Oral Answers to Questions
Justine Greening Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Educational performance in primary schools is continuing to improve in England, with maths scores improving from 2011 to 2015, and science scores improving significantly, too. Japan is among the highest performers in international assessments. Our primary school pupils are outperforming their peers in Germany.
Sir Desmond Swayne
Given that we spend more than Germany and Japan per pupil in England, does it show?
Justine Greening
My right hon. Friend is correct: our spending is above that of Japan and Germany. What is clear is that spending and investment alone are insufficient. We need the right strategy. Our work on an improved curriculum, investment in teacher development and new schools not just being council-run are key measures lifting up school standards in England.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Youth unemployment in Germany has long been significantly lower than here. What lessons are the Government seeking to learn from the German system, particularly about technical and practical education?
Justine Greening
Youth unemployment rose by nearly 50% under the last Labour Government, and one of the best ways to make sure young people have opportunities is to have a thriving economy, but as the hon. Gentleman reiterates, a strong education system, including a strong technical education system, is critical, which is why we are introducing our reforms on T-levels.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
An important measure of educational performance is employability. In Germany, youth unemployment stands at 6.4% and in Japan, 5.1%; in my constituency, it stands at 1.6%, down 80% since 2010. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating schools in my constituency on getting their pupils work ready?
Justine Greening
I pay tribute to those schools; they are clearly doing an excellent job making sure that children are not only attaining academically but getting the skills they need to be successful in the workplace. That is not the case in the rest of the UK. In Wales, where Labour is in charge, standards are now falling.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
One way to improve the educational performance of UK schools would be to allow the creation of more good school places. Will the Secretary of State provide some much-needed clarity on the 50% cap on faith admissions for new free schools, which is holding up a number of school places in the pipeline?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady will probably be aware that we have created 735,000 new school places since 2010, and we will make announcements on the faith cap in due course, but again I have to contrast our record with the reduction of 100,000 school places in the last six years of the last Labour Government.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I have no doubt that, in any assessment of the performance of UK, German and Japanese schools, schools in Harrow West would perform particularly well. Headteachers there are telling me, however, that we need more investment in our schools, so that they do not have to cut the number of teaching assistants or replace experienced teachers with newly qualified teachers. What assurances can the Secretary of State offer the House that the Chancellor has got that point as well?
Justine Greening
Under the new national funding formula, all schools will get a cash rise in their budgets. As much as anything, the challenge now is finally to address the regional disparities that still exist in our education system.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
We have been very clear that, with the additional £1.3 billion we are investing in our schools, overall funding will be maintained in real terms per pupil for the next two years, as the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed. Of course, if parents want to check the actual funding for their school, they can see it on the Department for Education website, which has to comply with Office for National Statistics standards, unlike some of the websites that put up inaccurate data.
Daniel Kawczynski
Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that the additional £3.7 million that we have secured for Shropshire will ensure that there are no cuts to any of our schools? Will she do more to ensure that websites such as School Cuts are confronted about the erroneous information they are putting out, which is causing a lot of concern among parents?
Justine Greening
Indeed, it is very much scaremongering. The Department for Education’s published formula illustrations show, as my hon. Friend says, that his Shropshire schools are gaining an additional £3.7 million by 2019-20, of which £2.6 million will be allocated in 2018-19. The websites he mentions are fundamentally misleading, and their claims are based on flawed calculations. They say that money to schools is being cut when it is increasing, and they say that teacher numbers will go down although they are going to go up. Of course, that is all contrary to the Leader of the Opposition’s claims last week, but the national funding formula provides cash gains for every school.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Yesterday it was revealed in The Sunday Times that, on just one day in January, there were more than 50 classes of 50 pupils. The head of one of the schools affected said that that was due to trying to save money on supply teachers as a result of huge budget cuts. Does the Secretary of State agree with that head?
Justine Greening
The story was based, I think, on misleading facts. For example, some of the classes were of choirs or restructured PE classes, which would be expected to have more children. The bottom line is that the average primary class size is just 0.7 of a pupil higher than in 2010, despite there being 506,000 more primary school pupils. In fact, the average secondary school class size in 2018 will be some 0.3 of a pupil higher than in 2010. In other words, the figures are broadly stable. In spite of the fact that we have many, many more pupils in the system, we are making places available.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
My Department has been working to identify the efficiency savings that will ultimately result in a cash boost for schools and put £1.3 billion directly into the hands of headteachers. That means that, across the country, funding will be maintained in real terms per pupil over the next two years.
Steve McCabe
I cannot say that that was a terribly revealing answer, but the Minister for School Standards did better in a recent letter, in which he said that, over three years, the Department will cut about £1 billion from the free schools programme, which he was lauding a second ago, and 37% from the healthy living project. Is that how the Secretary of State is trying to compensate for the cuts she has made to the core schools budget?
Justine Greening
Most parents would be staggered that the hon. Gentleman is so against my looking across my Department to make sure that I challenge it and its officials to work as efficiently as we are now challenging schools to be. That is quite right, and I am now able to put the fruits of that initiative into the hands of headteachers, providing them with more money on the frontline. We will be making effective savings, which is actually the way to get more out of our education budget.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State confirm the National Audit Office assessment that £2.7 billion has been cut from the schools budget since 2015, and that the £1.3 billion she mentioned earlier will protect budgets only until 2020, after which she will either need new money from the Treasury or she will need simply to deliver another cut to school funding?
Justine Greening
As the hon. Lady should know, the next spending review process is yet to get under way. Of course school budgets, alongside every other budget across government, will be agreed as part of that. We had a question earlier about the fact that money and results are not necessarily correlated, and I have to say that if there is one part of our United Kingdom where a Government are failing their children, it is Wales—where Labour is in charge—not England.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
We are pressing ahead with our engagement process with relevant groups and interested individuals. We will be including parliamentarians over the coming months, and we will also seek the views of young people and parents. As has just been announced, Ian Bauckham, the chief executive officer of the Tenax Schools Trust and an executive headteacher, will advise on this work. He has considerable experience that will help us to ensure that schools teach a quality curriculum. Of course, following the engagement, we will consult on draft regulations and guidance, and we will then have a debate and a vote on the regulations in Parliament.
Stella Creasy
I do not think that anybody in this place would disagree that the last couple of weeks have shown us the power of teaching our young people to respect each other and to treat each other with respect. With 25 sexual assaults reported in our schools every day, will the Secretary of State please fast-track the policy on what schools should do if a report is made to them? This was promised months and months ago, and it is now urgent. I have a case in my constituency, and I know of others—this is too important to wait.
Justine Greening
We will issue interim guidance this term, but the hon. Lady is quite right that if we are to make a longer-term change in the sort of attitudes that drive unacceptable behaviour in workplaces, we have to make a start in schools, which is why we are now updating the relationship and sex education guidance for the first time since 2000. We all recognise the need and we will approach this responsibly.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
In October, I had the pleasure to go back to Rotherham to visit my former school, which is now called Oakwood High School. It was absolutely inspiring to meet the students there now, as I was many years ago. I also helped to launch the new DFE-supported Institute for Teaching in Manchester, which will help to drive up standards and produce excellent teachers. Recently, we had the flexible working summit at the DFE to ensure that teaching is a profession for the modern workplace, thereby helping to drive recruitment and retention.
Mr Speaker
Questions and answers in topicals really must be much shorter from now on. They have become increasingly long over a period and it is not helpful to the House or to the number of contributors.
Dr Williams
A survey published today by the Sixth Form Colleges Association shows that funding cuts have caused one third of providers to drop courses in STEM subjects. We know that colleges are also dropping vocational qualifications. Does the Secretary of State agree that this month’s Budget must provide increased funds for colleges and sixth forms so that all forms of 16-to-19 education are on an equal footing for funding?
Justine Greening
I am, of course, always bidding for additional funding for education across the board, including technical education. The hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that maths is now the most popular A-level.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Justine Greening
Indeed, and there are now almost 400 free schools. I very much congratulate the Nova Education Trust on opening the Suthers School. I know that, as the chair of the governors, my hon. Friend will ensure that that school provides young people in his constituency with an excellent education.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Justine Greening
We have given clear guidance to schools that uniforms need to be affordable, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right that this is an important issue. It is certainly a cost that many parents worry about, and I assure her that making further progress to address it is on our agenda.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
New housing developments in my constituency are coming on stream quickly, but the necessary infrastructure, including school places, must be in place to support that growth. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that the new funding formula will help to address this issue and ensure that such infrastructure is in place?
Justine Greening
Under the new formula, money will follow the child and it will be flexed if they have additional needs. Of course, we work hand in hand with local authorities to make sure that basic need capital funding is available to ensure that we keep up with the need for school places. As I said, there have been 735,000 new school places since 2010. This Government are planning ahead and will continue to do so.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady will welcome the fact that when we recently published the results of the race disparity audit, a key part of the launch was the announcement of a review of exclusions, because we want to make sure that they are dealt with effectively by schools. That sits alongside announcements on improving the quality of alternative provision.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
What steps are being taken to include marriage in relationships education?
Justine Greening
This is exceptionally important. At the heart of this is the fact that we are trying to help young people to understand how commitments and relationships are very much at the core of a balanced life that enables people to be successful more generally. That is why we are looking to update the guidance, alongside the fact that the world in which young people are becoming adults is, frankly, now a much more difficult one. There are all sorts of challenges, not only in communities but, critically, online, so there are lots of reasons to do this.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Justine Greening
I take the hon. Lady’s point. It is important that we work with schools—and indeed parents —to ensure that they get all the benefits and support to which they are entitled. I assure her that work is under way to ensure that children and schools are not underfunded, and are receiving what they should receive.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Page 50 of the Conservative party manifesto says:
“We will replace the unfair and ineffective inclusivity rules that prevent the establishment of new Roman Catholic schools”.
It did not promise an interminable review. When will my right hon. Friend implement Conservative policy?
Justine Greening
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend responded to that review, but we certainly had a number of responses. We are looking through them carefully and I will update the House in due course.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Under the new national funding formula, West Sussex schools are set to have a funding increase of 10.7%. However, the county has been historically one of the lowest funded. Are there any other measures that can be brought forward to ensure that that historical underfunding is righted?
Justine Greening
As my hon. Friend says, the national funding formula aims to address the inequity that has been baked into our funding system for many, many years. That sits alongside the pupil premium investment and the work that increasingly takes place in our schools to make sure that they operate in a way that maximises the educational impact that they get for every single pound. That means a focus on efficiency.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
When I used to mark A-level economics scripts, a key aspect of getting a higher grade was knowing the difference between a real-term increase and a cash increase. Why does the Secretary of State choose to set such a bad example to our students by deliberately muddying those two concepts?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman might have marked those exams, but I ended up getting a first-class economics degree at university—[Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I can tell him that the difference between what we are proposing under the national formula is the fact that under our approach, schools will get a cash increase, but under Labour’s approach, they would have had their cash absolutely frozen. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know why the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) is hollering from a sedentary position. I always had him down as an academic, indeed a rather cerebral fellow, who is capable of somewhat statesmanlike behaviour, from which he seems to be departing this afternoon—not to be repeated.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Support Our Sixth-formers funding impact assessment, which was published today, shows general sixth-form education under real strain. Bearing in mind that each sixth former is funded at £4,500, compared with £5,700 for a pupil aged between 11 to 16, will the Secretary of State take the opportunity of the Budget to use last year’s underspend and uplift funding by £200 for each student aged 16 to 18?
Justine Greening
We have maintained that rate across the course of this spending review. It is probably not for me to pre-empt what will be in the Budget.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on the progress of the introduction of the T-level in catering and hospitality? It is eagerly anticipated by the tourism and hospitality sector, and is essential for providing the skilled staff that the sector needs for the future.
Justine Greening
There has never been more money flowing into our schools system. The schools budget has risen year on year. Over the next two years alone, it will rise from £41 billion a year to more than £43 billion a year.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Last Friday, I held the Wiltshire festival of engineering, inspiring more than 3,000 children and involving more than 35 businesses and organisations. The Schools Minister kindly attended. The event highlighted that Wiltshire really is a hub of engineering. Will the Minister confirm that the new careers strategy will encourage a better link between schools and businesses, and prioritise sectors with severe skills shortages, such as STEM?
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has said a lot about extra money going to schools and classrooms, but Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which is run by the Conservatives and independents, is trying to claw back £3 million of the additional £4 million, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) alluded to. Will the Secretary of State meet us so that we can work together to ensure that the money destined for our classrooms and children actually gets to them?
Justine Greening
We have put in place clear rules regarding the extent to which councils are able to switch money between the key funds. There is potential for them to go beyond that, but they would need to make an exceptional case.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that Paignton Community and Sports Academy does great work for my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). However, it is hampered by the fact that some of its buildings are from the 1940s. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can deal with those old buildings?
Justine Greening
Either the Schools Minister or I will be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that.
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Some 50% of schools and colleges, including Huddersfield New College in my constituency, have dropped modern foreign language subjects from their subject choices, citing funding as a reason. What is the Minister doing to reverse this trend?
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Contact with nature can provide tremendous spin-offs for schoolchildren’s mental and physical health. Will the Secretary of State indicate whether any formal assessment has been made of projects such as the Forest School project at King’s Hall in Taunton Deane? Might she be inclined to encourage green learning in schools?
Justine Greening
As well as being an economist, I am a keen gardener, so I think it is important for our children to learn about the environment around them—not just why it matters, but how to take care of it. We will talk to my hon. Friend about what more we can do.
Equalities
Justine Greening Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
On 29 June I informed the House that women normally resident in Northern Ireland would no longer be charged for abortions received in England. Since the date of the announcement, the three main providers of abortions in England have not been charging residents of Northern Ireland. I am grateful to them and we will be reimbursing them for these services. We have now developed our ongoing plans for delivering this commitment, and I am pleased to update you on the arrangements.
We intend that women from Northern Ireland will access the service through existing providers of abortions in England, in the same way that women in England do. We have invited providers of abortions in England to apply for funding to extend their service provision to women from Northern Ireland. The funding will be accessed via a grant scheme that will be administered by the Department of Health. The cost of this service will be met by the Government Equalities Office with additional funding provided by HM Treasury. A small number of procedures will continue to be provided through the NHS where this is necessary for medical reasons. NHS providers will also be reimbursed by the Department of Health.
Women from Northern Ireland seeking medical support in England will be eligible for:
A consultation with an abortion provider in England, including an assessment of whether the legal grounds for an abortion are met;
the abortion procedure;
HIV or sexually transmitted infection testing as appropriate;
an offer of contraception from the abortion provider; and
Support with travel costs if the woman meets financial hardship criteria.
This is comparable with the service that women in England receive. We are establishing a central booking service that will be run by one of the providers who will be selected as part of the grant award process.
The central booking service will simplify the process for women who choose to access these services. It means that women from Northern Ireland will have a single telephone number to call and an appointment will be made with the most appropriate provider, based on the woman’s requirements, her medical condition and the availability of the providers. The central booking service will be operational before the end of the year. In the meantime women from Northern Ireland will continue to make their own arrangements with the providers, but will not be charged.
My original statement was clear this does not change the position in relation to the provision of abortions in Northern Ireland, which is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly. That remains the case. Our proposals do not include the provision of any services in Northern Ireland.
[HCWS192]
Primary Assessment: England
Justine Greening Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Primary education is fundamentally important to ensuring that every child receives the best possible start in life. As I set out in my statement to Parliament in March this year, the primary assessment and accountability system has a crucial role to play in ensuring that every child, no matter what their background or where they go to school, benefits from a high-quality primary education.
Last October, I set out my intention to establish a settled, trusted primary assessment system. To help us move towards this, we published earlier this year parallel consultation documents on the long-term future of primary assessment and on future assessment arrangements for children, working below the standard of the national curriculum tests. These consultations considered a number of the key issues facing the primary assessment and accountability system, including how the assessment system can help teachers to prepare pupils to succeed at school, the starting point from which to measure the progress that schools help children make in primary school, and how end of key stage teacher assessments could be improved. The consultations closed in June and I am grateful to the many people and organisations, and particularly the headteachers and teachers, who took the time to provide thoughtful, considered responses.
Having considered the views expressed, I am today publishing the Government’s responses to both consultations, which set out how we will establish a stable and effective primary assessment system. These documents include commitments to:
improve the early years foundation stage profile by: revising the early learning goals to make them clearer and align them more closely with teaching in key stage 1; this will support us to meet our manifesto commitment to strengthen the teaching of literacy and numeracy in the early years. We will also strengthen the way assessment information is passed on to year 1 teachers; and review the guidance and moderation process to reduce administration burdens;
improve school-level progress measures, and give schools credit for the education that they provide to their pupils in the reception year, year 1 and year 2, by introducing a statutory assessment in reception to replace the existing key stage 1 baseline;
reduce workload and administration burdens on teachers by making end of key stage 1 assessments non-statutory in all-through primary schools, once the new reception baseline has become established, with national sampling to be introduced so that we can continue to monitor standards;
remove the statutory duty to report teacher assessment in reading and mathematics at the end of key stage 2 from the 2018 to 2019 academic year onwards which will form part of our drive to bear down on unnecessary administrative burdens, while keeping our rigorous key stage 2 national curriculum tests in these subjects, which will enable schools to uphold high standards while also reducing workload and administrative burdens on teachers;
improve the way that writing is assessed, so that teachers have more scope to use their professional judgment when assessing pupil performance;
aid children’s fluency in mathematics through the introduction of a multiplication tables check, from the summer of 2020, to be administered to pupils at the end of year 4. This will help us to deliver on our commitment that every child will know their times tables off by heart by the time that they leave primary school; and
improve the statutory assessment of pupils working below the standard of national curriculum tests by extending the interim pre-key stage standards to cover all pupils engaged in subject specific learning, and by piloting the Rochford review’s recommended approach to assessing pupils who are not yet engaged in subject specific learning.
We will continue to work closely with headteachers, teachers and all those with an interest in primary education as we implement these changes, building on the dialogue started by the consultation. It is by working together that we will achieve our goal of a proportionate assessment system that supports every child to meet their full potential.
Copies of both of these Government responses will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament.
[HCWS139]
Schools: National Funding Formula
Justine Greening Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
In my statement to the House on 17 July, I set out my Department’s plans to increase spending on schools by £1.3 billion over the next two years, on top of our existing plans. I said that that would mean that we could press ahead with introducing a national funding formula for schools and high needs from April 2018 that would provide a per-pupil cash increase in respect of every school and every local area, and would also maintain the overall budget in real terms, per pupil. I promised to return to the House in September to set out the Government’s final decisions on introducing fairer funding in full, and today I am doing just that.
This is an historic reform. It means that, for the first time, the resources that the Government are investing in our schools will be distributed according to a formula based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. Not only will the national funding formula direct resources where they are most needed, helping to ensure that all children can receive the high quality education that they deserve, wherever they live; it will also provide that money through a transparent formula, which will mean greater predictability. By clearly setting out the sums that we are directing to different aspects of the formula—to the basic amount per pupil, or to children with additional needs—it allows for properly informed debate on this vital topic, something that the existing opaque system has held back.
The need for reform has been widely recognised across the House and beyond. The National Association of Head Teachers has said:
“A revised funding formula for schools is essential”.
The Association of School and College Leaders believes:
“The way in which funding has been distributed to schools has been flawed for many years... Reform of the school funding system is vital”.
The case is so strong because there is manifest unfairness when Coventry receives £510 more per pupil than Plymouth, despite their having equal proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals, and Nottingham attracts £555 more than Halton, near Liverpool in Cheshire. Addressing those simple but damaging inequalities will represent the biggest improvement in the school funding system for decades. It is a step that previous Governments have failed to take for far too long.
