Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

No. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an additional £1.3 billion in July, as the hon. Gentleman kindly acknowledged. That means that not only have we maintained school funding in real terms, as we did in the last Parliament, but we have maintained school funding in real terms per pupil in this period up to 2020.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Currently, bids for capital spending on maintenance for schools are assessed on the state of the building. Given that there is significant competition for these bids and it is very difficult to assess the state of buildings in different schools across the country, is there not a case for also assessing the historical underfunding in various areas of our country?

Social Mobility Commission

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was gently teasing the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) but, needless to say, all Members are honest—that goes without saying.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Reports produced by the Social Mobility Foundation show that in the past year, east Cambridgeshire has gone up 70 places. While there is still more work to do, does the Minister think that the commission should be proud of this progress?

[Mr Goodwill]

Absolutely. There are parts of the country where tremendous progress has been made, not least in London, and they have shown the way ahead not only in education but in other areas. I am very optimistic that, as our 12 opportunity areas get into the full implementation stage, we will see improvements in those areas and learn lessons that can be applied elsewhere around the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I very much welcome the hon. Lady’s support for the steps the Government are taking, and I welcome her role in supporting relationship education in her previous role on the Opposition Front Bench. We will set out the details of the engagement process that will be getting under way to make sure that we get the next proposals right. It is important that we are sensitive to this particular topic and, given her interest in this area, I hope she will continue to stay involved.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

In answer to the first topical question today, the Secretary of State identified how a company can use its apprenticeship levy down the supply chain. Does she agree it is a good idea to allow companies to go even further down the supply chain to support science, technology, engineering and maths teachers? That will not only encourage links between businesses, schools and teaching but will encourage more bright graduates to go into STEM and other subjects.

[Justine Greening]

The relationship between employers and schools has never been more important, particularly in the STEM subjects, which are so crucial to British business. Whether we are raising standards in maths and science or whether the university technical college programme is formally connecting employers and education, the Government are looking across the board to ensure that that relationship is strong.

Free Childcare Entitlement

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I absolutely recognise the importance of the maintained sector. Indeed, many of the small number of maintained nursery schools tend to be in some of the more deprived areas, where needs are much greater. I would just reiterate the fact that 93% of nursery providers are either good or outstanding, according to Ofsted. That is a great sign of the quality that is being delivered on the ground. More hours will mean better quality education, with children starting school more prepared for it. Indeed, a report in the press today showed that children arrive at school without the necessary language skills and simple skills such as picking up a knife and fork. They will learn that at nursery, and that is great news.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Figures produced over the summer show that female employment rates are at a record high, at over 70%. Does the Minister agree that it is important to encourage and support women back into work and that this policy and legislation do that?

[Mr Goodwill]

I absolutely agree with my hon. and learned Friend, while recognising that some mothers and, indeed, fathers may see caring for their child at home as their priority—sadly, many do not have a choice in that because of the finances of the household. However, this policy is delivering the opportunity for more women to get into the workplace, and I have already heard from women who have taken on more hours or started a job when they could not previously afford to go to work at all.

Education and Local Services

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I think I have been quite clear that we would concentrate on standards and not structures, unlike this Government, who are ideologically obsessing and wasting billions of pounds—not my words, but those of the National Audit Office about the Government’s fixations.

The question is, will the Government now get on with the job and does the Prime Minister now also agree with Nick? Will the Secretary of State make it clear that there will be no attempts to lift the ban on new selective schools? Will she finally concentrate on solving the real problems—those that we hear about time and time again and that we heard about throughout the general election: the crisis in funding and in the teacher workforce—instead of creating more problems for herself?

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Labour party manifesto talked about a lot of funding for many areas, but does the hon. Lady recognise that making unfunded promises and putting a huge amount of funding into the system has an impact on the economy and on schools? That impact was seen in Greece, which went bankrupt, with 8,500 teachers losing their jobs and schools having no teachers to teach in them.

[Angela Rayner]

I am absolutely astonished by that, given what has happened over the last 24 hours and the magic money tree that has suddenly been found for a coalition of chaos. I will take no lectures from the Conservative party, especially when the only numbers I saw in its manifesto were the numbers of the pages I was reading.

