National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I think it can. Obviously, my hon. Friend will want to look at the detail in the consultation, but under this formula we will put £23 million into supporting children who move in-year and their schools. As a London MP, I know that has been an issue for some London schools. But it is not just an issue for London; there was a general response to the phase 1 consultation document saying that we needed to put the issue into the phase 2 consultation and that it should be made part of the formula. That is why we have done so.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for schools for listening to the case for adding mobility to the school funding formula and to the Secretary of State for her announcement; I will look carefully at the details. Should she not have secured the Chancellor’s support to make sure that no school sees a cut in its funding per pupil, given the cost pressures that she has referred to?

[Justine Greening]

I make two points. In spite of the need to reduce the deficit over time, which the Government have set about doing, we have protected the core schools budget in real terms. In addition, I recognise that there is a need to reduce the year-on-year reductions schools faced, so those will be no more than 1.5%. Indeed, the overall reduction for any per-pupil amount will be no more than 3%. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will welcome that.

Schools that work for Everyone

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As we have seen in many parts of the country, including London, what actually made the difference was schools working together, having outstanding headteachers going into what were underperforming schools, turning them around and then working with other schools in neighbouring areas to ensure that best practice was disseminated. Grammars need to play their role in doing that, hence these proposals.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State mentioned the Sutton Trust and it points out that 18% of pupils are on free school meals but only 3% of grammar school pupils are, so the fact that that tiny group does well does not support her policy, as she has claimed. Opening new grammar schools inevitably means creating new secondary modern schools, however it is dressed up. How can that possibly be a good idea?

School Funding

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises the important issue that alongside many of the reforms we have introduced, a demographic shift is taking place which means we simply need to scale up our education system to keep pace with the number of children who need it. We have created 600,000 school places, but we need to do more. I assure him that the funding formula statement that I am setting out today means we are in a better position going forward as we introduce it to make sure fair funding follows the child, including in Kettering.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment, and she is absolutely right not to rush this, because getting the new formula wrong would be a disaster. The previous Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), offered at the Select Committee to meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who is in his place, to discuss the case for a rapid pupil turnover factor in the new formula. Will she confirm that that offer still stands and let us know which member of her team that meeting should now be with?

[Justine Greening]

That offer does still stand. I will get back to the right hon. Gentleman when we have worked out which Minister will attend the meeting.

School Penalty Fines and Authorised Absence

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double]

I suspect the Minister will say that guidelines have been provided, but in my experience, most headteachers say that, even when they follow the guidelines and exercise their discretion in saying what exceptional circumstances apply, they get criticised for exercising it when there is an Ofsted inspection. There seems to be a lack of consistency, which is why I argue for putting the discretion back in the hands of headteachers. Give them the freedom—they know the pupils and the families, so let them decide what is best for their pupils.

The Government have made great claims about the importance of the family and the value of a strong stable family to a child’s life and, indeed, to the wider community. I wholeheartedly support that, but it is sad that the family test was not in place when the rule was introduced in 2013. If it were, what would the outcome have been? I take the view that the family test would severely challenge the policy because of its impact on families’ lives. We live in a time when we are getting busier and busier. Time together as families is more precious than ever, so holidays together play an even more important part in the life of many families. It is clear to most people that time away is time to strengthen family relationships and time for parents to focus on their children. The value of that is immeasurable.

The simple fact is that, for many families, the choice is either a holiday during term time or no family holiday at all. For some people, that is due to their work situation—it is just not possible for many parents to take time off during school holidays. That is particularly true in my constituency, where people work in the tourist industry, but it is also true for many public sector workers in the NHS, the police and other sectors. For other families, it is simply a case of economics. A holiday during the peak season can be two or three times the price of a holiday during term time. For many families, it is just not affordable to take a holiday in the peak season. The Family Holiday Association reports that about 7 million families in the UK are simply unable to afford a week’s holiday.