It has been vital for us to take account of a broad range of views when making such a significant reform. Our wide-ranging consultations, both in 2016 and earlier this year, allowed us to hear from more than 26,000 individual respondents and representative organisations. I am grateful to everyone who took the time to share their views and respond to the consultations, including many Members on both sides of the House. We have considered all those responses carefully.
As I said to the House in July, I am putting an additional £1.3 billion into core funding for schools and high needs, so that the overall budget will now rise by about £2.6 billion in total, from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to about £42.4 billion in 2018-19 and £43.5 billion in 2019-20. Building on this firm foundation, I can today set out the final funding formulae we will introduce, which, over the next two years will mean we will deliver on our manifesto pledge to make school funding fairer and ensure that we deliver higher funding as well in respect of every area and school.
Building on our consultation proposals, as I set out in the House prior to the summer recess, I am increasing the basic amount of funding that every pupil will attract. We recognise the challenges of the very lowest funded schools so will introduce a minimum per pupil funding level. Under the national funding formula, in 2019-20 all secondary schools will attract at least £4,800 per pupil. Today I can announce that all primary schools will attract at least £3,500 per pupil through the formula in 2019-20. And the formula will provide these levels of funding quickly: secondary schools will attract at least £4,600, and primary schools £3,300, in 2018-19, and then the full amounts the following year.
I will also provide a cash increase in respect of every school. Final decisions on local distribution will be taken by local authorities, but under the national funding formula every school will attract at least 0.5% more per pupil in 2018-19, and 1% more in 2019-20, compared with its baseline. Many schools will, of course, attract significantly larger increases under the formula: up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19, and a further 3% per pupil in 2019-20. And the minimum per pupil funding level will not be subject to this gains cap, delivering particularly fast gains in respect of the very lowest funded schools.
Our consultation confirmed the importance of funding for additional needs—deprivation and low prior attainment. We know that these factors are our best way to identify the children who are most likely to fall behind, and to remain behind, their peers, and it is only right that we provide the greatest resources to the schools that face the greatest challenges. As I said in July, we will protect the funding the formula will direct towards additional needs at the level proposed in our consultation, and I can therefore confirm today that total spending on additional needs will be £5.9 billion.
As we proposed in December, we will distribute that funding more fairly and in line with the best available evidence. We will use a broad measure of deprivation to include all those who are likely to need extra help, and we will increase the proportion of additional needs spending allocated on the basis of low prior attainment, to give additional support to those who might not be economically deprived but still need help to catch up.
I can also confirm today that, as we proposed in December, the national funding formula will allocate a lump sum of £110,000 for every school. For the smallest, most remote schools, we will distribute a further £26 million in dedicated sparsity funding. Only 47% of eligible schools received sparsity funding in 2017-18 because some local authorities chose not to use this factor. Our national funding formula will recognise all eligible schools.
Our formula will rightly result in a significant boost directed towards the schools that are currently least well funded. Secondary schools, which would have been the lowest funded under our December proposals, will now gain on average 4.7%. Rural schools will gain on average 3.9%, with those schools in the most remote locations gaining 5%. Those schools with high numbers of pupils starting with low attainment will gain on average 3.8%.
As I set out in my statement in July, to provide stability for schools through the transition to the national funding formula, each local authority will continue to set a local formula, which will determine individual schools’ budgets in their areas in 2018-19 and 2019-20, in consultation with local schools. This mean that the school-level allocations from Government I am publishing today, alongside this announcement, are notional allocations which we will use to set the total funding available for schools in each area. As I set out in the House, schools’ final actual funding allocations for 2018-19 and 2019-20 will be based on that local formula agreed in their area by the local authority, and schools will receive that allocation ahead of the new financial year, as normal. I will put copies of both documents in the House of Commons Library, and the Lords.
Our objective to provide the best education for every child places a particular focus on the support we offer to the children who face the greatest barriers to success, and on the high-needs budget that provides that support. The case for reform of high-needs funding is every bit as strong as the case for school funding reform, and therefore the move to a national funding formula is every bit as important. We set out full proposals for the introduction of a high-needs national funding formula last December, alongside our schools formula, and I am today confirming that we will proceed with those proposals.
Thanks to the additional £1.3 billion investment I announced in July, I can increase funding for high needs so that I will also be able to raise the funding floor to provide a minimum increase of 0.5% per head in 2018-19 and 1% per head in 2019-20 for every local authority. Underfunded local authorities will receive up to 3% per head gains a year for the next two years, to help them catch up. That is a more generous protection than we proposed in December, to help every single local authority maintain and improve the support it offers to some of our most vulnerable children. It means that local authorities will see a 4.6% increase on average in their high-needs budgets.
The additional £1.3 billion we are investing in schools and high needs means that all local authorities will receive an increase in 2018-19 over the amount they plan to spend in 2017-18. Local authorities will take the final decisions on distributing funding to schools within local areas, but the formula will provide for all schools to see an increase in funding compared with their baseline.
In conclusion, the new national funding formulae will redress historical inequities in funding that have existed for far too long, while also maintaining stability so that schools and local areas are not disadvantaged in the process. After too many years in which the funding system has placed our schools on an unfair playing field, we are finally making the decisive and historic move towards fair funding.
The national funding formulae for schools and high needs and the increased investment we are making in schools will help us continue to improve standards and create a world-class education system. No one in this House should accept the system as it has been; it has perpetuated inequality and that is unacceptable. I am proud that it is a Conservative Government who are now putting that right. On this firm foundation, we will all—Government and schools, teachers and parents—be able to build a system that finally allows every child to achieve their potential, no matter what their background, or where they are growing up.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Once again on the last day before a recess we see the Secretary of State sneak out new policy. [Interruption.] I would hardly call that once in a national debate, but I wonder whether this statement has been put out today to try and hide and to distract from the fact that the Government are ripping up the rulebook on democracy, as they did yesterday in the debate on tuition fees. But of course, if this is a genuine change of heart, it is welcome. After all, the Secretary of State will be taking her policy directly from the pledges in the Labour party manifesto. Ever since she took office, we have been urging her to keep the promise her party made in 2015 to protect funding in real terms for every pupil.
Will the Secretary of State guarantee to the House that no school will be even a penny worse off in real terms—not cash terms—as a result of this funding formula? Will the proposal apply from this year or from 2015? The National Audit Office has found that schools have already lost nearly £2.7 billion since her party made that pledge. Members across the House have heard from schools that are already facing those cuts and that have had to beg parents to help them to find money and resources. Will she admit to the House that her announcement today does nothing to reverse those cuts and keep that promise?
The Secretary of State has said that her funding formula will increase per pupil funding by 0.5% a year until 2020, but the Education Policy Institute has found that in that period, inflationary pressures are over 2%, so will she admit that her funding formula will in fact mean a real-terms cut in school budgets? In today’s statement she says that the formula provides “a per pupil cash increase in respect of every school and every local area”, so will she admit that there will be pupils, schools and local authorities that see a real-terms cut in funding by 2020? She has referred to transitional protections offered to schools. How long will the transition period last? Will it include protections against losses during that transition, and for how long will those protections last?
The Secretary of State said that the basic amount allocated to each secondary school pupil will be “at least £4,800 per pupil”, but the Education and Skills Funding Agency guidance describes this an “optional” part of the funding formula. Will she guarantee that all secondary schools will now receive £4,800 per pupil? Can she tell us how much this increase in the basic per pupil funding rate will cost each year, and how she will fund it? Today’s announcement says that the minimum funding per primary school pupil will be £3,500. In December, the proposed basic per pupil funding in primary schools was £2,712, so again I ask: how much will the increase in basic per pupil funding cost, and how will it be funded?
None of the money announced so far is actually new money for education. Instead, the Secretary of State is simply cutting elsewhere to fill the black hole that the Government have created. Can she confirm that over £300 million of the supposedly new funding for schools has actually come from cutting the healthy pupils fund by over 75%? That money was meant to be ring-fenced for school sports, healthier meals, facilities for disabled pupils and mental health provision, and it is only days since the Prime Minister claimed that this would be her new priority. Only in February this year, the Secretary of State promised in a statement that the fund would not fall below £415 million. Will she now apologise for breaking yet another promise?
This leaves another £100 million that must come from her main capital budget. Where will that come from? She has said that she will “reprioritise” £250 million in 2018-19 and £350 million in 2019-20. Where will those cuts fall? She has also said that she will “redirect” £200 million from “central programmes that support schools on relatively narrow areas of their work”. Will she tell us what those programmes and those narrow areas are? Or is the truth that she simply made up that number, hoping that her civil servants can find more cuts?
The July announcement went no further than 2020. What happens then? I will be glad if the Secretary of State has listened to us, and to parents and teachers across the country, and looked again at the funding formula, but the fact is that this does not meet the promises that she has made. When will she return to this House with the funding that her party promised the electorate?
Justine Greening
I want to start by adding a massive thank you to the Department for Education officials who have worked on this for many years. It has been a complex piece of work, and it has been looked at under many Governments. I want to put on record my thanks to the team.
On the points raised by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), I had hoped, given the cross-party recognition of the need for school funding reform, that there might be a warmer welcome for this announcement. It is not just schools represented by Government Members that will gain from it; many in Opposition Members’ constituencies have been equally underfunded. This is not a political issue; it is a question of ensuring that we fund children, wherever they are growing up in our country, in a consistent, transparent and fair fashion. That is what we are shifting towards today. This is not an uncomplicated thing, and we have worked really hard to make sure that schools that were already well funded will continue to remain well funded. However, this is also about making sure that schools that have traditionally been underfunded for a very long time can now start to catch up.
The hon. Lady asked a few questions. I think she misunderstood my point about ensuring that there is a minimum per pupil funding rate of £4,800 for secondary schools and £3,500 for primary schools. There are not many schools that are not at that minimum funding rate, but it is important for those that are below it that we address those issues through the consultation response. That is what we are doing today—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady asks what the guidance says. That guidance is for local authorities, as I have explained and as I hope she will understand. Local authorities currently set local formulae. We had already said, and I had hoped she might have recalled, that that will continue for 2018-19. When I came back to the House in July this year, I set out that that would also continue for 2019-20 because we believe that the right way to bring in a significant change in school funding is to work with local authorities. As part of the setting out of the final funding formula, we also set out a small but important element of flexibility for local authorities to respond to the changes as they come through and to nuance them to take account of local issues. That is where the optional element comes in. We are simply saying that it is right to give local authorities a modicum of flexibility to ensure that they can use the funding effectively on the ground.
We are being clear-cut about what the funding formula allocates to every single school in this country, and Members will be able to see those allocations. They will be able to sit down with their local authorities, and if they want the funding to go to those schools they will be able to ensure that it does. I expect that some local authorities will feel that the right thing to do is to get on with putting the funding formula in place at local level and that they will simply pass the money straight through to the schools. That is something that I would support, but it is important to have a small amount of flexibility while the formula comes in.
The hon. Lady asked about the fact that we are putting an extra £1.3 billion of additional funding into the core schools formula and budget. I felt it was important to do this. Over the past few years, we have challenged schools to try to find efficiencies, because we want to get the most out of every pound we put in. However, it is also important that I challenge the rest of my Department to do the same kind of exercise that we are asking schools and headteachers to do. I believe that doing that has enabled us to free up some additional resourcing that we can now push directly to headteachers in the frontline. Frankly, I am staggered that the hon. Lady thinks that that is a bad thing to do. Anyone in my role should be challenging their civil servants to try to work smarter and more efficiently to get money directly through to the frontline. That is yet another example of the hon. Lady doing nothing other rant and produce rhetoric, and there is not a lot of thought behind that rhetoric about what is the right thing to do.
With that, I will sit down. I look forward to the contributions from hon. Members.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I strongly welcome this announcement, particularly the help for the disadvantaged. This is social justice in action, and I look forward to discussing the measures with my right hon. Friend when she comes to the Education Committee on 25 October. Has an assessment been made of how much the pupil premium helps disadvantaged pupils in particular? How will the pupil premium sit alongside the national funding formula?
Justine Greening
We have been clear about protecting the funding that is going to the children we want to be able to catch up. Both the Education Endowment Foundation and Ofsted have done important, insightful work on the use of the pupil premium. It is important that we get the most out of that investment, and I think we are steadily understanding what works to help children who are falling behind to catch up. The transparency in the new formula means that we can now take a similar approach on helping children catch up with the other money flowing through the core schools formula. In time, we can have a common strategy across the two budget elements. One of the most important things that we did in education in the previous Parliament, other than our general push to raise standards, was to identify that we needed to put funding against children who are at risk of falling behind, because that is how we will drive social mobility through education.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
In the Secretary of State’s original funding formula proposals, schools in Durham were projected to lose up to £1,000 per pupil. Even with the additional resources, which are welcome, many school budgets in Durham will, at best, flatline. Will the Secretary of State guarantee today that no school in Durham will face a real-terms cut? In addition, when will she address the urgent need to rebuild many of our schools?
Justine Greening
First, as I set out today, there will be a minimum 0.5% cash increase per pupil for all schools in 2018-19, increasing to 1% by 2019-20, and that settlement is actually more generous than the Opposition manifesto commitment. Those schools are now doing better under our funding formula.
Secondly, we are investing huge amounts in our schools estate, not least through the condition improvement fund. We have managed to get ahead of the school places crisis that was left to us by the previous Labour Government. Ensuring that we have the school places in our system that children need is a major thing that we have done.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I welcome the changes to a system that was unfair, opaque and out of date. I am glad that the Secretary of State has listened to the headteachers, the governors, the MPs and the parents, who have asked that no school should be left behind and that those that have been dramatically underfunded should be able to catch up within two years, and I am glad that she has lifted the cap on the transition. Lastly, I recognise that quality of teaching is also important in addition to the funds, and I hope that teachers will recognise that this increase in funding acknowledges their contribution to the education of all our children.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right that it is important that schools that have been underfunded for years while being held to account on exactly the same standards as every other school can catch up properly. As for the quality of teaching, the continued professional development of teachers and the teaching profession is an intrinsic part of school improvement and the two are inextricably linked. Today, we have announced the first successful bids to our teaching and leadership innovation fund, which is about ensuring that we lift up our teaching profession and is particularly directed towards schools in parts of the country where we know we can do better.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State guarantee that no Liverpool school will receive a real-terms cut? Although the discretion given to local authorities is welcome, will she also guarantee that that will not lead to Liverpool City Council being blamed for a cut coming from central Government?
Justine Greening
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has been clear that our £1.3 billion additional investment will lead to the per pupil core schools budget being protected in real terms, which is good news. As for the schools the hon. Lady mentions specifically, we will ensure that all Members get the breakdown of the notional allocations. I expect some local authorities to choose simply to reflect the national funding formula at a local level, but that will be a matter for them. I am sure that Members from across the House will want to have those discussions at a local level.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and look forward to additional financial resources for Stockport’s schools. Much of the previous concern about school funding centred on the proportion of the basic amount per pupil, so will she comment further on that aspect of the new national funding formula?
Justine Greening
The basic amount will be going up and the proportion is broadly stable, but the bottom line is that the £1.3 billion extra in the core schools budget is principally going through that per-pupil amount, which is why it has been raised overall, and why I have chosen to protect the amount for additional needs.
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
At a meeting with the National Association of Head Teachers this week, headteachers told me that they face a teacher recruitment crisis, a school budget crisis and endless tinkering with assessment and the curriculum. Will the Secretary of State tell the House which of those she would like them to deal with first?
Justine Greening
As I said at the beginning of my statement, the NAHT welcomed the move to fair funding. As for teacher recruitment, part of the answer is to ensure that we are investing in teachers, and the NAO was clear that the Department is taking steps to ensure that we do just that.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I thank Ministers for meeting senior headteachers from my constituency, and for responding to their principal request, which is that to be truly fair to pupils across the country, and to cover school costs properly, school funding should include a minimum amount per pupil, wherever they live. I also thank Ministers for allocating £4,800 per pupil from 2019, which is exactly the amount that my headteachers recommended. Does that not show that this Government are not only listening, but acting?
Justine Greening
We have listened carefully and have had meetings with many Members from across the House. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards for holding many of those meetings alongside me. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and other Cheshire MPs have been tireless campaigners on behalf of their local communities and schools, and I have appreciated the comments, suggestions and proposals. They carried weight, which is why they have been reflected in the final funding formula that I have set out today.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The shadow Secretary of State is absolutely right, because she listens to the voice of headteachers; 100 headteachers came to Parliament earlier this week and told heartbreaking stories of having to sack teachers and teaching assistants. One headteacher had had to sack the caretaker and, because he could not afford to replace them, was having to do some of the caretaker’s duties himself.
I want to correct the Secretary of State. The NAHT said today that, while progress on the funding formula is welcome, “at least” £2 billion in additional resources is necessary, without which they will have to
“cut staff, narrow the curriculum, remove pastoral support”,
and many will have to close down after-school clubs. Despite the progress on the funding formula, the simple truth is that the Government are still letting down this country’s children.
Justine Greening
I strongly disagree with the hon. Gentleman. We are putting additional money into our schools. Over the next few years, as I have said, the schools budget will rise by £2.6 billion. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made it clear that, over the remaining years of the spending review, we are now protecting per-pupil funding in real terms. It is easy to focus on spending, which is of course important, but we are more interested in results, and the results in English schools are that standards are going up, not least due to the hard work of our teachers, results are getting better and outcomes for young people and children are getting better. That is something we should all talk up, rather than talk down.
Of course over in Wales, where Labour is in charge, it is a very different situation, with that country slipping down the international league tables on education.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I welcome the engagement of the Secretary of State and the Minister with responsibility for schools in this process over many years. Lincolnshire, as the Secretary of State knows, is one of the most challenged areas when it comes to school funding, but will she confirm that this new funding formula pays particular attention to the kind of challenges that we see in coastal communities? As she knows, coastal communities face unique challenges in recruiting teachers because half the catchment area is the sea.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That very point was made to me in Scarborough, which is one of our opportunity areas. The situation is exacerbated by the very different funding levels of different schools, which of course has knock-on effects on the amount of staffing that schools are able to provide. The formula’s consistency will put us on a much firmer footing.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Sutton has excellent schools and teachers, but it is a London borough with a very high cost of living—higher as a result of Brexit-driven inflation. Now that the Government have breached the pay cap for police and prison officers, and as they could not defend NHS pay levels yesterday, do they agree it is time to fund a proper pay rise for teachers, to reward them for their professionalism and to help them address the pressures of cost of living increases?
Justine Greening
The right hon. Gentleman may be aware that we accepted the recommendation of the School Teachers Review Body, an independent review board that considers all the evidence provided not only by the Government but by the unions, labour economists and all sorts of interested stakeholders. The review body made its proposal to me earlier in the summer, and I accepted it. I have no doubt that, when the review body next assesses teachers’ pay, it will continue to consider recruitment and retention alongside affordability, which is quite right.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of the retention of local authority discretion for the next two years, which will assist my village schools, many of which are sparse but not quite sparse enough. Can she reassure me that, at the end of that two years, the level of funding that those village schools receive will effectively become baked in as the baseline for future funding and that they will not face some kind of cliff edge in the funding formula?
Justine Greening
Today I have set out the new funding formula for schools. We will have a transition period, during which local authorities continue to have the ability to allocate at local level, but we have made it clear that we are setting out the amounts that we think schools should get. That is the whole point of this process, which does reflect sparsity. We have more work to do to ensure that we reflect sparsity more accurately over the coming years, as I have set out in the funding formula document, but this is a step in the right direction. I fully expect that, over time, we will continue to get better and that we will move to an even more accurate approach to sparsity.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Seven years ago there were two secondary schools in Spennymoor. Now there is only one, and no children went into the sixth form this September, which obviously puts its future into question. Surely the truth is that because the Secretary of State has been able to win only £1.3 billion and not £2.7 billion, she will not be able to give those children in Spennymoor the future they should have.
