School Funding

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

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

It is obvious that the Schools Minister is becoming increasingly isolated in this Chamber because he will be the only Member to stand at the Dispatch Box in this debate who is not a Mancunian. The Secretary of State said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), regarding the devastating impact of school cuts that are going on up and down the country and in his constituency, that the funding is what it is. I think that teachers up and down the land, particularly headteachers, will be very worried about that. I remind the Secretary of State that between 2015-16 and 2019-20, Hampshire, his local authority, will be facing a £14 million cut.

The Secretary of State actually went to school very near me, at St Ambrose College in Hale Barns in Trafford borough, which I had the pleasure to visit again only last week. Interestingly, Trafford borough, which I represent—its education authority is a member of the f40 group, as is the case with many Members here—faces a real-terms cut of £3.3 million. That is certainly a big issue on the doorstep as we pound the streets night after night. Meanwhile, the Schools Minister in West Sussex faces his headteachers threatening a four-day week because of school funding cuts.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, this motion, is about what the Conservative party promised at the last election. It promised:

“Under a future Conservative Government the amount of money following your child into the school will be protected. There will be a real-terms increase in the schools budget in the next Parliament.”

That pledge was also made also by the previous Prime Minister, who was very clear about what he meant. He said:

“I can tell you, with a Conservative government, the amount of money following your child into the school will not be cut.”

But the Government are not keeping their promise to the British people. Under this Government, schools are facing the first real-terms cuts to their budgets in nearly 20 years, despite the Secretary of State having inadvertently claimed the opposite in the House earlier this year. The National Audit Office has said that with the current spending settlement there will be an 8% cut in the pupil funding between 2015 and 2020. The same conclusion was reached by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This means that every school in every region and every town will lose money because of the failure of this Government to protect funding for our schools.

The so-called fair funding formula will simply redistribute the same inadequate sum of money that is already failing to support our schools and provide our children with the excellent education they are entitled to. The National Audit Office, again, has said that the Department for Education is expecting schools to find £3 billion in savings over this Parliament, yet it has failed to communicate to schools how they can achieve this. While we do of course support the principle that schools should receive fair funding, the answer is not to take money away from existing schools and redistribute it when budgets across the country are being cut. The solution is to invest in education to help every child to receive an excellent education.

The Government’s stated aim in revising the school funding formula is fairness. There should be fairness in the funding formula, and there are good things about it, such as an emphasis on high needs and a deprivation index, albeit a crude measure, and a focus on prior attainment. Why would we not welcome those things? However, there is nothing fair about a proposal under which funding will be cut from high performing schools in deprived areas. A fair approach would be to take the best performing areas in the country and apply the lessons from those schools everywhere. It would look objectively at the funding required to deliver in the best performing schools, particularly in areas of high deprivation, and use that as the basis of a formula to be applied across the country.

Unfortunately, though, this Government are not listening to the chorus of voices of schools, teachers and parents across this country. We only have to look at the impact already being played out in our schools. Let us start with class sizes. Over half a million infant school children are now in super-sized classes. New research by the leading education unions shows that class sizes are rising in the majority of secondary schools in England as a result of Government underfunding of education. There is a particular problem in secondary schools because of the shortfall of £500 million a year in funding for 11 to 16-year-olds between 2015 and 2020. This disaster does not end there. When our children get to sixth form, they face even more deep cuts—over 17% per pupil since 2010. Sixty-two per cent. of secondary schools in England have increased the size of their classes in the past two years alone.

The second huge impact is on teacher numbers, as we have heard. Staff numbers in secondary schools have fallen by 15,000 between 2014-15 and 2016-17, despite 4,500 more pupils to teach. This equates to an average loss of over five staff members in each school since 2015. In practical terms, this means nearly 2.5 fewer classroom teachers, 1.6 fewer classroom assistants, and 1.5 fewer extra support staff in every school. Cuts to frontline teaching posts are happening now—at a time when pupil to classroom teacher ratios are rising, meaning bigger classes and less individual attention for children. New research published only last month by the Education Policy Institute shows that many schools that have been struggling financially are now in deficit. The number of local authority-maintained schools in deficit has nearly trebled, meaning that over a quarter of all local authority-maintained schools are now in deficit. In 2016-17, the proportion of primary schools in deficit also increased significantly, to 7%. The average primary school deficit noticeably increased from £72,000 in 2010-11 to £107,000 in 2016-17.

Similar figures are found for local authority-maintained primary schools. In 2016-17, over 60% were spending more than their income. A quarter of local authority-maintained primaries have had a falling balance for two years or more. The Education Policy Institute report points to the inevitable outcome of those growing budget pressures. It states that staff account for the majority of spending by schools—around two thirds—and it is likely that schools will

“find it difficult to achieve the scale of savings necessary”

to shoulder the Government’s real-terms cuts without also cutting back on staff.

We have had a good debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about the £3 million of cuts in real terms to his area. In his excellent speech, the Chair of the Education Committee, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), said that we must never forget to celebrate the contribution of teachers in our classrooms. The lamp post reference from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) will probably go down in history.

The right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (David Evennett) made a passionate and interesting speech, but he did not say why his borough will be losing £7.2 million in real terms between 2015-16 and 2020. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) made a very passionate speech indeed, and we wish her son all the best on his field trip. The hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) said there were no cuts, yet Derbyshire is losing £11.5 million from 2015-16 to 2019-20. We have seen the excellent campaign being run by Catherine Atkinson‏ in that constituency, where Wilsthorpe school alone is going to lose £200,000.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made another passionate speech about the impact on the poor in her constituency, in addition to her speech on housing last month. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) made a very good speech, and I am also an f40 representative, but he failed to point out that Dorset is losing £3.1 million from 2015-16 to 2019-20. The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) also forgot to point out that her constituency is losing £1.5 million in the same period, but she is right about one thing: this is political. Research shows that 750,000 people changed their vote at the last general election because of school cuts, and the Government are not reversing this, so let us see what happens a week on Thursday and subsequently at the next general election.

Labour is committed to investment in our schools and investment in our pupils, while the Conservative Government offer disinvestment from our schools and our pupils. I call on all Members of the House to be a voice for pupils, a voice for parents and a voice for teachers in their constituencies and to support the motion.