School Funding

Debate between Julian Knight and Ann Coffey

Thursday 5th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

I will be brief. The guaranteed unit of funding for Stockport is £4,229 per pupil. It ranks 144th out of 151 authorities for funding; it is one of the worst-funded authorities in England. The national funding average is £4,718. If we got that national funding average, we would have £18 million more to spend on education in Stockport, which is a lot of teachers and additional help.

The base funding that the authority gives to each pupil is £2,795; it then allocates additional funding for deprivation, special needs, and children in care. Adswood primary school in my constituency, which is a good school, gets £4,889 per pupil. The school serves an area of very high deprivation. Children come into the education system with poor language development, challenging behaviour and poor social skills; in addition, the school has 145 special educational needs children. It is a school that is under pressure: it is cutting staffing, cutting supply cover, renegotiating service contracts and not doing any more outdoor learning, which is very important for children whose families cannot offer the kind of opportunities that children in more advantaged areas enjoy. There is clearly not enough funding.

In another part of my constituency, there is Tithe Barn primary school, which serves a more advantaged area. It receives £3,493 per pupil from the authority, because it does not get any deprivation money and has very few pupils with special educational needs. That is much less than the national average. To ensure that all children have the same opportunity in Stockport, there is a case for far higher funding for Adswood, but that can only be done by taking money away from Tithe Barn, which is unfair, because the children in Heaton Moor are entitled to a good education. Stockport is faced with the endless problem of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then robbing Paul to pay Peter.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing the debate. I understand that in one respect the constituency of Stockport is probably very similar to Solihull, in that pupils come into our area from other areas that receive more money, and they are educated in our area but the money does not come with them. Does the hon. Lady want that situation to be addressed?

[Ann Coffey]

Whether funding should follow pupils or whether funding should be given directly to schools or allocated by the authority is another issue, and I will not go there, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The only way forward that I can see for Stockport is a fairer funding formula that recognises the basic cost of educating a child before additional money is allocated for deprivation and other factors. Otherwise, we are going to be in a situation that is unfair in authorities such as Stockport. I think we are all agreed that every child is entitled to the best educational opportunity, every child is entitled to a basically good education, and some children are entitled to more help with getting that education than other children. However, every child should have that opportunity and unless the issue of fair funding is addressed, and addressed quickly, children in my constituency—children both from advantaged and disadvantaged areas—are going to be disadvantaged, and, quite frankly, that is not good enough.