School Funding: Stockport

Tom Morrison Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Smart]

I, too, have family members with ADHD diagnoses. We as a society have got much better at understanding neurodiversity. We understand the strengths of those who are neurodiverse and how best to educate and work with them. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that a better understanding of our fellow citizens is a good thing, and if that comes with a diagnosis, let us welcome that.

Councils receive a high-needs budget to pay for specialist places and extra support in mainstream schools. In Stockport, that came to just over £56 million this year, with more than 1,100 students holding high-needs places last year. That brings me to the deficit on the high-needs budget, which hangs over councils across England, and which Stockport knows well.

By March 2027, the cumulative deficit on Stockport’s dedicated schools grant is expected to reach about £68 million. Because of the statutory override, that sum sits in an unusable reserve, rather than on the council’s balance sheet, where it could be put to better use. The Government have said that, as part of their wider reforms to special educational needs provision, they will write off 90% of the accrued deficit at March 2027. For Stockport, that is an estimated £61 million, so of course I welcome that. It is the right thing to do, and councils have been asking for it for years. However, the override is due to end in March 2028, with a new funding model due to begin in April 2028. In between, Stockport expects to build up a further deficit of about £60 million across 2026-27 and 2027-28. The Government have said that more support will be confirmed, but that puts councils and schools in a difficult position, as they have to set budgets without knowing whether a sum almost as large as the first write-off will be covered. Schools and councils want to work with a clear understanding of what they should expect.

The council and families across the borough deserve better than that uncertainty. Parents of children with special educational needs should be provided with the certainty that school places will be available to them and that they do not have to worry about whether they will be funded. They should not be told that it depends on a funding model that is yet to be published. I would be really grateful if the Minister can update us on when schools should expect publication of the new funding model.

Funding disparities can disproportionately affect students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Stockport is one of the most polarised boroughs in the country. We have communities that are among the most affluent in the region, and we also have the most deprived ward in the whole of Greater Manchester. Children in that ward start school with disadvantages that, on average, will never pick up. A funding system that sees only the prosperous areas of a borough and sets the rate to match lets down those children. That is why Stockport is a founder member of the f40 group—the campaign of the lowest-funded local authorities—which has pressed for years for a fairer distribution of education funding. The case has not changed. The gaps mean that an average one-form-entry primary school in Stockport receives about £164,000 less each year than it would if it were based in Manchester. Headteachers in my constituency cannot simply absorb such a gap.

The pressure is not only on budgets. In Marple and the surrounding villages, families living in the catchment area of Marple Hall school find that their children are not offered a place because the school is oversubscribed.

[Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a really strong statement about the schools in her patch and in wider Stockport. The oversubscription of schools impacts Cheadle too. Schools such as Woodford primary school have been oversubscribed for some time. Does she think that if we crack the funding issue and make funding fairer, that would help the admissions system and give parents the peace of mind that they can choose the school that is best for their kid?

[Lisa Smart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, my constituency neighbour, for raising that point. There are a number of challenges when it comes to admissions, and funding is part of the answer. Multi-academy trusts, which are their own admission authority, work alongside local councils, which have the responsibility to find a place for a child, but their wishes and desires do not always align. I am doing work—I have been in correspondence with the Minister—to find a way through that. Every child deserves a brilliant education at a good local school, and parents should be able to choose the right school for their child, so I strongly agree with my hon. Friend.

I have heard directly from parents about the effect on them of their children having to get a bus that drives past Marple Hall to get to the school where they have been assigned a place. School funding challenges are also reaching organisations that work alongside our schools. One of my constituents, David from Romiley, runs a social enterprise with his wife that delivers educational activities in primary schools. He came to see me because of the Government’s decision to end the PE and sport premium. He is now expecting to have to make redundancies among his staff.

Will the Minister look again at how the national funding formula treats areas such as Stockport? A system that locks in historical allocations and averages out pockets of real deprivation does not match funding to need. Will the Department review the way the formula is built and, if so, set out a timetable for doing so? Will the Minister confirm what support will be available for the deficits that build up in 2026-27 and 2027-28 before the override ends? Councils need certainty now, not in the spring. Will she commit to publishing those figures in good time?