National Funding Formula: Social Mobility
Debate between Jeremy Quin and Fiona Onasanya(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
I am most grateful to be called to speak, Mr Walker, in particular because, only about five minutes ago, I intimated to you that I had not prepared a speech and did not intend to deliver one. I am most grateful that you have found time for me. This is an important subject, which it was important to raise, and I thought it deserved a longer airing in the House than would otherwise have been the case.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing the debate. My colleagues in West Sussex and I campaigned long and hard for a national funding formula. We were pleased to get a 5% increase in overall funding for the county, so I suppose I should congratulate the hon. Lady on doing better than that—the hon. Lady or, if I may be so bold, her predecessor. A 7% increase is possibly one of the highest increases achieved by any area of the country as a result of the NFF reallocation.
The hon. Lady is right that one can do a lot with statistics, but those I have seen show that we have, as a country, rightly put a huge emphasis on education. I think we have more than doubled our per pupil funding since the early 1990s, and we needed to: we expect a lot more from schools and teachers than we ever did before, and I pay credit to their huge commitment. Perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe we spend more per pupil on education than France or Germany. We need to—it is an investment in our future, and I am delighted that we make that commitment as a country. We owe it to our children and to our country to ensure that we have a fantastic cohort of children coming through.
Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)
In my constituency, we get £171 less per pupil, so when we talk about funding increases, it is important to bear in mind that, outside London, the situation is not the same for every constituency—the funding formula may not be fair for areas that are deprived.