Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The financial statements are both audited and published, and of course academies, as companies, are also subject to Companies House reporting, as well as to working with the Education Funding Agency. It is therefore clear that academies’ financial statements are already open for scrutiny, and the Department takes a close interest in the figures that are published.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Many happy returns of the day, Mr Speaker.

Pate’s and Balcarras schools in my constituency are exceptionally well managed financially and are among the most outstanding schools academically in the country, but both of them tell me that they will struggle with projected sixth-form funding in particular. Will the Secretary of State have good news for them and me and other hon. Members by the time she meets us later on today?

[Nicky Morgan]

As the hon. Gentleman may know, the Government can work quite quickly. However, I am not sure they will work that quickly this afternoon, although I take careful note of what he has said. He is not alone among Members of Parliament in raising that issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

It demonstrates nothing of the kind. The LEP network is working exceedingly well. LEPs are voluntary organisations; some are outstanding and innovative and others struggle, as this one has done. It is much better that we have a regional network that is business-led and is related to the geography of the area, which was manifestly not the case with the regional development agencies.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

T2. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that the family brand name Weetabix is closing its packet printers Vibixa in my constituency, with inevitable consequences for more than 100 employees and their families, after the company was denied the sales force that could have widened its customer base? Does he agree that when a profitable company closes a profitable subsidiary, it should offer the best possible redundancy terms to its employees, some of whom have served Weetabix for more than 35 years, and not something barely above the statutory minimum?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. I am sure that everyone’s thoughts will be with those individuals who face this very difficult decision at this time of year. He is right to highlight the fact that the statutory minimum is indeed just that; it is a minimum, a floor. It is not the best scenario. One would not expect a profitable employer that cares for its staff to go for the minimum when it can afford to pay more to recognise long-standing service.

School Funding

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I of course—it is quite possible to do this—have a list of the 62 authorities impacted. If the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) wants one, she can go and get a copy. Medway’s current funding is £4,352, which will increase to £4,402 under the proposal.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

May I tell my right hon. Friend that this announcement will be warmly welcomed in Cheltenham and across Gloucestershire—including in schools such as Balcarras, whose sixth-form funding has been particularly badly hit by the inclusion of the historical element in the funding formula—but when will we hear further announcements about progress towards a fully fair funding formula, and will that happen within the next 12 months?

[Mr Laws]

We will now have the consultation on the measures announced today. We will listen to the feedback we get from parents, teachers and others, and we will then make a final decision about the settlement for 2015-16. Given the importance of stability, we do not think it right to fix plans for years beyond 2015-16 until we know the education budgets for those years. It is for the country to decide at the next election whether it wants to return parties that are committed to ongoing funding reform.

Schools Admissions Policies

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I would argue that a good basis for the big society is schooling children in their own communities.

With Mr O’Donnell’s out-of-catchment intake, he is seeing a massive decrease in those attending after-school activities. Engagement has already taken a hit because many pupils have to change buses in central Milton Keynes. There, they are drawn to shops and attractions, rather than continuing with their journeys, which sometimes involve catching two or three buses. We have to think about what sort of society we want to create. Do we want our children to become juvenile commuters, reading bus timetables rather than textbooks?

The problem is not confined to the two aforementioned schools. For example, the Mumford family moved to a house in Newport Pagnell that overlooks a secondary school, Ousedale. Two of their daughters were offered places at the school, but not in a classroom yards from their home—rather, at the campus in the next town, Olney, which is more than 8 miles away and not on a bus route. They were alternatively offered places at the Radcliffe school, 6.5 miles away, but told that they would not be able to start until November. After weeks out of education, they face a daily commute when there is already a school on their doorstep. Likewise, a mother and her son moved to Olney, very near the town’s Ousedale campus. The son was instead offered a place at the Radcliffe school, 11 miles away. As there is no bus service that would get him to school, he was offered a council-funded taxi to take him there and back every day. Fortunately, after an intervention from my caseworker and persistence from his mother, his appeal was successful and he has happily started at his local school, without having to use a taxi, that would have cost the council £2,875 a year.

We are talking about fairness, but what is happening is unfair on children whose parents are not able, for whatever reason, to fight their case and push for appeals. It is unfair on the children whose parents cannot provide them with transport if they have to travel several miles to school or support them if they are stuck out of education for a period of time. Indeed, schools can admit above their PAN in exceptional circumstances if children fall into the categories stipulated by the fair access protocol. This protocol also applies to those who have been out of school for more than one term or those whose parents have been unable to find them a place after moving to the area. However, Milton Keynes council resorted to this protocol on only four occasions last year and not at all this year.

After my prolonged campaign for “I before E”—infrastructure before expansion—and the coalition Government’s commitment to it, I am confident that our rate of school building will keep up with our population growth. After all, Milton Keynes is the fifth fastest-growing city in the UK, but I am concerned that, as new schools appear, they will fill up with pupils from across the city before nearby houses are built. Head teachers have wanted to hold places, but the incentive is to fill places to secure maximum funding.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the problem is not limited to growing towns? We have a strikingly parallel situation in Cheltenham, where two neighbouring schools were both over-subscribed, which left an admissions gap between them. Again, pupils were referred a long distance away. That was resolved in the end by the good will of the governors of both schools, but with the assistance of the local authority. Does he share my slight concern that the more independence we give schools over admissions, the less incentive they will have to co-ordinate and resolve these problems?

[Mark Lancaster]

The hon. Gentleman comes to the nub of the problem—how we square that circle between the rights of schools to set their own admissions and the rights of families to get their children into their local school. In Milton Keynes, the consequence is that new families moving in cannot get a place at their local school.

Network Rail’s new headquarters is set to bring 2,000 new staff to the city. Yes, there will be school places for the children who move here, but will these be anywhere near their houses and how long will they have to wait to start? This situation also spells trouble as we see the creation of more academies. In Milton Keynes, two schools have applied for academy status, which I wholeheartedly support. I am delighted about it, but will they, as in the previous case, have reduced PANs and will we see yet more displacement within the city?

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State has mooted the idea of allowing schools to prioritise children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the oversubscription criteria. While this is laudable in principle, it has been suggested that allocation will favour a child’s means over their proximity to a school. Will we end up with a city where students are crossing each other’s paths as they travel to school? Indeed, this situation has posed more questions than answers. Of course there is no dispute that fairness should underpin whatever we do, but there remain two problems with the current set up: delays and distance.

Various recommendations have been made. One that head teachers say would make a big difference is allowing schools in high-growth areas to be able to hold places for people moving in at a later date. This could be made possible by “ghost funding” those places, which is the approach taken by armed forces schools. Again, I am all for infrastructure before expansion, but it has to be done in a strategic way, because at the moment people are moving next to these new schools, but are not able to get a place there.

The school admissions code needs to recognise the importance of schools admitting children from the catchment area. Councils do not seem to have a problem sending children 10 miles away; parents and head teachers do. If we want to improve attainment and children’s quality of life, we must recognise that proximity of schooling is very important. A school’s duty should be to serve its local area. John Prescott famously warned of the dangers of setting up good schools, because

“everyone wants to go there”.

Well, our schools in Milton Keynes are all good. The only danger is that many children will continue to wait too long and travel too far before they actually get to go there.