School Funding

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Evennett]

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, and I am in the real world, too, as we all are on this side of the House. Every Conservative Member goes around schools in their constituency and listens to what teachers, school governors and parents are saying, but the fact remains that this Government are spending more and putting more into our education system than any previous Government.

I will take no lectures from Labour Members. When they were in government, we had falling standards and high inflation, which undermined the resources that were being put into schools. Let us be reasonable and realistic.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Evennett]

The hon. Lady will have to listen for a little bit, otherwise I will go over the informal time limit.

The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne talked about healthy breakfasts, and we all know that a healthy breakfast helps children to make the most of their school day. We should also recognise that £26 million is being invested in breakfast clubs to help the most disadvantaged in our society. I think we all believe in a truly meritocratic society, and to get that we have to make sure there is fairness in schools.

Regrettably, many schools across the country have historically been underfunded. The Minister for School Standards has been receptive to meeting people to discuss the funding issues, and the Government have attempted to make sure there is fairer funding across the country. We cannot achieve everything immediately, but we can achieve it in the long term. The Department is determined to make sure that schools across the country are getting a fair deal on funding, and we welcome that.

It is a pity the Opposition do not acknowledge that the Government are putting more money into our schools and that school funding will rise from £41 billion this year to £43.5 billion in 2019-20. The new funding formula provides a cash increase to local authorities, with schools that have historically been underfunded attracting significantly more resources.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the London challenge, a project to produce improvements in schools, was completely transformative and set London on the path to having the best, rather than the worst, schools in the country? Does he agree that Lord Adonis and those involved in the scheme should be congratulated?

[David Evennett]

Some very positive things came out of the London challenge. I would not want to denigrate it but, on the other hand, there are areas where the London challenge was not quite so successful.

We also need to look at how much we are investing in new good school places, and at the proportion of pupils meeting the expected standard in phonics, which has risen from 58% in 2012 to 81% in 2017. That good news means 154,000 more six-year-olds are on track to become fluent readers compared with 2012. Those are real achievements. It is not just about resources; it is about the money that goes in and what comes out—the consequences of the money and the consequences of the teaching.

I was honoured to work with my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), as his Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was Secretary of State for Education, to help implement the academies programme in 2012. The programme has transformed schools, releasing those schools from local authorities, particularly in areas that were doing badly.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned that education was pretty poor under certain London local authorities, and now it has been transformed. In my Borough of Bexley, as a result of the coalition Government and then the Conservative Government, there are now 25 more good and outstanding schools than there were in 2010. Schools in Bexley have seen a funding boost of £3.8 million for 2018-19, which brings the funding for schools in Bexley to just over £211 million a year. That is a real achievement. The Government have to be praised for doing this, and so do the teachers, parents and pupils who have rowed in behind those extra resources to make sure they achieve for themselves in society.

We have many brilliant secondary and primary schools in Bexley, with diverse education provision—church schools, academies, grammar schools and technical schools—and that is the way forward. Diversity allows children’s talents to be maximised.

I highlight Slade Green, which is the most disadvantaged part of my constituency. It now has St Paul’s (Slade Green) Primary School, Haberdashers’ Aske’s Crayford Temple Grove north campus, and Peareswood Primary School, which I am afraid were neglected by the funding system under the last Labour Government but are now achieving and succeeding. They are giving children in a more deprived part of my constituency a real opportunity to achieve.

It therefore comes as no surprise that Bexley was listed as one of the social mobility hotspots by the Social Mobility Commission’s state of the nation report in November 2017, but there is still much more to be done. We need to achieve social mobility, and I am proud to join the social mobility pledge that my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), the former Education Secretary, recently launched. The pledge makes three commitments: partnering directly with schools and colleges to provide coaching through quality careers advice, which is so important; providing structured work experience and/or apprenticeship opportunities to people from disadvantaged backgrounds or circumstances; and adopting open recruitment practices that promote a level playing field, such as blind recruitment. Conservative Members, just as much as the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, want to see disadvantaged children have the maximum opportunity to achieve what they need to achieve.

Madam Deputy Speaker, in line with your determination that we should not speak for too long, I have had my time, but I would say to the House and to both Front Bench teams that education is a vital service for our future, for our country and for individuals. It is our duty to work to our best ability to make sure that the most disadvantaged get the opportunities and encouragement to narrow the attainment gap. Making sure that more and more children attend good or outstanding schools is the only way forward, as everyone will then be given opportunities.

I regret that we have not heard much from the Opposition about their policies for doing that, apart from more money. We are not just talking about money, although, yes, we are giving more money. Education would not be safe in their hands if they were in government because they just want to throw money at it. Money and resources are important, but it is about much more than that.