Justine Greening
That is not correct. As the hon. Lady admits, we are putting additional funding into the core formula, which is part of this Government’s strategy to raise standards. Alongside that, of course, we have improved the curriculum, and the new GCSEs are successfully starting to roll out this year. As we debated yesterday, importantly, more and more of our young people are going to university. Record rates of disadvantaged young people are going on to higher education. We are moving in the right direction, but there are still parts of the country that have not reached the level and achieved the standards we want for our young people. That is why I have committed to having opportunity areas to lift up places that have perhaps faced the most difficult challenges. That is part of a broader push from the Government, and from me as Secretary of State, to ensure that we truly lift all parts of our country to reach the best standards of education for children.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I very much welcome what the Secretary of State has said today. Northamptonshire has been underfunded in the past. What particular consideration will be given to areas that receive significant housing growth in the years ahead?
Justine Greening
We built a growth factor into the formula. We believe the formula will address growth better than the current system, which simply considers historical data. We will make projections and seek to compensate local authorities on the basis of accurate data, rather than just pure long-term historical projections, and that is important. It is one of the many reasons why this is a good step forward.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has to accept that taking £2.7 billion out of education since 2015 and putting £1.3 billion back in leaves a £1.4 billion hole. That means schools are missing out. Will she undertake to write to every Member of the House with the per-pupil funding for each school, comparing the 2015 funding with the outcome of today’s announcement?
Justine Greening
We will be publishing a lot of data following this statement; the hon. Gentleman will have more than enough to look at. The point of introducing a funding formula is to make sure that schools that have been underfunded can start to catch up and to provide stability for better-funded schools. That is precisely what we are doing, and I am proud that we are able to achieve it.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister with responsibility for schools for sending officials to Cheshire to understand some of the problems faced by my schools, which were some of the worst funded in the country and are members of the f40. Will the Secretary of State praise the work of Edward Timpson, my former colleague, who worked incredibly hard to ensure that deprivation funding is reflected in the formula, and who fought valiantly on behalf of his constituents in Crewe and Nantwich?
Justine Greening
I will pay tribute to Edward Timpson. He was a fantastic Minister and is much missed in the House.
We work extremely hard, as a Department and as a group of Ministers, to listen to the very different views of colleagues in trying to achieve a national formula that works for very different schools and communities across the country. We have taken a big step in launching the formula today, and I am grateful for the contributions of all Members.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
One headteacher in my constituency told me, “The current funding situation means that sixth forms and colleges across the country will find it increasingly difficult to offer the range of subjects they used to and provide the number of teaching hours recommended to deliver courses over the two years.” A situation that leaves sixth forms unable to offer students what they need does not sound very fair because it is not fair. How is such an inadequate funding system in the interests of young people, employers or the economy?
Justine Greening
The formula I set out today covers primary and secondary—up to 16. We are making sure that we continue funding post-16 colleges and A-levels, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have gone beyond that. We announced an additional £500 million in the last Budget to help boost technical education, which will be of benefit not just to further education colleges, but to sixth forms and sixth-form colleges.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House to sneak out an oral statement. She must have got the formula right, as so few Opposition Members are in the Chamber. She is also right to say that this is about not only funding, but the quality of education. She will know that my area has a number of inadequate schools and that the Education Fellowship Trust is a failing academy chain and is being replaced. The excellent Schools Minister is working hard on this issue, but it would help me enormously if I could be given an update, in due course, about progress on replacing that academy chain.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend raises an important issue for his local community. A lot of work has been done to make sure that those schools are put under the control of a trust that can make sure it gives the best to local children. I know the Schools Minister will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to update him on the latest situation.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Let me give one cheer to the Secretary of State for at long last addressing the national formula. Will she give due credit to the f40 group, which has for a generation been arguing for this very change? I welcome the emphasis on sparsity, but will she re-examine the issue of using free school meals as a denominator of deprivation in rural areas? It has never been a good measure, and it never can be one because of the stigma associated with free school meals. Will she consider other formulae that are now available to make sure that we get proper representation in rural areas when the budget is settled?
Justine Greening
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the introduction of the funding formula. He is right to say that identifying deprivation is more complex than just looking at free school meals. That is why this formula includes the additional element of an index that looks at child deprivation in particular: the IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index. That index is already used by many local authorities, and it is an aspect of how we are assessing the deprivation factors that are built into this formula. I hope he will welcome that.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Let me congratulate the Secretary of State on her statement and say how much it will be welcomed in Torbay, where schools have been underfunded for some years. When the last set of figures was published, I found that a number of people felt that the formula would not be of benefit because of some things that they had been told by unofficial groups. What efforts will be made to ensure that schools, particularly in places such as Torbay, hear about the real impact of this new formula?
Justine Greening
We will be writing to every MP in this House with details about their local schools. I hope that they will be able to share those with local headteachers, and of course the local authority will consult on how then to spread that funding. It is vital that schools, and indeed parents, have the facts and are not given misleading information. It is important that we recognise that more funding—record funding—is now going into our schools system and that we focus equally on the standards we are getting in relation to that investment.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), on the sterling work she is doing to really shine a light on some of the problems in education today. I do not think it does the Secretary of State any justice to come to the Dispatch Box and be so condescending to a colleague on the other side of the House. Would it not make sense for the Government to look at where money is being lost from the system? In my constituency, a university technical college has closed its doors at a cost of £14 million to the taxpayer while a free school has closed at a cost of £4 million. The two closures have resulted in 300 pupils being displaced. Should that not be the focus of the Government’s attention?
Justine Greening
We do take action when we see schools that are not delivering for their pupils. Overall, that has borne fruit over the past few years, which is why Ofsted now grades nine out of 10 schools in our country as good or outstanding—that is significantly more than was the case in 2010. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman welcomed that, but I can assure him that where we see schools failing, we are taking action.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Mums and Dads in Barton Seagrave in Kettering have been alarmed by a recent Lib Dem newsletter which, under the title “Education Meltdown”, says that
“the Tory Government still plans to go ahead with its new school funding formula which could mean that by 2019 our local schools will face cuts of up to £543 per pupil”.
It goes on to state that
“the threatened loss to each school”
is as follows: Barton Seagrave Primary, £185,000; Latimer Arts, £485,000; and Southfield Girls, £416,000. Is it not simply outrageous to circulate such misleading and inaccurate information? Is it not clear that the Lib Dems have been caught red-handed peddling untruths?
Justine Greening
The Lib Dems have been caught red-handed and frankly it is a disgrace for them to put out such misleading “facts” to parents. Indeed, only one party of the two is against extra funding for schools, and that is the Lib Dems, because clearly they are against the national funding formula, which is directing additional funding to my hon. Friend’s community.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement and share her dismay and disappointment that Labour Members seem incapable of saying anything positive about it. Perhaps that is because they utterly failed to tackle this issue when they were in government. It is the Conservatives who have done this, and I want to thank her for listening to me and to other Devon MPs who have made representations. I also thank the hard-working teachers and staff of schools in my constituency. Will she confirm that the historical unfairness that has seen Devon schools underfunded will be tackled as a result of this announcement?
Justine Greening
This formula makes a big difference to schools in Devon. My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner for his local community in setting out the views of teachers and parents in Devon. This formula will mean that Devon schools gain, and I am proud that we are finally rectifying the unfair funding that so many schools have had to put up with for so long.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on delivering yet another of our election manifesto commitments. As a fellow London MP, she will know that we are affected by twin aspects in London. The first is rising rolls and young people needing a school place. Despite expanding a number of schools and delivering more new schools, that is ever a pressure. The second relates to those children who come in with English as an additional language—this situation is widespread. In the schools in my constituency, at least 161 different languages are spoken. Will she commit to keeping the funding position under review to make sure that additional resources are provided to deal with the expansion in the number of children in schools, so that per-pupil funding is not diluted?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend will welcome the fact that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has made it clear that the amount of funding we are now putting into our schools does protect per-pupil funding in real terms. He is right to mention school places, as the estimate is that between 2015 and 2020 we will need an additional 600,000 extra school places, which is why we are investing so much in building new schools and expanding existing schools. I can assure him that we are very clear about where those pressures are, and we will seek to work with communities, MPs and local authorities to make sure that good school places are available for every child in our country.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
This package of changes without doubt represents an improvement for West Sussex schools and I welcome it. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that she has been able to fund this improvement while still supporting the creation of new schools where they have been announced?
Justine Greening
Indeed, we have a very strong pipeline of schools under construction as well as ones that have been agreed, which will go ahead. As I have set out, we need to make sure that we keep ahead of the need for more places in the coming years, which is why we will be having more free schools and working with existing schools to see them expand, too.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on delivering yet another manifesto pledge, and I commend both her and the Schools Minister for their hard work in this area. Was she as disappointed as I was with the tone of Labour Front Benchers in response to this statement. Not only does this formula help historically underfunded areas such as mine, but it will help across the whole country, importantly, by dealing with additional needs and looking at deprivation, too.
Justine Greening
Absolutely. In some areas we should be able to set politics aside and work broadly on what we think is the right solution for our country as a whole. That is exactly how I have tried to approach this issue. I have welcomed the engagement we have had from all parties, including some Labour MPs—I just hope that that can transfer steadily to the Labour Front-Bench team. Perhaps it would be helpful just to have some transparency with a simple confirmation from the Labour Front-Bench team on whether they think this is a good funding formula. If they think it is not, they should be clear about whether they would rescind it should they get into power.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend and her team for grappling with a formula of labyrinthine complexity that penalised my constituents in Cheltenham and for listening to me and others and then revisiting the original iteration, which many of us thought needed further attention. The new formula means that per-pupil average funding for secondary schools in my constituency will rise from around £4,200 to £4,800, and that will change lives in Cheltenham. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to recognise that the average in many Labour seats will continue to be higher than £4,800? In those circumstances, it seems somewhat churlish for Labour Members to have responded as they have.
Justine Greening
I do agree with my hon. Friend. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to him for all he has done in his local community and, of course, with the f40 group to help to improve the formula and to make sure that what was, as he says, an incredibly complex piece of work ended up in the right place. We have today a strong national funding formula that can work for some very different schools and communities throughout the country, and I am proud that we are finally able to launch it.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
So often in this place one campaigns about historical underfunding but nothing happens, because it is all too difficult, so I have hung around this afternoon to thank my right hon. Friend. We have campaigned for rural schools for years, and she is now giving them 3.9% more. In Lincolnshire, we have many very small schools with under 100 pupils, and even some that traditionally have fewer than 50. My right hon. Friend has announced another 5% for schools in the most remote locations. Will that help counties such as Lincolnshire that have a sparse but evenly distributed population?
Justine Greening
The new formula will help those sorts of schools. We made a minor but important adjustment in the formula to make sure that it works for the very, very smallest schools, which otherwise might not have gained in the way we wanted them to. I hope that that is good news for my hon. Friend.
Higher Education (England) Regulations
Justine Greening Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Today’s debate is about student finance—an issue on which, as we have just seen, the Opposition put rhetoric ahead of results, spin ahead of substance, and self-interest ahead of students. As we have just heard reconfirmed, Labour’s policy is to have no tuition fees, but no fees means fewer students at worse universities. Labour’s policy is an anti-social mobility policy writ large. It is a disgrace.
Let me talk about how far we have come in recent years. We have made extraordinary strides in higher education since the Government took office. More people are at university than ever before, including record numbers of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is not a hypothesis but a simple fact. In 2016, disadvantaged 18-year-olds were 43% more likely to go to university than in 2009.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I am happy to take an intervention from anyone on the Opposition Benches who thinks that is a bad thing and wants to justify not continuing with a policy that has led to more disadvantaged young people going to university.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Over the summer I received a heartbreaking email from a young lady who was a student at Keele University in Newcastle-under-Lyme:
“Starting in September both my brother and I will be hoping to go off to university…My parents are having great difficulty trying to work out how they are going to support both of us and have suggested that I drop out of university as they can only support one of us financially. Last year I got the minimum loan from student finance and will be getting the minimum loan again”.
I ask the Secretary of State to consider that this is not just about rising tuition fees or turning maintenance grants into loans, but costs and support for students, in particular for what some people like to call the squeezed middle. Is it not time that the Government looked at this seriously, in the round, for the sake of students from all families in the country?
Justine Greening
First of all, there has never been more funding available to enable students to go to university. Secondly, the facts simply do not bear out the hon. Gentleman’s point. If what he says is correct, we would see fewer and fewer students going to university, but the exact opposite has happened. [Interruption.] We can hear Labour Members’ faux anger about how much debt students have, but the bottom line is that they do not want to even engage with the fact that there have never been more young people getting the opportunity to go to university. I was the first person in my family to get the chance to go to university. If Labour ever has the chance to bring in its policy there will be fewer people from backgrounds like mine who will have the chance to go to university. That is a statistical fact.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Justine Greening
Let me just make some progress and I will give way to my right hon. Friend in a second.
What would a policy of no fees mean? It would mean an emergency cap on student numbers, going back to the days when we had to limit the number of young people who went to university. That is because if we are not willing to fund the system, there can be fewer people in it. It has to be paid for.
Sir Desmond Swayne
I recently returned to my alma mater in Scotland, some 30 years after leaving. I was surprised to discover that Scottish students were capped at 20% of the student body. It is a disadvantage for all students if there are no fees, because universities cannot afford to educate them.
Justine Greening
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two groups of people who miss out in Scotland. We know what no fees would mean; we only have to look north of the border. In the interests of evidence-based policy, I encourage Labour Members and the Labour party to actually look at the impact of what they are proposing. Go to Scotland. See whether disadvantaged young people from the poorest families have more or less chance to go university in a country where there are no fees. They have less chance. In fact, young people overall have less chance of going to university in Scotland. I am not putting some kind of hypothesis before the House; this is a simple fact. It is a consequence of the Labour party policy of no fees.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Justine Greening
I will give way to the hon. Lady. Unlike Labour Members, I am quite happy to take interventions.
Emma Hardy
In the interests of providing evidence and discussing evidence-based education policy, which I am very keen to do, I have to ask the right hon. Lady whether she agrees that we have seen a reduction in the number of part-time students attending university and a reduction in the number of mature students. Part-time and mature students predominantly come from more economically deprived backgrounds, so they are missing out on their chance to attend university.
Justine Greening
I am pleased the hon. Lady accepts that there are more young people going to university. A number of different factors are involved when it comes to mature students. We will be providing more support for mature students, but part of the decline is due to the fact that more young people are going to university in the first place, so there is simply a smaller cohort of mature students.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend please never cease to remind people, as there is sometimes a risk that we are losing the PR war on this, that we are doing more for disadvantaged students, courtesy of the tuition fees—in particularly with the element of support above £6,000—than many previous Governments? That is why south of the border participation rates by poorer students, relative to students as a whole, are so much higher than they are in the north. We need to keep drilling that message home, because it is one of the best aspects of tuition fees.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend has made the point brilliantly, and of course it is not just about making sure that university is open to young people from disadvantaged families—although it is about that too; actually there is much greater diversity among the young people now able to get to university for the first time, particularly among black, Asian and minority ethnic groups across our country. That is something that we should welcome and be proud of. Moreover, through the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, we are doing more to ensure that once people get to university they stay and complete their courses.
I want to finish my point about Scotland. In that country, which has no fees, as Labour is proposing for England, there are fewer young people going to university. Research by the Sutton Trust found that last year in Scotland the gap between the number of people from the most and least advantaged areas going to university was the highest of any of the home nations of the UK. Disadvantaged young people are less likely to go to university in Scotland than they are here. Labour cannot want to see that happen here, yet under its policy the better-off would still go to university and the worse-off would lose out.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Is it not worse than that? Under Labour, upon leaving university and entering the world of work, people will have fewer job opportunities because when Labour wrecks the economy, much of the recent job growth will be obliterated.
Justine Greening
Of course my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The last Labour Government left youth unemployment 30% to 50% higher than when they came in. The ultimate opportunity destroyer in our country is a Labour Government running our economy.
I shall add a further reason why disadvantaged young people would lose out under Labour’s policy: who would pay for those people who did get to university to go to university? It would be some of those disadvantaged young people who had missed out, it would be their families, it would be pensioners—we would all be paying for the cohort of young people most likely to become higher-rate taxpayers to get a degree.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I think what most of us taking part in this debate want is the right balance. I was the Chair of the Education and Skills Select Committee when we introduced the £3,000 fees, and the balance then was between what the employers paid, what the individual who benefited paid, what the taxpayer paid and the good to the community. The problem is that the cost has been ratcheted up to £9,000 with an unacceptable level of interest. Is it not time we had some moderation and a balance that is fair to students?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman should direct that question to his own Front-Bench team. It is they who are proposing a policy of zero balance by saying we should go from our current structure to no tuition fees at all. As I have said, the big losers would be the most disadvantaged young people in our country. Labour has proposed a policy for the moneyed, not the few. Whereas no cap on students means more students in England, no fees means fewer students. As we know from Scotland, no fees also harms quality, because it means a return to the past for our universities—a past that saw them starved of cash.
Justine Greening
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.
In the decades before tuition fees, per-student funding plummeted by 40%. When Labour first introduced fees, it was against a backdrop of an underfunded higher education system.There was a chorus of voices clamouring for change so that we could ensure that our world-class universities could have the funds that they needed.
We now have the highest GDP spending per student in the OECD. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the 2010 reforms increased the resources being invested in our students by universities by 25% in real terms since 2012. That is why the OECD says that our system is sustainable, unlike the unsustainable, underfunded university systems that we see on the continent. I had a chance to discuss the issue with Andreas Schleicher yesterday, and he made that very point.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I give way to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood).
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
We already know that 75% of students will not pay back their loans, or will not be able to do so. How can the Secretary of State say that the system is sustainable? And what about the young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who increasingly drop out of university because they cannot afford to stay? Is not the removal of maintenance grants part of what is disadvantaging those young people, and they cannot maintain their places at university even if they are fortunate enough to win one?
Justine Greening
The facts simply do not support the point that the hon. Lady has made. The facts are that more disadvantaged young people are making the decision to go to university, which I think is hugely welcomed and hugely important.
If Labour is able to pursue its catastrophic policy, our higher education system will be much more broadly at risk. It will not be just a case of students missing out. We have universities that are among the best in the world, but being the best in the world requires continued investment, and a no-fees policy would undo all that success. Funds for universities would dry up, and within a few years there would be a big funding crisis all over again.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State did not actually address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). What is she going to do about the fact that drop-out rates among disadvantaged young students have gone up, what is she going to do about the fact that part-time and mature applications are in free fall, and what is she going to do about the fact that students are increasingly struggling with maintenance costs? Her statement reeks of complacency; perhaps she will address the challenges ahead.
Justine Greening
Complacency is pushing ahead with a policy that we know will mean fewer disadvantaged young people going to university. As for the hon. Gentleman’s question about drop-out rates, they are lower now than they were in 2009-10, so there has been progress. However, he is right to say that we should continue to work on that issue and make progress. He will welcome the fact that the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 amends the Office for Students so that, as I have said, it focuses increasingly not just on access to universities but, critically, on participation and ensuring that young people finish the degree courses on which they embark.
