Department for Education

Debate between Ruth George and Robert Halfon

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am delighted that the amendments have not been selected, because that would mean money not being able to be spent on our schools and our colleges. That is not the way to conduct the debate over Brexit.

It is a great pleasure to open this debate on the spending of the Department for Education in my capacity as the Chair of the Education Committee. I am pleased to be here with my Committee colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). The DFE is one of the largest domestic spending Departments, with a wide-ranging portfolio spanning early years, children’s social care, schools, colleges, and much more besides. How the Department spends its money has a huge impact on millions of people across the nation, with consequences that will be felt for generations to come. That is why it is so important that we get education spending right.

I want to focus on the Department’s expenditure on schools and colleges. According to the House of Commons Library, most of the DFE’s spending goes on grants to schools, which in 2019-20 makes up three quarters of day-to-day spending, at about £52 billion. The Library says that this is a cash increase of 4% compared with 2018-19, which I strongly welcome. However, the Department’s planned further education budget this year is about £4.8 billion—a cash decrease of 3% compared with 2018-19. I am sure that all Members of this House have been delighted to see the issue of school and college funding feature so prominently throughout the Conservative leadership contest. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) says that he is going to increase education spending by £4.6 billion.

My Committee will soon be publishing a report on this area with a view to helping the DFE to make the strongest possible case to the Treasury for the upcoming spending review.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern—I am sure he will as the Chair of the Select Committee—that school and college funding would not be so prominent on the candidates’ agendas if we were not seeing such a crisis in our schools and colleges?