It is easy for MPs, Government Ministers and education officers, who earn more than five times the salary of the average person in my constituency and, indeed, people in many other parts of the country, to say that people should only take a holiday out of term time. As someone suggested to me recently, the problem does not affect those in private education, as private schools have longer school holidays anyway. I am sorry to say that the situation simply shows that we do not understand the reality of life for many families. It is not a case of just looking for a cheap holiday. For many families, it is the only holiday they can afford, so it is a matter of a term-time holiday or no holiday.

We are discriminating against those on low incomes by saying that if they cannot afford the high prices charged during the school holidays, they do not deserve a family holiday. The policy is making the situation worse. By focusing all demand on the few weeks of school holidays, the rules of supply and demand mean that the prices go up during those weeks, and the drop in demand during term times means that the prices go down in those weeks. The differential between a term-time week and a school holiday week is widening. The message from the Government to our children is quite simple—that time in the classroom is more important than time away with their parents. Quite frankly, that is wrong.

My second point is that the policy denies the value of a holiday to a child’s development and education. Education does not take place only in the classroom. Although no one would deny the importance of children learning maths, English and the other core subjects, we should also accept that there are other equally important aspects of any child’s education. Education should be about preparing our children for life, work, being a good citizen and playing their part in the world. It is not just about passing exams. The opportunity to travel—to other countries or to other parts of this country—can and does play a valuable part in any child’s upbringing.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s case. A lot of my constituents—families with grandparents outside the UK in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh—will be encouraged by what he is saying. However, he seems to envisage a difficult role being placed on headteachers. Is he suggesting that any family could take their child out of school for a week or a couple of weeks if that works for them? Should there not be some encouragement for families to keep their children in school if that is at all possible?

[Steve Double]

Clearly we do not want a free-for-all. I am arguing for discretion to be put back into the hands of headteachers, which was the case before the rule was introduced in 2013. To my observation—I have been a school governor for nearly 20 years—it was working perfectly well. Even in a place such as Cornwall, where there was high demand for taking children away in term-time because parents worked in the tourist sector, there was still conversation and co-operation between the parent and the school. It was not a free-for-all. There was co-operation between parents and schools, and I am asking for the same now.

As the NAHT says, we are driving a wedge between the family and the school, which is damaging to, rather than supportive and encouraging of, children’s education. We are creating tensions between the school and the family, which has to be detrimental to the child’s education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that in the spending review, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirmed funding of £4,000 per pupil for post-16 education, and that remains the case. Obviously, where there are school sixth forms, reforming the national funding formula will impact on the whole school budget. I do not what to pre-empt what the consultation will say, but I am sure we can have a discussion once we have published it.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State knows, there are already examples of academies ignoring the concerns and views of parents, and removing the requirement to have a parent-governor or parent-governors will make matters worse. The White Paper proposes that parents should be able to petition to have their academy moved from an under-performing multi-academy trust to a different MAT, will she tell us how that will work?

[Nicky Morgan]

I refute the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I do not know of any academies or schools that ignore parents’ concerns. As for the second part, we will make that clear when we have published the Bill. I very much hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be part of the Committee that scrutinises the “education for all” Bill.

Education, Skills and Training

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I could not agree more. I am an admirer of my hon. Friend, especially as I have seen the recent pictures of him abseiling down a very tall building, so my admiration has grown even more. His Bill was an extremely good one. It is important that the Government think much more carefully than they have done to date about how they can tie in the money that they spend on public procurement with skills creation. The Business Secretary will have to do that if he is to deliver a prosperous future for British steel, and he should think about doing it in many more areas. There is a taboo that needs to be broken.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share the concern of those who are worried that the Government’s 3 million apprenticeships target will be achieved only if the quality of what is offered in those apprenticeships is diminished?

