National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Debate between Justine Greening and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I will keep the gloating to a minimum, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State is dressing it up very well, but the reality of what she has announced is that some schools in the most deprived parts of the country, which face the biggest challenges, will have money taken away from them and given to schools elsewhere. Would it not have been much fairer for her to have asked the Chancellor for more money to bring the gap up that way? Instead, she is making schools in the toughest areas make teachers redundant to pay for this change.

[Justine Greening]

Again, there is a lot of rhetoric, but in the end the right hon. Gentleman does not seem to have listened to my statement, which was very clear that this funding formula absolutely reflects issues of deprivation and lower prior attainment, as well as local cost issues. It is a step forward in making sure that we have a much fairer approach than in the past. I do not think he would be able to justify the current situation to many parents who simply cannot understand why their children get less funding than other children purely because of where they grow up.

Education and Social Mobility

Debate between Justine Greening and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I have seen that report. It shows that when people look at the evidence and are prepared to step away from political ideology, they see the reality that grammars can have a transformational impact in some of the most deprived communities in which we want to see the biggest changes.

[Andy Burnham]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Justine Greening]

No, I will make some progress because I have given way to a lot of Members.

As I was saying, we want to improve teacher training. We have therefore started the teaching and leadership innovation fund so that the most challenged schools can build more capacity to have excellent teachers and leaders.

It is vital that the standards and quality of our technical education in this country mirror the excellence that we have been embedding in the academic routes. We have focused on academic routes, so it is time for us to focus similarly on improving technical education for young people. We will work hard to put technical and further education on a level footing with the academic route that other young people already take. Through the Technical and Further Education Bill, we are slimming down the system of qualifications and putting employers in the driving seat regarding how they are designed and delivered so that there are a smaller number of routes that are much easier to understand and lead directly to career pathways for young people.

We have also focused on apprenticeships so that young people get direct work experience as they learn. We plan to create 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020 and, for the first time, British business is investing through the apprenticeship levy to make sure that those apprenticeships are of a high quality. Yesterday, we had the Third Reading of the Higher Education and Research Bill, which will put in place a new teaching framework to drive up teaching quality, to make university outcomes more transparent than ever and, through the planned Office for Students, to promote equality of opportunity throughout our universities.

We have to recognise that one of the biggest challenges faced by the education system is the growing need for more good school places. Despite the progress that we have made, too many children still do not have a place at a good school. There are 1.2 million children in schools that Ofsted says are not good enough. That was why we published the “Schools that work for everyone” consultation, which asks important open questions about how we can use the educational expertise that exists in our country’s independent schools, faith schools, universities and selective schools. We cannot afford to leave a single stone unturned as we drive up opportunity.

[Andy Burnham]

The Secretary of State rightly spoke about building a consensus across the House on education policy, but I put it to her that that will be more likely to happen if the Government stick to their mandate on education. Will she read out the precise section of the Conservative party manifesto from the last election that gives her a mandate to lift the bar on the creation of new grammar schools?

[Justine Greening]

We talked about excellent school places and expanding the very best schools in our country, including grammar schools. I just do not think it is viable for the Labour party to say that it does not like the grammars that we have, but to be equivocal about whether it is still its policy to shut those grammars. I will give way to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) if she wants to confirm the position. There is a gaping hole in the official Opposition’s policy on grammars. I do not think that it is tenable in a country that has grammars and selection for the Opposition to say they do not like that situation, but that they do not want us to take any steps whatever to see how we can deliver more strongly on social mobility through the schools already in place.