Education and Local Services

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I am honoured by the support of people from across High Peak that has enabled me to stand here today. As someone commented on my Facebook page:

“I can’t believe that one of our school run mums has been elected to Parliament.”

Well, I have four children and have been a school run mum for over 20 years, and I am proud to bring the views of school run mums to Parliament. As the first woman to represent High Peak, I will bring a different perspective from that of my predecessors. I pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, Andrew Bingham, who served as the MP for seven years and as a borough councillor before that, and I wish him well for the future.

I always said that I would only ever seek to be an MP if it was for High Peak. This north-western tip of Derbyshire, 90% in the Peak District national park, is extremely beautiful, but it is also my home and where I have brought up my children. There is nowhere I would rather live. Between and within the wild expanses of picturesque moorland nestle towns and villages that are vibrant, close and friendly. At the heart of each of those communities are their schools and nurseries. At school, children learn how to make friends, how to stay friends, how to work together, and how to plan and create things together. Those lessons apply not just to the children but to us parents as well. They mean that we school run mums can turn our hand to just about anything. We can organise play dates, childcare, fundraisers and parties, and we can organise campaigns to change things. Our schools and nurseries are not just factories for exam certificates; they create communities.

As I am sure that Members on both sides of the House who represent rural communities will agree, our schools are especially important in preventing rural isolation. That is why so many people across High Peak are very concerned about the enormous cuts facing our schools and our nurseries. The Government may say there is record spending, but when our excellent local schools in High Peak are about to lose over £4 million a year and our children are already in classes of 34 or more, it does not cut much ice to say that we could have lots of money for a free school if we want one.

We have outstanding schools already. Combs Infant School, where my two youngest boys went, will lose over £20,000 under these proposals, equivalent to one of its two teachers. Chapel-en-le-Frith High School is set to lose nearly £600,000, equivalent to 15 teachers. It seems that under this Government schools are punished rather than rewarded for their success, and nurseries too.

The underfunding of the promised 30 hours of free childcare is causing several nurseries in High Peak to consider whether they are able to keep going at all. In Gamesley, where the outstanding nursery’s fully qualified staff contribute so much to the life chances of children in this area of high deprivation, each place costs £5 an hour to run, but funding is being cut to just £4 an hour. It does not add up. No wonder more than half of nurseries are saying that they cannot afford to provide the 30 free hours. I urge the Government to have an urgent rethink of nursery funding before September, before we end up with fewer nursery places, rather than more; fewer children able to get the best start for school; and fewer parents able to work.

The fate of our schools and nurseries was so important to my constituents that they chose to elect a school run mum as their MP. And this school run mum will not fail to stand up for them, and for our schools and nurseries and the communities that need them so much.