[Ms Eagle]

I am afraid I do share that worry about the very large quantitative target that the Government have set and, by all accounts, want to pass. When I talk to business, which I do regularly up and down the country, that obsession with quantity rather than quality causes some real worries. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us today that he has ways of dealing with that. I have come across some extremely dubious practice, if I may put it that way, in relation to the term “apprenticeship”. I am glad that the Enterprise Act 2016 has closed that loophole. We now need to see pretty effective enforcement or we will carry on seeing misuse and abuse in that area.

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[Joseph Johnson]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Universities are a great driver of regional and local economic growth. A recent London School of Economics study demonstrates the strong correlation between opening new universities and significantly increased economic growth. The LSE academics estimate that doubling the number of universities in a region is associated with more than 4% higher future GDP growth per capita.

[Stephen Timms]

It was our understanding that the Government were going to publish a skills White Paper, but that appears to have been downgraded to a skills plan in the documentation related to the Queen’s Speech. Has that change been made, and if so, why?

[Joseph Johnson]

The right hon. Gentleman should wait a little bit longer to see the full fruits of the work of the Skills Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), and colleagues in the Department for Education led by the expert panel that is chaired by Lord Sainsbury.

To return to the question of why our higher education system needs to meet new challenges, the system needs to be more innovative to meet the diverse needs of learners of all ages and employers of all sizes. As promised in our manifesto, we will promote more flexible learning with the provision of, for example, two-year degrees and degree apprenticeships. We need the system to deliver better outcomes for those who go through it and for the taxpayers who underwrite it. While employers suffer skills shortages, especially in highly skilled STEM areas, at least 20% of graduates wind up in non-professional roles three and a half years after graduating. This graduate labour market mismatch is a waste of their potential and a brake on our economic productivity.

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[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak in the debate. I am pleased to follow the Chair of the Education Committee. I agree with much of what he said—on our membership of the EU and on his invitation to the Secretary of State to publish the education for all Bill in time for the Committee to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny. That would be very valuable. It is on the education for all Bill that I want to focus my remarks.

I start by warmly welcoming the abandonment of the pledge of universal academisation by 2022. That is a very welcome U-turn. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) is in his place. He and I had a debate about this on the radio. I made the point that it was clear there was not the support on the Conservative Benches to get the proposed legislation through the House. He is the Secretary of State’s Parliamentary Private Secretary and he assured the listeners to the programme that it was all absolutely fine, but I am delighted that the Secretary of State recognised that I was right about this and her PPS was not. I pay tribute to her for at least executing the U-turn with commendable speed and not dragging out the agony over a long period, as we have sometimes seen in the past. I do not think it was ever her idea that we should force all schools to become academies by 2022. I am glad she has dropped it.

It is disappointing that the Bill still has the aim, according to the documentation alongside the Queen’s Speech, to move towards a system where all schools are academies. Ministers really should be listening, not least to headteachers on this very important subject. The National Association of Head Teachers said of that declared aim of the Bill that

“it will mean that good and outstanding schools can still be made to convert, regardless of the professional judgement of school leaders, the opposition of parents and the best interests of local communities.”

The Government ought to listen to headteachers, parents and local communities, rather than continuing with their view that every school should become an academy, regardless of whether it is in its interest. Academisation can be a good thing—there are plenty of examples of where it has turned around a school’s fortunes—but forced academisation is not.

Ministers have not been able to provide any evidence that academisation necessarily raises standards, because, in reality, it does not. Areas identified by Ofsted as having problems with low educational standards include areas where most of the schools have already become academies. It would be helpful if there were a panacea, such as academisation or some other reorganisation, to overcome the problem of underperforming schools, but there is not; raising standards is a long, tough haul. Ministers are looking for a shortcut, but there is not one. To quote the NAHT again:

“Targeted support is what’s needed, rather than forced, top-down reorganisation”.

