School Funding: North-east of England

Phil Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) who secured this important debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) and for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who will be leaving our ranks. I am sad to see them go. They are both friends of mine and I know they have been excellent representatives for their constituencies over the years.

“Education, education, education” was the mantra of the previous Labour Government, but we do not hear that now. That mantra is finished and no longer there under the current Government. On funding for schools, we need only look at what Durham County Council said about the effect the cuts will have on schools in the county: the funding formula is likely to lead to redundancies with small schools becoming financially unviable; 50% of primary schools will see cuts and 68% of secondary schools will also lose funding; 111 primary schools will see a reduction in funding of about £10,000 on average; and 21 of 31 secondary schools will see a loss of funding of about £48,000 to £50,000.

The National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers have surveyed schools about the funding required from parents, who are being asked to pay for school plays and sports events, and to help fill the funding gaps. One in six parents are being asked to fund their children’s schools; 76% of schools said their funding has been cut; and 93% of schools have said they are pessimistic about future funding. Some parents are paying on average £20 a week to their local school to keep it going.

Parents are being asked to fund sports events, school concerts, arts and design materials, text books, library books, IT and sports equipment. Some 44% of schools are renting out buildings and some are renting out their car parks. That reflects something that happened before. I remember the 1990s when my children were at school under a previous Tory Government, when the schools used to ask for help with funding for text books, pens, pencils and equipment. We have come full circle, but this time it is even worse.

Sedgefield Comprehensive School, which I attended quite a while ago, has been rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future. It is a fantastic facility, with fantastic teaching staff and fantastic children who want to learn and get on, and who aspire to do the best they can in their lives. It was recently named one of the top 50 state schools in the country by The Sunday Times. That is fantastic news. That was established through what the previous Labour Government did. When I compare the school today with what it was like all those years ago, I would say that it has been transformed. The previous Labour Government helped to achieve that. I am proud of our record and of what we have done for that school.

The headteacher, David Davies, has said that

“schools face the prospect of being unable to heat classrooms”

and of being unable to ensure that all the subjects that need to be available can be available. He is the head of one of the top state schools in the country. He has said that it is a “complete and utter myth” that the Government are protecting school budgets:

“In recent years, we have seen pension contributions included as well as moderate pay rises and there has been no increase in the budget”.

Schools NorthEast says that schools in the region would have £42 million to spend on education if they were funded at the national average, and more than £320 million if funded at the London rate. The National Audit Office has said that the cuts will be the equivalent of £3 billion by 2020—£119 million in cuts in real terms for the north-east, which is equivalent to 3,200 teachers. It says that the north-east faces an 8% real-terms reduction in its education funding. Sedgefield comprehensive’s headteacher, Mr Davies, has said:

“This will mean schools having to reduce…services, which could include only heating classrooms for part of the day, reduced investment in school buildings, IT facilities being stretched beyond their usable life and expensive subjects being cut such as music and design technology. It is our responsibility to provide the best possible education, but ultimately parents need to be aware that the future of their son or daughter is at risk with these cuts.”

I am a great believer in aspiration, but it is not achieved with the kind of cuts faced not just in Sedgefield, but around the north-east. When headteachers such as David Davies are coming out and passing those remarks to the local newspaper, we know we have a problem that the Government need to address.

The data for the comprehensives and secondary schools in my constituency show that Ferryhill Business and Enterprise College will have a £253,000 cut through a change in the budget by 2019, which is equivalent to six teachers. Greenfield Community College will have a reduction of more than half a million pounds, which is equivalent to 14 teachers.

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)]

Can I just clarify whether the hon. Gentleman is talking about funding to the school, or whether the figures he is citing are the cost pressures facing the school, which is different from the income?

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[Mr Gibb]

It is not semantics. Actual income to schools in Sedgefield goes up under the national funding formula by £300,000, which is a 0.7% rise in income. So that we can have a transparent, honest debate about school funding, is the hon. Gentleman talking about the cost pressures?