I was talking about just how catastrophic Labour’s policy would be for continued funding for universities, which would simply dry up. Our world-class universities would wither on the vine. No fees—which is what Labour wants—would mean fewer students, in worse-funded universities. I think it is now time for Labour to admit that it will have to cap student numbers as well.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Let me take the Secretary of State back to her earlier point about the sustainability of funding. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), we know that 75% of students will not pay back their loans, and that all the Government are doing is saddling a future Government with having to pay off the huge debt that will remain unpaid, which will place a burden on the young people who have that debt now. The funding is not sustainable in any way. When will the Secretary of State address that?
Justine Greening
Our approach means that students make a time-limited contribution, and that the students who are earning the most pay the most. That is how the system works. The bottom line is that if the Labour party is saying that we should have no fees and that this system does not work, and people getting degrees should not have to pay for them, the only way to avoid this outcome is, presumably, although I would welcome any clarification from the Opposition, to place a huge burden on everyone else—on the majority of people who never went to university.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has referred to the policy of no fees quite a few times now. Can she confirm that in 2005 she stood on a manifesto commitment—and campaigned and won her seat—on precisely that policy of no fees?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady just needs to travel down the M4 to Wales to see her own party having two policies simultaneously on the same issue. I will take absolutely no lectures from the Labour party.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) and then make some progress.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the estimated cost of cancelling tuition fees and writing off debt will be £100 billion, a price to be paid by all taxpayers, many of whom will not have gone to university, and many of whom will not be earning as much as the graduates who benefit from that? Does she think that that is fair?
Justine Greening
Actually, we do not, but the Labour party clearly does. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is very unseemly gesticulation and what I can only describe as noisy chuntering from a sedentary position on both sides of the Chamber; chuntering from one side and what I will call eccentric gesticulation on the other. I do not wish to be the umpire as to which is the less desirable of these two undesirable behaviours.
Justine Greening
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I did not see the gesticulating, but am pleased that you are on top of keeping the House in order.
What we are having here now is a real debate, because I am prepared to take interventions from Labour Members and to engage in a debate. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) took just one, or perhaps two, interventions from Conservative Members.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I will give way. Come on! The more the merrier, frankly. We know what our policy is. Labour’s policy is utterly flawed.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for taking interventions. She is making a very spirited—albeit, in my opinion, flawed—argument that somehow because tuition fees went up at the same as time student numbers went up, one is linked to the other. How does she square that interpretation of the facts with the situation in my constituency, which has a nursing school where the conversion from bursary to tuition fees has seen a reduction in numbers of 33%, and nationally it has fallen by a quarter? If the Secretary of State is correct, surely the increase in tuition fees for nurses should have led to the number of applications skyrocketing?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman is trying to make a case that is fundamentally flawed. He is desperately scrabbling around, trying to find some alternative facts to cover up, with a little fact fig leaf, the reality that more disadvantaged young people are going to university, and more young people are going to university.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I am now going to make some progress, as I have allowed Opposition Members to make enough interventions, but none of them has any alternative facts of any real worth.
I want to conclude by saying that the only other way to maintain the £12 billion a year investment is for taxpayers to foot the bill under Labour’s policy. They would ask us taxpayers to pay £12 billion now and even more in the future. Indeed, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that even those sums were not right: it said there was a £2 billion black hole in Labour’s spending plans. Of course, that would mean immediate cuts—the equivalent of 40,000 lecturers losing their jobs and 160,000 students without a university place because of this black hole. Indeed, the cap on numbers would mean universities taking fewer students and closing courses. Some institutions would even become unviable. It would be the equivalent of closing several Russell Group universities.
I have to ask whether Labour Members really mean to have this policy. Have they understood the impact it would have? It has been confused and unclear at every turn, and most of all we have seen confusion over what they plan to do about the existing stock of student debt, which amounts to more than £100 billion, or 5% of GDP.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
Earlier, the Secretary of State tantalisingly referred to the situation in Wales. Might it help Opposition Members if she were to explain exactly what is going on in Wales with regard to tuition fees?
Justine Greening
The Labour party is increasing them. It is doing the very thing that Labour Members are expressing faux anger at in the Chamber today. I will come on to that in a second, because I have not quite finished—
Justine Greening
No thank you. I have taken lots of interventions.
During the election, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said that he would “deal with” student debt. I think he meant that taxpayers would deal with it. Then he ditched that promise after the election. It was snake oil populism at its worst. I have to say, however, that this debate represents a new low in Labour’s integrity-free politics. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne stands here today and opposes a fee increase in line with inflation, yet this is a core part of the fee regime that Labour put in place in 2004. Frankly, it is laughable that they are trying to be taken seriously on this. It is also an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
The Leader of the Opposition reneged on his clear pledge to deal with historic debt. Does the Secretary of State agree that that policy would have meant graduates repaying not only their own debt but the future debts of others?
Justine Greening
Indeed. The Labour party has a confused, muddled, counterproductive and anti-social mobility policy on student fees and student debt that would put at risk much of our higher education sector. It would be absolutely disastrous.
The bottom line is that, even now, across the border in Wales, the Labour colleagues of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne are implementing the very increases, in line with inflation, that she is opposing here today. That shows a level of hypocrisy that is becoming a hallmark of the current Labour Front Bench. The bottom line is that they are in—[Interruption.] I am taking no lectures from the hon. Lady about taking interventions when she was scared to take more than two. The bottom line is that Labour’s student finance policy is a cold, calculating con trick on young people. It is shameless politics.
I have three serious questions for the Opposition on the policy of no fees, and they are questions that they need to answer. How many of the poorest children in this country are they going to prevent from going to university under that policy? How many world-class universities will shut down because they run out of money? If highly paid graduates do not have to pay to go to university to get their degrees, who is going to pay the bill? Those questions have never been answered. The Opposition have no answers, because having a sensible approach that has the best interests of students, universities and taxpayers at its heart is not their objective, is it? Driving social mobility is not Labour’s objective. Enabling more disadvantaged young people to go to university is not their objective. Properly funded universities are not their objective. It is just a cynical con trick. That is Labour’s objective. Far from Labour being the friend of students and universities, its policy would destroy opportunity and destroy our world-class universities. This House should see straight through it. Frankly, the motion is not even worth the paper it is written on.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justine Greening Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
1. What steps the Government are taking to increase core schools funding and introduce a fairer funding formula.
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Core funding for schools with high needs will rise by an additional £1.3 billion across 2018-19 and 2019-20, in addition to previous spending plans. We will implement new funding formulas from April 2018, meaning that funding will finally be allocated on a fair and transparent basis. Together, these reforms will give schools a firm foundation that will enable them to continue to raise standards, promote social mobility, and give every child the best possible education.
Daniel Kawczynski
My right hon. Friend recently met Shropshire teachers to learn of some of the financial constraints they are under. The new funding formula will go some way to addressing the huge disparity in funding that Shropshire schools get in comparison with inner-city areas, but can she give me an assurance that no school in Shropshire will see its budget cut as a result of this new funding formula?
Justine Greening
I can. The £1.3 billion we are investing in schools will ensure that the formula provides a cash increase of at least 1% per pupil by 2019-20 for every single school, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency, with gains of up to 3% per pupil per year for the most underfunded schools that need to catch up. For the time being, local authorities will still be responsible for finalising the distribution of funding to individual schools in their area, in consultation with those schools, but the money will be provided for all schools to gain from the new national funding formula.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
In Liverpool and other cities, there is a real concern that the new formula could mean that schools lose out. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that issues such as deprivation, prior attainment and mobility will be significant factors in any new formula?
Justine Greening
I recognise the points that the hon. Gentleman makes. I was committed to making sure that we protected the funding for children with additional needs under this formula, and that is what I hope we will be able to do. It is, indeed, particularly important for communities such as his own.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
I very much welcomed the Secretary of State’s announcement before the recess of the £4,800 floor for secondary pupils. When might we expect the announcement in respect of primary school funding?
Justine Greening
The final part of the process is to set out the Government’s response to the second stage of the consultation. We will do that very shortly. It will include a number of further final steps in relation to the formula, including for primary schools. I will set that out at the time.
Several hon. Members rose—
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
14. Thank you, Mr Speaker. In Oxford West and Abingdon, many schools are struggling to meet the needs of pupil premium students in particular. The funding formula has historically been especially low in my constituency. What will the Secretary of State do to address this issue?
Justine Greening
We are bringing forward the funding formula because there is a long-standing inequity in our schools funding that many Governments have dodged tackling. We cannot expect all schools to achieve the same high standards when so many of them are funded on a very different basis from one another. I believe that we are doing the right thing in bringing forward this fair funding formula. I will set out the final terms of that formula shortly. I am very proud that we have finally been able to take this step. I thank the many Members of this House who have given their input and feedback to the consultation.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Schools in rural areas have been underfunded for many years under the current formula. Can the Secretary of State assure me that the matter of sparsity will be given due consideration in the revised formula and that schools in places like Cornwall will start to close the gap on the national average?
Justine Greening
Sparsity was part of the consultation on the funding formula. It is important that we make sure that rural schools, which often face unique challenges, are protected through the formula, and that is what I am seeking to do.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State should be coming to the Dispatch Box first and foremost today to apologise for the collapse of the multi-academy trust in the city of Wakefield. Part of the problem is that schools are waking up to the fact that they have lost £2.8 billion since 2015. Despite another funding consultation, will she confirm or deny the figures from the National Audit Office and, while she is on her feet, apologise to the people of Wakefield?
Justine Greening
Schools will do better out of the funding formula than they would have done had the Labour party won the last election. The Labour party only guaranteed a cash freeze, but we are going beyond that. Schools will do better under this Government than they would have done under a disastrous Corbyn Government. We are proud of the raising of standards in schools during our term in office. Nine out of 10 schools are good or outstanding, and that is something that we should be talking up, not talking down.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
2. What steps her Department is taking to help older adults from low-income backgrounds to access further education and training.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
6. What steps the Government are taking to improve social mobility in disadvantaged areas.
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
We are committed to supporting social mobility across the country, including in those areas that face the greatest challenges and have the fewest opportunities. At the vanguard of this approach, we are investing £72 million in 12 opportunity areas based in social mobility cold spots. We are working in these areas with local partners to improve educational attainment, to build opportunity and to broaden horizons for children and young people across early years, schools, and further and higher education.
Adam Afriyie
One of the best gifts we can give young people is a job with prospects for a decent career. It helps with mental health challenges and gives them a sense of belonging to society. When we look at this part of our history, I think we will discover that one of the greatest achievements has been the reduction in unemployment among young people. Does the Secretary of State agree we must continue to do all we can to help people to transition, at the appropriate point, from full-time education to work?
Justine Greening
Absolutely. My hon. Friend’s question sets out how important it is to have a strong economy producing jobs and opportunity for young people. We are working with the Careers & Enterprise Company to build a national network, which will connect schools and colleges with employers. Over half of schools and colleges in England are already supported by an enterprise adviser, who helps them to build strong careers and strong enterprise plans for their young people. In opportunity areas, dozens of key employers, including Rolls-Royce, NatWest and KPMG, have committed to providing tailored careers support to young people.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Pupils at the 21 schools managed by Wakefield City Academies Trust are among the most disadvantaged in the country. The collapse of the trust on Friday came as a bolt from the blue to them, their parents and their teachers. A leaked report in November found: that the trust was predicted to be £16 million in deficit; that hundreds of thousands of pounds had been spent on an interim educational consultant; and that Wakefield City high school did not even know which pupils were in receipt of pupil premium. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to make sure disadvantaged children do not miss out as a result of financial mismanagement and her Department’s incompetence?
Justine Greening
I was agreeing with all the points the hon. Lady was making on how important it is to tackle low education standards in those schools and to make sure we take swift action to have the schools rebrokered so that standards can go up, but I fundamentally disagree with her that standards are falling. Standards are going up. In fact, the place in our United Kingdom where standards are the worst and falling is Wales, where Labour is in control. I really think that before pointing the finger at England the Labour party should be apologising to Welsh children, who are missing out because of a flawed and failing education policy.
Several hon. Members rose—
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
In terms of social mobility, students in alternative schools are significantly disadvantaged, as a minuscule proportion get good GCSEs. What more can the Government do to give students in alternative provision the chance to climb the educational ladder of opportunity?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this area. We have sought to raise standards more broadly across schools in England, and it is now important that we take those learnings—on what works and best practice—and see them spread around the alternative provision approach and system. I am determined to make sure that no child misses out on an excellent education because of the school they happen to be in, whether in Wakefield or any other part of our country.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The answer from the Secretary of State on Wakefield City Academies Trust was just not good enough, and not fair on parents, pupils—most importantly—and teachers at Freeston Academy in my constituency and many other academies. They had this announcement in the first week of the new school year—out of the blue—yet it turns out that there have been huge problems with the trust for a long time, on governance, finance, accountability and performance. Her Department has been pushing all of these schools into this model. Is it not time she had a full review of the complete failure of local accountability in these multi-academy trusts, and made sure there is enough finance and support in place for the pupils in my constituency so that they do not lose out as a result of this failed management?
Justine Greening
We are taking swift action in Wakefield to make sure that we rebroker those schools, but, more broadly, I have to say I wish the Labour party had been as passionate about raising standards when it was in government. What children across our country actually got under Labour was falling standards and grade inflation, and what employers got was young people coming into work without the basic skills. Do you know where we still see that, Mr Speaker? It is in Wales. We will continue to raise standards in England, but perhaps Labour would be better placed to look to the area where it is in control.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
22. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is essential that our young people have different routes open to them through which to succeed? In that spirit, what vision does she have for the future of technical education in this country?
Justine Greening
We have been passionate about making sure that children who post-16 and post-18 want to pursue a route that is not purely academic have every bit as gold standard an education as their peers who want to follow more academic routes. That is why we are introducing T-levels. They were announced earlier this year in the Budget, which the CBI called a “breakthrough” Budget for skills. It will not just be good for raising attainment among and developing the potential of those young people; it is critical for our businesses that they have these skills. This is a win-win situation.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
7. What assessment she has made of the effect of the Government's policy on 30 hours of free childcare on the financial viability of childcare settings.
Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What assessment she has made of the effect on children's nutrition of the absence of free primary school meals in the school holidays.
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
The Government actively support the provision of nutritious food in schools. Free school meals are provided for the most disadvantaged pupils, and for every pupil in reception years 1 and 2. We have also committed £26 million to expand breakfast clubs in up to 1,600 schools. More broadly, we believe that helping households to raise their incomes by allowing them to be in work is the best way to lift families out of poverty and help children to lead healthy lives.
Mr Shuker
May I commend to the Secretary of State the private Member’s Bill tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), which will tackle the problem properly by ensuring that children who receive free school meals in term time also receive nutritious meals outside term time? If she feels that she cannot offer Government support for the Bill, may I also commend to her a charity in my constituency, Make Lunch, which is now providing meals in 50 locations —entrepreneurially, off its own bat—to tackle the problem, and will she arrange a short meeting with a Minister to discuss it?
Justine Greening
As the hon. Gentleman sets out, there is a lot of good work happening in this area, and from my perspective, aside from what happens in schools during term-time, there are two key elements: having a strong economy that is providing people with jobs and employment, and, secondly, making sure people get to keep as much of their pay packet as possible, which is why we have not only introduced the national living wage but have increased the personal allowance. If we take those two things together, we see that somebody working 35 hours on the national minimum wage, now the national living wage, will have gained by £3,300 more through those two policies.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State take her lead from the Prime Minister, and welcome the Bill to abolish school hunger for millions of children, and might she follow the Prime Minister’s lead in bringing together the relevant Ministers, and then give us the parliamentary time so that Back Benchers on both sides of the House can finish the job for her?
Justine Greening
The point I am trying to make is that the best way to tackle these issues is through families themselves being empowered and able to take the decisions and steps they want. What I am saying is we are doing that as a Government through having a strong economy, but also by making sure people can keep more of what they earn in the first place.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
10. What steps the Government are taking to make university education more accessible to young people from poorer backgrounds.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Nine out of 10 schools in England are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, which is testament to our relentless pursuit of high standards through education reforms. This summer, our students took their first three reformed GCSE subjects and received their results, and there were also successes in improved A-levels, too, with a record number of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds securing a place at university. We are extending high standards into further and technical education by introducing T-levels to deliver choice and build a world-class skills system. Of course, 30 hours of free childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds is now live nationally in England for the first time, saving families up to £5,000 a year per child. All those reforms have a common theme of social mobility, and I am proud that this Government are tackling disadvantage through the education system.
Jamie Stone
I had the great pleasure of attending the apprentice graduation ceremony in Dounreay in my constituency, and it is great to see young people being equipped with skills for their careers. What can we do to make it easier for small companies in my constituency to engage with and take up the apprenticeship scheme?
Justine Greening
One of the things that we have pushed in England through the apprenticeship levy is to ensure that large firms will be able to pass some of that levy down to smaller firms for them to use. It is critical that we reach our target of getting 3 million apprentices by 2020. This is about having a strong economy, producing strong opportunities and ensuring that SMEs can help to connect young people with apprenticeships.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
T2. As the Secretary of State is aware, apprentices and technical education are an important part of our educational offering, and I am fortunate in my constituency to have an excellent-rated apprenticeship provider called In-Comm. What more are the Government doing to increase the number of high-quality apprenticeships for young people?
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
T3. I recently visited two excellent primary schools in my constituency, West Wimbledon and Joseph Hood, both of which want to know when the Secretary of State will publish the full details of the national funding formula and whether she will confirm that no school will see a reduction in its funding as a result.
Justine Greening
We will be publishing it very shortly. As I have said to other hon. Friends and colleagues, we will ensure that no school loses as a result of the national funding formula. In fact, schools will gain, unlike what would have happened had Labour won the election.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
T4. This House should be commended for legislating for relationship education for all primary schoolchildren, which will create a more tolerant society and benefit child protection. Will the Secretary of State outline the introduction of that relationship education and tell us the additional resources she will be giving to schools?
Justine Greening
I very much welcome the hon. Lady’s support for the steps the Government are taking, and I welcome her role in supporting relationship education in her previous role on the Opposition Front Bench. We will set out the details of the engagement process that will be getting under way to make sure that we get the next proposals right. It is important that we are sensitive to this particular topic and, given her interest in this area, I hope she will continue to stay involved.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
In answer to the first topical question today, the Secretary of State identified how a company can use its apprenticeship levy down the supply chain. Does she agree it is a good idea to allow companies to go even further down the supply chain to support science, technology, engineering and maths teachers? That will not only encourage links between businesses, schools and teaching but will encourage more bright graduates to go into STEM and other subjects.
Justine Greening
The relationship between employers and schools has never been more important, particularly in the STEM subjects, which are so crucial to British business. Whether we are raising standards in maths and science or whether the university technical college programme is formally connecting employers and education, the Government are looking across the board to ensure that that relationship is strong.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
T5. I very much welcome what the Universities Minister had to say last week about excessive pay packages for university vice-chancellors and the measures he is taking to try to get vice-chancellors to justify those packages to their university courts. Does he really think that that will make a difference given that vice-chancellors are paid so much more than the £150,000 talked about?
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
T6. Nottingham faces at least a decade of growing demand for secondary school places. Although the local authority has a duty to provide places, it has no power to direct the city’s 16 secondary schools, all of which will soon be academies, to expand provision or even to admit to their full capacity. Will she act now and require all publicly funded providers to engage and work with their local authority on place planning, or is she simply determined to put her ideological faith in free schools before the needs of our city’s young people?
Justine Greening
It is important to see local authorities working with schools effectively and working with them to expand if they are popular. The bottom line is that through the free schools programme we have brought forward thousands of badly needed school places and extra choice for parents, and overwhelmingly these schools are doing a great job at educating our children.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Given that fractured family relationships can be such a driver of disadvantage for many young people, will Ministers consider how relationships education can equip young people with the skills to help them strengthen their family relationships, particularly as they mature? Will the Minister meet a group of concerned Members about this issue?
