School Funding

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I make no apology for talking about schools in my constituency, which is the eighth worst affected in the country, while the neighbouring constituency, Chelsea and Fulham, which makes up the rest of the borough, is the seventh worst affected. All 48 schools will lose significant sums, and the borough loses £2.8 million. According to the excellent work done by the National Union of Teachers and the other teaching unions, that represents £796 per pupil per year, or 15%.

When I look at where the money is going from, I find it particularly objectionable. Wormholt Park is the highest-losing primary school with £65,000 gone; while Burlington Danes Academy is the highest-losing secondary school. Both are excellent schools with excellent staff, but they are in two of the most deprived wards not just in my constituency and London but in the country: College Park and Old Oak, and Wormholt and White City. What do we expect? What sort of message does this send out to the pupils, parents and teachers of those schools, who are working hard to try to ensure that the excellent standard of education continues against the odds?

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

Westminster’s is a mixed story, but a number of schools, including those that are among the 3% most deprived in the country, stand to lose substantially. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the fact that the Government are finding resources for a number of free schools that have been unable to fill places? When the Government talk about efficiency, could they not question the efficiency of that?

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is right. It constitutes a triumph of ideology over practicality.

Let me quote what has been said by two of the people in my borough who know what they are talking about. The head of the borough’s schools forum, who is also the principal of one of our excellent local secondary schools, has said:

“If schools’ budgets are cut, at a time when costs are increasingly significantly, it can only have a negative effect on the education that we are able to deliver.

We will not be able to employ the number of high quality teachers and leaders that we need to be able to maintain standards.”

The council cabinet member responsible for these matters has said:

“It’s clear that the government is trying to redistribute a pot of funding that is just too small. Cutting funding hardest in London, rather than giving all schools the money they need for teachers, buildings and equipment, is divisive and just plain wrong.”

That is absolutely right. According to the National Audit Office, there are extra cost pressures amounting to £2 billion across the country, but London is far and away the worst affected region. It contains eight of the 10 biggest losers in the country, which are in most boroughs and most constituencies—although not in every one: I know that the constituency of the Minister for London is the 12th biggest gainer. I find that particularly objectionable because London is a success story, and success is being punished.

From the London Challenge to the London Schools Excellence Fund, ever since the days of the Inner London Education Authority, we have prized education, particularly for people from deprived parts of London. We see it as an opportunity. It is a shame that a London Member, the Secretary of State, is overseeing this denuding of resources from London schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper).

The Secretary of State and her team are to be congratulated. To many Conservative Members, and probably to some Opposition Members, this problem seems almost too large and intractable to wrestle with. However, we are in a consultation process. Of course there will be one or two anomalies and a few little creases will have to be ironed out. There will be unforeseen circumstances that need to be attended to. The scary thing is that those Opposition Members who have spoken so far have been either unable or unwilling to see the inherent unfairness of a system that they not only promoted but fed, either because it was to their advantage to do so or because they had no interest in rural areas.

The Government have been trying to counterbalance the differentials in funding for 2016-17, but when House of Commons Library research shows that Manchester has a per-pupil figure of £4,619 and Doncaster has a figure of £5,281, but the figure for Dorset is £4,240, we know that something has gone wrong. This tells us quite clearly that it is thought that taxpayers in Dorset and their children’s needs are less important than taxpayers and their children in other areas. There was nothing fair in the funding formula that Labour bequeathed to us. We could have had a knee-jerk reaction, which really would have put the cat among the pigeons, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and her predecessor have adopted an incremental approach to try to address and arrest the problem, and they are to be congratulated on that.

I concur with many of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), among others. When we go into our village primary schools, we see the enthusiasm of the teachers, parents, governors and staff in general. We see their enthusiasm for education, but we know that they have been trying to do their work with one hand tied behind their back because they have been penalised for living and working in a rural area.

[Ms Buck]

There is great passion among the teachers in schools such as the Westminster Academy, which has one of the highest proportions of children on free school dinners anywhere in Britain, but that school stands to lose at least £250,000. How is that fair?

[Simon Hoare]

I took over from the hon. Lady as chairman of the governors of Wilberforce primary school many years ago, so I am familiar with the problems facing schools in her constituency, as well as those elsewhere. Perhaps I need to make the point to Opposition Members quite baldly that just because schools that have done very well under an unfair system start to see some rebalancing while the cake is being re-divided, that is not necessarily an argument for saying that there should be no change for those schools that have disproportionately enjoyed funding while those in rural areas have not.