Louise Ellman
Main Page: Louise Ellman (Independent - Liverpool, Riverside)Department Debates - View all Louise Ellman's debates with the Department for Education
Education: Public Funding
Louise Ellman Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Academic standards are key in our schools, and standards of behaviour are hugely important in underpinning a rise in academic standards. That is why we have focused on improving the curriculum in both the primary and secondary sectors.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government’s current plans mean cuts of over £600 per head for students in Liverpool’s schools. Is the Minister now saying that schools will face no cuts at all, in real terms, in any aspect of Government funding?
Nick Gibb
What we have said is that there will be no cut in per-pupil funding as a consequence of moving to the national fair funding formula. I have acknowledged that cost pressures—equivalent to 3.1% of the total schools budget in 2016-17, and to between 1.5% and 1.6% of that budget over this year and the subsequent two years—will affect schools in the hon. Lady’s area and in other parts of the country over a four-year period, as a result of higher employers’ national insurance contributions and teacher pension contributions. Those cost pressures, which are replicated across the public sector, exist because we are having to deal with the budget deficit. It is imperative that we do so if we are to continue to have a strong economy. [Interruption.] The shadow Education Secretary suggests from a sedentary position that we have had seven years to deal with that deficit. It was an historic deficit, and it will take as many years as it takes to get it down to zero.