The Prime Minister also threatened to end universal infant free school meals during the general election. I hope the Government will now confirm that that policy has been abandoned, as part of their full-scale retreat from their own manifesto. Ministers claimed during the election that free breakfasts would be more cost-effective. Their costings left a bit to be desired, though: the original plan would have allowed only 7p per breakfast. I remember that when Labour was in government we got our school meal recipes from Jamie Oliver. The Conservatives must have been getting theirs from Oliver Twist. Even then the new costings were based on take-up of just 20%, so I look forward to hearing a full explanation of their policy on free school meals.

On a similar note, one thing that the Secretary of State has announced today is the Government’s new policy on mental health first aid training in schools. They said they would train the first 3,000 staff for £200,000—£66 per member of staff. At the same time, the charity delivering the policy said it would cost at least £117.25 per person, so the Secretary of State’s figures were out, but only by about £150,000. Having realised that her numbers do not add up, she has now rushed out another U-turn, saying that the £200,000 is for only the first year of the policy. Can Ministers finally tell us how much the policy will cost per year, how many teachers will be trained each year and how she managed to get the policy announcement so badly wrong? It seems a long time ago since the Conservatives were talking about strong and stable leadership. Only one day after the deal for the coalition of chaos was signed, and this Government are even weaker and wobblier than ever before.

Now let me turn to the words that the Secretary of State did get into the Queen’s Speech, which promised reform of technical education. However, she has already legislated for reform of technical education earlier this year, in the Technical and Further Education Act 2017, so can Ministers tell us whether there will be another new Bill on technical education in this Session? Or is the reality that this Government have come to the House with such a threadbare programme that they have been reduced to announcing Bills that they have already passed, in the last Parliament?

The Government had nothing to say on higher education. No wonder they wanted to talk about our policies. It is just weeks since they used a statutory instrument to sneak through their latest rise in tuition fees, while freezing the threshold at which graduates begin to repay their debts. The election came before the scheduled debate and vote on that rise, so I hope the Government will now provide time for that debate on the Floor of the House.

Nor did the Government have anything to say on the even more critical issues of early years education and childcare. At the end of the last Parliament they left early years education and childcare in disarray. They promised an early years workforce strategy but have given no indication of how they will implement it. Providers across the country have told the Government time and time again that the funding they are providing is inadequate, and hundreds of thousands of working parents have been denied the service that they were promised. How many words were there about that in the Queen’s Speech? None whatsoever.

Let me also touch on another issue, which is perhaps more important than any other this week: the safety of our school buildings. The Government had been planning to change the regulations on fire safety in schools contained in “Building Bulletin 100”. Funnily enough, those proposed changes have now been removed from the Department for Education website, but luckily we have a paper copy. The proposed new draft no longer included an expectation that most new school buildings would be fitted with sprinklers, on the basis that

“school buildings do not need to be sprinkler protected to achieve a reasonable standard of life safety.”

Perhaps the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government could take the opportunity later to confirm that these proposed changes have now been abandoned for good.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I would like to start by congratulating our new colleagues on their outstanding maiden speeches, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) and for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham).

During the six-week general election campaign, Members on both sides of the House will have had the opportunity to listen to thousands of people. We have all heard their disappointments, hopes and fears. I value the long conversations I have had with many people who provide our outstanding public services, including our nurses, policemen and teachers, and I wish to feed back their thoughts.

One issue that came up consistently was education. I think we must first acknowledge how far we have come in recent decades. I recently read, with some amusement, a Government report that my grandfather, who was a headmaster, had contributed to. It sought to tackle head-on the importance of education for women. It stated:

“For girls, too, there is a group of interests relating to what many, perhaps most of them, would regard as their most important vocational concern, marriage. It is true that at the age of fourteen and fifteen, this may appear chiefly as preoccupation with personal appearance and boy friends, but many girls are ready to respond to work relating to wider aspects of homemaking and family life and the care and upbringing of children.”

We have come quite far since the 1960s, but there is further to go.