I congratulate Ministers and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on their work to provide more power to achieve these things for the benefit of all our children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by putting on record my admiration and appreciation for the remarkable efforts of schools in my constituency and the Borough of Merton. I am proud to say that under the most testing of circumstances, every single secondary school in Merton is now rated good or outstanding and has a GCSE progress 8 score that the Department for Education ranks as No. 1 in England, with Liberty Primary School in Mitcham in the top 1% of all schools for pupil progress in reading, writing and maths.

I am sure that Members across the Chamber will join me in congratulating Harris Primary Academy, which last year became the second outstanding primary school in Mitcham and Morden after Singlegate. They join Merton’s growing list of outstanding secondary schools, which includes Harris Academy Merton, Harris Academy Morden, the Ursuline, and Ricards Lodge. What makes that success even more remarkable is the circumstances in which it has been achieved—circumstances that are worsening term by term.

Schools in Merton are set to lose a staggering £1,820,818 between 2015 and 2020, despite their pupil numbers rising. It is no wonder that 40% of primary schools and 60% of secondary schools in Merton have had to cut staff since 2014. By 2020, Aragon Primary School will lose £100,118, William Morris Primary School will lose £72,582 and the outstanding Singlegate Primary School will lose £102,086—the extraordinary equivalent of £204 per pupil.

Across the country, staff numbers in England’s secondary schools have fallen by 15,000 since 2014, despite there being 4,500 more pupils to teach. That is 5.5 staff members lost in each school. Meanwhile, 62% of those schools have increased the size of their classes, despite the shortage of staff.

Behind the facts and figures are the governors, pupils and teachers struggling to cope. Yesterday, a group of teachers wrote to me from their staff room and said:

“We are stretched beyond belief. Corners are being cut, stopping the breadth of the curriculum and yet, despite the setbacks, we are expected to produce better outcomes than ever before! We’ve even run out of pens, glue sticks and basic stationery!”

Schools have been admirably shielding their pupils from the damage these cuts are causing, but they can go on for only so long. These schools are facing hardship like never before.

I would like to read some brief extracts from letters I have recently received from three different headteachers in my constituency. First:

“We see children who eat their lunch very quickly, whilst ‘protecting’ their plate with an arm as they eat”

so that nobody can steal their food. Secondly:

“If he won the lottery, one child said he would go food shopping to buy lots of cereal and porridge to fill him up and keep him warm.”

Another said:

“We believe that a significant number of our children are so used to feeling hungry and cold that they do not recognise these feelings”,

and:

“We have children in temporary accommodation changing schools several times, impacting them socially, educationally and financially.”

When I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is responsible for children and families, about the impact of temporary accommodation on education he acknowledged that it can mean changing schools and that it is strongly associated with poorer attainment, but he then claimed that these schools are provided with extra resources to combat that. The reality is that the pupil in question, moving from school to school, has now become a persistent absentee. Experience suggests that he might never overcome that avoidable dismantling of his education.

The Government argue that they are trying to distribute funds more fairly, but they fail to address the uneven battle that those in the most disadvantaged areas face even to attend a good school in the first place. A child living in one of England’s most disadvantaged is 27 times more likely to go to an inadequate school than a child living in one of the least disadvantaged areas. Spreading the funding evenly, therefore, does not fairly share the opportunity. How do I explain to the furious teachers, governors and parents across Mitcham and Morden why their class sizes are bigger, why their teaching assistants have gone, and what has happened to the subjects that their school now simply cannot afford? There will be almost no real-term winners under the Government’s proposals. The cake needs to be bigger for anyone to get a bigger, fairer slice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

We take the education of children with special educational needs very seriously. My hon. Friend the former Schools Minister, Ed Timpson, reformed the system and introduced education, health and care plans, which is a much more streamlined and effective way of ensuring that those children get the right care and education. The hon. Lady is right to acknowledge that that has led to increased pressure on the high needs budget, which is why we have increased it, from £5 billion in 2013 to £6 billion this year. Those are very significant sums of money.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) for bringing a dose of reality to the debate and correcting some of the points made by Opposition Members. She was right to welcome the 5% increase in schools funding for schools in her constituency under the national funding formula.

I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for pointing out that every school in her constituency is now rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted, including the recently inspected Harris Primary School—it was rated “outstanding”. I congratulate all the teachers in her constituency on that achievement. The Government’s overriding objective has been to ensure that every local school is a good school, so that parents can be confident when they send their children there.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

The Minister is aware that I am a supporter of Labour’s academisation scheme, whereby failing schools that cannot be fixed by the council became academies. The problem for my constituency and many others is that the number of good or adequate sponsors is now running out and schools are being forced to become academies, which is not always in the best interests of pupils.

