Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) I beg to move, That this House
has considered school and college funding in the Midlands. It is a
pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am
pleased to have secured this important debate and grateful to the
House authorities for granting it. I welcome to Westminster
schoolteachers from across the midlands who have come down to
listen to the debate and to hear what the Government have to say
about how they will...Request free
trial
(Coventry South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered school and college funding in the
Midlands.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.
I am pleased to have secured this important debate and grateful
to the House authorities for granting it. I welcome to
Westminster schoolteachers from across the midlands who have come
down to listen to the debate and to hear what the Government have
to say about how they will fix the crisis in our schools and
colleges. I hope their journey will not have been wasted.
Before I go on, I put on record my huge admiration for our
teachers, teaching assistants, lecturers and everyone who
dedicates themselves to education in our schools and colleges in
the midlands and beyond. They deserve so much better than their
treatment by successive Conservative Governments. I also put on
record my absolute support for and solidarity with the teachers
and education staff in the National Education Union as they fight
for fair pay and for the future of our schools and colleges.
Teachers do not take action lightly; they take it as a last
resort, and only because they have been pushed to breaking point
while watching their pupils be failed by Ministers. They are
taking action because of their commitment to education, not in
spite of it. Polling shows that the public know this too—the
majority back striking teachers.
I sought this debate because I want to address a simple fact: our
schools and colleges are in crisis. The reason why they are in
this state is no mystery. Between 2010 and 2020, school spending
per pupil in England fell by 9% in real terms, funding per
student aged 16 to 18 in further education and sixth-form
colleges fell by 14%, and funding per school student in sixth
forms fell by a whopping 28%. The consequences are all too clear:
secondary school class sizes are the highest they have been in
over 40 years, and primary class sizes are the highest in Europe.
At the same time as pay was cut, year on year, teachers have
worked more unpaid overtime than any other profession in the
UK.
The impact on students and staff is hard to overstate. Teachers
who went into the profession because they love education and
teaching are finding it harder and harder to go on. One teacher
from the west midlands told me
“the expectations are huge…the pressure unmanageable…and the
rewards diminishing in every sense.
It is becoming harder and harder to find the positive every
day.”
Another told me of the vicious cycle that develops: underfunding
results in bigger classes and less support for students with
special needs, which leads to more pressure on teachers and more
staff absence.
The demands on teachers go way beyond what we should expect.
While teachers’ pay has been cut, Government underfunding means
that teachers increasingly have to dip into their own pockets to
buy supplies. One in five are now estimated to buy everything
from books and pens to rulers and glue sticks, and nearly half
even buy food, clothes and soap for poorer pupils—stepping in
where the state has catastrophically failed.
All of that has a predictable result. Staff recruitment and
retention is in crisis and set to get worse: a quarter of all
teachers and school leaders say they are considering leaving the
profession for reasons other than retirement. That is backed up
by the Government’s own statistics, which show that retention
rates have declined since 2011 and that fewer than 60% of
teachers are still in the profession after 10 years. Recruitment
is in dire straits, too. The Government are now reaching less
than 60% of their own target for secondary recruitment, and for
some subjects the figures are even worse—just 36% for modern
foreign languages, 30% for computing and an astonishing 17% for
physics. That impacts learning, with a rising proportion of
lessons being taught by teachers who do not have a relevant
qualification. The problem has got so bad that one Coventry
teacher told me of a student who by Wednesday had 10 out of their
15 lessons taught by cover staff. Perhaps nowhere in Coventry is
the crisis in staff recruitment and retention felt more severely
than at Coventry College.
(Chesterfield) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. She is making an
incredibly important point about recruitment. We recently saw the
Prime Minister out with his strategy for getting more maths
taught, but the Government are already failing to hit their own
targets for maths teachers. Does it not say everything about this
Government that we have, on the one hand, a big announcement
about what is going to happen in schools and, on the other,
abject failure to recruit maths teachers?
I completely agree. It is a slogan without substance, and the
Government have had to accept that those targets will not be
met.
Coventry College recently announced that it would cease offering
apprenticeship provision from August, citing the extreme
difficulty in recruiting and retaining teaching staff. This will
have a severe impact on young people in the city, depriving them
of opportunities, and it runs contrary to the Government’s own
skills mission as set out in the levelling-up policy agenda.
