Oral Answers to Questions

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

I am delighted to tell my right hon. Friend and the House that the first phase of the roll-out went very well indeed. Some 200,000 children are now benefiting from the first stage of the roll-out, which Labour Members doubted could happen—we have shown again that we have a plan while they have absolutely none.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

17. What assessment she has made of the impact of real-terms reductions to school budgets since 2010 on school children.

[The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, but I am afraid there is a flawed premise within it. School funding is, at £60.7 billion, the highest it has ever been in real terms per pupil. There has been a real-terms increase of 5.5% per pupil nationally compared with 2010-11.

[Nadia Whittome]

I thank the Minister for his response, but what he says about the state of school funding is not the full picture, and he knows it. Schools’ costs have increased much faster than funding. In fact, analysis by the National Education Union shows that every single school in Nottingham East had less real-terms funding last year than 14 years ago—that is £1,266 less per pupil on average. If the Government really cared about the future of children and young people, should they not be funding high-quality education instead of whipping up culture wars?

[Damian Hinds]

We are funding high-quality education, and the quality of that education is seen in the results, be they the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, English and science, or the results of primary school children, which have improved dramatically since 2010. On the NEU “analysis”, I am afraid that it is flawed in multiple respects: it does not include a number for the high-needs budget, which has grown so much, and ultimately it does not use real numbers for 2010.