[Tristram Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does not the history of his part of east London, including Tower Hamlets and Newham, show that academisation, in and of itself, is not the answer? What transformed educational prospects in his community was the London Challenge and schools working together and collaborating to raise standards.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is right about what happened in east London, where we have seen a remarkable transformation of educational standards over the last 20 years owing to the consistent application of the tools he identifies, including academisation, in some cases, as well as other levers. I am worried that that progress could now be at risk, but I will say a little about that in a moment.

There are costs to academisation, including legal costs. When the Government’s policy was one of forced academisation, we had a debate about how much it would cost, and the Secretary of State told the Select Committee that she would let it have the Department’s robust estimates of the cost of academisation. I checked this morning but I understand that the information has not been provided yet. I would be grateful if she could make sure that her Department delivers on the commitment she made.

As the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out, the role of multi-academy trusts will be very important. The Sutton Trust has pointed out that, on achievement among disadvantaged pupils, some multi-academy trusts are doing an outstanding job and delivering very high standards but that the majority are not. In fact, its analysis shows that the majority are doing less well than the average across the school system as a whole—they are underperforming—and a big part of the reason is that many have expanded too fast. Everyone in the House will recognise that it is difficult to maintain good standards while managing rapid expansion, and that problem will get a lot worse if, as appears to be the Government’s intention, many hundreds and thousands of schools are forced into multi-academy trusts over the next few years.

It is worrying that we are starting to see some of the practices we used to deprecate in poor local education authorities cropping up in some of the multi-academy trusts. Under the reforms of the last 20 years, local education authorities have been transformed. Maintained schools now enjoy a high degree of autonomy, whereas academies are frequently not allowed very much autonomy from their multi-academy trust. One primary headteacher told me that he did not want to academise specifically because the multi-academy trust his school would likely join would not allow the degree of autonomy for his school that his local education authority does. We are starting to see some bad old practices creeping into education administration through multi-academy trusts, and the Sutton Trust is absolutely right to point out that the speed of their expansion makes the problem worse.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s assurance to the Select Committee that multi-academy trusts should be allowed to expand only when they have a track record of success and improvement at their existing academies. I hope that that will be reflected in the Bill, when it is published, and that she will tell us that that will be the case. When she came before the Committee, she also recognised the importance of parents being able to secure an academy’s transfer to a different trust, where the existing trust has demonstrably failed to deliver adequate standards and improvement in a particular academy, as is starting to happen in some instances. If, with the appropriate standards, parents were allowed to do that, it would be an important protection. She fully recognised the value of such a provision in her evidence to the Committee. Will that be in the Bill as well?

Finally, the Bill will also deliver the national school funding formula. The House recently discussed the impact of that on schools in London in a debate initiated by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed). Ministers seem to have given exclusive access to their deliberations on this topic to a group of largely rural authorities, and I am worried that we might end up with an unfair formula as a result. In particular, no London authorities at all were included in that group. I am particularly anxious that the high rate of pupil mobility in some authorities should be included in the formula.

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[Stephen Timms]

The Secretary of State spoke in the Education Committee about allowing parents to initiate the process of changing from one trust to another if things go wrong with the original trust. Will that provision be in the Bill?

[Nicky Morgan]

We are considering that, and we want to take soundings and consult on exactly how it would work. We would not want to destabilise trusts, but the views of parents are critical on that issue.

The hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) spoke about part-time students, and will no doubt have welcomed the announcement last year that for the first time ever we will provide financial support to part-time students that is equivalent to the support we give full-time students. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) spoke about English devolution, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) spoke about north-south funding. I am sure she will welcome the national funding formula, and take part in the next stage of the consultation.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) spoke about the changing world and robots. I wondered if she was suggesting that that might be the next leader of her party, but she was actually talking about new enterprise. The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) spoke about the pothole fund, and I point her to the £250 million that has been announced. A number of hon. Members rightly mentioned the importance of the further education sector, but they overlooked the continuing investment in the pupil premium fund.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Some colleagues have a quaint idea about time-keeping. One hon. Member who was six minutes late has still not taken my hint. I do not wish to embarrass the poor fella, but he should not be standing. It is pretty straightforward.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the Secretary of State is not sticking to her guns, and I welcome her change of heart and the U-turn that she has announced. Will she reconsider another ill-advised proposal in the White Paper—the abolition of the requirement for schools to have parent governors?