A significant priority must be a system in which every child has equal access to education, and that involves a system of fairer funding. That is why I am pleased that the Queen’s Speech included a commitment to fairer funding. It must mean that those schools that have historically been underfunded for years have their funding increased. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) has just said, funding is not the only mechanism to ensure future success. We need to ensure that we have enough teachers in training, especially in STEM subjects, and when they join the profession we need to ensure that they feel respected, supported and trusted. In an age when technology is so fast paced, would it not be brilliant if those STEM teachers were linked to businesses that are at the cutting edge of technological innovation in industry, and to businesses that ultimately might give jobs to the students they train?

I think that one way of doing that is staring us right in the face, because businesses are now paying the apprenticeship levy. For the first time, businesses will be actively required to think constructively about their role in training their workforce. The apprenticeship levy potentially goes further. It currently proposes that from next year 10% of the apprenticeship levy can go to a business’s supply chain, and what is the start of that supply chain, if not students and thus teachers? If businesses were allowed to use their 10% on supporting teacher training in STEM, that could forge important links between businesses and teaching. It could ensure that teachers had up-to-date knowledge of their sector and subject and were ready to relate that to the workplace. It would enable teachers to train without further increasing their student debt. Now is the time, if ever there was one, to properly engage businesses with learning, and innovation and technology with schools, and to rise to the challenge of how to help to build the next generation, because it is our future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I get the sense that you would like us to finish sooner rather than later.

We have had a packed debate, and it has been great to listen to the 48 Back-Bench Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Burnley (Julie Cooper), for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan); the right hon. Members for Broadland (Mr Simpson), for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper); the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), and for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston); and the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer).

However, I pay special tribute to all those hon. Members who have spoken in this Chamber for the first time and to their excellent maiden speeches, which show that, whichever part of the Chamber Members sit in, they come here with the right reasons and the right purpose, which is to represent their constituents and their constituencies as best they can. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock), for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr Russell-Moyle), for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), for High Peak (Ruth George) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and to the hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson), for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly), for Southport (Damien Moore) and for Glasgow East (David Linden). I would merely say that it was 12 years ago, on 23 May 2005, that I gave my maiden speech in the debate on communities, and I stand here 12 years later as the shadow Communities Secretary.

A week is a long time in politics, they say. Well, what a difference seven weeks made. When the election was called, I was virtually laughed off College Green in media interviews. Tory MPs’ tails were up—they were heading for a landslide. They asked for a big majority, but the Prime Minister lost the majority she had inherited. Their response? Well, out went all their policies—to the extent that we had a delayed Queen’s Speech that could have been written on an Ascot betting slip. Why the Queen had to wait for a goatskin to be prepared, I do not know—never has so much pomp and ceremony accompanied so little content.

This is the first opportunity I have had to speak since the appalling tragedies that shocked many of us over the past weeks. It is with pride, however, that I commend the way the communities of Manchester and London united to show opposition to that violence and hate. I also pay tribute to the heroic response from the emergency services, the NHS and the community following the dreadful tragedy at Grenfell Tower, and to those who provided support to all who lost family, friends and everything they own as the fire tore through their homes.

I know that, within the Labour party, there are staff and elected Members who have been affected personally, and I anticipate that similar can be said for others around the House. I am proud to stand alongside, and pay tribute to, all those who have demanded answers over the failings that allowed this tragedy to happen. Rather than being torn apart, the community has come together in a remarkable display of human compassion, mutuality and solidarity. I also welcome the fact that the Prime Minister last week recognised the failure of Government in this tragedy, and I look forward to the results of the forthcoming investigation, which I hope will ensure this tragedy is never, ever repeated.

The consequences of a Tory Government are visible to all. They include unrepaired roads, uncollected bins, cuts to English classes for speakers of other languages, cuts to adult learning and closed children’s centres throughout England. Less visible, however, are the stresses that have been placed on core services, planning services, building regulation and inspection of commercial properties. A recent study by the Local Government Information Unit found that three quarters of councils had little or no confidence in their financial sustainability, and more than one in 10 believed that they were in danger of failing to deliver legally required services such as those I have mentioned.

