Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Cooper Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

14. What assessment he has made of the effect of the additional funding for education announced in Budget 2018 on education funding in real terms.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

In the Budget, the Government invested more than £1 billion of new funding for the Department for Education, including £695 million to improve the number and quality of apprenticeships, £400 million capital for schools, £100 million for the national retraining scheme and £84 million to improve children’s social care.

[Rosie Cooper]

The Secretary of State makes reference to all sorts of streams except revenue funding, so will he confirm that the Budget offered no additional revenue funding for schools and that means that, in real terms, per pupil funding will fall yet again next year, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found?

[Damian Hinds]

No, Mr Speaker. Of course revenue funding is determined periodically at spending reviews. Since the last spending review, we have found an additional £1.3 billion to hold per pupil real terms funding constant on a nationwide level.