John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. May I point out to colleagues that in addition to the hon. Member for Worcester and the Front Benchers, who need briefly to speak, there are on my list nine colleagues who wish to speak? The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to make a full contribution, but I know he will find that helpful to weigh in the balance.
Mr Walker
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who has always been a great champion for rural areas.
F40, the cross-party campaign formed more than 20 years ago to represent the lowest-funded areas, used to rail against a gap of hundreds of pounds in funding between rural areas and their urban areas, and in Worcestershire, local MPs spoke out against a gap that doubled during the 13 years of the previous Labour Government. Until the current year, it had never once narrowed. When the gap started, there was no justice in the fact that similar schools serving similar catchments with similar levels of deprivation on different sides of a random border could receive wildly different funding. As the gap has widened, so the challenge for schools to raise the attainment of all their pupils has become greater and the challenge to hold on to their best teachers bigger. Although the pupil premium has helped some schools in F40 areas, it has also added to the disparities by piling targeted funding for deprivation on top of the untargeted funding that went before.
Mr Speaker
Order. I propose that the Front-Bench spokesmen should be called at or as close as possible to 6.50, which would allow five minutes to each. That leaves 22 minutes and there are nine people on my list. I will leave hon. Members to do the arithmetic themselves. It is not binding, but I invite Members to help each other.