Justine Greening
We have said that we are making relationships education in primary school mandatory, because we feel that children need to go into secondary on a firm footing, understanding this area, and they can then build on that with sex education. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and other colleagues; obviously, this is an important topic for the House.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
T7. The Minister will know how many summer-born children needlessly end up on the special needs register because of the lack of specific targets and support to help them close the gap on their older classmates. What guidance and resources is the Minister giving to schools so that children get the help they need?
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
T8. Lewisham has the highest level of hospital admissions in London for self-harm among 10 to 14-year-olds. With an average of three children in each classroom currently suffering from a mental health condition, how long will it be before we see the publication of the promised Green Paper on children’s mental health? When we will see real action backed up by proper funding?
Justine Greening
We will be publishing that paper later in the year. In the meantime, we have already committed to expanding the single point of contact plan, which is making sure schools have an identified point of contact within the NHS. We can learn and build on that excellent initiative.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The number of children being schooled at home has almost doubled over the past six years; we have 441 in Warwickshire, including children of my constituents. Is the Secretary of State convinced that each of these children is receiving an education suitable for their age, aptitude and ability?
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
T10. At a time when 16-to-19 education is in dire need of additional investment, does the Minister agree that schools and colleges should at least receive all the Government funding set aside to educate sixth-form students?
Justine Greening
Record funding is going into schools and, overall, we are scaling up our technical-education funding. That is accompanied by more steps to raise standards in further education colleges.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm whether the Government agree with local government-controlled multi-academy trusts?
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Michaela Community School, a free school that I have the honour of chairing and having co-founded, was recently graded outstanding in its first Ofsted report. My right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards has visited the school; will the ministerial team join me in congratulating the staff, teachers and pupils at Michaela—led by the inspirational Katharine Birbalsingh—who are transforming young people’s lives?
Justine Greening
I congratulate the Michaela school, all its staff and its headteacher. They have done an outstanding job which has now been reflected in the Ofsted report. Most important is the impact that has had on those young people’s futures, which are significantly enhanced by their going to that school.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier, the Secretary of State announced more funding for schools. Will she acknowledge that schools are undergoing a £3 billion reduction in funding because of efficiency savings? That is nearly double what she is offering instead. Does she agree that she is giving with one hand while taking away more with the other? For schools such as those in Hackney to remain excellent, we need decent funding so that they do not have to lose teaching staff.
Justine Greening
I am not sure that I do agree with the hon. Lady. Following my £1.3 billion funding announcement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that we were going to see real-terms protected per-pupil funding across the remainder of this spending-review period.
Several hon. Members rose—
Schools Update
Justine Greening Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
This Government believe that all children should have an education that unlocks their potential and allows them to go as far as their talent and hard work will take them. That is key to improving social mobility.
We have made significant progress. Nine out of 10 schools are now good or outstanding, the attainment gap is beginning to close and we have launched 12 opportunity areas to drive improvement in parts of the country that we know can do better. But that has all been against a backdrop of unfair funding. We know that the funding system is unfair, opaque and out of date, and that means that although we hold schools against the same accountability structure, wherever they are, we fund them at very different levels. In addition, resources are not reaching the schools that need them most.
School funding is at a record high because of the choices we have made to protect and increase school funding even as we faced difficult decisions elsewhere to restore our country’s finances, but we recognise that at the election people were concerned about the overall level of funding for schools as well as its distribution. As the Prime Minister has said, we are determined to listen. That is why I am today confirming our plans to get on with introducing a national funding formula in 2018-19. I can announce that that will now be supported by significant extra investment into the core schools budget over the next two years.
The additional funding I am setting out today, together with the introduction of a national funding formula, will provide schools with the investment they need to offer a world-class education to every child. There will therefore be £1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20 in addition to the schools budget set at spending review 2015. This funding is across the next two years as we transition to the national funding formula. Spending plans for the years beyond 2019-20 will be set out in a future spending review.
As a result of this investment, core funding for schools and high needs will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion in 2018-19. In 2019-20 it will rise again to £43.5 billion. This represents £1.3 billion in additional investment, £416 million more than was set aside at the last spending review for the core school budget in 2018-19, and £884 million more in 2019-20. It will mean that the total schools budget will increase by £2.6 billion between this year and 2019-20, and per pupil funding will now be maintained in real terms for the remaining two years of the spending review period to 2019-20.
For this Government, social mobility and education are a priority. The introduction of the national funding formula—from which previous Governments shied—backed by the additional investment in schools we are confirming today will be the biggest improvement to the school funding system in well over a decade.
I said when I launched the consultation last December that I was keen to hear as many views as possible on this vital reform. I am grateful for the engagement on the issue of fairer funding and the national funding formula. We received more than 25,000 responses to our consultation, including from Members from across the House. We have listened carefully to the feedback we have received and we will respond to the consultation in full in September, but I can today tell the House that the additional investment we can make in our schools will allow us to do several things, including increasing the basic amount that every pupil will attract in 2018-19 and 2019-20. For the next two years, this investment will provide for an up to 3% gain a year per pupil for underfunded schools, and a 0.5% a year per-pupil cash increase for every school. We will also continue to protect funding for pupils with additional needs, as we proposed in December. Given this additional investment, we are able to increase the percentage allocated to pupil-led factors; I know hon. Members were keen for that to happen. This formula settlement to 2019-20 will provide at least £4,800 per pupil for every secondary school, which I know Members in a number of areas will particularly welcome. The national funding formula will therefore deliver higher per-pupil funding in respect of every school, and in every local area.
These changes, building on the proposals that we set out in December, will provide a firm foundation as we make historic reforms to the funding system, balancing fairness and stability for schools. It remains our intention that a school’s budget should be set on the basis of a single national formula, but a longer transition makes sense to provide stability for schools. In 2018-19 and 2019-20, the national funding formula will set indicative budgets for each school, and the total schools funding received by each local authority will be allocated according to our national fair funding formula, transparently, for the first time.
Local authorities will continue to set a local formula to distribute that funding, and to determine individual school budgets in 2018-19 and 2019-20, in consultation with schools in the area. I will shortly publish the operational guide to allow them to begin that process. To support local authorities’ planning, I also confirm that in 2018-19, all local authorities will receive some increase to the amount that they plan to spend on schools and high needs in 2017-18. We will confirm gains for local authorities, based on the final formula, in September. The guide will set out some important areas that are fundamental to supporting a fairer distribution through the national funding formula. For example, we will ring-fence the vast majority of funding provided for primary and secondary schools, although local authorities, in agreement with their local schools forum, will be able to move limited amounts of funding to other areas, such as special schools, where this better matches local need.
As well as this additional investment through the national funding formula, I am confirming our commitment to doubling the physical education and sports premium for primary schools. All primary schools will receive an increase in their PE and sports premium funding in the next academic year.
The £1.3 billion additional investment in core schools funding that I am announcing today will be funded in full from efficiencies and savings that I have identified in my Department’s budget, rather than higher taxes or more debt. That of course requires difficult decisions to be taken, but it is right to prioritise schools’ core funding, even as we continue the vital task of repairing the public finances. I am maximising the proportion of my Department’s budget that is allocated directly to frontline headteachers, who can then use their professional expertise to ensure that the money is spent where it will have the greatest possible impact.
I have challenged my civil servants to find efficiencies, just as schools are having to. I want to set out briefly the savings and efficiencies that I intend to secure. Efficiencies and savings across our main capital budget can, I believe, release £420 million. The majority of this will be from healthy pupils capital funding, from which we can make savings of £315 million. This reflects reductions in forecast revenue from the soft drinks industry levy. I will be able to channel the planned budget, which remains in place, to frontline schools, while meeting our commitment that every single pound of England’s share of spending from the levy will continue to be invested in improving children’s health; that includes £100 million in 2018-19 for healthy pupils capital.
We remain committed to an ambitious free schools programme that delivers choice, innovation and higher standards for parents. In delivering the programme, and the plans for a further 140 free schools announced at the last Budget, we will work more efficiently to release savings of £280 million up to 2019-20. This will include delivering 30 of the 140 schools through the local authority route, rather than the free schools route. Across the rest of the Department for Education resource budget, which is more than £60 billion a year, I will reprioritise £250 million in 2018-19 and £350 million in 2019-20 to fund the increase in core schools budget spending that I am announcing today. I plan to redirect £200 million from the Department’s central programmes towards frontline funding for schools. Although these projects are useful, I strongly believe that this funding is most and more valuable in the hands of headteachers.
Finally, alongside the extra investment in our core schools budget, it is vital that school leaders strive to maximise the efficient use of their resources, to achieve the best outcomes for all their pupils and to best promote social mobility. We already provide schools with support to do this, but we will now go further to ensure that that support is used effectively by schools. We will continue our commitment to securing substantial efficiency gains over the coming years. Good value national deals that procure better value goods and services on areas that all schools spend money on and purchase goods in can save significant amounts. They are available under the deals based on our existing work such as on insurance or energy. Schools can save an average of 10% on their energy bills if they use a national deal. We will expect schools to be clear if they do not make use of these deals and consequently have higher costs.
Across school spending as a whole, we will improve the transparency and usability of data so that parents and governors can more easily see the way in which funding is being spent, and understand not just educational standards in schools, but financial effectiveness too. We have just launched a new online efficiency benchmarking service that will enable schools to analyse their own performance much more effectively. We recognise that many schools have worked hard up to this point to manage cost base pressures on their budgets, and we will take action this year to provide targeted support to those schools where financial health is at risk, deploying efficiency experts to give direct support to those schools.
The significant investment we are making in schools and the reforms we are introducing underpin our ambition for a world-class education system. Together, they will give schools a firm foundation that will enable them to continue to raise standards, promote social mobility, and give every child the best possible education and the best opportunities for the future.
Angela Rayner
Conservative Members are in full retreat from their own manifesto. We were promised £4 billion only a few weeks ago, and now we are getting only £1.3 billion. Can schools expect anything else in future, or is this yet another broken promise?
The Conservative manifesto promised a free breakfast for every primary school pupil. First, the Secretary of State said it would cost £60 million, leaving parents across the country wondering how you can provide breakfast at under 7p per meal. Then she said that it would be £180 million, but that it would go only to the most disadvantaged pupils. She has had plenty of time to get her figures straight, so can she tell the House whether this is still her policy? How many pupils will benefit, and how much it will cost?
The Secretary of State said that the full funding formula has been delayed again, with local authorities playing a role in setting budgets until 2020. Is this because she has finally acknowledged the role local authorities have to play? Or has she simply realised that to implement her plans fully she would need to pass primary legislation, and that her Government are so weak and wobbly that they cannot even get new money for schools passed through this House?
What the Secretary of State has announced today is nothing more than a sticking plaster. Per pupil funding will still fall over this Parliament unless further action is taken urgently. I will welcome the opportunity to protect budgets for our schools, but this statement alone will do nothing of the kind.
Justine Greening
There is only one party that is in full retreat from its manifesto, and it is certainly not the Conservative party. We heard over the weekend that the promise to students was not worth the paper it was written on. I think it was one of the most dishonest pieces of electioneering I have seen in many, many years. Our young people deserve better than to be peddled some snake oil propaganda that proves to be not true.
I am pleased that the hon. Lady recognises this extra investment. I am shocked to hear that the Labour party has now turned its head on fair funding and suggested it might have voted against introducing the fair funding approach of a hard formula. I think many schoolteachers will be deeply concerned by that change of stance—yet another one.
The hon. Lady talked about getting through to the Conservative party in relation to school funding, but we have been funding schools. I think the message that has not been getting through to the Labour party is that simply loading up more taxes on people and more debt on our country for the young people of the future is not a sustainable way to run the public finances. What the hon. Lady’s response shows is that Labour has learned nothing in its time in opposition and has, in fact, gone backwards.
The hon. Lady asked some questions. I can confirm to her that we are, indeed, saying that we are going to have per pupil, real-term protection for the next two years. In relation to the free schools programme, what I was actually setting out—I do not think she properly understood it—was that we are protecting it, but we think we can finance it in a more cost-effective way. She then talked about the £4 billion, not realising, I think, that it was £4 billion over four years. I have set out £2.6 billion over two years. I think she will recognise that that is bringing the process forward at a faster pace, which is something to be welcomed.
One of the hon. Lady’s few questions—she did not have a lot of questions to ask—related to the approach we are taking to local authorities. She may have realised—I am not sure from her question—that we were always going to have local authorities use an approach involving a local formula in 2018-19, as it was due to be a transition year anyway. We are simply saying that we want that to extend for a longer time period. Given the historic nature of this change, it is right that we take the time to make sure that we work at local level to allow local authorities to adjust their funding to start matching the funding formula. However, schools locally will of course be able to see what amount they should be getting. I have no doubt that teachers, parents and governing bodies will raise questions for local authorities that deviate significantly away from the formula settlement that schools think they are entitled to have.
This a strong announcement of additional money combined with making sure that our schools budget is, for the first time in a generation, spread fairly across our schools and our children wherever they are growing up in this country. I hope that the House will broadly welcome it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
This news will welcomed by schools, teachers and parents, especially given the additional costs facing schools. In addition to moving money from healthy pupil programmes, my right hon. Friend said that she is redirecting £200 million from the Department’s central programmes to the frontline in schools. Which programmes are included?
Justine Greening
We will now go through a process of looking across programmes to identify the £200 million. Across an entire departmental budget of £60 billion, it is reasonable to make sure that my Department and its civil servants have to make efficiency savings in the same way—my right hon. Friend set this out—as we are expecting schools to do. I believe that we can and should do that. The alternative response—simply to dip into taxpayers’ pockets every time we want to look at how we increase frontline school spending—is not only unsustainable but wrong when we can do a better job using the money we have got.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
While I welcome this announcement of extra money today, is not the fact that the Government got themselves into such a mess over schools funding an indication of the fact that they have not been straight with people all along—and I am not sure they are being entirely straight with people now? The Secretary of State talks about an increased schools budget but fails to mention that the number of pupils has increased significantly. Is it not the case that, even taking into account the money announced today, when considering per pupil funding the real-terms cuts that schools have faced since 2015 is £2.8 billion, with additional cuts of £8.9 billion, so there is still a massive shortfall? It is about time that the Government started being straight with the figures on the reality of what schools are facing on the frontline.
Justine Greening
I think we are setting out our figures very transparently. The numbers given on the website about school cuts have been worrying parents, but one thing I do not expect to happen as a result of today’s funding announcement is for those numbers to be updated because it is far easier just to continue to peddle out-of-date data. The hon. Lady asked about the numbers of pupils. She is of course quite right, and that is why I am sure she will welcome the fact that I am saying that real-terms per-pupil funding will be maintained.
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
This is very good news for schools as they prepare to break up for the summer holidays. May I thank my right hon. Friend for engaging so constructively with colleagues across the House to make this progress? I particularly welcome her focus on bringing up the worst-funded schools, which has been so critically important for so long.
Justine Greening
This is a fundamental change to how we fund our schools and it is extremely challenging to get right. We held a very long consultation and took our time because we want to make sure that this work can take place on the ground. I appreciate that a formula needs to work for all colleagues, not just some, in very different communities up and down the country. That is why we have been listening to what people had to say, and we have reflected that today.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
On Friday I visited Airedale Academy, which this year alone has already had £140,000 cut from its budget. That amounts to £190 per child. Was there anything in the Secretary of State’s statement to indicate that it would get any of that money back? Despite being in a deprived coalfield area, our schools are being hit heavily by her funding formula. She has just said that schools will lose. They will get only a 0.5% cash increase per pupil, so will she confirm that that means that a lot of kids will still have a real funding cut? How many pupils will still face a real cut to their funding next year?
Justine Greening
I think that the right hon. Lady will welcome a number of things in the statement. Indeed, she has just pointed out that we will introduce a 0.5% increase per pupil for those schools that are currently above the formula, as opposed to those that need to catch up through additional funding. The position taken by both her party and mine was that there would be no cash losers, and we are going beyond that today. In other words, her school will receive more than it would have done had her party won the election.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
Clearly, more money going to the frontline of schools is a very good thing. Obviously, the devil will be in the detail of the funding formula, which I know well having spent many hours poring over it myself. I want to pick the Secretary of State up on two things. First, on the increase to the percentage allocated to pupil-led factors, she will be aware that many people were unhappy with the overall percentage allocated to basic per-pupil funding. Secondly, many schools in Leicestershire and elsewhere have been historically underfunded for many years, but the allocation of £4,800 per pupil is not the same as the £6,000 per pupil that schools in other parts of the country will get. I fully appreciate that the Secretary of State has to operate within the constraints of responsible public funding, but schools in Leicestershire really need that historical underfunding to be corrected at some point.
Justine Greening
My right hon. Friend will no doubt welcome the fact that today’s announcement means that there will be an increase in funding through core pupil-led factors. I felt it was also right to protect the amount that was already going to children with additional needs, because we want them to catch up. On the overall amount, I assure my right hon. Friend that the formula takes into account the different cost bases in different parts of the country. Today’s announcement means not only that schools will get more funding, but that they will catch up faster because of the 3% increase for two years, which replaces the previous proposal of 3% and then 2.5%.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
It is very unclear whether the Secretary of State has dealt with the underlying problems with the funding formula. Nine schools in some of the most deprived parts of Leicester West would have lost out because the Government’s initial proposals drastically reduced the amount of money allocated according to deprivation.
Liz Kendall
The Secretary of State shakes her head, but that is what happened in my constituency. Has the underlying basis of the funding formula been changed, or are schools in the most deprived areas still going to get a bigger cut, harming not helping social mobility?
Justine Greening
We will set out the detail of the national funding formula in September, but it is not true that the deprivation amounts were cut. In fact, as I have said, I actively made sure that they were protected. The hon. Lady will no doubt welcome the fact that, as I said to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the schools in her community that were already well funded are being protected more than they would have been had her party won the election.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and applaud her for listening to the concerns that many of us have expressed about the funding formula for our local schools. At the end of the day, what really matters to schools is the budget that they are going to get. When will schools be told exactly what this will mean for their individual budgets? That is what headteachers, teachers, parents and governors want to know, so when will that information be disseminated? Can she confirm that the promise not to cut funding from any school applies to special schools as well as to mainstream schools?
Justine Greening
Briefly, the local authorities will now go through a process of setting a local formula, but we will confirm the allocation notionally to each school in September. That is a significant process, which involves confirming allocations for around 24,000 schools. Today, I have set out the funding not just for the core schools budget, but for high needs, and I hope that that is good news for my hon. Friend.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Schools in central Bedfordshire that currently get £4,314 per pupil will be very grateful to learn of the new figure of £4,800 per pupil. What can the Secretary of State do to spread best practice across academies regarding covering lessons when teachers are not ill? Some of my academies do this really well. They timetable a bit of extra time in so some staff can cover other staff. Could she have a word about spreading that best practice across all academies so that children do not miss out on lessons?
Justine Greening
I certainly will. One of our biggest challenges and opportunities is to enable best practice to spread more rapidly around our school system. That is one reason why I have introduced so-called research schools, which can be hubs in their local area for disseminating best practice and ensuring that it spreads quickly.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that protecting per-pupil funding from next year does nothing to reverse the cuts that are leading schools in Exeter to lay off teachers and staff now? What assessment has she made of the impact of raiding her own capital budget on vital improvements, for which many schools in my constituency will now have to wait longer?