[Nicky Morgan]

The right hon. Gentleman and I discussed this when I gave evidence to the Education Committee. We have been very clear that there is a role for parent governors. We expect trust boards to have parent governors, but we also think that that is not the only way for parents to be involved and that much better, more meaningful engagement can be achieved.

Education Funding in London

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. It would be yet another broken promise. I hope that the Minister will listen carefully today and make sure that that promise is not broken.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend seen the estimate which states that if the F40 proposals were implemented as tabled by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) and others, the most prosperous 30 authorities in the country would gain more than £200 million and the least prosperous would lose more than £200 million?

[Rushanara Ali]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. That is exactly what schoolteachers are concerned about. That cannot happen. It goes to show that there is not a good motive behind this change. The Government should be ashamed of themselves, and the Minister should take action.

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[Graham Stuart]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We heard language about dividing communities. With respect, the only person attempting to do that today is the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, who used inappropriate language. No one is seeking to divide communities. We have a broken system. If anyone would like to make the case that the current system is fair, reasonable and just, then please do so. But if it is not—and it is not—then we have to redistribute.

Making pernickety points about the manifesto, which says that the Government are going to protect the amount of money per child—which they are—[Interruption.] To the point where we cannot redistribute from someone who is grossly and unfairly funded in one place to another person somewhere else who is on the other end of the spectrum? That is ridiculous. Again, that is beneath the hon. Lady who brought the issue up and it is beneath other Labour Members—including the highly distinguished figure of the right hon. Gentleman, to whom I am happy to give way.

[Stephen Timms]

I think most people do not regard manifesto commitments as pernickety. The difficulty with the case the hon. Gentleman is making is that he is dressing it up in terms of principle. The reality is that he is asking for more resources for his local authority and less for others. Will he be frank enough to acknowledge that?

[Graham Stuart]

The right hon. Gentleman is incorrect. I want a fair system based on principle in which need is assessed, and where the money follows the pupil and that need. That is precisely what all of us should want.

Given that the Government have set out, in a transparent way, how to bring about this fairer funding formula, the suggestions that have been made are for political purposes; I know there are elections for London Mayor tomorrow. The House should rise above that. If the details come out and they are found not to fit with the principles, they will be worthy of criticism, but right now, such criticism cannot be made. When we have a badly broken system, the failure to demonstrate how it should be changed is not good enough.

What we should be talking about now is what emphasis we want to be placed on deprivation, for example, or population movements. Those things are all reflected in the proposed formula. The Government have touched on all of them. I do not see how it is acceptable to say, “We have a problem with a lot of people for whom English is a second language”, when that features in the formula. It is the same with deprivation needs in London—that, too, is in the proposed formula. The truth is that we have the ingredients for a fair system.

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[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) on securing this debate and on how he introduced it. I also congratulate him, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), on how they chair the all-party parliamentary group for London. They are absolutely right that this is a crucial issue for the future of the capital.

I am worried about the process the Government have gone through to get us to this point. As we have heard, a consultation document was published in March. In the run-up to the consultation, meetings were held that, as far as I can tell, were exclusively with representatives of the F40 group of authorities. According to the F40 group website, its representatives met with the Department on 21 January 2015, 15 June 2015, 9 September 2015, 9 December 2015 and 7 April 2016 to discuss these proposals. As far as I can establish, no representatives of any London councils were present at any of those meetings. I am worried that because of the unbalanced process the Government have gone through, we will end up with an unbalanced proposal.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that my door is always open to every Member or representative of any local authority who wants to discuss school funding or any other concerns within my portfolio.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister. The worry, however, is that up until now, the Department’s door has been open only to this particular group. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) champions F40. Nobody can object to representatives of that group of local authorities lobbying and promoting their own interests; it is worrying, though, that it has had this exclusive access up until now.