[Lucy Frazer]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if only one in 10 believe that they are not capable of delivering, nine out of 10 are managing with some of their financial services?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. and learned Lady shows a lack of understanding of precisely what is happening in local government. The fact that one in 10 are fearful of the financial future does not mean that 90% are satisfied. I suspect that she will regret making that intervention, because she will know that councils of all political persuasions up and down the country are struggling to make ends meet, and they want an end to Government austerity too.

Although I welcome the fact that the general election demonstrated the strength of public support for the policies of my party, and that it led to the Conservative party abandoning not just some but most of its damaging and unpopular plans, there is now a complete financial and policy black hole.

A 56% cut of central Government funding to local authorities was due to be replaced through new measures allowing local authorities to hold on to 100% of locally raised business rates. Where are those plans now? Local business rate retention was expected to begin in 2019-20. However, due to the lack of a legislative framework to carry the introduction of the policy, many in the local government world now assume that the plans have been kicked into the long grass. This is the third time that I have had to raise this issue. When will the Government provide the clarity that local councils need? Are the plans still going ahead, and are they still going ahead on the timescales previously mentioned? Where is the legislation?

The Minister can intervene if he wishes to answer those points—perhaps he will answer them in his speech—but the fact is that Back-Bench Members on both sides of the House will want to question Ministers precisely on the detail of how their local councils are going to be financed. The Opposition will not let up until we have the absolute certainty of how the revenue support grant is going to be replaced.

The King’s Fund predicted a £1.9 billion funding gap in social care this year, while the Local Government Association estimated a £2.6 billion funding gap by 2020. Once again, the Government had no answers in the Queen’s Speech. Almost half of elderly people are living in inadequate care homes.

Although it seems that the grammar school plans have been abandoned, thousands of teachers and teaching assistants have either already lost their jobs because of the cuts or left the profession early because of this Government’s policies. This is not propaganda. Many schools are due to be worse off under the new funding formula, which will still result in Government cuts of 3% to school budgets, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Since 2010, 455 libraries have closed. Investment in arts and culture has declined by £236 million. Some councils have been forced to impose cuts of up to 80%, which have disproportionately affected the most deprived areas in this country. In the previous Parliament, the 10 most deprived council areas in England faced cuts 18 times higher than the least deprived councils. If we want a Government for the many and not the few, it is really clear that it will not be served by the party currently sitting on the Government Benches. We need a party that is committed to governing in the interests of the whole country and to making sure that inequality is reversed.

Let us look at what this Government have done. Despite the cuts to all our public services, this Prime Minister has managed to find £1 billion to invest in securing herself a wafer-thin parliamentary majority. Why has the same priority not been placed on investing in our public services? One billion pounds would help to prevent cuts to the police budget and allow us to recruit more police officers across the whole country. One billion pounds could train 45,419 new firefighters. One billion pounds could not only fund the Government’s pledge to create 10,000 training placements for nurses, but allow them to do so without scrapping bursaries.

There is a growing consensus that the austerity project has failed, but this legislative programme promises more of the same—unless you live in Northern Ireland. Urgent action is needed on health and social care budgets, public sector pay and local government funding, yet all those issues were absent from this delayed Queen’s Speech. Local government faces a cliff edge, yet during the election Ministers were unwilling to debate those issues. They remain so detached from those they claim to represent that they are unable to see the looming crisis. This Queen’s Speech was an ideal time for the Government to admit that their 1% pay cap is not working and that public sector workers deserve to be paid a wage they can live on. It was an opportunity for the Conservative party to demonstrate that it had learned from the criticism it received during the election campaign. Sadly, I suspect we will still see nurses using food banks. It was an opportunity for the Government to recognise that not enough money is being invested in our education system. As has been demonstrated in today’s debate, schools that raise concerns about a lack of funding are dismissed as engaging in political propaganda.

It is time to build a country based on hope and shared prosperity. Local government and public sector services will play a vital role in supporting us to do that, enriching communities and creating an environment in which we are able to tackle isolation, division and mistrust: a country for the many, not the few. This is possible only if it is properly funded. We will take no lectures from this Government. We look forward to the day when we show this Government the door and we get the Government that our public services and constituents deserve and need: a Labour Government for the many, not the few.

