National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Debate between Justine Greening and Karen Buck

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

In the transition year, some schools that are so far behind as to be eligible will get 3%; those schools that are even further behind under the fair formula will get a further 2.5% the following year, when the formula operates in full and properly. My hon. Friend is right to flag up the issue. It is important that the schools that have been underfunded see those gains coming through. That is what we are proposing.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Schools in areas such as Westminster have a combination of exceptionally high costs—not least recruitment and retention—and very high deprivation, and they are already making staff redundant. The Secretary of State partially blamed policies such as the introduction of the national living wage. Why are the Government introducing policies impacting on schools that they are not prepared to fund?

[Justine Greening]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady supports the living wage, but the Government think that it is important. We also think a further two things, however: first, it is important to introduce this national funding formula—I hope that MPs can support it as a mechanism to make sure that the funding flowing into schools is delivered fairly—and secondly, it will ensure that children growing up in deprived areas see additional funding. I hope that she will reflect on that. In addition, wherever they grow up—whether or not in a deprived community—children who need to catch up will receive additional funding through this formula.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Karen Buck

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As I have said, we have protected the core schools budget and, in addition, we are bringing forward a new national funding formula that will ensure that the funding is spread fairly across schools in England.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Parents and children at the Minerva free school in Westminster were horrified to discover that the temporary lease on their building will expire at Easter next year, and that their new building will not be ready until the autumn of 2018. That means that the children will have to be educated in three separate school buildings over the course of 15 months. Is that acceptable?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady has set out those challenges and I would be very happy to meet her directly to see what we can do to ensure that they will be dealt with effectively.

Humanitarian Crisis: Greece

Debate between Justine Greening and Karen Buck

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As my hon. Friend probably knows, I am what I would call an aid disciplinarian. That probably comes from my innate chartered accountant perspective, which means I always need to see effective projects that are well run and deliver value for money. That is absolutely what we have been pressing for and working with the European Union to do. Our push has essentially been to see the EU mirror the UK strategy on doing more effective work in the affected regions and see it step up to the plate on managing this crisis closer to home, which is what today’s announcement seems to be about. It is good to see the EU starting to move in the right direction. Of course, we took further steps at the London conference a few weeks ago, which we also welcomed.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

It is hard to overstate the national and regional dangers from Greece becoming a giant refugee camp. That is all the more the case because the refugee crisis cannot be disentangled from the crisis in the Greek economy and infrastructure. When I visited a refugee camp on one of the islands, I found that the island had already lost its healthcare service, as have so many other islands. In addition to the humanitarian assistance, which is very welcome, what discussions are the British Government having within the EU to discuss the state of the Greek economy, which is very heavily dependent on tourism? There is a risk that the Greek economy will implode under the pressure of a growing refugee crisis this year.

[Justine Greening]

At the ministerial meetings I attend as a Development Minister, we discuss the challenges that we face much closer to home. We should learn from what has happened in Jordan and Lebanon—that we should not expect countries to be able to cope on their own when they suddenly see huge numbers of people flowing in that they were not expecting. It is not simply a matter of financial pressures because pressures are placed on local communities. That is why the UK has done a lot and why I welcome the announcement that we think is coming from the EU today. This is the right thing to do for the refugees that are arriving. As has been said, it has taken some time for the penny to drop across Europe about what needs to be done closer to home, but I am proud of the work that the UK has done in trying to make sure that the levels of support that people need are now being put in place.

Humanitarian Aid: Refugees in Greece and the Balkans

Debate between Justine Greening and Karen Buck

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman has raised one of the most important elements of the response to the Syrian crisis. It is incredibly important that we can get to people inside Syria. Many of our cross-border supplies are going into the country from Turkey. It took us over two years to get a UN Security Council resolution even to do that effectively. The action by the Russians is taking us further away from reaching a long-term political settlement in Syria. As the Government have set out, we believe that more action needs to be taken against ISIL, which is also perpetrating huge atrocities against the Syria people.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

The Greek economy is in crisis, yet the Greek islands are at the front of the European response to the crisis. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Greek people have shown extraordinary resilience in the face of that pressure? I have seen for myself half a dozen volunteers feeding 1,000 people in Greek feeding stations. The pressure on public services means that the Greeks are simply unable to process people who are waiting for transit papers on islands such as Kos and Lesbos. Will she work with our European partners to ensure that people who are desperate for travel papers do not have to wait for days in worsening weather in order that they can move on? Feeding and housing people is one thing; making sure that they can get the papers they need is another.

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is right that this is not just about giving people the bare essentials to be able to survive day to day. We are providing support for the kind of registration facilities that she has talked about. It is right to mention the broader issue of so-called host communities and their generosity. I have met communities in Lebanon and Jordan that have seen their local populations literally double in a matter of 12 or 24 months. That puts huge strain on the existing populations. That is why, as well as working directly with refugees, we are working with the communities that they suddenly arrive in. You may not be aware, Mr Speaker, that the refugees outside Syria are overwhelmingly living not in camps like Zaatari in Jordan, but in host communities. That accounts for 80% of them or more. That is why so much of the work that we have done has been to help local government and municipalities cope with those pressures.

