National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

James Heappey Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to see the impact on his own local constituency, but I think this formula is a step forward to make sure that wherever children are, funding is there. As I have said on a number of occasions, it very much bakes into the formula the idea of having money follow disadvantage and need. I think that is the right approach to take.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State and the schools Minister for listening to my concerns and those of so many of us from the south-west about school funding. I congratulate them on correcting the real unfairness in the funding that schools in the Wells constituency have had to endure for too long. Does she agree that this is the start of a series of investments in the south-west that will correct an imbalance in funding to our region, and that she has blazed a trail that other Departments will surely follow?

[Justine Greening]

That was a fantastic question. I, too, would like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister for School Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), for the work he has done on this complex project that we have undertaken. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) is absolutely right that we want to see children in the south-west achieve their potential. This is a funding formula that will mean—I think, for the first time—fair funding, which I believe will help a number of a children, and perhaps some of the children in my hon. Friend’s local community.