School Funding

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Education has the power to change lives. As the motion recognises, it helps children to fulfil their potential. Like many Members of Parliament, I have campaigned to ensure that my constituency gets its share of funding through a new, fairer funding formula, because it has been historically underfunded. I want to see a formula with a significant element allocated to core funding, to ensure that every school has the funds it needs. Funding for good education is not only important, but necessary.

I want to focus, for a moment, on the implicit suggestion in the motion that it is the Government’s funding decisions that are inhibiting children from reaching their full potential. Funding on its own is insufficient to ensure excellence. Let me give two examples. The first relates to early years. In its 2016 report, Ofsted emphasised the success of our early years education. When it came to recommendations, it said not that more money was needed but that parents needed to take up the education opportunities that were already being offered. It reported that 113,000 children who would have benefited from early years were simply not taking up Government-funded places.

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is making a very valid point about early years. Does she agree that this is not just about a new fairer funding formula? This Government are putting much money into education, particularly for the new 30 hours of free childcare. Neroche pre-school in my constituency is having a brand-new building built on the back of that money and it is only too grateful to the Government.

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend makes an important point: it is not just about fairer funding. I am very pleased that my area of East Cambridgeshire was one of the 12 opportunity areas announced last week to get significantly more money—£72 million in total. So this is not just about fairer funding money coming in.

I mentioned that there were two examples, and I want to move on to the second. On secondary education, in the same report Ofsted mentioned that secondary schools in the north and midlands were weaker than those in other areas of the country. It remarked that

“lower performance across these regions cannot be fully accounted for by poverty or by differences in school funding.”

The Ofsted report also stated that leaders and teachers had not set sufficiently high expectations for the behaviour of their pupils, which leads me on to my key point. To raise standards and to allow children to achieve their aspirations, we need to do so much more than provide adequate funding. We need to champion teaching as a vocation. We need to inspire more outstanding teachers to teach. We need to give teachers the respect and autonomy they deserve. We need to support our students in the classroom to enable them to deal with life’s challenges, from helping them with mental health issues to building up their resilience and aspiration. We need to work with industry to identify local skills shortages and to raise standards in our technical education. These go hand in hand with funding, and all these measures have been championed by this Government, whether in the industrial strategy Green Paper announced this week, the Prime Minister’s statement on mental health earlier this month, or the “Educational excellence everywhere” White Paper last year.

Education is a building-block for the future. Good funding is essential, but we need to work together across all Departments to ensure that our children fulfil their potential.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Every child in this country, and every disabled child in this country, deserves a decent education. The principle that no child should be worse off as a result of these funding reforms should run through this consultation. Where a child was born should not dictate their life chances, yet that is the case for too many children in our country, and too many children in Wakefield, where 25% of them are growing up in poverty. I was proud to be a member of the last Labour Government, who lifted nearly a million children out of poverty, and I am so disappointed by what this Government have done, overseeing the closure of 800 Sure Start centres and changing the goalposts on measuring child poverty.

Wakefield schools have taken a very deep hit from these proposals.

[Lucy Frazer]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mary Creagh]

No, I am not giving way.

Fair funding should mean a levelling up, not a levelling down. Every school in my constituency will see their funding cut under the Secretary of State’s proposals. The manifesto promise to protect education spending has been broken, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). The Government have not provided for funding per pupil to increase in line with inflation; have not accounted for the increase in pupils attending schools; and have not considered the costs of higher national insurance and pension contributions, which now have to be absorbed by the school budgets. When the efficiency savings are factored into the funding formula, funding in Wakefield per pupil will fall from £4,725 this year to £4,211 in 2019-20—a real-terms cut of 11%.

[Mary Creagh]

I will not give way.

Nine maintained schools across Wakefield district are projected to be in deficit by 31 March, which means increased class sizes, subjects dropped from the curriculum, pupils with special educational needs and disabilities losing vital support, and teacher vacancies left unfilled.

