National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We will be rolling forward, but my hon. Friend’s point underlines why it is important that we move on beyond an interim approach to put in place a final funding formula. That is what the consultation is on. As my hon. Friend says, it will affect areas that have been underfunded for a very long time. That is why we need to get on with it.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

West Suffolk—[Interruption.] I always do my best to help my colleagues, but I mean West Sussex, which has historically suffered from very low funding and very high costs, being outside the London weighting. Can the Secretary of State give me any reassurance that we will benefit from the area cost adjustment?

[Justine Greening]

I hope my hon. Friend will see some improvement in how the funding works, following the introduction of the fair funding formula. He mentions costs, which is precisely why one of the key factors we built into the formula is an area cost adjustment to make sure that schools in locations with higher innate cost bases have that reflected in the funding that pupils have attached to them.