Justine Greening
The funding I have set out is indeed for 2018-19, which is when the national funding formula will be introduced. In relation to capital, I simply believe that we can make better use of our budget. Significant funding has been set aside from the sugary drinks industry levy, and we have been able to retain that additional money despite the fact that receipts from the levy were slightly lower than we originally expected. I hope hon. Members welcome the fact that I am therefore pushing that to the frontline.
Mr Speaker
Mistakenly, because I was trying to do two things at once, I called two Government Back Benchers in succession. I would not want there to be a lingering sense of resentment on the Opposition Benches, so I call Mr Christopher Leslie.
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to press the Secretary of State a little on the point that the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—the new Chair of the Select Committee on Education—and some of my hon. Friends have mentioned: where in the Department is the money coming from? It sounds as though the Secretary of State will be robbing Peter to pay Paul from within central programmes. Will she set out a bit more clearly which of these central programmes will be cut: the teaching and leadership college, the standards agency, the mentoring programme, the longer school day programme, the 16-19 budget, university technical colleges or the apprenticeships programme? Or is she promising not to cut any of them?
Justine Greening
It is important to look across the piece to gain additional efficiencies from the Department. The hon. Gentleman talks about cuts, but the reality is that we have to take every single pound of taxpayers’ money and get the most out of it. It has struck me how many different pots of money there are across the Department, and we have to make them work more strategically. In doing so, we can unlock funding that can go directly to the front line of schools.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I welcome the statement and give the Secretary of State 10 out of 10 for progress and a huge gold star for listening to the concerns of Members on the Government Benches and, no doubt, on the Opposition Benches. This morning, I was at the George Spencer Academy, an outstanding academy in my constituency—that is not my view, but the Ofsted rating. The reality is that it will not be replacing eight teachers and a librarian because of the difficulties with its budget. I hope that today’s announcement will go some way towards rectifying that.
The complaint of that academy is not the formula, but its rising costs. There are huge rises in pension and national insurance contributions, which nobody begrudges. Although it is a small part of the piece, I urge the Secretary of State to look at why local authorities are putting the apprenticeship levy on our schools. That cannot be right. It is not a lot of money, but it is very meaningful for school budgets.
Justine Greening
It is important to get on with making more apprenticeships available for young people, including in sectors like education, but I recognise what my right hon. Friend says. It is important that my Department does more to work proactively with schools to help them deal with some of the cost base pressures they have been facing. I feel that best practice can be spread more effectively through schools when they are working out ways to do smart timetabling and smart procurement deals. We need to do that much more systematically in the future and if we do, I believe that we can get much more out of the budget we already have.
Mr Speaker
Order. Pursuant to the plethora of points of order that I took on the subject of HS2 from right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House immediately after questions, I can inform the House that the Secretary of State for Transport would like to make a statement at the moment of interruption—that is to say, at 10 pm—this evening. I have acceded to that request on the basis that the official Opposition are content to hear the statement at that time, and I have received that assurance. There will be a statement, I believe entitled “HS2 Update”, at the moment of interruption tonight. I hope that that is helpful to the House.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
In December last year, the National Audit Office said that the Secretary of State’s Department was expecting 8% cuts, which is equivalent to £3 billion, in our school budgets—no one else but her Department. The figure was £24 million across Greenwich schools, which is the equivalent of 672 teachers. She went into the last general election saying that my schools were overfunded. Does she still believe that?
Justine Greening
I do not believe we did say that, but what I can say is that the hon. Gentleman’s schools will now get a better settlement under the national funding formula than they would have got under his party.
Mr Speaker
I know that the House will want to be well informed. The moment of interruption would ordinarily be expected to be 10 pm on a Monday, but it is not certain to be at 10. It could be a bit earlier and it could be a bit later. The point that colleagues need to have lodged in their little grey cells is that the statement will come at the moment of interruption. Keep an eye on the annunciator—always a very good piece of advice to proffer to new Members.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
Parents and pupils in my constituency will be delighted with the minimum funding of secondary school education, which will represent a substantial increase in secondary school funding. However, I would be grateful if the Secretary of State outlined the minimum level of funding for primary school pupils, which was not addressed in her statement.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right. We will set out more of those details in September. Today, we are setting out the fact that we recognise that there is an issue of minimum funding levels in secondary education, and we would expect that to be reflected in primary education.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Figures from the Secretary of State’s Department showed that 21 schools in my constituency were to lose out under her plans for the national funding formula before her announcement today. I am concerned that they still will, so will she guarantee today that those schools that were going to lose out on the basis of the formula no longer will, and that they will actually see gains?
Justine Greening
I think I have been very clear that every school will see gains from the announcement that I have made today, which I hope is good news. It is a reflection of the need to strike a balance between bringing up traditionally underfunded schools and recognising that those receiving higher funding need help to some extent to get on to the national funding formula.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I warmly welcome today’s announcement from my right hon. Friend. This is a real moment of celebration for those of us who have been campaigning with the f40 Group for years for a proper fair funding formula. Will she confirm to my governors and headteachers in Gloucestershire that by 2020 all schools currently receiving £3,800 per pupil will be receiving £4,800?
Justine Greening
I have set out that we will have a minimum of around £4,800, which will be transitioned in over these two years. That is good news, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend who has been a tireless campaigner on fair funding. He has done an outstanding job of being very clear with me about his local community concerns and also his desire to see fair funding. It is responding to colleagues like him that has led to the statement today.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
The Secretary of State will know that the National Audit Office said just a few months ago that school budgets needed an extra £3 billion by 2020 to avoid cuts. How does she square that figure with the £1.3 billion that she has announced today over two years? She also knows that the high needs budget—spending on special educational needs—is rising faster than inflation and faster than per pupil numbers. What in this statement will deal with that?
Justine Greening
In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, we are maintaining real-terms funding per pupil, as I have set out today. That sits alongside the other work that we are doing with schools to enable them to unlock efficiencies from the investment that is already there. I have also set out further additional funding for high needs today, which I hope he will welcome, given his long-term interest in this area.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept that the West Sussex MPs who have been working with heads and parents will welcome the progress in her statement. May I say on behalf of the Back Benchers, perhaps the Parliamentary Private Secretary and the Minister for School Standards that we have all worked together and hope to continue doing so to get even more progress in future?
Justine Greening
It has indeed been a team effort to work out how we can best bring forward what is a very difficult thing: a national funding formula that broadly works for many, many different schools across our country, wherever they are, and one that is fair. We have more detail to set out in the autumn, but I hope I have given a clear signal to the House today that we are moving in the right direction and will indeed take this step forward to ensure fair funding.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s partial U-turn is bound to be welcome, but given the extraordinary cost pressures that many schools across the borough of Rochdale already face, can she give me a guarantee that none will be forced to cut teachers or teaching assistants over this two-year period?
Justine Greening
There will be higher per-pupil funding in respect of every school in every local area. What we are saying is that we want to be able to give more money to headteachers to enable them to take the decisions that they think are in the best interests of their schools. I have spent many years as a school governor, and I know the work that goes on to make the most of the budgets. I also want to challenge my own Department to make some efficiencies so that we can put that money in the hands of headteachers to spend on the frontline in schools.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I welcome the additional funding for Stockport schools, and I also welcome a very listening Secretary of State. Will she prove her mettle further by taking on board the recommendations on recruitment and retention contained in the report of the Education Committee in the last Parliament?
Justine Greening
This is a vital issue. I think we have more teachers in our school system now than ever before but we need more, and we have to ensure that the teaching profession—I have always seen it as a profession —is a strong career and one in which teachers see continued professional development right the way through and one that is competitive. One of my old teachers up in Rotherham is retiring today, and I have just written him a note to thank him for 45 years of service to children in Rotherham. Teaching is an amazing vocation and one that I would recommend to anyone who cares about developing our young people for the future.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
As other Members have pointed out, the National Audit Office and the Secretary of State’s own permanent secretary have highlighted the £3 billion of efficiency savings that schools were required to make by 2020, including £1.7 billion of savings through what her Department described as
“more efficient use of staff”.
The Secretary of State has now paraded the fact that she is giving £1.3 billion in additional investment. Can she tell us, hand on heart, that she is actually giving more money, or are those efficiency savings continuing as planned?
Justine Greening
This was clearly an announcement of more money. However, as the hon. Lady will recognise, it is important for us to work with schools not only on their non-staff budgets but on their staff budgets. When I talk to headteachers, they are keen to ensure that they are able to use the staff they have as well as they can. We will be working more proactively with schools to help them to understand how they can do that better.
Ms Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
I congratulate the Government on choosing to prioritise school funding, which has been such a huge issue in Tatton and throughout the country. All the Cheshire Members of Parliament have come to my right hon. Friend saying what we need for our local schools, and I therefore welcome today’s announcement. So that everyone can be clear about the position, however, will my right hon. Friend confirm that what she is saying is that there will be a higher per-pupil funding level for every pupil?
Justine Greening
Yes, indeed. We will be making that funding available to local authorities. Ultimately, local authorities will also go through a process of setting their local formulas, but the funding that we are giving them will enable them to do that.
It is fantastic to see my right hon. Friend back in the Chamber. She made a rapid start in representing her community on this issue after returning to the House. It is great to see her. She was, of course, subject to some of the nasty campaigning that I think will be debated in the Chamber later this evening.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
On Friday, Ravenstone Primary School in Balham sent a letter to parents announcing that it was making five essential support staff go. It has also lost a deputy head. If the school had not made those cuts, it would have faced a budget deficit of more than £150,000. Will the Secretary of State pledge that schools in Tooting will be given the necessary funding to maintain current staffing levels, and will she meet me, and the fantastic head of Ravenstone, to discuss the matter in person?
Justine Greening
I pay tribute to the hard work of many teachers, a number of whom I know, in our local borough of Wandsworth, but I think we should also recognise that were that school in a different part of the country at the moment, it would have a very different funding settlement, but would be expected to deliver the same results for local children. What I am saying today is that we want some fairness in our funding formula, and what I have announced will also mean that additional money will indeed go into schools.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement, and I thank her for all her work, but can she confirm that areas such as mine in Medway will benefit from the new funding formula? We are being charged with building historic numbers of homes in the Medway towns. We are seeing new free schools coming on line, but will we get more? Under Labour, we saw schools shut in the Medway towns.
Justine Greening
It was not just grade inflation and poor standards that we inherited from Labour; it was a schools places crisis. That is why we had to get on with building hundreds of thousands of school places for children who needed them, and that is precisely what we have been doing. This funding formula does indeed mean that my hon. Friend’s local schools will be given higher per-pupil funding, and I assure her that we will not make the mistake made by the Labour party of not planning ahead for the school places that children need in their local communities. We will ensure that they do not end up without those places.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s statement did nothing to address the service and consistent underfunding of 16 to 18-year-olds. Over the last two years, there was an underspend of £267 million. Will the Government commit themselves to reallocating those moneys as soon as possible, and also to addressing the underfunding of 16 to 18-year-olds in the future?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. For too long, post-16 technical education has been put to one side; it now needs to be focused on. That is why the centrepiece of the Budget, from my perspective, was the “skills Budget” that we announced back in March. The CBI called it a “breakthrough Budget for skills”. We are now getting on with that reform, and not just by continuing to bring forward more apprenticeships, but by working with organisations such as the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses to look at how we can bring forward reforms on T-levels so that every child who chooses to go down the technical route, rather than pursuing a purely academic education, receives a gold-standard education.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for this great news. I have been telling my schools and constituents that she has listened, and today she has proved it. I want to ask for a couple of things. I appreciate that time is very tight and that we are due to hear more in September, but my schools are letting teachers go today. If there is any chance that we could have a heads-up on the figures before September, that would be very helpful. My area can offer expertise on efficiency, because our schools have proved to be more efficient than many across the country. Will she look again at the apprenticeship levy? It does not really work for schools.
Justine Greening
I take my hon. Friend’s point and assure her that we will be working very proactively with schools, particularly those that say they face the biggest challenges. I have put together a team of efficiency advisers who will be able to work directly with schools on the ground. I think that we can make a lot of progress in this area—we need to. I recognise her point about the cost base. It is about ensuring that our apprenticeships strategy really does give opportunities to young people in every single sector, while at the same time ensuring that we get funding to the frontline in schools, and that is what I have announced today.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
I welcome more funding. Schools such as Derby High in my constituency cannot recruit teaching talent because they face the rising costs of national insurance, an ageing teaching population, the apprenticeship levy and increasing class sizes, and they need new school buildings. Will this new money be enough to address these complicated problems? Will it go far enough to provide the enrichment activities that have all but disappeared in schools, with a whole generation of children from 2010 missing out on such activities because of the imposition of austerity by her Government?
Justine Greening
I know that the hon. Gentleman shares my concern about improving educational standards in Derby, which has been a challenge for many—[Interruption.] I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not recognising him—he is obviously the new Member for Bury North. I was going to talk about how important the opportunity area that we have set up in Derby is to me, but I can also assure him that standards in his schools are just as much a priority for me as standards in any other. Today we are trying to set out a way of ensuring that funding is fair for all schools, including the one he mentioned, but it will be complemented by additional funding, which I think he welcomes. That is part of our strategy for improving educational standards, but by no means is it all of it. It is not just about the amount of money we put into schools; it is about what we then do with it and the strategy behind it. As we have seen, education in Wales has been going backwards under Labour because it has no strategy, and as a result children are getting worse standards. We do have a strategy, which is why standards are going up.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s delivery on our manifesto commitment to ensure that no school loses out under the national funding formula—it is nice to see that at least one party takes its educational commitments at election time seriously. For clarity, can the Secretary of State confirm to the parents and teachers who were concerned about some of the scare stories that were kicking around in March this year that no school will lose out as a result of the changes in the funding formula?
Justine Greening
I believe that I can, in the sense that we are going beyond saying that no schools will lose out as a result of the formula, and are saying that every school will gain at least 0.5% additional as part of the introduction of the school formula. It is important for me to be clear that the way we are introducing it is through working with local authorities. They therefore will put their own formula—the final allocation—to schools, but we will be very clear that what we are giving them means that no school need lose out, and in fact, further than that, every school should be able to gain.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Warrington is one of the lowest funded authorities in the country, yet schools in my constituency were still losing out under the funding formula the Secretary of State had proposed, and were preparing to sack teachers and teaching assistants. Can she confirm that she still does not regard these as underfunded schools, and that the 0.5% increase will not meet the costs imposed on them by staff pay rises, the apprenticeship levy and general inflation, and that pupils in those schools will still lose out?
Justine Greening
At this stage, the hon. Lady might be better off lobbying her those on her own Front Bench. What I have set out today will mean that her schools get a better settlement than they would had her own party won—disastrously, in my opinion— the last election.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for listening to the consultation. Dorset has been historically underfunded for many years, so we are all extremely grateful for her announcement today. I have two questions. Can she guarantee to me that special needs will be met and properly funded? Also, I am afraid that I, too, do not agree with the apprenticeship levy; will she consider looking at that again?
Justine Greening
I have set out the fact that this additional funding will also in part flow into high needs, which is important. In relation to the apprenticeship levy, we are working with schools on a teaching apprenticeship, which will not only mean we can have more opportunity, but will enable those schools to be able to use that investment wisely.
Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State think it is right that schools in my constituency are already having to rely on donations from parents for books, stationery and other basic resources? This is not scaremongering; this is actually happening.
Justine Greening
I would respond in a couple of ways. First, we all recognise that the most important thing for parents is that standards are going up, and indeed they are, as we saw in the most recent key stage 2 results that came out last week. Also, I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that if there have been concerns about funding, this statement is a step in the right direction, because we are saying that we are going to put more into frontline schools. Additionally, I am saying we are going to fund more fairly, something that is long overdue.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
May I mark my right hon. Friend’s homework today with a resounding tick and “VG”, and may we write in the margin a note to the effect that under her stewardship this Government are spending more on schools than the Labour party ever did? May I ask for her reassurance on a point that I have lobbied her and her Ministers on for some time? Devon has historically been underfunded, so can she assure me that today’s very welcome package means that that historical underfunding, which has existed under Governments of all colours, will be corrected? If she can do that today, I will upgrade her to a gold star.
Justine Greening
Well, I think I might be getting upgraded because I can tell my hon. Friend that this will mean additional funding for schools in Devon. I know the debate that has happened in that part of our country. If we are going to have a country that works for everyone, it is vital that regions like the south-west are able to develop their talent in the same way as any other part of our country, and Devon will indeed benefit from my announcement today.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I remain concerned about the position of the 28 schools in Liverpool, Riverside that were due to lose funding under the Government’s formula. Can the Secretary of State assure me that they will not lose any funding from any source, and would she not agree that the £200 million cut to central projects that she announced today is really cutting by the back door?
Justine Greening
I do not agree with the hon. Lady. I can confirm that we are making the additional funding available, including to schools in her community. If any of them get less, that will be the result of a decision by her local authority, which I am sure she will want to follow up. More broadly, we need to recognise that, over time, several different pools of money are rightly directed towards improving schools across our country, and I want to see those working more efficiently. We also need to ensure that parts of my Department are being run efficiently, and the prize for doing that better will be to have more money to channel to frontline schools. That is precisely what I plan to do.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Under the outgoing system, introduced by the previous Labour Administration, schools in West Sussex were among the lowest funded in the country, so I very much welcome the new national funding formula, which will result in a significant enhancement for schools in Crawley. May I seek an assurance, however, that capital funding for projects such as the necessary rebuilding work at Holy Trinity School in my constituency will not be affected as a result of this new revenue coming forward?
Justine Greening
I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be a substantial capital budget, not only to deliver the additional school places that we need but to invest in improving our school estate. As I have set out today, some of the additional money that we had expected from the sugar drinks industry levy can indeed be retained and converted into revenue to go to schools on the frontline. On capital, this Government have invested in the school estate and will continue to do so.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
May I offer to help the Secretary of State to find efficiencies in the budget? No school on its own can take on the unfair and exponentially rising private finance initiative costs, but the Department could lead a challenge to this. Will she help schools in my constituency to do that?
Justine Greening
As part of the consultation on the draft formula, we had to accept that some schools were saddled with PFI commitments put in place by the Labour party. Rather than penalising the schools, we propose to honour those commitments. However, the hon. Lady has raised a genuine point, which is that we need to work with schools with those liabilities and to understand how we can now manage them effectively. We also need to learn from those mistakes, so that we do not saddle schools with more debts and commitments that they cannot afford, like those that were introduced under Labour’s failed PFI schemes.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Schools in Corby and east Northamptonshire have been underfunded for far too long, relative to other areas, and I am pleased that my right hon. Friend is putting that right. Will she continue to keep at the forefront of her mind the challenges that rural schools face in relation to their viability, as well as the big challenges that housing growth presents?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend will know that the original consulted formula looked at how schools in more sparsely populated areas could cope effectively and at how we would cope with housing growth when it takes place. I have said that I will respond more fully to the consultation in September, and that response will cover all those points, but he is right to put the issues on the table. We will think carefully about them.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Many of the primary schools in my constituency are planning to cut staff and, under the new schools funding formula, all but one of our secondary schools will have big cuts in their budgets. If this new formula and the new settlement are so good, will that no longer have to happen?
Justine Greening
The amount of money that the hon. Gentleman’s local authority will get in the coming two years will not see any cuts. In fact, as I have said, a 0.5% increase per pupil will be allocated to that community. I reiterate that this is indeed a better settlement for those schools than would have been the case had his party won the election.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I accept that I have been a pain in the butt to both parties over the years. I remember saying to Prime Minister Tony Blair many years ago that the funding postcode lottery between counties was unfair and he agreed, but he did nothing about it. I was also a pain in the butt to the Schools Minister when I gave him a hard time a couple of months ago. I welcome today’s announcement, but the Secretary of State will know how much the National Union of Teachers’ website has alarmed students and parents over the past few months. When our school funding formula is announced, will it be transparent and available on a website, school by school?