Again, there is no mystery about what is happening with
recruitment and retention: educators are voting with their feet
after working harder and harder for less and less. Alongside
rising workloads, teachers have seen their pay cut year after
year—by around 13% in real terms since 2010. The Government’s pay
offer would only make things worse. In September, they offered a
“pay rise” of 5%, when inflation was, of course, running at
12.6%—that so-called pay rise was really a 7% pay cut. The
Government’s latest offer of an additional one-off cash payment
of £1,000 would not even be consolidated into pay next year, and
is dwarfed by the average energy bill alone. What makes it even
worse is that, according to NEU calculations,
these proposals are not even fully funded; instead, they would
require most schools to make further cuts to pay for them.
It is therefore little wonder that the latest pay offer was
rejected by a staggering 98% of voting NEU members. This
decisive rejection must surely make the Government come back to
the negotiating table with an above-inflation pay rise. That
would only start to undo the damage of a decade of falling pay,
as the Government must also restore pay for further education
teachers and help to address the severe challenges faced by
colleges across the country, including Coventry College.
It is not just staff recruitment and retention that have been
impacted by Government underfunding. Just last month, a
Conservative Member secured a debate in this very Chamber to
highlight that inadequate school funding had resulted in a severe
decline in the quality and quantity of free school meals,
impacting children’s health and education. The Member cited a
school in his constituency that pays £2.80 a meal, but receives
just £2.41 a meal in funding. I am an active campaigner for free
school meals to be extended to all children, guaranteeing every
child a hot, healthy meal each day. However, those meals must be
just that—healthy and nutritious—and that requires funding. Just
like funding our schools and colleges more broadly, this is an
investment from which we all benefit, with studies showing that
healthy free school meals improve children’s learning and health,
helping with concentration and behaviour.
Just as the meals that children eat at school are affected by
underfunding, so too are the buildings in which they are supposed
to learn. The latest annual report published by the Department
for Education says:
“There is a risk of collapse of one or more blocks in some
schools”,
with the Department escalating the risk of incident from
“critical—likely” to “critical—very likely”. Again, there is no
mystery as to why this is happening. The House of Commons Library
calculates that, between 2010 and 2022, overall capital spending
in schools declined by half in real terms. There have been
reports of minor collapses in recent years, but it surely should
not take a more serious incident, injuring staff and children—or
worse—before action is finally taken.
Staff, students, parents and the public deserve so much better
than crumbling school buildings and paltry school lunches. They
deserve so much better than their dedicated teachers working
overtime but barely making ends meet. They deserve better than
record class sizes and dwindling opportunities. That means having
a Government who show they care about education by putting their
money where their mouth is and investing in the future of our
young people and the professionals who dedicate themselves to
their education. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s plans
on how to address those fundamental challenges.
4.39pm
(Stafford) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I
congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South () on securing today’s
important debate.
As MP for Stafford in the west midlands, I am delighted to speak
on school and college funding in the midlands. I strongly welcome
today’s debate, especially as fairer funding for schools and
colleges has been one of my top five pledges as MP for Stafford.
I am delighted that the Government recently announced that
Stafford College would secure £28 million of new funding. That is
for our new skills and innovation centre, which I recently
visited and which will officially open later this year. That
brand-new centre will develop construction and engineering
workshops and hybrid vehicle technology facilities. It also has a
300-seat auditorium. I am confident that those new,
state-of-the-art facilities will do much to foster and encourage
digital and manufacturing skills across the midlands.
I am particularly grateful that Stafford College was chosen out
of 16 colleges in England to receive that funding as part of the
Government’s £1.5 billion further education capital
transformation fund, which was launched to rebuild and transform
colleges into fit-for-purpose spaces that meet the needs of today
and the future. I was delighted that the Secretary of State for
Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (), visited me in my
constituency a few weeks ago to see this fantastic site and the
progress it has been making over the past few months.
The Secretary of State told me that nothing demonstrates the
Government’s commitment more than equipping young people with the
skills they need by investing in this new building. I would also
like to thank Craig Hodgson, the principal of the college, for
hosting us and Councillor Jeremy Pert from Stafford Borough
Council for all the work he has done to support me on this
project.
