Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My right hon. Friend did not, but he would be happy to.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Last week, the chief inspector of schools said that Ofsted’s report on unseen children painted

“a striking new picture of disadvantage and educational underachievement”.

In his speech, he said that we needed new policies and approaches to deal with underachievement in rural and coastal areas. If those policies are to succeed, they will need to be financed. Will the Minister commit today to a redistribution to rural areas, so that allocations are fairer and more equal?

[Mr Laws]

We are committed to introducing a fairer national funding formula, and we hope to be able to say more about that once we are clear about the spending review announcements later this week. We also intend to ensure, through Ofsted and the accountability measures we publish, that schools in rural, coastal and other areas that may have small proportions of young people on free school meals or entitled to the pupil premium are still under intense pressure to narrow these gaps, which are as unacceptable in rural and coastal areas as they are in our inner cities.