Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Heaton-Jones and Nick Gibb

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point; we take air quality very seriously. It is a matter for West Sussex County Council to ensure that every school that is built in that county has high-quality air for the pupils in those schools.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

8. What recent comparative assessment he has made of the level of education funding in England and other countries.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

OECD data shows that the UK spends as much per pupil on state school education as any major economy in the world, apart from the United States. However we cut the data, the UK is among the highest spenders, and that is also true when we look at expenditure as a share of GDP.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I thank the Minister for that answer, and I welcome the work that he is doing to ensure that we compare well internationally, but will he continue to work with me to ensure that that funding is equitably distributed within England? I am thinking particularly of a fairer share for places such as Devon.

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend fights hard for the interests of the schools in his constituency, as I know at first hand from the schools that he has invited me to visit and the headteachers to whom he has introduced me at round-table discussions that he has organised on school funding. He will know, therefore, that under the fairer national funding formula, Devon will gain £13.6 million for its schools by 2019-20, rising from £382 million to £396 million in 2019.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Heaton-Jones and Nick Gibb

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Because the hon. Lady’s constituency will remain one of the highest-funded areas of the country. She is right that the per pupil funding rate in Lewisham, Deptford will fall from £5,708 to £5,550 as a result of the national funding formula, but that is still one of the highest in the country. The prosperity of London as a whole has increased over the past 10 years, with the proportion of children on free school meals falling from 27% to 18%, but it still has some of the highest levels of deprivation. That is why, under the new national funding formula, London’s funding remains 30% higher than the national average.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

I welcome the principle of the new national funding formula, but one third of schools in North Devon look set to lose funding under the indicative figures. Will the Minister continue to listen carefully to our representations? Will he also confirm whether the indicative figures are just that and that they could be subject to some revision?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, of course. The consultation is genuine and has been extended for two weeks until 22 March so that we can hear representations from my hon. Friend, from other Members and from members of the public.

School Penalty Fines and Authorised Absence

Debate between Peter Heaton-Jones and Nick Gibb

Monday 11th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

Absolutely. Many businesses in such resorts find themselves in that position. That feeds back into the point I made earlier: because the season is now so focused, families who run tourism businesses in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend have no choice. There is no way they can possibly go on holiday during the school holidays, so they have to request to take their children out of school, otherwise they will not be able to enjoy a holiday.

It is absolutely right that the Government have a duty to ensure that children have full academic attendance and a full school record. I am not arguing with that, but there must be some carrot and some stick. My fear is that, with the 2013 guidelines, the balance has shifted rather too much towards the stick approach, which I do not think is valuable or helpful.

Let me go off script for a moment. I am a bit of an old-fashioned Tory sort of boy, and I like less government. I like smaller government. I like government that does not just sit in Westminster bringing a clunking fist down rather hard on parents, families and working people who are just trying to do the right thing. I have an uneasy sense that the current regulation and policy are on the wrong side of that. I passionately believe that, as a Conservative Government, we should be helping hard-working people who occasionally have no choice but to take their children out of school. As in the case of my constituents, Mr and Mrs Short, they might do so not for a holiday but for a perfectly reasonable sporting endeavour. I am not sure how we have reached the point where, as a Government, we are saying, “We, centrally, know better than you.”

[Mr Gibb]

This debate boils down to two phrases: “in special circumstances” and “in exceptional circumstances”. It is about the difference between the words “special” and “exceptional”, so the way my hon. Friend is describing matters exaggerates the issue. Even he believes that headteachers should grant term-time holidays not in all circumstances but in special circumstances. The Government believe that they should be granted only in exceptional circumstances.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I thank the Minister for his views. I shall simply say this: at the moment, we are in a mess. Teachers, headteachers, schools and parents do not know where they stand. I take his point, which is perfectly reasonable. I do not agree that I am exaggerating the situation, though, because I have been on the receiving end—as I am sure other hon. Members have—of hundreds of emails, letters and phone calls from parents and headteachers who are deeply worried about the position in which they now find themselves. That is not an exaggeration.