A version of the minutes of the September meeting with the F40 quoted an official from the Department offering to share “emerging proposals” with the F40 group “in confidence”. Proposals should not be shared in confidence with one particular set of authorities. I note that the minutes have now been altered, so they do not say that any more, but no such offer should ever have been made. My deep worry is that we are heading towards a woefully unbalanced proposal as a result of the privileged access given to that group.

I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurance about his door being open, but I want him to give us a commitment that when the numbers are put into the structure in the consultation document published in March, there will be the constraint that there should be no cuts in school funding for pupils in the most disadvantaged areas of the country.

As we have heard, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) has pointed out that the Conservative manifesto certainly sounds as though it is saying that there will be no cuts for any individual students; I hope that that commitment will be maintained. I particularly want to press the Minister on this point: there should be no cuts to schools funding for pupils in the most disadvantaged areas. Indeed, the Government have recognised the need for additional schools funding for disadvantaged students through the pupil premium, so it would surely be quite perverse to slash the same funding through this formula.

As I mentioned earlier, if the F40 proposals were put straight into effect, it would result in the 30 most disadvantaged local authorities in the country losing £245 million per year and the 30 most affluent authorities in the country gaining more than £218 million per year. That would be a straightforward switch of hundreds of millions of pounds from the most disadvantaged authorities to the most affluent ones. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that that kind of switch, as advocated by the F40 group—understandably; it is in the group’s interests to do so—will not happen.

My authority, the London Borough of Newham, made a freedom of information application for the Department’s modelling or analysis of the likely impact of the new formula. The request was refused. Officials said that they had the information, but its release was refused on the grounds that it related to the formulation or development of Government policy and was therefore exempt from freedom of information obligations. As I have said, however, there has clearly been a lot of access for representatives of the F40 authorities. The Minister has given us a commitment that his door will always be open, and I ask him release that information to the other authorities as well, so that everyone can see where we are heading. As things stand, some authorities have been taken into the Government’s confidence and others have not. Indeed, some of those others have been refused information relating to what has been going on. That information should be released.

A cursory glance at the F40 proposal published in 2013—it is on the F40 website—and at the consultation document published by the Government in March shows an uncanny resemblance between the two. Clearly, the F40 group has been very influential. I feel particularly strongly about this, because modelling suggests that my local authority will be among the biggest losers. Analysis of the F40 proposal shows that seven of the 10 biggest cash losers under the proposals will be in London, while none of the 10 biggest cash winners will be in the capital. That is the direction of the F40 group’s proposals. Of course it is advancing its own interests, but it should not have special access to Ministers in doing that. That is not a fair way for policy to be made.

I want to pick up on one point of detail that has already been touched on. The point was made in responding to the consultation document that the extent of pupil mobility in London has a big influence on school costs. Mobility has been used in school funding formulae up till now, but it is not used in the F40 proposal. Nor is it in the Government’s proposal. That is a very troubling omission. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst rightly underlined the point that high levels of mobility in London add significantly to the cost of running schools here, and that fact should be picked up in the formula.

Research published by the Fischer Family Trust this year estimates that a student who moves in-year will perform 10% less well than the average for their class, and that if three or more students join a class mid-year, attainment for the class as a whole will suffer by one to two percentage points. It estimates the combined cost of pupil mobility to schools and local authorities in London at £35 million a year. That should not be excluded from the formula, although the consultation document proposes excluding it. I understand that mobility is generally low in the authorities of the F40 group, and that they do not want it reflected in the formula, and the Department immediately put that into its version of the formula. Authorities such as mine, where mobility is high, will unfairly lose out on funding if that view prevails, so I hope that it does not.

