School Funding
Debate between Mike Amesbury and Maggie Throup(6 years ago)
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Maggie Throup
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but once again, I think that the myths have been spread and spread. If we look at it historically, in Erewash during all the 13 years of Labour government, schools were underfunded completely. Thankfully, this Government are correcting the wrong that was in place for so many years.
Like many other public services, schools are much more than the building or the money we spend on them. As others have mentioned, those who go into education often talk about a vocation—a calling in life—and in Erewash we have some extraordinary examples of teachers and teaching assistants who go above and beyond to give our children the very best start in life.
One example is Chaucer Junior School, whose pupils can often be found gardening or litter picking. I joined them to pick litter, and it taught them a lesson about how important it is not to drop litter, so it is an educational activity as well. They also visit places such as Parliament, which adds real value to their education. That is down not to the funding the school receives but the hard work and dedication of the staff who are willing to organise and facilitate those activities. I can cite example after example from my constituency, including English Martyrs in Long Eaton, which was visited a couple of years ago by the Minister for School Standards, who is on the Front Bench and who tested their maths when he visited. That school regularly gets to the final of the green school awards, which means they can come down to London, go to London Zoo and be part of the bigger picture that schools and education provide.
Sadly, the story in Erewash is not all a bed of roses and students are suffering, not because of funding cuts but because of teaching time lost by politically motivated strike action. Like its colleagues in Labour and Momentum, the NASUWT has been prepared to weaponise teachers in opposition to academisation, despite it being in the best interests of students and, I remind the House, a policy that began under Labour.
Last month, the Opposition were forced to retreat over the issue of free school meals, not just by the Government but by the team at Channel 4. Indeed, even the Labour candidate in Erewash embarrassed herself in our local press by jumping the gun, blindly following the party line rather than checking local facts, and was rightly exposed for it. In a similar vein, the Opposition are pursuing today’s debate with the same misguided intent, rather than using it as a constructive way of proposing policy.
Having spoken before this debate to those in my office about their own time in school, with their experience spanning time from Wilson to Cameron, I found that they can all recall the charitable element historically embraced by our education system to support the formal budget set by Government. The parent teacher association raffle, the summer fair, the Christmas pantomime and the sponsored walk while dressed as a hippo—I have yet to find out who wore the hippo outfit—helped to pay for things as wide-ranging as a minibus and basic extra equipment. There is nothing new about people contributing to school budgets rather than relying on what the Government provide.
We must ask ourselves what makes a school. I would argue this is about more than just the funding that the Government provide. I agree with the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on one point: she said that it is not just about money. Yes, we would all like more money, but it is clear that in Erewash there are no cuts, despite what the Opposition would like the public to believe. Instead, we have both an increase in funding and significant investment in new school buildings.
Maggie Throup
I am just finishing.
In Erewash, at the core, we have an inspirational team of teaching professionals who manage their schools creatively within budget and, more importantly, look beyond the balance sheet, choosing instead to focus on the vital job of educating our next generation.