Justine Greening
Indeed it will be, and I hope that the unions will choose to update their websites with accurate data. As the questions today have demonstrated, it is not easy to introduce fairer funding. There are millions of reasons why it is a difficult step for any Government to take, but we have done it because we cannot expect social mobility or strong education outcomes everywhere when our children are funded in such different ways, purely depending on where they happen to grow up. Nobody can accept that if we want to tackle inequality of opportunity, and that is why we are taking these steps. It is complex, but we are doing it because it is the right thing to do.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I welcome any additional funding. There is a lot of concern about the safety of schools following the Grenfell Tower disaster, so will the Secretary of State update me on how many schools in my constituency will be inspected, how that work will be co-ordinated and how any remedial action will be funded?
Justine Greening
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured to know that we have already done a survey across all our schools to identify any that have or think they might have that particular sort of cladding. We have had a good response from schools, and we have been in contact with the handful of Members who have a school in their constituency with cladding that has needed testing. I reassure the House that we were clear to schools with such cladding that fire inspections should be done ahead of any testing of the cladding. We have been through that process now and, for the two schools with positive test results, the fire inspections had already shown that they were safe to continue operating. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to identify the importance of the matter, and I assure the House that working with schools on this has been uppermost in our minds over recent weeks.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I welcome the extra funding for schools in my constituency, especially the extra investment in the core schools budget and the higher per-pupil funding. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the new formula will address the unfairness that has seen some schools in Wealden and across East Sussex remain underfunded for many years?
Justine Greening
Yes, it will. My hon. Friend speaks up tirelessly for her local community on this, and today’s announcement will mean more money for that community. I have no doubt that her local authority will now want to ensure that it spreads that money fairly and will set out the notional allocations for schools in the autumn.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
May I make a suggestion to the Secretary of State? With the £1 billion earmarked in the Budget for capital funding to extend the free schools programme and the millions that her Department has already written off due to the chaotic funding formula for free schools, would it not be better just to scrap the free schools policy and actually put money into schools, such as those in deprived areas of Hull, that are seeing cuts to teachers and services?
Justine Greening
We need to get a balance between investing in the existing school estate, as the hon. Lady sets out, and planning ahead to ensure that we have school places and schools for children who are coming into our school system, particularly the secondary school system. All that we are saying with free schools is that the long-standing monopoly that councils had on being the only organisations that could introduce a new school into an area should change, and we changed it so that communities can set up their own schools if they want. That is what many have done and that is why we have seen so many free schools established. We will continue with that pipeline so that more of that can happen in the future.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Like many, I welcome the commitment to the national funding formula. I am also confident that schools in Carlisle will welcome the increase in spending over the next few years. Can the Secretary of State also confirm that the very successful pupil premium funding will continue as is, and that there are no plans for it to form part of the national funding formula?
Justine Greening
I confirm that the pupil premium will be maintained. The pupil premium is important, and it has been a significant driver of how we have managed to begin steadily reducing the attainment gap between children in our country.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Before the election, the Secretary of State would only commit to two years’ implementation of the funding formula and would give no commitment to implementing the rest of the formula post-2020. Today’s statement refers to a longer transition period. How long will it take to implement the full spending formula changes?
Justine Greening
I will set out our response to the consultation more fully in the autumn. As the hon. Lady says, we will need to come forward with more details. Today I am being clear about the overall level of funding going into schools while also, I hope, giving colleagues reassurance on specific elements before we set out our full plans in September.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. One headteacher has already emailed me to indicate that it will be worth about £300 per pupil. As the Secretary of State will know, Torbay schools have been underfunded for many years due to the inequities in the current funding formula. Can she confirm that the per-school funding amounts will quickly be available so that those schools will not have to rely on a dodgy website?
Justine Greening
Once we have done our analysis over the summer, we will make the per-school spreadsheets available. I hope that people will look at them, because they will contain the actual reality of school funding, rather than some of the falsehoods that are being peddled.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State accept that, with schools having to pay £575 million in employer contributions to the teachers’ pension scheme and £625 million in national insurance contributions, and with inflation at 2.9%, the £1.3 billion that has been announced will barely cover those costs?
Justine Greening
I do not agree. What is important is that we are able to maintain the rates of per-pupil funding in our schools. That is what I have set out today, and we can only do it because we have a strong economy that is creating jobs, growth and taxes that fund our vital public services. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that, every time we want to increase our public spending, we have to reach into the public’s pocket and raise taxes. That is simply not sustainable. Neither is it sustainable to have increasing debt when our debt interest is still more than the amounts we are investing every year in our schools and high-needs funding. It is vital that we have a long-term strategy to deal with that debt, and I believe that we can make our departmental budget work more effectively and, in doing so, get more money to the frontline of schools. That has to be the first port of call for anyone in my role, rather than simply resorting to higher taxes or more debt.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
As a parent and a Member of Parliament for a rural constituency, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. May I urge her, as the new formula is finessed, to keep at the forefront of her mind the higher cost of staffing and running a school in a rural area, compared with schools in an urban setting? I hope that will be reflected in any formula.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend has done a good job of raising that issue and setting out his local area’s concerns. This was part of the consultation we launched earlier this year, to which we have had 25,000 responses. We have gone through most of them, but we will set out our full response in September. Suffice it to say that I recognise those issues, and I am looking to get it right.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
I appreciate that the Secretary of State does not yet have the details of what she is proposing, but parents and headteachers in my constituency will have listened to her announcement and will be wondering, as I am, what it will mean for our schools. We were expecting cuts of up to £700 per pupil in some of the most deprived schools in my constituency under the fair funding proposals. Can I now go back and reassure my constituents that the funding cuts to all the schools in my constituency will now not go ahead?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady can be clear about the fact—I hope she will welcome it—that today’s statement means there will be higher per pupil funding for every school in her constituency and every local area. I very much hope her local authority passes on those gains directly to schools.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I, too, warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement on the fair funding formula, and I declare an interest, as a proud father of three children who will benefit as a result of it. Will she confirm that every parent with children at schools in Dorset and Poole, which have been historically underfunded, will benefit and that no school in my constituency will lose out as a result of her announcement?
Justine Greening
I can confirm that we will give local authorities the funding to make sure that what my hon. Friend has said is indeed the case. That is why this is an important step forward; it will balance the need for more investment in our schools system—which is precisely what we are doing—with making sure it is fairly funded. He represents a community that will benefit from an improved fairness in our funding system.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Trafford has traditionally been an underfunded authority, so I welcome any attempts to introduce a fairer funding formula, but I have particular concerns about whether funding will continue to reach schools that have a high proportion of high-needs students. We are already seeing de facto rationing, as parents are experiencing long delays for statements—or they are not getting them at all. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that in developing this funding formula the exceptional needs of those high-needs children will always be protected and they will not pay the price for an attempt to even up the playing field across the piece?
Justine Greening
This statement will mean more money going into the high-needs budget, which I hope the hon. Lady will welcome. It is also worth reflecting on the fact that more generally within the formula I have been careful to ensure that money will follow children who are going into primary and secondary already behind, in order to help them to catch up. We looked at this in several different ways to make sure that no child was not getting the appropriate amount of investment. My concern in doing all of this was the fact that a child growing up in her community would get a very different amount invested in them than they would if they had grown up in a very different part of the country. That is iniquitous and we need to change it. I am delighted to be able to say that we are introducing fair funding, so we will change that for the better.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on today’s statement. Schools in my constituency will be delighted to hear that per-pupil funding is being protected in real terms, and taxpayers in my constituency will be delighted to hear that it is being done through departmental efficiencies. Does she agree that paying for this by putting additional borrowing on to future generations really would be robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Justine Greening
I totally agree with my hon. Friend; none of these steps are easy. It would be far easier simply to put up tax, which is what the Labour party wants to do. That is not the right thing to do—never more so than now, given some of the challenges our country faces. We need to make sure we use the money that we are already getting efficiently, which is precisely what I have set out today. As I have said, the prize for doing that is to be able to put more money to the frontline of schools.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
When the Minister for School Standards met a cross-party delegation of Cumbrian MPs as recently as March, he was clear with us that it was necessary and fair for the schools budget overall, after having been protected, to now play its part in the Government’s strategy of deficit reduction. Was he right or was he wrong?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman is trying to get some politics out of what is basically a sensible announcement that I have made on more funding for schools. I am interested in what we are doing practically to improve education, rather than in the politics around it.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State and her Ministers for taking so much time to listen to my concerns about Cheltenham’s schools and the concerns of f40 schools up and down the country affected by historic unfairness. This is a huge step forward. Will she confirm that every secondary school in Cheltenham will receive at least £4,800 per pupil regardless of additional needs funding for which individual pupils might be eligible?
Justine Greening
I have set out today that we will put in a floor of £4,800. I think that that is important. I should put on the record my tribute to my hon. Friend and the campaign setting out his local community’s concerns in Cheltenham. He has done a very good job of being clear about local needs, and that has helped form today’s statement.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Many young people in Bristol choose to go to St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in my constituency rather than stay on at their school sixth forms. Will the Secretary of State categorically assure us that those pupils will benefit from fairer funding? At the moment their choices are being restricted, as are their facilities, because of cuts to sixth form colleges.
Justine Greening
Today’s statement is, of course, about the core schools budget and high needs funding. There will be higher per pupil funding for every school and every local area. That will enable schools to do a better job in their local provision. The hon. Lady sets out some of the challenges of sixth form funding, but I want to reassure her and the House that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that children stay in a well-funded school system. I know that Bristol has successfully focused on education in recent years, and it is important that we work together to see that success continue.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
This statement will be welcomed by parents across Nottinghamshire and I know that the Labour party will be outside the school gates in my constituency once again, helping us to disseminate the good news. May I press the Secretary of State on free schools? I am glad that she is still committed to them, and we in Newark have seen the absolutely transformational effects of a good free school on a community. Will she confirm today that all the free schools due to open either this September or next September, including the brilliant one in Newark, the Southers School, will open?
Justine Greening
Absolutely. There is a strong pipeline of free schools and we are getting on with things in that regard. Indeed, more than that, what I have said today is that we are underwriting the next 140, and I am simply setting out that I think we can deliver that more cost-effectively. The reward is to release additional funds for the frontline of schools, including in constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I welcome the additional investment that has been announced today, but the Secretary of State will know that statements made by Ministers during the last Parliament on core funding and the national funding formula will already have been factored into schools’ three-year business plans. As a result, schools in Greenwich and Woolwich and other constituencies will already have started to restructure and, in many cases, to lay off teaching and support staff. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is nothing in today’s statement that undoes the damage already done by the Government’s direction of travel?
Justine Greening
The direction of travel, including in schools in London, has been towards higher standards. The real challenge is improving school standards across the country, so I hope that we will continue to travel in that direction. Having been a governor, I am sure that the additional funding I have set out today will be spent by schools, as and when they receive it.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
May I push the Secretary of State for a little more guidance on how local authorities will allocate the money? In particular, will she allow hon. Members on both sides of the House who have become more involved with spreadsheets and schools than they would care to be to be involved in the process so that we can identify which schools have an unfair deal within the LEA?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend raises an important point. What will now happen is what happens every year: local authorities will consult on a formula to spread the money they will receive around the school system. We have made sure that, for the first time, as of 2018-19, that amount will be fair, unlike in the past, and I encourage Members from all parties to work with local authorities as part of that consultation process to ensure that they feel that the money is being fairly spread. I will be clear that there is an indicative budget for every single school from 2018-19 onwards and I am sure that local authorities that do not want to pass that amount of money to schools will be asked why that is so.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
Thank you, Sir; lucky me. In my constituency surgery on Friday parents once against raised the issue of high needs with me, so I thank the Secretary of State for this statement, especially for its focus on that area. As she is being so bold, will she look at nursery funding, and post-16 funding, which we have heard about today, where standards can really make a difference to our children’s generation?
Justine Greening
I reassure my hon. Friend that we have done so. Indeed, she knows that there has never been more additional investment in early years than under this Government. The good news is that the quality of early-years provision is getting better; that is to be welcomed, and it can, over time, significantly shift the dial on social mobility.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
I warmly welcome the statement from the Secretary of State, which will benefit all schools in Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. I further welcome the fact that the funding is coming from efficiencies within the Department, rather than unfunded borrowing. There has been an excellent announcement that she will invest an extra £500 million a year in technical education. Will she confirm that today’s measure is not being funded by any raid on that, because it is an important reform?
Justine Greening
I take this opportunity to welcome my hon. Friend to the House. We are committed to pushing on with that Budget announcement. I am absolutely determined to make sure that that this really will be
“a breakthrough Budget for skills”,
as the CBI described it. We have had excellent engagement with employers on technical education since we set out our broader strategy. I assure my hon. Friend that the investment will be flowing in.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I join hon. Members in welcoming this announcement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Schools in Redditch such as the Ipsley RSA Academy, whose pupils I have just been hosting in Parliament, will also welcome it. In Redditch, we have a three-tier education system. Can she confirm that the three-tier system will benefit from her announcement, just as the two-tier system will?
Justine Greening
I can confirm that the announcement will mean higher per-pupil funding for every school in my hon. Friend’s community. That is good news for Redditch, and I hope that it will see continued improvements in standards.
Teacher Update
Justine Greening Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
The 27th report of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) is being published today. Its recommendations cover the remit that I issued in October 2016. The report contains recommendations on the pay award for teachers that is due to be implemented from September 2017, which are consistent with the Government’s 1% public sector pay policy. Copies of the STRB’s 27th report are available in the Vote Office, the Printed Paper Office and the Libraries of the House, and online at www.gov.uk.
The STRB has recommended an uplift of 1 % to the minima and maxima of all pay ranges and allowances in the national pay framework, other than the minimum and maximum of the main pay range, to which they have recommended a 2% uplift. Following previous reforms, schools already have significant flexibility, within the pay ranges, to set pay for individual teachers, taking account of performance and retention. Nevertheless, those at the bottom of the main pay scale will receive an automatic 2% increase, a small proportion of teachers. As such it is consistent with the Government’s public sector 1 % pay policy.
A full list of the recommendations is attached as an annex.
My officials will write to all of the statutory consultees of the STRB to invite them to contribute to a consultation on my acceptance of these recommendations and on a revised “School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions” document and pay order. The consultation will last for three weeks.
I am grateful to the STRB for these recommendations and, subject to the views of consultees, I intend to accept all the key recommendations.
My detailed response contains further information on these matters.
Attachments can be viewed online at:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2017-07-10/HCWS34/.
[HCWS34]
Education and Local Services
Justine Greening Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
It is a pleasure to be able to open this Queen’s Speech debate this afternoon.
Since 2010, this Government have been focused on the pursuit of higher standards in education, higher standards in our schools, higher standards in our universities and higher standards in technical education—in fact, higher standards across the board—to unlock the talents of every single one of our young people.
We have made significant progress. Thanks to the energy of our great teachers and leaders, nine out of 10 schools are now good or outstanding, with 1.8 million more children in those places since 2010. Thanks to the energy of our thriving universities, more young people are going to university than ever before, including more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Thanks to the energy of businesses, we are well on our way to achieving our target of 3 million apprenticeships by 2020.
Perhaps more than most Departments, the legislation we need to drive up education standards and opportunity is already in place. In the last parliamentary Session alone, we passed the Technical and Further Education Act 2017, creating the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to oversee our bold new reforms; we passed the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, the most significant legislative reform of the past 25 years in higher education, to give students better value and more choice, information and opportunity; and we passed the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to better protect and safeguard the most vulnerable children in our society.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentioned the Children and Social Work Act, and an important provision the Government put into it was making relationship and sex education compulsory. What progress is being made on regulations to bring that into force?
Justine Greening
I am grateful for the cross-party support that enabled us to do that, and we are determined now to push on with the issue. We will shortly be setting out our plan for how we take the review forward and how we continue to get the overall support we need to make sure relationship and sex education in secondary schools, and relationship education in primary schools, are age appropriate and effective for children growing up in a very different Britain from the one many of us grew up in.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
If I could make a little progress, that would be appreciated. I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for interventions.
As I was saying—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but there is a fly buzzing around. We are determined to build on that strong platform of success, to create an education system that works for all our children and all our young people. Equality of opportunity for everyone—wherever they are, whatever their background—is in the end unlocked only by education.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The North Shore Academy in my constituency faces a spending cut of several hundred thousand pounds. It serves one of the areas that the Secretary of State is talking about—an area of high deprivation. How on earth can that be fair funding in an area of high deprivation?
Justine Greening
I will come on to funding later, but suffice it to say that it is important we make sure that all our schools are fairly funded. That challenge is recognised across the House. Clearly there are difficulties in doing that.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Does the right hon. Lady feel that education and local services in England would be helped in any way by the large part of £30 billion that would be the Barnett consequential of money for England as a result of the deal in Northern Ireland, given what the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) just said about the North Shore Academy in his constituency?
Justine Greening
Our manifesto pledged to increase education funding. The challenge that the hon. Gentleman’s part of our United Kingdom faces is the real issue of its standards lagging significantly behind those of England in relation to scores on the programme for international student assessment.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I will make some progress. We want equality of opportunity for everyone. In her speech, Her Majesty the Queen set out that we will work to ensure that every child has a good school place and that no young person will be left behind, in part by making sure that this country possesses world-beating technical education and, of course, by maintaining our world-class higher education.
Siobhain McDonagh
On the issue of a good school place for every child, the Secretary of State will be aware of the proposal that the local mental health trust in our area should no longer diagnose children with autism. Without a diagnosis there is no chance of an educational care plan, and without an ECP there is no opportunity for a child with autism to get a good school place. Will she personally intervene to stop that?
Justine Greening
Work on making sure that children can be in mainstream schools has been a key focus for this Government. That is why we have introduced educational health care plans—the correct term is EHCPs—which are holistic plans to make sure that children get not just their educational needs but their broader health needs assessed. I am always happy to look at specific issues raised by hon. Members. It is exceptionally important that our education system works for all children, whatever their challenges, not just the majority of children.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I am going to make a little progress. Under our education reforms, we are determined that no person, community or group should be left behind, because in reality no person, community or group has a monopoly on talent. Talent is spread right the way across our country, and this Government will create an education system that unlocks that talent in everyone and in all parts of the country. That is how we will succeed in finally shifting the dial on improving social mobility in the UK.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
The Conservative manifesto proposed introducing primary school breakfast clubs. Given that research commissioned by Magic Breakfast, the Educational Endowment Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that a good, nutritious breakfast can improve educational attainment by about two months in any given year, may I urge the Secretary of State to stick to that part of the manifesto and make sure that it is fully funded, so that all children can go to school without being too hungry to learn?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman may be aware that we already had plans to scale up the sorts of programmes undertaken by fantastic charities such as Magic Breakfast. We all recognise their benefits, particularly for disadvantaged children, who can get into school a bit earlier, have time to settle and start their classes ready to concentrate and learn.
