Laurence Robertson
Main Page: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)Department Debates - View all Laurence Robertson's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 3 months ago)
Commons Chamber9. What progress her Department is making on providing fairer funding for schools.
12. What progress she has made on the introduction of a national funding formula for schools.
13. What progress her Department is making on providing fairer funding for schools.
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is unfair that a primary pupil eligible for free school meals in Richmond receives £472 extra funding while a similar student in another part of Yorkshire receives almost £300 more. That is why we recently announced that the schools block funding rates for 2016-17 have been baked in the extra funding that we distributed in the last financial year to make funding fairer.
I welcome the fact that the Government are about to introduce a national funding formula, but may I urge the Minister to do it sooner rather than later, because the longer the unfairness goes on the more difficult it will be to correct?
I know the f40 group, of which my hon. Friend is a member, has been campaigning for 19 years for a fairer funding formula, so I can understand his impatience. He is right to highlight the financial pressures that schools are under, especially those in underfunded parts of the country; this is one of the reasons why we are committed to fairer funding. As I said, we have protected per pupil funding in each authority from 2015-16, meeting the commitment to protect the national schools budget.