There will also be a very worrying impact on special educational needs. At the moment, there is some flexibility to move money around and to move it into the high needs block. Under the new formula, there will be disruption and uncertainty around special needs funding for cities such as Wakefield. The funds are simply not enough for children in our city who need that extra support.

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady said at the outset that it was important for all children to get the same opportunities. She also mentioned that class sizes would go up. Does she think it is fair that, for the children in my constituency, class sizes in every single secondary school are over 30, and that those schools have been historically underfunded for years and years and years?

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Lady reinforces my point, which is that the Government must take into account rising pupil numbers. This formula and the efficiency savings fail to do that, so she needs to have a word with her Secretary of State about them.

We cannot have a situation in which there is just not enough money to go around to educate all children well. In Wakefield, we will see 1,000 more pupils start school in September and yet no money has been allocated for that increase, which means that the schools and the pupils will miss out. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that schools in England face the steepest cuts to funding since the 1970s.

Despite those circumstances, headteachers such as Martin Fenton at Greenhill Primary, Rob Marsh at Cathedral Academy, and Georgina Haley at Netherton Junior and Infant School are doing excellent work in my constituency to improve the life chances of children in Wakefield. I urge the Secretary of State to drop her grammar school plans, revise the national funding formula for schools, and make sure that we do not go back to the bad old days. I was at school at the same time as she was. I had to pay £12 for my O-level physics textbook, and we did not have a teacher for two years in the good old days of the 1984 teaching budgets. We do not want to go back to those days.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

I have literally seconds left.

As the National Audit Office has suggested, school leaders who do not have support are likely to make decisions that make the teacher retention crisis worse. The NAO went on to say that the Government’s current

“approach to managing the risks to schools’ financial sustainability cannot be judged to be effective or providing value for money”.

It is important to recognise the impact that the required efficiency savings will have on staff. We expect already unsustainable workload pressures to increase as staff efficiencies eventually start to bite. Moreover, the size of the savings that schools will have to find will lead to worse educational outcomes, and the biggest impact will be felt by those in the most deprived areas and those with special needs.

We know that staff costs represent any school’s largest expenditure—74% of schools’ budgets are spent on staff—so it is not hard to see that to save money over the next few years, schools will inevitably end up cutting back on staff. That will have a knock-on effect on workload, morale, class sizes and the breadth of the curriculum that schools can offer. All this is happening at a time when we are expecting a 3% increase in the number of children entering school.

A bad situation is compounded by the national funding formula. Some Conservative Members, who really missed the point, had been expecting “jam tomorrow” from the formula, which was a manifesto commitment, but now they are waking up to the reality that the schools in their constituency will not benefit from its introduction. Hardly any area is left unscathed. In their excellent speeches, the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) said that the funding formula was not the point; the point was the cuts and pressures faced by schools.

I ask the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire to speak to her hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), who completely missed the point. The House will have been astonished by the slap in the face for northern teachers, who are apparently not ambitious enough for their pupils, and that is from a Government who introduced the Weller report on raising standards.

[Lucy Frazer]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my speech carefully, he would have understood that I was quoting the 2016 Ofsted report. Those were not my words; they were the words of Ofsted.

[Mike Kane]

It was a slap in the face, and the hon. and learned Lady’s authority in Cambridgeshire will face a 4% cut on top of all the other pressures that are going on.

The Tories are failing our children. They are overseeing the first real-terms cut in the schools budget for over two decades—indeed, since the 1970s, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh). By their own preferred measure on standards, we have declined in the world PISA—programme for international student assessment—rankings.

In a moment the Minister will stand up and either talk about synthetic phonics, or say that 1.8 million children are in better schools. That, of course, is because Labour identified those schools in 2010 and Ofsted came back to reassess them, and because there are now more children in the system—the primary system. This dire situation for our schools will only continue to get worse as a result of the Government’s cuts and their new funding formula.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill and have a lot of sympathy for the cause it enshrines. I can commit to a consultation early in the new year, and I know that he and others who are interested in this issue will want to contribute.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to support teachers in improving educational outcomes.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

Great teachers are critical to improving educational outcomes. Teaching is a profession, and we support the professional development of teachers, including through the new £74.2 million teaching and leadership innovation fund and the new charter college of teaching. We are also investing in improving curriculum expertise and specialism, particularly in maths, which I saw for myself first hand on a recent visit to Shanghai, China.