[Phil Wilson]

The figures have been quoted by headteachers. They know what the budget pressures are and they say that the budgets are being cut. They say that they are under pressure and are losing funds to the equivalent of the number of teachers I mentioned.

Woodham Academy will lose the equivalent of five teachers. Hurworth School, another excellent school in my constituency, will lose the equivalent of nine teachers; Sedgefield comprehensive will lose 11 teachers; and Wellfield Community School will lose nine teachers. The cut in the budget and the pressures that they have to face is equivalent to £2.2 million.

Part of my constituency takes in the rural aspects of Darlington. Every headteacher from primary and secondary schools in the Darlington borough—39 of them—has written to all parents to point out the dangers to the education of their children because of the changes to formulae and the cuts and pressures on budgets between now and 2020.

[Mr Gibb]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Phil Wilson]

I will not. The Minister will have plenty of time to make his comments at the end. I want to get through my speech as other people want to make their comments.

There are also cost pressures and budget changes for the primary schools. For Heighington School in Darlington, which is in my patch, that is £125,000. The primary schools in Sedgefield—Sedgefield Primary School and Sedgefield Hardwick Primary School—will see £120,000-odd changes in their budgets. The Minister can shape it any way he wants, but this is affecting schools, teachers and pupils. Headteachers are coming out and saying that, so there is obviously a problem. We can trade figures left, right and centre, but the headteachers are those who know what is happening on the ground.

I want to raise another issue, which is not related to funding but is important to me. It is so important to pupils Christina Davies, Aidan Wong and Melissa Foster from Greenfield School that they came to see me recently. They are concerned about the new GCSEs, where they are treated differently to those in public schools. Only 7% of pupils are in public education—93% are in state schools.

[Chi Onwurah]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the over-representation of privately and public-school educated people in positions of power on the Government Benches, together with this Government’s obsession with free schools and grammar schools, mean that it is impossible for them to understand the budgeting and funding pressures and what they mean for the experience of our young people?

[Phil Wilson]

There is an element of truth in that, and it comes down to the core of my next point, on which I would love to hear the Minister’s comments. In state schools, 40% of coursework used to go towards a final GCSE mark, and there was a chance to sit it in January or June. That cannot be done now. If someone does an IGCSE in a public school, they have the chance to do that, and the result is still recognised by employers.

The pupils from Greenfield school who came to see me are asking why they cannot have a level playing field. If they cannot have 40% of their coursework counted towards the GCSE, why is it not the same in public schools or vice versa? They just want a level playing field and for everybody to be treated the same. Why is it that, just because someone can afford to pay for their child’s education, they have a better chance in life than those children of the 93% of parents who do not have the chance and opportunity to send their children to public school? I am not saying do it one way or the other, but let us have a level playing field. It affects the aspirations and social mobility of our children and is fundamentally unfair.

[Mr Gibb]

indicated dissent.

[Phil Wilson]

The Minister can shake his head, but I have pupils and headteachers coming to see me about this. It is fundamentally unfair when people in public schools have a better chance in life than those children who are sent to state schools.

[Mr Gibb]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Phil Wilson]

I am going to wind up. The Minister can answer all the points as he wants and I am sure he will. We have a fundamentally unfair system and it needs to be addressed. I am sure my hon. Friends can see that Government Members are shaking their heads. Am I surprised? No, I am not, because they do not believe it is unfair.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman looks very healthy to me. May I just say that the figures I have cited are for 2016-17 and are based on actual pupil numbers in 2016-17. They do not take into account the extra funds that will come forth as pupil numbers rise.

[Phil Wilson]

The Minister is talking as if there is not a problem. If everything in the garden is so rosy, why is the headteacher of Sedgefield Community College saying that the Government protecting the budget is an utter myth?

[Mr Gibb]

I did not say that there are no issues. I said that there are cost pressures facing schools, but I want to get the factual basis of the issues on the record, so that we know what we are debating. It appears to me that hon. Members in this debate are opposing the national funding formula. The national funding formula is designed to address iniquities in the system and will do so. As a consequence, schools that have been historically underfunded on the basis of their intakes will no longer be so, if and when we implement the national funding formula.