Education Funding

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) on securing this timely and important debate. I thank everyone else for contributing, including my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). To make a parochial point, at least Trafford now has a majority Labour council, under the superb leadership of Councillor Andrew Western; that will mitigate some of the pressures on schools in our borough. I also thank the hon. Members for Henley (John Howell), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), and my hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western).

In a moment, the Minister will say that more money is going into education than ever before, but Members—not just in this Chamber, but Conservative party leadership candidates—are saying that it is not enough. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said that all schools should “level up”, that there should be no differentiation in funding formulas, and that school funding should be protected “in real terms”. There are no facts or figures behind that statement, but he obviously does not want the truth to get in the way of a good story on education.

The right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), a former Education Secretary, said that he wants £1 billion extra, but this Government took £5 billion out of the system. He plucked another figure out of the air, just as he threw this country’s education system up in the air in 2010 and let it shatter. We are still trying to reassemble the pieces.

The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) said that some of that £20 billion extra going into our NHS should be used for our schools, which is robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is my favourite: the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) wants private companies to run schools for a profit—so it will not just be the NHS that is open to trade negotiations. The right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) made a spending pledge that the Minister will like: he pledged an extra £3 billion a year, in a spending spree that would go on for five years. I make that £15 billion. I can see the Minister smiling, but that gets us towards where we need to be.

We can be in no doubt that schools are in crisis. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Education Secretary have both stated in the main Chamber that every school in England will see a cash-terms increase in their funding, but that flies in the face of reality. Our schools have experienced cuts across the board. Since 2015, the Government have cut £2.7 billion from school budgets in England. Only last week, concerned parents and teachers protested in their thousands about cuts to special educational needs provision. According to research by the National Education Union, such provision in England is down by £1.2 billion, because of shortfalls in funding increases from the Government since 2015. The Government’s own data show that 4,000 children or young people with an education, health and care plan or statement were awaiting provision in January 2018. In other words, they were waiting for a place in education.

As we have heard in Members’ stories today, the cuts mean that teachers are buying essential supplies, bringing in breakfast cereals for food-hungry children, and having to source shoes, uniforms and coats for children whose parents can no longer afford to provide them. Schools are starting late or closing early to save money, and the curriculum is narrowing. There is a crisis in our schools and this Government are turning a blind eye to it. They have made a concerted effort to fudge the figures, and to deflect attention from the school funding cuts over which they have presided. Across the country, schools are having to write to parents to ask for money to buy basic resources. They need money not for little extras, but for essentials.

If funding per pupil had been maintained in value since 2015, school funding overall would be £5.1 billion higher now, so 91% of schools face real-terms cuts. People in this Chamber know all too well the impact on the ground. The average shortfall is more than £67,000 in primary school budgets, and more than £273,000 in secondary school budgets. Our schools have 137,000 more pupils, but 5,400 fewer teachers, 2,800 fewer teaching assistants, 1,400 fewer support staff and 1,200 fewer auxiliary staff. The Government need to stop their sticking-plaster approach to school finances and give schools the funding that they really need.