Schools Update: National Funding Formula

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Secretary of State’s Statement. If today’s announcement is indeed a funding formula where not a single school loses funding and it is genuinely new money, I will welcome it. Indeed, I will offer hearty congratulations to the Minister because that would mean the Government had formally adopted Labour Party policy, as set out in our manifesto for this year’s election.

To expect the Minister to concede that point might be a step too far but in any case we are not yet there. Real questions remain about real-term protections for school budgets, the length of the transition to the new funding formula and whether the Government will finally begin to reverse the wider cuts facing school budgets. However, I unconditionally welcome the recognition given to high-needs pupils, not least in the title of the policy document itself. Yet the total spend of £5.9 billion that the Minister mentioned is not referenced. Is that the figure projected to 2020? What is the baseline figure?

On the question of cuts to schools already being dealt with by head teachers, non-partisan bodies such as the National Audit Office and the Institute for Fiscal Studies stated that even the £1.3 billion of what we now know is recycled money announced by the Secretary of State in July would reduce the 6.5% real-terms cuts facing schools only to 4.6%. What effect will today’s announcement have on these real-terms cuts? Indeed, where does the £1.3 billion announced in July stand in relation to today’s Statement? It is mentioned but it was not clear to me how it is tied in. The Statement says core funding for schools and high needs will rise from £41 billion this year to £42.4 billion next year and then £43.5 billion. It is not clear how that relates to the £1.3 billion announced in July.

I mentioned that if this is as it seems it will be welcome but head teachers, teachers, support staff and students deserve to know quite clearly where they stand in respect of today’s announcement. In announcing the £2.6 billion additional core funding, the Statement mentioned delivery on the Conservative Party manifesto in terms of fairer funding. However, it made no mention of the fact that that same manifesto promised £4 billion of new funding in the period of the entire Parliament, should it last up to 2022. What status does that commitment now command? I hope it still stands.

Finally, we welcome the fact that the Government listened to the voices of teachers and parents, as expressed during the general election. That clearly had a considerable bearing on the content of this announcement. However, as ever, the devil is in the detail. Until we have that detail, future funding for our schools will remain unclear. I hope the Minister will allay those fears. I would not expect him to come back on those points just now. It would be perfectly acceptable if he wrote to me.