School Funding

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I remember visiting his constituency and seeing the fantastic work that teachers and support staff do in his area. I commend their work, but I say again that the Government have to listen to teachers and parents up and down the country who say that enough is enough and that the cuts to their budgets are not acceptable.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the IFS also said that the extra £1.3 billion for schools means that school spending will not fall but stay the same per pupil?

[Angela Rayner]

It is interesting that the hon. Lady says that. That may be the case from today onwards, but that £1.3 billion figure takes no account of the £2.7 billion that her Government have already taken from schools, so they still face cash cuts between 2015 and 2020. Our motion offers the Government the support of the House to change that and to put their own words into practice.

Schools increasingly face an environment that is completely unacceptable in a country like ours. Earlier this month, teachers warned of a growing child poverty crisis. Staff said that children were coming into school without clean clothes. We even heard that pupils were showing signs of malnutrition. I doubt that anyone—in this place or outside—thought they would read headlines like that in 2018, but every part of our children’s education system is experiencing a funding squeeze.

[Angela Rayner]

If the hon. Lady casts her mind back, she will remember that at the general election her Government offered school breakfasts at 6p a breakfast. I do not know how they thought they could feed children for 6p a breakfast. I will take no lectures from Government Members given that, after six months, the Government still do not have a chair for their Social Mobility Commission.

Our motion offers the Government the support of the House to change that and to put their words into practice. Earlier this month, teachers warned of a growing child poverty crisis. The Government should support children and their families from the beginning of their lives, but funding for Sure Start has been slashed by hundreds of millions of pounds and 1,200 Sure Start centres have been lost since the Tories came to power. School funding cuts have left more children crammed into super-size classes, there are fewer subjects on offer and the school day has even been squeezed.

[Maria Caulfield]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Angela Rayner]

No, I have already given way to the hon. Lady.

The NASUWT warned just weeks ago that one in five new classrooms is a portakabin. Is it not time for the Government to match our commitment to getting the school estate into a safe and acceptable condition?

For kids with special educational needs, the funding crisis creates even greater challenges. Let me declare an interest: only last week, I was one of those parents facing the issue of making transitional arrangements for their child with special educational needs. Frankly, parents up and down the country worry that support will not be in place for their children. When school budgets are cut, the services that support children who are most in need are often lost first. The National Education Union found that almost two thirds of schools have had to cut special needs provision.

The Government’s new funding formula presents local authorities, which are at breaking point due to cuts to their budgets, with the terrible choice between top-slicing additional funding for high needs and giving schools their full allocation. Councils should never have to face that choice. Will the Secretary of State look at giving every local authority the additional funding they need for high needs from his Department’s budget instead of squeezing it from schools, which are already under pressure?

There is a similar picture for other support. We recently debated the new rules on free school-meal eligibility. Despite Ministers and Government Members claiming that no children would lose their existing allowance, the IFS found that one in eight who is child eligible under the legacy benefits system will not be eligible after the changes. Will the Secretary of State finally publish his Department’s methodology?

At 16, children should have new opportunities ahead of them, but too often those are lost. Some £1.2 billion has been slashed from the 16-to-19 education budget, hitting sixth forms and colleges. Apprenticeship starts are in freefall. This Government’s repeated failure to invest in our young people and their futures will rob them of the opportunities that so many of us in the Chamber took for granted.

I am sure that the Secretary of State will remind us all of the £1.3 billion his predecessor eventually came up with last year, so perhaps he will also tell us where that money will come from. We already know that £300 million was raided from the healthy pupils fund despite the Government’s promise that that would not be cut. His predecessor also indicated that she would save money by rowing back on the free schools programme—at last, an admission that conventional schools are actually cheaper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Once again, we are here at an Opposition-day debate where the Opposition play political football with the issue of schools. The shadow Secretary of State actually admitted to that during her opening remarks. The Opposition are playing on the fears of parents one week before the local elections. Again, that is something to which she openly admitted. That is really what this debate is all about. This is not a serious debate about school funding because, if it were, it would be about why constituencies such as mine have, for decades, been funded significantly less than urban authorities: 49% per head of population have been funded less than in urban areas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) said, this was based not on need, but on geography and history. That is a wrong that this Conservative Government are putting right.

