Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to increase the dedicated schools grant funding across all three blocks in order to meet the needs of all schools.

At the Spending Review, we announced that we would protect the core schools budget in real terms through this Parliament. We are also protecting the £390 million of additional funding that was given to the 69 lowest funded local authorities in 2015-16 and the pupil premium at current per pupil rates. Between 2015-16 and 2016-17, the schools block will increase by an estimated £481 million, and the high needs block by £92.5 million.

Investment through the early years block is also set to increase. Following the funding announced at the Summer Budget and the Spending Review, we will be investing over £1 billion per year of new funding by 2019-20 to fund our commitment to 30 hours of childcare for working parents of three and four year olds. The funding includes £300 million per year for a significant uplift to the rate paid for the two, three and four year old entitlements.

We will come forward with our proposals for funding for 2017-18 and beyond in due course. We are committed to making funding fairer and intend to introduce national funding formulae for schools, high needs and early years, so that funding is transparently and fairly matched to need. We will be consulting formally on the formulae later this year.