Rail Fares

Debate between Justine Greening and Karen Buck

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not, because I believe that the train operating companies need flexibility, so I support my predecessor’s decision. If I did agree with negotiating a further period, it would represent a spending commitment. I agree with the shadow Chancellor that now is not the time to make any further spending commitments, even if the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood does not. We can see the absolute disarray that the Labour party is now in.

I find it incredibly frustrating and galling, as I think many other people do, to hear on one day the leader of the Labour party—the party that left this country in a worse financial state than any other Government ever have—profess that we must be responsible, even though Labour was irresponsible and did not have the custodian values that it needed in looking after our public finances, then the day after, to hear Labour talk about more spending and more debt in the middle of a debt crisis. The very people who let this country down the most and left our public finances in their worst state ever are now the ones talking about responsibility. Most people outside will see that for exactly what it is—absolute political gibberish.

[Ms Buck]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Justine Greening]

No, I am going to make some more progress now.

I ask the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, or perhaps the shadow Minister who winds up the debate, to come clean and talk about how their spending commitment would be funded. If the hon. Lady wants to go against what the shadow Chancellor is saying about there being no more spending, she must accept that her suggestion represents a spending commitment. It is time to talk about how she would fund it, otherwise she has to accept that it would lead to more debt at a time when we are right in the middle of a debt crisis. There is no point in the Leader of the Opposition promoting responsibility when his own party continues to show absolutely none.

The hon. Lady also has to admit that the flexibility that she wants to take away from train operating companies has meant some passengers benefiting from lower increases or decreases. For instance, passengers on the Birmingham to London route via High Wycombe have seen their annual season ticket price reduced by 7%, and the Gatwick to Bournemouth saver return has been reduced by 28%. She is proposing to raise the cost of those passengers’ travel. Presumably she is quite happy to confirm that—she can intervene if she wants.

The bottom line is that for all the bluster that we heard from the hon. Lady, she would abandon the long-term investment in capacity improvements that depends on continued funding from both the taxpayer and the fare payer. She talks about 11% fare increases, but the last Government also allowed such increases. It is worth reminding ourselves of their record on rail fares and value for money. The Labour-led Transport Committee in the last Parliament stated:

“Neither passengers nor tax payers are getting value for their money…The value for money of rail travel has deteriorated by most yardsticks over the past decade.”

I have listened carefully to the comments of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, and I hope that we both accept that the real driver of rising costs for fare payers and taxpayers is the inefficiency of the rail system that we inherited from the Opposition. She mentioned other European railways, and Sir Roy McNulty’s independent review of our railway network found that the system that we inherited from the previous Government is 40% less efficient than those of our best European comparators. Taxpayers and fare payers must shoulder that huge cost burden because of the previous Government’s failure to reform our railways.

Unless we are prepared to get to grips with the underlying causes of the inefficiencies, we will never make the progress that I am so passionate about achieving. That means getting different parts of the industry to work more effectively together, as we are doing through the rail delivery group, which has been set up, as Roy McNulty proposed. It means aligning incentives better and increasing transparency—I absolutely agree with that. However, it also means tackling some of the work-force issues, which, we must all accept, have driven up costs. When we reach those difficult discussions in the coming weeks, months and years to tackle rail industry costs that are too high, I hope that the Labour party will step up to the plate and join us in making the necessary decisions to bring rail costs down for the longer term and relieve the fare rise pressures that we have experienced year after year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

That is what I mean when I talk about the need to align financial incentives better so that people are pulling in the right direction and so that, when performance is not good enough, it costs the people who cause the inefficiency in the first place.

I want to move on to the second aspect of the comments of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood —bus fares. Although every sector and Department have had to play their part in deficit reduction, the Labour party still does not accept that, even after yesterday’s speech by the Leader of the Opposition. Nevertheless, we are determined that, even in the difficult economic conditions that we face, buses will continue to receive their fair share of funding. Yes, it is constrained by the terrible legacy that the Labour party left us, but we are determined to encourage more people on to buses and to make bus travel more attractive. That is why we set out in a spending review our commitment to continuing our financial subsidy of bus operators. The bus service operators grant remains untouched for this financial year, with savings to be introduced only from April, alongside others that we have had to make across Government as part of tackling the deficit that the Labour party left us.

[Ms Buck]

Does the Secretary of State therefore think that the Mayor of London was wrong to raise a single bus fare by 50% since 2009?

[Justine Greening]

Many Londoners will not forget that the current Labour candidate for Mayor increased bus fares in 2004 by a huge amount. I simply do not accept that his proposals for London will mean anything other than catastrophically undermining the essential investment, on which so many Londoners count, in the transport system. It is financial jiggery-pokery, and it does not add up. I believe that Londoners will see right through it in May.

We must tackle the deficit, but we continue to ensure that funding goes into our bus services. Indeed, we spoke to the industry as part of the spending review about how we could get more out of the bus service operators grant. After difficult spending decisions, the industry said that it felt able to absorb the reduction without raising fares or cutting services. Nevertheless, we are protecting the concessionary bus travel scheme.