Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress she has made towards the introduction of a national funding formula for schools; and if she will make a statement.

On 17 July, I announced that the Department for Education will allocate £390 million to the least fairly funded local areas in 2015-16. This is the biggest step towards fairer schools funding in a decade. It puts us in a much better position to implement a national funding formula when the time is right – after the next spending review, when there are multi-year public spending plans, and the Department can give greater certainty to schools about how the formula will affect them.