

Hazel Grove.

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

Sorry—and I apologise to my hon. Friend for giving away his job. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for opening the debate and for her commitment as a school governor for more than 20 years. Our school governors do such valuable work, and I can hear how passionate she is about these issues. We are, too. Investment in funding for education and schools is critical, and is a huge priority for this Government.

As the hon. Lady set out powerfully, teachers do important work around the country. We want to back them. That is why we have prioritised investment in education by making a significant investment in the core schools budget in financial year 2026-27, with an extra £2.3 billion for schools. That means that the core schools budget will total £67.6 billion, compared with £65.3 billion in 2025-26. That is a significant investment that shows how important education and schools are to this Government.

The hon. Lady also mentioned how important it is that wider infrastructure around schools continues to be funded. I was a council leader for many years and my experience of working closely with schools was that through the cuts we saw to local services—whether in support for young people or families—schools were increasingly picking up those wider pressures. That is why we are investing in all of the crucial services that sit around schools: Best Start in Life hubs, which deliver early intervention; Experts at Hand, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport talked about and which provide much-needed speech and language therapists and educational psychologists to support schools; or Families First partnerships, which bring back the early help and intervention that was cut. We are investing in addressing child poverty, whether through the extension of free school meals or the end to the two-child benefit cap. All that reduces pressure on schools and builds back those teams around schools.

The hon. Lady also talked about the importance of supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities, and about stepping in to support teachers. That was one of the main pressure points, and we have deeply heard the extent of those pressures on families, young people and educators. That is why we are taking forward the reforms to special educational needs and disabilities. We have consulted widely on the future model, which overhauls the system to create one that invests a lot earlier and brings funding directly into schools so that they are able to meet those needs in the long term. We have started that investment ahead of a full reform. We are putting £4 billion into early intervention, some of which is going directly into schools through the inclusive mainstream fund, and some into councils through Experts at Hand. There is also a significant £3.7 billion capital investment in creating new specialist places.

[Navendu Mishra]

I appreciate the Minister’s points about the capital investment, but not a week goes by when a parent does not contact my office about their frustration with the local council not meeting the assessment deadline. I encourage the Minister and the Department to engage with Stockport council, because 18% is just not good enough. There is also a point to be made about parents from low-income backgrounds often just giving up, whereas people from other backgrounds perhaps continue the fight, contact their local councillors or pursue legal remedies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Georgia Gould]

I absolutely agree that it is not an acceptable performance. As a Department, we are determined to hold councils to account on their performance regarding children with special educational needs and disabilities. For too long, that has been on individual parents, as my hon. Friend set out, and for some parents, with all the challenges they face, that is incredibly difficult.

We have asked every local authority in the country to develop a SEND reform plan and are monitoring the data within that plan quarterly. As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove set out, we are supporting local authorities to relieve 90% of their deficit, and that money is contingent on delivery of those SEND reform plans. We are putting in capacity support of £200 million around the country to support that as well as, where needed, to support intervention. We will be working closely with Stockport council, and I am very happy to meet Stockport MPs to discuss that in greater detail.

In terms of future years of deficit support, we have said that we will take a similar proportionate response to supporting local authorities, but that is contingent on them being proactive about reforming the system, supporting parents better and working with the authority. We have been clear on those expectations and how we will be holding them to account for delivery.

More broadly, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove asked about the distribution of the national funding formula and how it allocates funding. As she set out, it allocates funding based on pupil numbers and pupil characteristics. It means targeting funding at schools that have the greatest number of pupils with additional needs. In 2026-27, 11% of the schools national funding formula has been allocated through deprivation factors and 18% has been allocated for additional needs overall. That corresponds to £5.6 billion for deprivation and £9.2 billion for additional needs. There is a focus on the wide range of factors relating to the individual needs of children and young people that sit within the formula across the board. We have committed to keeping both the NFF and high needs funding under review as part of the system changes that we are working on more broadly.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said, there is extra investment already going in for Stockport through the inclusive mainstream fund, Experts at Hand and the capital investment. We are also putting support into schools to better manage their budgets and support their collective buying power. There is our new energy for schools service, the supply teachers and education recruitment framework and a free banking comparison tool. We are also developing a national procurement framework for management information systems, helping schools to reduce costs and ensure that more funding is directed into provision for the children and young people that we want to focus on.

We are seeing greater investment in education, but also in those wider services that support young people. We want to ensure that that supports early intervention and supports schools with the wide range of pressures that they are facing. I am committed to working alongside Members to make sure that this works in every part of the country. I am very happy to take forward that conversation about the particular challenges facing Stockport.

Question put and agreed to.