I am worried that the process that has taken us to this point has been flawed, which is leading to an unfair proposal. I hope that the Minister will accept that schools funding for pupils in disadvantaged areas should not be cut as a result of the new formula, and that factors such as mobility, which have such a big impact in London, should be included in the formula, so that the damage is not inflicted on schools in London.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) for securing this important debate, and I commend all the contributions, which have been hugely informative about education funding. As constituency MPs and parents, the subject is close to all our hearts.

For our country to grow stronger, fairer, wealthier and more secure, we need good schools and a well-educated population. Investing in education is an investment in the future of our children and our nation as a whole. That is why the Department is committed to delivering educational excellence everywhere—not just in London, but everywhere in the country—so that irrespective of where a child grows up, they can expect the best education possible.

There is no doubt that we are investing in education. The spending review confirmed a real-terms protection for the core schools budget. Throughout this Parliament, the money available for our schools will increase as pupil numbers increase. This will mean more than £40 billion next year, including pupil premium funding worth £2.5 billion a year targeted at the most disadvantaged pupils. That is also protected and will be maintained at current rates.

The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) made the point about who had been engaged in making the case for funding reform. He is normally assiduous and careful in how he puts his points across, but on this occasion I would like to disabuse him of the notion that the cross-party F40 group has somehow had special access. I met a range of stakeholders both before and during the consultation, including the Local Government Association, while London councils have met either me or my officials in the Department, and that will continue. I have also met a number of Members of all parties to discuss specific funding needs in their constituencies, and I have a number of union representatives on speed dial as far as this issue is concerned.

[Stephen Timms]

I do not think that the Minister would deny that there have been many discussions. I read out a list of the dates of the meetings, set out on the F40 website, between F40 representatives and the Department. I think he would accept that there has been much more discussion with that particular group than there has been with the others to which he has referred.

[Mr Gyimah]

Ministers cannot be criticised on the one hand for not listening, and then be criticised on the other for listening too much. The truth is that my door is always open, and I am happy to meet whoever knocks on my door to discuss the issues as often as is necessary to address them.

There is an important need to address the funding system. There is a risk that the current system will not deliver the outcomes that we want for our children. For too long, schools have struggled with funding systems that are both unfair and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst suggested, opaque. The amount of money that schools receive is now an accident of history, not a reflection of the needs of their pupils or of children.



Local populations have changed over the past decade. For example, the proportion of children receiving free school meals in Manchester has fallen by 31% since 2005, while in Blackpool it has increased by 19%. However, schools funding has not kept up. The distribution of funding today cannot reflect the needs of our children if it has not changed in more than 10 years. The key question is not about levelling up or levelling down; it is about whether funding is addressing the individual needs of children.

The impact of the current funding system is hugely unfair. Let me look closer to home for the benefit of those who have spoken today. A child who is sent to school in Bexley will attract £4,635, but in next-door Greenwich, that suddenly becomes £6,020. Different local authorities also make different decisions about how to fund their schools. In 2015, Brent chose not to allocate any funding to pupils receiving free school meals, whereas Ealing chose to allocate nearly £1,700 to each primary pupil in exactly the same position.

We are committed to fixing that. I am proud to say that last month we launched the consultation referred to by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), on new, fair, national funding formulas for schools and high needs. Our aims are clear, and I hope that Members in all parts of the House will agree that they are worthy. We want to create a formula that is fair, objective, transparent and simple. It should be clear how much funding is following each pupil, and that should be the same wherever they are in the country. Headteachers or academy trusts should know that if they move to take over underperforming schools, no matter where they are, their budgets will be fair and their schools will have the opportunity to excel.

Allocation is also important. We must allocate funding for high-needs provision, which has not been dwelt on today, on a fair and transparent basis. For too long, funding allocations have varied without reason. Parents and children with high needs deserve to know that the funding they require will be there, irrespective of where they choose to live. They deserve that security; they deserve that equality.