[Nick Gibb]

I share the hon. Lady’s support for Labour’s academisation programme, which is why we expanded it from 200 academies to over 6,000. She is fortunate to have in her constituency the Harris Federation, which is one of the most successful multi-academy trusts and school sponsors in the country. She should also want to acknowledge that funding for schools in Mitcham and Morden will rise by 7.3% under the national funding formula, and that Merton will receive an extra £6.3 million by 2019-20—a 5.4% increase in funding.[Official Report, 22 May 2018, Vol. 641, c. 5MC.]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), in yet another highly effective speech on education, rightly pointed out that Dorset will receive a 4.2% increase and Poole a 3.8% increase under the full national funding formula. He also highlighted that England is rising up the PIRLS league table for the reading ability of our nine-year-olds. Reading is the basic fundamental building block, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who is sitting on the Opposition Back Bench, would acknowledge. This country’s adoption of phonics and the hard work of primary school teachers up and down the country mean that we have risen from joint 10th to joint eighth in the PIRLS world league table.

In her strong contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, effectively revealed Labour’s and the unions’ political motives for raising school funding. Lewes’s schools will see a 4.3% increase in funding under the national funding formula, but I will certainly come back to her on the three requests from the primary schools in her constituency.

Although I think there is some consensus in the House about the principles underlying the national funding formula, we disagree with the Opposition on the overall amount. Is the £42.4 billion we are spending this year enough, and can our public finances afford more? Last July, we announced an additional £1.3 billion increase in overall school and high needs funding, over and above the increases agreed in the 2015 spending review—£416 million more for 2018-19 and £884 million more for 2019-20. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that school funding will be 50% higher in real terms per pupil by 2019-20 than in 2000.

However, we know that in the past two years schools have incurred increased costs, such as higher employer’s national insurance contributions and higher pensions contributions. Of course, both have applied to other public services, and higher national insurance has also applied to private sector employers. Those costs are all part of tax and revenue-raising measures that were introduced to help reduce the public sector budget deficit, which stood at £150 billion per year—10% of our GDP—when we came into office in 2010. That was unsustainable and would have been bankrupting if we had not addressed it. Thanks to the hard work of the British people and a series of difficult decisions, that deficit has reduced to £42.6 billion—2.1% of GDP—and is set to fall further.

Without that balanced approach to public spending and the public finances, we would not now have a strong economy providing young people with the job opportunities that a record number of jobs in the economy brings. Without that careful and balanced approach, we would not have been able to spend £42.4 billion on schools this year and allocate more than £23 billion to capital spending from 2016 to 2021, and we would not have created more than 800,000 new school places, with more in the pipeline; seen a rise in reading standards in our schools; helped schools raise the standard of maths teaching; allocated significant funds to music and the arts; ensured that 91% of 16-year-olds studied at least two science GCSEs, up from 62% in 2011; or seen 1.9 million more pupils in schools rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted than in 2010.

None of that would have been achieved if we had taken the hard left-wing approach to the public finances set out by Labour during and since the general election. Labour’s spend, spend, spend plans would mean £106 billion more public spending, wiping out in one blow eight years of hard work on deficit reduction. Its plans to nationalise a raft of industries would add £176 billion to the national debt. Its other plans would bring the increase in debt to £350 billion, costing us another £8 billion a year in higher interest charges—an amount equal to nearly a fifth of the schools budget blown on increased debt interest charges to fund Labour’s spending plans.

What do we know about Labour’s statements and promises on spending? We know that they cannot be delivered without bankrupting the country. It would lead to a run on the pound, a flight of investment and a rise in unemployment—the hallmark of every period of Labour in office. That is why, no doubt, the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, in a moment of candour, described Labour’s economic policy as “a bit of a” something “or bust” policy.

By contrast, because of our balanced approach to public spending, funding for schools under the national formula will ensure that every school attracts at least 0.5% more per pupil funding this year and 1% next year than in 2017, with thousands of schools receiving significantly more. It means that for schools that have historically had the very lowest funding, we can introduce a minimum of £3,500 per pupil for primary schools and £4,800 per pupil for secondary schools. It means that we can increase funding for special educational needs from £5 billion in 2013 to £6 billion this year.

Delivery, not promises, is what matters and this Government are delivering—delivering on the economy, delivering on jobs, delivering on school funding and delivering on academic standards.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes the Conservative Party manifesto pledge to make sure that no school has its budget cut as a result of the new national funding formula, the statement by the Secretary of State for Education that each school will see at least a small cash terms increase and the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s guarantee that every school would receive a cash terms increase; endorses the aim of ensuring that there is a cash increase in every school’s budget; agrees with the UK Statistics Authority that such an increase is not guaranteed by the national funding formula, which allows for reductions of up to 1.5 per cent in per pupil funding for schools; and calls on the Government to meet its guarantee, ensuring that every single school receives a cash increase in per pupil funding in every financial year of the 2017 Parliament.