When the fairer funding formula was announced, I was the first to visit headteachers in my constituency, who spoke about the increased pressures and rising costs of running schools. I took those headteachers to meet the Minister so that they could discuss their concerns, and the Government listened. The figures that came out at the end of last year showed a significant increase in funding—between 4% and 8%, on average—for schools in my constituency. That is a welcome boost. It does not account for some of the pressures that schools are still facing and that I am meeting headteachers to discuss. But that is a serious debate. It is not about making the issue a political football and once again scaremongering teachers, parents and pupils.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend, like me, represents a rural constituency. The lack of funding that we get in comparison with urban areas is putting real pressure on schools, especially in dealing with children with special needs. Does she agree that the time has come to ensure that the differences between rural and urban areas are rectified?

[Maria Caulfield]

Absolutely. Ministers are listening to this, and it is an ongoing debate and process. The figures published late last year are an indication of the progress that we are making. The facts have been checked by independent sources such as Full Fact, which has said that it is “correct” to say that school spending is at record levels. The shadow Secretary of State quoted the IFS. I will repeat what the IFS said, which is that the extra £1.3 billion for schools means that school spending will not fall but will stay the same per pupil. And that is the key point. There are not actually school cuts; there are pressures and costs, but the funding is increasing.

I have some questions for the Minister from primary schools in Lewes. First, will the Minister confirm that the pupil premium will be ongoing for the long term? Schools have found that extremely helpful. The second question is a request for a long-term funding settlement, not a year-on-year one, as it would make long-term planning easier for schools. Thirdly, schools would like us to use the census data starting from January, not October, because they are sometimes carrying pupils for the length of the school year, but are not actually being paid for them. Those are three requests from primary schools in Lewes, in a serious debate about school funding.

[Gareth Thomas]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

I will not for the moment.

How have the unions reacted to this debate? Do they welcome this school funding? Do they welcome the Government redressing the balance between urban and rural areas? No. The National Union of Teachers has been quite open about making this a political campaign. In fact, it spent £326,000 campaigning on this issue during the general election last year—more than the Green party and UKIP. The union uses this issue as a political football for election purposes. That is a shocking state of affairs.

The NUT sent letters to parents, frightening them about school funding cuts that were not actually coming, and put banners in schools telling parents how much their children would be losing, when that was not true at all. It spread lies and fear. It is under investigation by the Electoral Commission for submitting incomplete spending returns. Given the funding announcements after the election, hon. Members might think that there would be a consensus to support the Government and welcome the funding increase. But no—the joint general secretary urged members at a recent conference in Brighton to ramp up their efforts ahead of the local elections as school funding is a top concern for voters. This is the true reason that we are having this debate. The NUT said about the issue of school funding that

“if voters changed their mind because of that—then we are pleased…We make no apology. We will do it again.”

That is the whole purpose of today’s debate. It is about next Thursday; it is not about schools funding or the future of our children.

Just look at the example of Labour authorities up and down the country, including Brighton and Hove, right next door to me, where some of my constituents send their children to school. The council there has been having issues taking in more children. Brighton’s The Argus newspaper investigated this case in an exposé by their lead reporter, Joel Adams. The council told parents that it had no money and could not accommodate children, and that this was all down to Government cuts. The Argus found, however, that the Government had actually given Brighton and Hove City Council £15 million to deal with the problem and build new classrooms, and that the Labour council had refused to spend it. It preferred to send out letters scaremongering parents and to put up banners on railings than to spend the £15 million that it was given by this Conservative Government. That is the truth.

Some of the schools in my constituency that sent letters to parents have now had an 8% increase in funding. When I challenged them on this, they said that there is pressure from the unions to get the message out. It is absolutely disgraceful. Opposition Members should be ashamed of themselves for raising this fear and scaremongering. But the truth is out today, because we heard it from the shadow Secretary of State; we all know that this is about the elections next Thursday.

I will close my speech with another irony. The whole point of this debate was to challenge parties about what they put in their manifesto and how they will find the money. Well, what did the Labour party put in its manifesto? Abolishing tuition fees. But once the election was over, that was suddenly just an aspiration and the abacus was put into storage for the next general election.

[Angela Rayner]

Will the hon. Lady take the opportunity to correct the record? We said in our manifesto that we would abolish tuition fees, and we continue to say that we would abolish tuition fees.

[Maria Caulfield]

I welcome that announcement, as it takes me to the second point I mentioned: where is this money coming from? As the abacus is in storage, we will have to wait until the next election to find out.

The Labour party’s aspiration is to spend, spend, spend—with no idea where the money is coming from. But we know from the Labour leader that Venezuela is the role model that his party is following—an aspiration to all of us fighting against austerity and neoliberal economics. At schools in Venezuela, children are missing 40% of their classes while teachers queue up in food lines, and the rate of children dropping out of school there has doubled. That is Labour’s vision for this country. It is not one that I want for the children here.