In the election, people were faced with choices. Indeed, the Opposition set out their alternative plan. It was very big on rhetoric, but the question is what it will actually mean for people in reality. Of course, we do not have to go far to find out. It is clear what Labour would mean for education standards as we only have to go across to Wales and look at its education performance. Instead of high standards for children in schools, Welsh children are faced with low and falling standards. Indeed, according to the OECD it is the lowest-performing country in the UK, and it is run and overseen by the Labour party. In fact, its performance is now significantly below that of England in maths, reading and science. That is Labour’s legacy for Welsh children and it would import it for English children, if it ever got the chance.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
The Welsh Government are quite open about the fact that we need to get better scores in relation to the PISA results, but what I will not accept is how, yet again, the Tory Government are trying to demonise Wales. They did it before on health, calling it a line between life and death. It is a disgrace. Will the Secretary of State apologise to the people of Wales?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady’s comment shows the reality, which is that Labour needs to pull together a strategy to improve education in Wales in the same way as our strategy of reform has improved standards in England. It has not been easy, but Labour has dodged it in Wales. Labour will never be credible to parents in England until it sets out why it feels it is failing children in Wales, including on opportunity.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Lady rightly talks about the need for Government strategy to be credible in the eyes of parents, but what credibility does she think her Government have with parents when schools are sending home letters requesting donations so that they can afford to buy books and computer equipment so that their children can have an education?
Justine Greening
I think that what most parents are interested in is the fact that independent school inspections by Ofsted say that nearly nine out of ten schools in this country are now good or outstanding. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention shows very clearly the difference between Members on each side of the House. On one side, there is a genuine intent to see standards rise; on the other, it is all about politics, not outcomes for children on the ground. We heard that in the intervention by the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who had nothing to say about the standards in Wales, other than calling for an apology for raising the issue of falling standards for Welsh children. That is a disgraceful response from a party in government in Wales.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I am going to make more progress. This was not the only area on which the Labour party made proposals. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that its plan on university and higher education funding had a £2 billion black hole. In fact, the IFS estimates that the proposal could cost as much £13 billion by 2020.
Inevitably, that Labour higher education black hole would mean cutbacks for universities. It would mean lower teaching standards or the introduction of an emergency cap on student numbers. If we look at how that £2 billion black hole would be plugged, we see that it would be the equivalent either of cutting 40,000 lecturers or of a cap that would mean 160,000 fewer students going to university, based on the average student grant for fees and maintenance loans. There just would not be the money. In fact, we know that if a cap were reintroduced because of a black hole in our higher education funding, it would be disproportionately likely to hit students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Labour’s higher education black hole could force universities with lower student numbers into significant financial trouble.
On equality, what is the evidence that no tuition fees mean that more disadvantaged students can go to university? Again, we do not have to go far to find the evidence. In Scotland, the policy of no tuition fees goes side by side with lower equality of opportunity for disadvantaged young people to go to university. That is because the policy benefits children who are more likely to go to university. However, the people more likely to go to university are children from better-off families. We all know that: it is not a surprise to the Opposition.
What benefits disadvantaged children is having more places at university for them overall. The imperative therefore is not having a cap on the numbers. In Scotland, there are no fees. In England, where there is no cap, more disadvantaged young people go to university.
Wes Streeting
Clearly, the right hon. Lady’s party had no offer whatsoever for students and young people at the election, so perhaps she might like to reflect on the terrible mistake that was made in the previous Parliament? Non-repayable grants targeted on the poorest students were scrapped by the Government. Is it not time to deal with the real funding crisis facing students, which is the one in their pockets?
Justine Greening
I notice that the hon. Gentleman did not answer my question. [Interruption.] There will be plenty more time to dig into the Labour proposals for higher education and what they mean for the most disadvantaged children in the country.
Mr Speaker
There is nothing disorderly about it. It is not in that sense, I must tell the hon. Gentleman, narrowly analogous to Question Time. At Question Time, I have said now and again to Ministers that it is not for them to ask questions; they are there to answer questions. A debate is a more seamless enterprise, as I think the hon. Gentleman, who is an experienced denizen of the House, must know. It is perfectly in order for the Secretary of State to pose an inquiry to a Member, just as it is perfectly in order for another Member wholly to disregard it. I call the Secretary of State.
Rebecca Pow
Am I not right in saying that there has not been a fall in the number of students going to university since fees have had to be paid? Indeed, I have two daughters who have recently completed university. They both paid fees, but on different rates—one the high rate, one the low rate. They both agree that it was right that they should pay fees for the advantage they have gained, because they should earn more money than someone who does not go to university. Is it right that someone who does not go to university should fund people who do and who have the potential benefit of earning more money?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend asks some important questions not just about equality of opportunity but about equality more generally and why we are prioritising technical education. The approach in England has benefited students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who now go to university at a record rate. In 2009, the rate was 13.6%; it was 19.5% in 2016.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give way? I have been very patient.
Justine Greening
I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and then to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown).
Mr Harper
I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said. He asked what we had to offer young people, and I will tell him, although I will say that it would have been better if we had mentioned it during the election campaign. Unemployment for young people is now six percentage points lower than it was in 2010, whereas in the eurozone it remains at 20%. Under this Government, young people have a very, very good chance of getting a job, which is an excellent route to prosperity. That is what we have to offer.
Justine Greening
My right hon. Friend is right. Under the Labour Government, youth unemployment went up by just under 50%. It was not just young people from lower income backgrounds coming out of the education system often without basic skills. It was graduates who came out of the system and could not find a job. We are determined to make sure that never again is there a lost generation of young people in our country coming out of the education system wanting a career but not even being able to find a job.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I congratulate the Secretary of State on giving way to me. May I commend her on the increase in standards in education? To improve those standards still further—the current funding formula is unfair and depends on a lottery code—does she agree that every pupil and every school deserves fair minimum funding?
Justine Greening
As my hon. Friend knows, we are absolutely committed to making sure that we have fair funding across our schools. We had an extensive consultation that received 25,000 responses, which we have gone through. We are pulling together what that means for the right way forward. He is right to point out that many schools in his local community have been systematically underfunded, which is not tenable in a country where we want all children to receive consistent investment and a consistent opportunity to make the most of themselves. We are determined to introduce our plans to ensure that schools are fairly funded, wherever they are.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I am going to make a little more progress, because I was pursuing an argument on access to higher education, which is hugely important in relation to how we drive social mobility.
The Labour party has proposed a policy that will lead to more inequality. It would benefit the young people most likely to do well: university students from better-off, richer backgrounds. However, the policy would be paid for by everyone, including lower-income workers and pensioners. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that Labour’s policy does not seem to be an effective use of £11.5 billion to £13.5 billion if the aim is partly to aid social mobility for the most disadvantaged students. I am not sure what the Labour party thought was its raison d’être, but clearly it is no longer lifting up the children growing up in our most disadvantaged communities that are furthest from a level playing field on opportunity.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the incredibly important role that primary education plays in the preparation of young people for secondary and further education, will the Secretary of State explain how the proposed funding cuts in Sandwell, which will amount to nearly £600 per pupil over the next three years and lead to a reduction of seven teachers per school, will help that process in one of the most socially deprived areas?
Justine Greening
I have made it clear that we are going to introduce proposals on fair funding. There is record funding in our schools, and we have set out a commitment to increase that further in our manifesto. We will introduce those proposals shortly.
To conclude on higher education, the £2 billion higher education black hole would mean an emergency cap on student numbers. Young people would miss out on university. They would almost certainly be from disadvantaged backgrounds: young people hoping to be the first in their family to get the chance to do a degree, as I was. It is literally a cap on aspiration. Labour are not being honest and up front with young people about the implications of their proposals for higher education funding. It is simply snake oil populism.
It is vital to ensure that higher education remains accessible, is affordable and provides value for money. We need to listen to the voices of young people at the last election and we are committed to doing so, but our approach must reduce inequality and the lack of access for disadvantaged young people, not increase it as Labour’s policy would.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I remind the Secretary of State that the last Labour Government expanded higher education and had a cap on fees. She talks about 1 million young people being unemployed. In the first Parliament under the Tory Government, youth unemployment was at 1 million and the Work programme was a disaster, wasting billions of pounds. I ask her to reverse the £3 billion of education cuts being proposed by her Government, which will devastate aspiration in schools around the country. It is time to act, Secretary of State, not attack the Opposition. You are in power—deal with the cap on aspiration now.
Justine Greening
I can set out for the hon. Lady exactly what we have been doing. We have been reforming our education system and standards have gone up; we have taken away a cap on the number of students going to university, which is why a higher percentage of disadvantaged young people are going to university than ever before; and, of course, our economic policies have led to 2.8 million jobs being created in our economy, which has provided opportunity for young people who would otherwise have been sat at home getting unemployment benefits, with their careers on hold until they were able to get them kick-started. That is what we have been doing.
The final thing we have been doing is tackling the huge, huge deficit left by the Labour party when it left office. [Interruption.] The Opposition are bored with hearing about it, because clearly—[Interruption.] I am sorry they are in such uproar at being reminded that when we came to power, the country was living £151 billion a year beyond our means—borrowing that was due to be passed on to young people. Clearly, the Labour party has learned nothing from this at all. Its only answer to every single question it faces in any policy area is, “Spend more money, but don’t worry about where it comes from because”—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is a cacophony of noise. I have told the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) before that he should not yell out from a sedentary position. I had great aspirations for him to obtain the level of a statesman, but his apprenticeship has some distance to run if he is going to conduct himself in that manner. The Secretary of State must be heard, and the same goes for everybody else in the Chamber.
Justine Greening
We are focused on raising social mobility and on levelling up opportunity for people who do not have it. That is why we have made investment in technical education a priority, as Her Majesty set out in the Queen’s Speech. For too long, there has not been parity of esteem between technical and academic routes in education. That has cost our country dearly. It has also created inequality between those who go to our world-renowned universities and those young people who do not have the chance to do so. That inequality stretches across communities and regions. It has cost us dearly in the loss of the human capital and productivity that high-skilled people in a high-skilled economy provide. We are determined to continue our work to recover the legacy of Labour’s lost generation of young, unemployed, unskilled people coming into the labour force. Those young people have been let down—
Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State cannot hear that the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) is seeking to intervene. It is up to her whether to accept the intervention; I am merely offering a helping hand.
Trudy Harrison
I congratulate the Government on the annual £500 million increase in technical education. In my constituency of Copeland, a practical skills community, it is essential to continue the legacy of world-class trades if we are to deliver a modern industrial strategy.
Justine Greening
That is absolutely right. It is critical that we take advantage of two opportunities. The first is the kinds of businesses and industries in my hon. Friend’s area that are creating jobs and opportunities. The second is a generation of young people who want opportunity and want a career. We should be investing in generating our home-grown talent to take advantage of those opportunities, which we all see in our local communities. Exiting the European Union provides new impetus to the focus on developing our home-grown talent.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State referred to world-class universities. We are proud of them in this country, but it is important that they are able to attract students from all around the world. Why do the Government persist with the ludicrous idea that we must cut net migration to the tens of thousands, including cutting the number of international students coming to stay in this country? They pay their own way, they improve their relationship with this country, and when they go back home they want to continue doing business with us. It is ludicrous!
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that he is entirely misinformed, because we do not have a cap on the number of international students. That will save him from having to ask that question again. We are determined to ensure that our universities sector remains open to the best and brightest talent around the world. He can scaremonger and raise fake issues all he likes, but it will not change the position. The much bigger threat to universities lies in decimating the funding going into them. That is the biggest challenge they would face if they ended up with the kind of higher education funding black hole that the Labour party would present them with.
We are shaping the curriculum for young people going into technical education into 15 technical routes, each culminating in a so-called T-level, which will become the gold standard qualification for technical excellence. That reform is matched by investment, as the Chancellor announced in the March Budget—a Budget that the CBI called
“a breakthrough Budget for skills.”
That investment would be at risk under a Labour Government because of the black hole in post-16 funding for higher education. Our new institutes of technology will also provide a path to develop excellence in higher technical skills. One problem we have had with technical education is that there has not been a ladder of steadily more challenging qualifications so that young people can better themselves.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend outline how the technical qualifications will meet the needs of employers? After all, we need to ensure that the skills that are being developed meet business requirements.
Justine Greening
Part of the plan we set out in the manifesto was to establish what we called skills advisory panels. In other words, local employers within regions will look at what the needs are in their skills pipeline, consider them in relation to the 15 skills routes that we have set out and understand how that maps on to the provision in the education system locally. Across the country, that is exactly what we will need, to make sure we have the right number of people coming through with the right skills in the right places; to have an understanding of what is needed in the years ahead; and to know the risks in provision so that we can tackle them early. This is common sense and I think it will bring a significant step change in our ability to have a successful industrial strategy that benefits young people.
Justine Greening
I will make a bit of progress because many colleagues want to speak in this debate once I have sat down.
The Government are committed to having the best lifelong learning for adults in the developed world. We will achieve that by setting up a national retraining scheme.
All these reforms represent real support for people across the country, real opportunity and real ways to tackle inequality. We recognise that access to equality of opportunity—social mobility—is what will lift our country, not some kind of snake-oil populism from the Labour party, backed up by a fiscal black hole that will mean cuts in the very areas that are most important in improving opportunity.
Of course, throughout those reforms we will work hand in glove with British businesses, relying on their expertise, knowledge and leadership—businesses that the Labour party continually castigates as being part of the problem that our country faces, as Labour sees it. We see businesses as critical in driving opportunity and social mobility.
We know that good schools are the engines of social mobility, and they are not just about individual success. Schools are at the centre of every single community. Last week I visited the Kensington Aldridge Academy, in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. I am sure the House will join me in paying tribute to the teachers and staff of all the schools in the area, and indeed those in Manchester affected by what happened after the Ariana Grande concert. They were met with a terrible situation but helped the young people caught up in it with absolute professionalism. Leaders, headteachers and teachers in those areas have been the unsung heroes over recent weeks, along with our emergency services, and I want to put on record again my thanks to them for all the work they have done to make sure that our children are back in school but also getting the support that they need to deal with the experiences they have had. We are committed to ensuring that that support stays in place as those schools continue, when the cameras have gone, to help their students deal with what they have been through.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
With the news today that 95 tower blocks have failed the cladding test, it is clear that hundreds of children across the country, not just in Camden but in other local education authority areas, will experience the disruption of being moved out of their home. What will the Secretary of State’s Department do to help to support schools in areas where that disruption is occurring?
Justine Greening
We have been clear that we are getting in touch with schools that we know are being affected by such challenges. We did a huge amount of work in response to the Manchester atrocities, stretching far beyond Manchester into the broader north-west region, and in response to Grenfell Tower. As a result, the Government will have a much better, more systematic understanding of how to respond quickly so that not only are the right links in place between my Department, regional schools commissioners, local authorities and schools, but we can work in a streamlined fashion with local NHS services and educational psychologists. All those things have worked effectively, but we have had to work hard to identify emerging problems and tackle them quickly.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to the mental health professionals who came from all over the country to offer their support following the Manchester attacks in particular. It was much appreciated and enabled us to deal much more effectively with the children who had been affected by the tragedy. Such responses provide the blueprint on which the Government can continue to develop emergency response.
The Queen’s Speech made it clear that the Government are determined to introduce a fairer distribution of funding for schools. We will set out our plans shortly, but, as we outlined in our manifesto, we will make sure that no school has its budget cut as a result of the new formula. We have, of course, given our schools record levels of funding, and in our manifesto we committed to increase funding further. Now that the consultation has finished, we will explain our plans for the fair funding of schools shortly.
More broadly, school improvement and great teaching and teachers are, in practice, the same thing. I had the chance to meet many inspirational teachers and leaders at the Times Educational Supplement awards last Friday. It was a fantastic evening, and it emphasised to me that teaching deserves to be thought of as a high-status profession. We will continue to work hard to crack down on unnecessary workload, and we will ramp up the quality of continuing professional development, centred around a new college of teaching. We will continue to invest in the profession to ensure that we attract the best people. Alongside continuing our reforms on academies and free schools, we are making sure that headteachers get the support they need to improve their schools through the £140 million strategic school improvement fund.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment that no school will see any reduction in funding because of the Government’s fairer funding formula, which is extremely welcome. Will she condemn the propaganda that is still going out from schools and the unions, claiming that there will be vast reductions in expenditure on a per pupil basis?
Justine Greening
I think all parents expect teachers and headteachers to behave professionally. There is space for an important political debate, but I question whether some teachers have pursued it in the right way, given the high status that I want the profession to have in the public mind. There is absolutely a place for debate on the funding going to schools and the reform strategy that will see standards get better, but I agree with my hon. Friend that it has been concerning to see what many people have felt are utterly political messages being put out inappropriately.
We are also committed to ensuring that the whole education system, including independent schools and universities, works together to drive up standards for all our children. Of course, the Government’s 12 opportunity areas are there to deal with complex and entrenched challenges in education in areas such as Blackpool and Norwich. We are backing local leaders in those areas—teachers, businesses, civil society and local authorities—to come together to find solutions to long-standing problems and plan for future skills needs. We want to ensure that home-grown talent plugs the skills gaps. To confront that challenge, we need a powerful alliance of employers, civil society and Government, working hand in hand in every corner of our country. I welcome the huge number of businesses, charities and ordinary people stepping forward to help us to do better for our young people.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Although we all recognise the need to address deprivation, does my right hon. Friend also recognise the need to address the historical injustices for underfunded areas? Will she confirm that she will increase the age-weighted pupil unit block in the funding formula and help to reduce the costs that some schools are facing through the apprenticeship levy?
Justine Greening
As I said, we are committed to introducing fair funding. It is right that we hold all schools to the same standards and the same accountability framework, and it makes sense that we should ensure that children with comparable needs are funded comparably wherever in the country they are. I will set out shortly the details of how we will do that following the consultation.
I will finish my speech. [Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] In many respects I was just getting started, but I am sure the rest can wait for future debates. The Government have done sterling work in narrowing the gender pay gap and advocating having more women on boards, but those efforts cannot slacken and need to be stepped up. We will bring forward new approaches to supporting women in the workplace. The 30-hour childcare offer will help families with the cost of childcare, and our returnship pilots will explore new ways of supporting mothers—it is overwhelmingly mothers—to get back into work. We know from some of the work that is already under way how powerful they can be. Of course, inequality is not confined to gender, and the Government will bring a renewed focus to the ethnicity gap in our workplaces.
The Government have an ambitious agenda for this Parliament: creating world-class technical education, ensuring that there is a good school place for every single child, wherever they are growing up, and tackling inequality in educational opportunity in all its forms. To achieve those goals, we will be resolute in our pursuit of high standards. We are building on a firm foundation, although there is more to do and more to deliver. Our young people deserve nothing less. This nation contains a wealth of talent just waiting to be unlocked, which will create opportunity and success for individuals and a strong and prosperous country that can take on, and succeed in, any challenge.
Justine Greening
I simply want to set out that the hon. Lady’s party had exactly the same policy on funding to schools that would lose under the funding formula, which was to have no cash losers.
Dr Allin-Khan
Why was the Secretary of State, or any Conservative representative, not present at any of the hustings, the marches or the meetings during the electoral process? It is easy now to stand up in the Chamber where she feels safe among her comrades, but why is she not at the coalface speaking to parents, teachers and pupils? Nine-year-olds were marching against Government cuts. Where was she then? She was invited and she failed to show up.
At what point will the Prime Minister and her party accept that our children deserve more? They deserve a better start in life. Parents should not be worried about the fact that their children will be put in boxes based on their academic prowess at the age of 11. We are stunting our children’s potential before they have even had the opportunity to flourish. Under a Labour Government, my brother and I were able to come from a poor background and have the aspirational hope that the Secretary of State spoke about. Under a Labour Government, we were both able to go to Oxbridge and I now stand here before the House. We had a single parent who worked three jobs, but a Labour Government gave us the opportunity to achieve.
It is a Labour Government who will stand up for every single child in this country. A Labour Government will be for the many, not the few. It is a Labour Government who will ensure that we have class sizes in which our children can learn and have opportunities, and who will say that an apprenticeship is as important as going to university and crippling ourselves with debt. A Labour Government will ensure that every single child has the best possible start in life, and I look forward to being part of that Government very soon.
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Justine Greening Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
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