School Funding (London)

James Berry Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, and to follow the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this excellent debate.

My parents are teachers, and I have had the pleasure of visiting every school in my constituency at least once. We have the best schools in the UK in terms of the proportion of good or outstanding schools and GCSE and A-level results, and we also have grammar schools. They suffer the same pressures as schools do everywhere else in London. I want to speak briefly about the funding formula and other funding pressures that schools face, but I will say at the outset that I would be an advocate for more funding for schools—that should be a priority. As a Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Department of Health, I sit here in countless debates asking for more funding for the NHS—indeed I sit in debates asking for more funding for all other areas of public spending, and see colleagues ask for more funding across the board—but what I would focus on is more funding for education. We cannot just demand more funding for everything; we have to identify where we would raise the additional revenue or what we would cut.

The funding formula came about after a cross-party campaign that was premised on an agreement that the funding for schools was not fair, in the sense that it was not equitably distributed and that different parts of the country with similar demographic profiles were seeing different funding for their schools. The campaign was never based on levelling up to the level of schools funding in the highest funded area—Tower Hamlets. That would have added billions of pounds to the cost of the funding that is required for schools, and no party committed to that in their manifesto. In any new funding formula there are going to be winners and losers. I expected that, as the third worst funded borough in London, we would be a winner, although I had hoped that it would have been by more than 0.9%, with some schools’ funding going down.

Having followed this and other debates on the funding formula carefully, I have not actually heard any coherent criticisms of the general approach to the funding formula in terms of the per pupil funding and the additional factors. No one seems to disagree that those are the right factors. What they disagree with is that, as a result, some schools’ funding is going down. Personally, I would like to have seen a more radical approach, because that would have ended the unfair and inequitable situation that schools in Tower Hamlets, 14 miles away from my constituency, receive £2,406 per pupil more than schools in Kingston, on top of the pupil premium, which is not counted in those figures.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

indicated assent.

[James Berry]

The hon. Gentleman is nodding. Before I am intervened on by an MP from Tower Hamlets, I completely accept the political consensus that we should address social deprivation through funding for education. I completely accept that schools in Kingston are always going to get less than schools in Tower Hamlets, where there is a higher index of social deprivation. However, if we take into account the pupil premium figures and the differential in the same city of £2,400 per pupil, that is simply not fair. In my stage 2 response to the fairer funding consultation, I asked that the per pupil funding element should not be reduced to a weighting below the current 76%, unless significant additional funding is identified for the additional factors.

I want to touch on the other pressures beyond the fairer funding formula. I have spoken to many of my headteachers in Kingston, and frankly their concern is not with the fairer funding formula primarily, but with the other pressures on their budgets. Some of those have been mentioned. They include increased employers’ national insurance contributions, increased pension contributions, increased national living wage, the apprenticeship levy, the equalisation of sixth-form and further education funding, the reduction in the education services grant and a general increase in costs.

Another factor that I imagine affects other hon. Members as well, and certainly has a profound effect in Kingston, is the huge overspend in high-needs funding. It has resulted, as in other boroughs, in Kingston having to top-slice the dedicated schools grant to the level of the minimum funding guarantee. It is a demand that Kingston’s schools and Kingston Council are not really in a position to regulate, because a lot of the high-cost, private school, out-of-borough placements—sometimes of more than £200,000 per pupil—are made by the first-tier tribunal for special educational needs. Kingston Council is trying hard to address the issue by supporting applications for two new free schools—two special schools, one in Kingston and one in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias)—so that we can better deal with high-needs children in borough, but this matter needs to be addressed. We need more funding for high-needs provision in particular.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I absolutely agree with everything my hon. Friend says about the pressures regarding special educational needs. These are unpredictable, six-figure sums—he is absolutely right about that. Does he agree that there is a case for there being a separate pot, perhaps of central funding, because those costs are unpredictable year on year and are increasing?

[James Berry]

In addition to the funding formula, those additional costs need to be addressed. I will close by rebutting the ridiculous suggestion that has been made, although not in this Chamber today, that we should cut funding for new schools and use it for existing ones. In London we know that there is an acute pressure for school places, and that the cost of buying the sites for them is very significant. Some 750,000 new places are needed by 2025. Yes, we need more funding for schools now, but we will create a terrible situation for pupils if we take away the funding that has been put aside for the schools we need to build and that I very much welcomed in the Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

There should be fairness in the funding formula. There are good things in it, such as an emphasis on high needs, a deprivation index, a focus on prior attainment—why would we not welcome those things?—but we have seen many U-turns from the Department. I would bet my bottom dollar that, with the pressure that is coming from all hon. Members, we will see another one. I am worried that we will also see a U-turn on some of the good things about this funding formula.

The financial challenges of providing London school places is huge, because of the cost pressures and land values. That is why we have seen the Government U-turn on the 50% faith school cap. The Catholic Church needs to build at least 40 new schools in London and the Government have had to U-turn on their policy from 2010.

The free school programme in London is not subject to any spatial planning whatsoever. There was a school in Bermondsey that recently closed down after £3.5 million was spent in two years on educating 60 pupils. That was £60,000 per pupil. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said, we could have sent those pupils to Eton for half the price. That is what happens when there is a free school programme that is not subject to spatial planning.

[James Berry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Kane]

I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. I really am up against the clock.

The Education Funding Agency is paying inflated prices for land, particularly in London. Funding issues are hitting teacher recruitment, as has been articulately pointed out. Pay in real terms for teachers has fallen by 10% since 2010. The jobs market is beginning to pick up, no wonder we are failing to meet our graduate targets for teacher training, which adds to the pressures. The cost of living, as has also been pointed out, and the cost of childcare are exacerbating the problems, as is inflation. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) has been articulate for weeks and months in the Chamber on the effect of London’s housing crisis, which means that teachers are priced out of the market.

As I have said, the Opposition would love to support elements of the funding formula. I remember the joke by Peter Kaye, who is a Bolton comedian. When his children were trying to get to sleep but could not do so because of the “wardrobe monsters”, he rang them up and said, “Don’t worry about the wardrobe monsters. It’s the burglars coming in through the roof!” This issue is not about the funding formula, a high needs index, a deprivation index or the focus on prior attainment; it is to do with cost inflation. The Minister should stop confusing the matter for his own Back Benchers and for Parliament. The national funding formula will not touch the sides of what needs to be done to avert a massive crisis in our schools.

We need change. The Minister should not bang on about the funding formula. He needs to address the cost pressures that all schools face. He needs to tell them, which he has not done so far, how they are to make the savings required. More importantly, however, he needs to tell us how he will change his mind in the weeks and months to come.