(5 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberI congratulate Yeovil College on its achievement. I can tell my hon. Friend that £38 million of capital will be made available for T-level development and that an extra £500 million a year will be allocated to that sector of our education system once the courses are up and running.
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work that she has been doing over several years to ensure that children are better informed about the dangers of water and how to be safe in and around it. I thank her for her campaigns and that of the father of Ross Irwin, to whom I also pay tribute. Thanks to the Royal Life Saving Society and Sunderland City Council, there are now improved water safety measures in place at the Fatfield riverside on the River Wear. We take these issues very seriously, which is why we improved the curriculum and why this Government asked an independent group of experts from across the swimming sector to submit an independent report, setting out how we can improve swimming and the swimming curriculum in our schools.
(7 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberI would, of course, be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss school funding in Yeovil. Indeed, so efficient are our offices that that meeting is already in the diary for 27 February. I should remind him that in his constituency, school funding rises by some £2.8 million under the new national funding formula, and that 94% of the schools in his constituency will see a rise in funding.
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have protected the core schools budget in real terms throughout this Parliament and the last. Moreover, we have grasped the nettle and introduced fair funding, which the Labour party failed to do throughout its time in office. One of the elements of that fair funding is ensuring that there are sufficient funds to tackle disadvantage and lower prior attainment.
Schools in Somerset have great teachers, but find it hard to recruit. Does my hon. Friend agree that adjusting the funding formula will help rural areas such as mine to attract and retain excellent teachers?
My hon. Friend is right. Authorities around the country, particularly those in the f40 group, have been underfunded for many years. As I said to the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), we were the first Government to grasp the nettle and introduce a much fairer system to replace those historic, anachronistic and unfair national funding formulas.