Schools Funding

Karen Lumley Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, the subject of which will make a considerable difference to the futures of young people in my constituency. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) for securing the debate but particularly for his tireless work on the subject, not only in our county but nationally. His constituents, like mine, have suffered from unfair funding in education for far too long. It has been a priority for many of us since we were elected to see the mess of education funding sorted out. I am pleased that now we are starting to see real progress on the matter following the previous Government’s failure to act.

My own passion for the subject predates my time as an MP and goes back to my own experiences of education funding when my children were at school, which was many years ago, I have to say. When my family moved to Worcestershire in 2000, I was shocked to find that my children’s education in Redditch did not seem to carry with it the same monetary value as it did in our former home of Wrexham. My awareness of that grew further when I became a governor at Vaynor First school in Redditch and saw that the situation was worse than I had anticipated. As has already been said, Worcestershire is one of the lowest-funded local education authorities in England. It is in the bottom 10. Despite my constituency being just 5 miles outside Birmingham, there is a difference of around £700 between what pupils get towards their education in both areas. I hope that the Minister will be able to address that point and explain to the parents in Redditch why their children are worth less than children 5 miles up the road.

In 2009 Redditch was red flagged for unsatisfactory educational attainment by the Audit Commission, as the borough was falling way behind the rest of the county. However, in the years that have followed, thanks to both the hard work of teachers and the reforms made by this Government, schools in Redditch have gone from strength to strength. Redditch now boasts some of the best-performing schools in the county—a remarkable turnaround for the borough’s schools, where almost 70% of pupils now achieve the five A* to C GCSE standard compared with only 37% in 2007. Imagine what would happen if we got fairer funding in Redditch. This will be the first time in a decade that funding has been allocated to Redditch, Worcestershire and other local areas on the basis of the actual characteristics of pupils and schools, rather than simply on the basis of historical levels of spending. Under the minimum funding levels proposed, young people in Redditch stand to receive a 1.7% or £4.9 million rise in funding which will rise from £4,231 to £4,302 per pupil.

Having studied the figures across the different local authorities, however, I am concerned that Worcestershire is still not getting as good a deal as others, particularly given that some better-funded authorities stand to gain more from the proposals. There is real concern that without more funding they will still continue to meet their responsibilities. I look to the Minister for comment, and hope that after the consultation period some of the figures will be adjusted accordingly. The commitment we have made is an important step forward, and it is worth remembering how far we have come in such a short time.

The campaign has been about securing a fair deal for our constituents and righting an obvious wrong. Of course, money is not all that is required to give our young people a good start in life but it certainly goes a long way towards doing so. Our Government must continue to work to show children and their parents that no matter where they come from or what their background is, we are committed to improving the education they receive.