Education

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Ministerial Corrections

[Anne Milton]

It is extremely important that girls and women have exactly the same opportunities and are represented at all levels, not only in engineering. We know that 44% of our STEM ambassadors are female, and we are investing in programmes such as the advanced maths support programme and the stimulating physics network, both of which help to increase participation, particularly among girls. I have seen lots of apprentices over the past week, and interestingly, 8.9% of apprentices in STEM subjects are women.

School Funding: Distribution

The following is an extract from Education Questions on 11 March 2019.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I am here on behalf of Balham Nursery School and Children’s Centre in my constituency, which knows that it has guaranteed funding until 2020, but is deeply concerned about what will happen going forward. The people there do an incredible job bridging the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, so what assurances can the Minister provide them with today?

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I will certainly meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues from Leicestershire. The national funding formula is delivering rapid gains for the most underfunded schools while also ensuring stability for all schools. By 2019-20, schools in Leicestershire will receive 5.5% more funding per pupil compared to 2017-18, or £31.5 million more in total. In 2019-20, 92% of schools in Leicestershire will already be attracting their full gains under the national funding formula.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I am here on behalf of Balham Nursery School and Children’s Centre in my constituency, which knows that it has guaranteed funding until 2020, but is deeply concerned about what will happen going forward. The people there do an incredible job bridging the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, so what assurances can the Minister provide them with today?

[Nick Gibb]

Everything about this Government is about closing that attainment gap, and we have closed the attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more affluent peers by 13.5% in the primary sector—in early years and primary schools. The hon. Lady will know that we have awarded an extra £60 million funding to recognise the higher costs of maintained nursery schools. We are working with the sector as we prepare for the spending review.[Official Report, 19 March 2019, Vol. 656, c. 6MC.]

Schools Update

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Yes, indeed. We will be making that funding available to local authorities. Ultimately, local authorities will also go through a process of setting their local formulas, but the funding that we are giving them will enable them to do that.

It is fantastic to see my right hon. Friend back in the Chamber. She made a rapid start in representing her community on this issue after returning to the House. It is great to see her. She was, of course, subject to some of the nasty campaigning that I think will be debated in the Chamber later this evening.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

On Friday, Ravenstone Primary School in Balham sent a letter to parents announcing that it was making five essential support staff go. It has also lost a deputy head. If the school had not made those cuts, it would have faced a budget deficit of more than £150,000. Will the Secretary of State pledge that schools in Tooting will be given the necessary funding to maintain current staffing levels, and will she meet me, and the fantastic head of Ravenstone, to discuss the matter in person?

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to the hard work of many teachers, a number of whom I know, in our local borough of Wandsworth, but I think we should also recognise that were that school in a different part of the country at the moment, it would have a very different funding settlement, but would be expected to deliver the same results for local children. What I am saying today is that we want some fairness in our funding formula, and what I have announced will also mean that additional money will indeed go into schools.

Education and Local Services

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It has been an absolute honour and a pleasure to hear the maiden speeches from across the House today. Although Tooting is not awash with peaks and flowy rivers, it is very beautiful and I am immensely grateful to the people of Tooting for re-electing me.

Brexit will play a substantial part in the business of the House over the next two years. However, ensuring that we have a well-resourced education system is something that we cannot revisit in two years’ time. Children, parents and teachers need answers now. When I marched with 500 Tooting parents and pupils in May against Government proposals to cut their school budgets, I made a promise to stand up for them in Parliament. Three weeks later, here I am, standing up for Tooting children, Tooting teachers and support staff and Tooting parents.

I will briefly take the House on a journey that children across Tooting will take throughout their education under Conservative proposals. At three years old, parents struggle to find a place in local nurseries able to provide 30 hours of free childcare. At four years old, our children begin full-time education—indeed, my daughter starts school in September—but those who have special needs cannot be catered for due to lack of funding. Many headteachers attempting to provide the best for their pupils in Tooting are having to go cap in hand at the school gates, asking for donations just to pay their staff and keep their buildings in repair. When the donations run out, teachers are using their own money to purchase basics such as books and pens. At 18 years old, our children have to decide whether to cripple themselves with university debt, try to get one of a limited number of apprenticeship places or go straight into the workforce.

As graduates, our young people have to decide whether they can actually afford to serve in public service roles. They have to decide whether they can become nurses, knowing that they will potentially have to use food banks, or whether they can become teachers, knowing that their morale will be stripped from them within their first year of working. Poorly thought out Conservative promises versus everyday reality pretty much sums up the Prime Minister’s education proposals—a Conservative promise of a fair funding formula for our schools. Teachers should be teaching, not fundraising; they should be able to get on with their job.

There are schools in Tooting that have not been able to provide cleaning staff, so children have had to clean their own classrooms. Children should be learning, not vacuuming. Who suffers in all this? It is the next generation of children and young adults, whose potential is being curbed before they even have the chance to reach it. [Interruption.] I am enjoying hearing the Secretary of State speaking from a sedentary position when she would not come to speak to parents in Tooting.

[Justine Greening]

I simply want to set out that the hon. Lady’s party had exactly the same policy on funding to schools that would lose under the funding formula, which was to have no cash losers.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

Why was the Secretary of State, or any Conservative representative, not present at any of the hustings, the marches or the meetings during the electoral process? It is easy now to stand up in the Chamber where she feels safe among her comrades, but why is she not at the coalface speaking to parents, teachers and pupils? Nine-year-olds were marching against Government cuts. Where was she then? She was invited and she failed to show up.

At what point will the Prime Minister and her party accept that our children deserve more? They deserve a better start in life. Parents should not be worried about the fact that their children will be put in boxes based on their academic prowess at the age of 11. We are stunting our children’s potential before they have even had the opportunity to flourish. Under a Labour Government, my brother and I were able to come from a poor background and have the aspirational hope that the Secretary of State spoke about. Under a Labour Government, we were both able to go to Oxbridge and I now stand here before the House. We had a single parent who worked three jobs, but a Labour Government gave us the opportunity to achieve.

It is a Labour Government who will stand up for every single child in this country. A Labour Government will be for the many, not the few. It is a Labour Government who will ensure that we have class sizes in which our children can learn and have opportunities, and who will say that an apprenticeship is as important as going to university and crippling ourselves with debt. A Labour Government will ensure that every single child has the best possible start in life, and I look forward to being part of that Government very soon.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is right to say that maintained nursery schools often offer very high-value education, with 98% of them rated good or outstanding and 80% of them in areas of deprivation. As I have said, we will say more about their funding very shortly when we respond to our early years funding formula consultation.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

The early years funding formula will detrimentally affect maintained nursery schools. There is a fantastic maintained nursery school in my constituency called Balham Nursery School that supports so many vulnerable families, and the thought that it needs to close in two years is absolutely unacceptable. There are three such schools in Wandsworth facing that fate. Will the Secretary of State meet me and these nursery schools to discuss securing their continued existence?

[Caroline Dinenage]

First, we have consulted on the early years funding formula. We have not yet released the findings of that consultation, but they will be released shortly. In addition, we have said that we will support maintained nursery schools with an additional £55 million for at least the next two years. That is not saying that any maintained nursery schools are going to be shutting. I am more than happy to meet any nursery schools, and I have met a number from up and down the country—

[Dr Allin-Khan]

Will the Secretary of State meet mine?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Of course I will meet them. I will reassure them that we value the amazing work that they do. They are very small in number, but they do outstanding work and we want to help them to do so.