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. In “Education Excellence Everywhere”, a paper produced in March 2016, there was a good proposal for a free national teacher vacancy website to ensure that the costs of recruitment were kept down for schools. What progress is the Secretary of State making on that proposal?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. and learned Friend mentions the commitment we made in the March White Paper to a website offering a free route for schools to advertise teacher vacancies and, in doing so, providing teachers with easier access to information about job opportunities. We have worked closely with schools and teachers, and we are testing out different approaches to how to deliver that website most effectively, so we can make sure that it will be of maximum value to all schools.

National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I was talking about two flexibilities in the consultation. They include, in relation to the high-needs fund that we are now consulting on, the ability for local authorities that will still receive high-needs funding to share some of that with mainstream schools, if they feel that is a better way of operating to provide for special needs locally. Of course, some special needs children are in mainstream schools and some are in special schools. We wanted to include an additional flexibility for 2018-19, so that where there is agreement locally that the funding should flow the opposite way—from the schools budget into high needs, perhaps because of the way that special needs are delivered locally—that should be possible if there is overall agreement from the majority of schools. That is what we are consulting on. We want to look at whether there is a longer-term approach, but the whole point of the second-stage consultation is to get feedback on those proposals.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the statement on fairer funding for schools. It is not right that constituencies such as mine have a £2,000 difference per pupil compared with other constituencies. I noted with interest that the Secretary of State identified as one of the reasons the fact that the data are a decade out of date, so going forward it is fundamental that we have the correct data, particularly in areas of high growth. Will she assure me that the data will be collected sufficiently late in the year, so that we know the accurate figures per pupil for the following school year?

[Justine Greening]

As part of the figures for deprivation we will be using IDACI—the income deprivation affecting children index—which essentially looks at how deprivation affects children in particular. It was last updated very recently, so it gives us a fresh database to use. In relation to broader pupil cohort characteristics, the census is updated in October every year and that feeds into the following academic year’s funding formula details. Those two things should mean that we have up-to-date data to feed in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As the hon. Lady has pointed out, we are making sure that the funding is there to maintain the investment that is going into 16-to-18 apprenticeships, particularly in disadvantaged areas. I simply say to her that this is the first time our country has had a broad-based strategy on apprenticeships that is about not just Government investment, but employers investing too. I think the whole House should welcome that.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

T6. East Cambridgeshire ranks as the 14th worst area in the country for social mobility. Given its location so close to Cambridgeshire businesses that can help to improve aspiration and standards, does the Secretary of State agree that the area would benefit hugely from the opportunity fund so rightly being promoted by her Department?

[Justine Greening]

As my hon. and learned Friend points out, one of the underlying principles behind opportunity areas is getting businesses to work with schools and provide opportunities that are good not only for developing the life skills of young people but for setting higher aspirations. I have no doubt that it could work most effectively in East Cambridgeshire, which, as she set out, was recently ranked very low on the Social Mobility Commission index.

Schools that work for Everyone

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The point I was making to the hon. Gentleman was that many people feel there is a cliff edge in terms of entry into grammars, as it stands, at age 11. We are consulting on children having the chance to go to a local grammar, perhaps at an older age. Indeed, if they are particularly capable at one or two subjects, they could perhaps go to a grammar to study them. I am sure he will read the consultation document with interest.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that by lifting the statutory bar we are not returning to the two-tier system of the 1950s? Our education system has moved on. We have the choice of university technical colleges, free schools and academies, as well as apprenticeships. When striving for educational excellence, we must continue to look at all the best forms of education for our children.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is quite right. We have moved from a system where there was a one-size-fits-all approach to schools for children. We now have a system where there is so much more diversity and choice. We think it is wrong to have one kind of school within the system that is unable to respond to parent demand—that is the need for more grammars. We want to open up the debate and look at what we can do to enable parents around the country to have more of a choice.