Business of the House

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I recall the important point that my hon. Friend made about the education funding formula and I look forward to further announcements from colleagues soon. On his point about access to the pupil premium because of free school meals, the under-registration rate in 2013 is estimated to have been 11%, down from 14% in 2012. This is an important point. The pupil premium is an important part of the allocation of resources to support disadvantaged pupils. To support a more efficient system the Department has developed an award-winning free school meals eligibility checking system. This system enables local authorities very quickly to determine whether a parent can claim free school meals by linking benefits information from the Department for Work and Pensions with information from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Home Office.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Bishop Wordsworth’s grammar school in my constituency is again facing considerable pressure, redundancies and radical curriculum cuts this year as a consequence of the pressure caused by 16-to-18 underfunding. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on school funding so that we can ensure that outstanding schools, particularly grammar schools, are not severely damaged by this gap that exists at 16 to 18?

[Mr Lansley]

As my hon. Friend will have heard me say, I hope our hon. Friends at the Department for Education will be in a position to tell us more about the progress we can make towards a fairer funding formula where the funding for schools is related to the characteristics of the pupils, not historical funding allocations. I cannot give my hon. Friend a timetable for those announcements, but he will have noted that I mentioned previously that there is an opportunity to ask questions of our hon. Friends at the Department for Education at Education questions on Monday.