Education and Local Services

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and all the wonderful, passionate and eloquent maiden speeches that it has been my privilege to listen to this afternoon.

The Queen’s Speech says that we will invest in schools, ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend a good school and see that all schools are fully funded. The National Association of Head Teachers says that the general election result showed that the public did not endorse many of the Conservatives’ more controversial policy ideas, including expanding selection and ending universal infant free school meals. It is right that those policies have been dropped from the Government’s legislative programme.

The Conservative manifesto contained a commitment to ensure that no school would lose per pupil funding under the formula, and it is vital that that promise is now followed through. However, the House of Commons Library says that the Government’s new funding formula would have “winners and losers”, with 54% of schools seeing a cash increase and 46% seeing a cut.

Figures from the National Audit Office show that, in the Borough of Rochdale of which my constituency of Heywood and Middleton forms a part, our schools are facing cuts of £15 million. On average, our local schools are facing cuts of £550 per pupil, which is equivalent to the loss of 468 teachers across the borough, leading to larger class sizes and increasing stress and disillusionment among those teachers remaining in post.

I have been contacted by many headteachers and teachers in my constituency, who have expressed their real and serious concerns about the impact of the new funding formula on our children’s education. They have told me that they have had to make budget savings year on year, and that now the cupboard is bare. The imposition of any more cuts will give them no option but to reduce the number of teachers. Locally, none of the schools in my constituency is a winner; they will all lose out under the new funding formula. Nationally, the picture appears to be much the same, with even Tory MPs complaining that these cuts are “entirely unacceptable”.

We must not forget our international obligations. We have signed up to sustainable development goal No. 4, which commits to ensuring that by 2030 all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education.

Last week, the wonderful children at St Vincent’s Roman Catholic primary school in Norden in my constituency invited me to a morning assembly on the theme of “send my friend to school” where they sang and performed brilliantly on behalf of their international neighbours. They reminded me that, at our current rate of progress, sustainable development goal No. 4 will not be achieved until 2084. None the less, it made me very proud to see those children looking outwards, not inwards. Seeing this care and compassion among our young people gave me hope for the future, and I hope that this Government will take note.

Let me briefly touch on the recent election. The Prime Minister recklessly gambled with her majority and lost it. Far from providing strength and stability, we now have a fragile minority Government propped up by Democratic Unionist party votes. I was one of the few MPs who voted against the election—because of voter fatigue. My constituents have had a major election every year since 2014, and at the time the election was announced we were in the midst of the Greater Manchester mayoral elections. I tried to save the Prime Minister from herself but to no avail.