School Funding (London)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Fitzpatrick

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you presiding over us this morning, Mr Hanson. I am not sure I have had the privilege of serving under your chairmanship before. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and commend her for her excellent speech, which detailed the problems we all face.

I do not have a long record of speaking in education debates over the years. As the Minister knows, my main engagement with his Department has been about fire sprinklers in schools and trying to improve the guidance on their installation. We have not cracked that yet. However, I have been contacted by a number of primary school heads in my constituency. Their comments need to be registered not only with me but by me in this debate. I will do so briefly, in line with your request, Mr Hanson. I have also written to the Secretary of State.

Heads from Cubitt Town Junior School, Mayflower Primary School, Cyril Jackson Primary School, Lansbury Lawrence Primary School, Arnhem Wharf Primary and St Peter’s London Docks Primary School, as well as constituents, have contacted me on this issue. One letter said:

“the national funding formula has the potential to make school funding fairer, but it will fall short unless it is given sufficient resources to succeed. School budgets are being pushed beyond breaking point.”

That brief quote says a lot. Given the pressures faced by schools, the writer of the letter is still able to see the positives in the funding formula, but refers to how it is let down by the sheer lack of resources. In her letter to me, the headteacher of Cyril Jackson Primary School listed 12 ways in which the school was forced to act to reduce overheads in 2015-16, meaning reduced staff numbers, less guidance, less encouragement and fewer opportunities to see new things, and experience other environments and be inspired by them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood has previously said, and may have said again this morning:

“The government is putting our excellent local schools at risk, with a change in the funding formula which will see money taken away from our local schools to give to schools in other parts of the country.”

Neither I nor any other colleague, I am sure, would wish to see schools in other parts of the UK short-changed, but giving them what they need to deliver a great education service should not be at the expense of London schools. Children everywhere should have and must enjoy an equally high standard of education. Whether they live in Dulwich, Docklands, Dudley or Droitwich, children deserve well-funded schools that enable them to reach their potential. It is as simple as that.

Those on the ground are telling me that school budgets are being pushed beyond breaking point. One of our local representatives in Tower Hamlets, Councillor Danny Hassell, recently tweeted that he had just seconded a Labour motion at the council against Government plans to cut funding in our schools that will mean a staggering loss of £511 per pupil in Tower Hamlets. Children such as those at Cubitt Town Junior School cannot afford the Government’s proposals. Their headteacher tells me it is calculated that Cubitt Town pupils will lose up to £746 per pupil.

[Mr Gibb]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Does he acknowledge that Tower Hamlets was the highest funded local authority in the country on a per-pupil basis before the national funding formula and remains so, even after the national funding formula is implemented, with funding of £6,718 per pupil, compared with £4,329 in Surrey and £5,129 in Waltham Forest?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the Minister for citing those statistics. I was citing one myself from the headteacher of Cubitt Town Junior School, who said that Cubitt Town pupils will lose up to £746 per pupil. I do not doubt that Tower Hamlets’ schools are well resourced and well funded by the Government, but the cuts being introduced will be unsustainable. The headteacher says that it could mean the school losing up to six teachers. How will that Isle of Dogs school withstand such a reduction without significant negative consequences for the quality of education it can give to local children?

Along with parliamentary colleagues, I urge the Government to acknowledge that their funding plans do not work for Cubitt Town, for the other schools I have mentioned or for all those left unmentioned. They certainly do not work for Tower Hamlets.