[Mr Gyimah]

As my hon. Friend knows, what has taken place so far is the first stage of our consultation. The next stage will come up with detailed allocations for local authorities, but it will also make clear how each block within the dedicated schools grant would function within the system, and will certainly take account of my hon. Friend’s concerns about the high-needs block.

[Stephen Timms]

Will the Minister pay particular attention to the question of whether the schools block should include, as many have argued today, an element that would recognise the mobility within local authorities that we have been discussing?

[Mr Gyimah]

That is an important point. We will, of course, consider how the issue of mobility can best be addressed in the funding system. There are a number of ways of doing that, but it is certainly a priority in our determination of the new formula, along with in-year growth, population growth and so forth.

Despite the clear principles behind our national funding formula, there are still some myths about the potential impact on London, some of which we have heard about today. I want to take the opportunity to put those myths to bed. There is, for instance, the myth that the national funding formula is about London versus the rest of the country. There are two grounds on which that is simply wrong. First, the funding formula will deliver fairness to all parts of the country, whether they are urban or rural, shire or metropolitan, north or south. Secondly, London is not a homogenous area. At this moment, a parent who moved just a few miles from Haringey to Hackney—this point was made by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West)—would increase the funding for their child by £1,000. We heard about areas such as Croydon—the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) made an interesting speech in this respect—that are struggling to recruit teachers because they cannot pay as much as better funded areas just up the road. We need a fairer funding system within London, just as much as we do across the whole country.

The second myth I want to dispel relates to funding for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, on which the right hon. Member for East Ham wanted a specific answer. I hope I can assure him that where pupils have additional needs, we will provide extra funding. This is a fundamental principle of the national funding formula to ensure that such pupils can overcome entrenched barriers to success.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

The hon. Lady knows I have a real fondness for her. We enjoyed our time together on the Children and Families Bill in those halcyon days of 2013, but I have to say—I suspect she has been put up to it—that this does not sound like her question. I am confident, as she will be, that the law we both helped to take through this House reflects properly what I said in an earlier answer: that academies have to abide by the same rules as other schools when it comes to children with special educational needs. The law is clear. This is why we are bringing in, for the first time, an inspection regime for special education needs, so we can see a really clear picture of how they are performing.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

9. If she will make it her policy that maintained schools be given the choice of whether to become academies.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

Academies reject the old one-size-fits-all approach, and are more dynamic and responsive to performance and the needs of local areas. In the next six years, schools will have time to make choices and to set in place arrangements that will work for them, either as standalone academies or in multi-academy trusts, including diocesan trusts and operating in local clusters.

[Stephen Timms]

It will by now be clear to the Secretary of State that Conservative Members, not just Opposition Members, believe schools should have some choice in whether they become academies. Headteachers of excellent primary schools say they have more autonomy with their local authority than they would as members of a multi-academy trust. Surely enforced compulsion from Whitehall of this change cannot be the right way forward.

[Nicky Morgan]

Ofsted data for the latest inspection results of all schools show that 350,000 children now study in sponsored academies rated good or outstanding. Let us look at the example of an academy in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Langdon Academy, a special measures school in East Ham, opened as a fast-track sponsored academy on 1 January 2014. Over a year later, it has gone from 45% of pupils getting A* to C to 57%. Those are achievements that I want all young people to have access to.

Schools White Paper

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I will take more interventions in a moment.

We have already been shown to respond quickly in the minority of cases where academies underperform. To date we have issued 154 formal notices to under- performing academies and free schools and changed the leadership in 129 cases of particular concern. The powers introduced under the Education and Adoption Act 2016 will allow us to intervene swiftly from day one—much more quickly than happened under many local authorities.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State not allow parents a say in whether their local school becomes an academy?

[Nicky Morgan]

We had that debate when the Education and Adoption Act was going through. We recognise that many new sponsors will involve parents, rightly, and we will encourage that in the academisation process.