During her visit, the Secretary of State took time to speak to a
group of students who are studying for apprenticeships, A-levels
and T-levels. She spoke about her experiences of studying for an
apprenticeship course, which inspired my local students. She
listened to what they had to say about what they wanted the
Government to invest in, the courses they were studying, the
skills they hope to gain and their plans for the future. I thank
her for her visit to my constituency, which was a fantastic
example of the Government listening to what residents have asked
for—investment in our further education.
In addition to supporting Stafford College, I have invested a lot
of time over the past three years as MP for Stafford in visiting
local schools, including Barnfields, St Patrick’s, St Pauls,
Flash Ley, Marshlands and, just a few weeks ago, Wolgarston High
School in Penkridge. There I met the headteacher to discuss
funding needs for the school and to understand the struggles she
faces when teachers go on strike without notice. I also spoke to
the school’s mental health and wellbeing officer, who provides
important support to the students. I am a long-term advocate for
mental health in Stafford, and I call on the Government for more
support in schools for mental health. It is not mandatory in
every school. Wolgarston is a fantastic example of a headteacher
taking the issue very seriously and choosing to invest time and
money. I hope the Government roll that out in other schools. I
also met very ambitious A-level politics students, whose
questions were more aggressive than those on “Question Time”, and
I enjoyed being kept on my toes by those local students.
Lastly, I want to touch on another area of education that I
strongly support: special educational needs and disabilities. I
welcome the Government’s SEND and alternative provision
improvement plan published in March. I recently met the
Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member
for East Surrey (), who understands the
importance to families of knowing the level of support they can
expect for their child.
We discussed some of the casework on autism and mental health
that has come up in my recent surgeries. The improvement plan
will provide more consistent provision across the country. We
know that some students do best in mainstream schools, but the
Government have now recognised that some need that additional
support, and I welcome the thousands of extra specialist school
places. The Government have also announced a plan to invest in
400 educational psychologists to speed up assessments, and I am
pleased that that plan is backed by real funding.
We all know that education is critical, and I thank the
Government for investing in Stafford and taking seriously the
needs of my constituents.
4.45pm
(Stoke-on-Trent North)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr
Pritchard.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South () on securing this important
debate. I, too, echo her words and thank all the fantastic
teachers, support staff, lecturers and many others who work in
the education profession, from nursery through primary and
secondary school to college and university, across the great city
of Stoke-on-Trent and wider north Staffordshire, including
Kidsgrove, Talke and Newchapel. It is an absolutely fantastic
profession, and one that I was proud to spend nearly nine years
in on the frontline, working day in, day out with our fantastic
young people, who we were looking to make sure excelled into the
future.
I am therefore proud to declare my interest as a paid-up member
of the NASUWT and as someone whose partner works as an employee
of Teach First, a fantastic teacher training organisation. She
was also a secondary school teacher at a number of schools in
Birmingham and London. I hope all those declarations are now on
the books.
The reality is that school funding has increased by 44% per pupil
since 2010-11, to £7,460 per pupil. The educational budget in
2023-24 is £57.3 billion, up 64% on 2010-11. In the 2021 spending
review, it was a remarkable achievement of the Department for
Education to secure £7 billion in additional spending. The Prime
Minister and the Chancellor then came in to add another £4
billion on top of that over the next two years—2023-24 and
2024-25—which even the Institute for Fiscal Studies says is an 8%
increase in real terms for England and Wales. The IFS also noted
that spending in England kept pace with the 13% rise in pupil
numbers between 2010 and 2023.
Mr Perkins
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for quoting the IFS, because
that same IFS report said that the loss of funding in the further
education sector was the biggest of any education sector, and
that even the extra funding in 2020 and 2021 had been eroded by
the rapid growth in student numbers. He needs to provide a much
fuller description of that IFS report if he wants to refer to it,
as I shall be doing when I make my contribution.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me the
opportunity to repeat the fact from the IFS that, in England,
spending kept pace with the 13% rise in pupil numbers between
2010 and 2023. That is in answer to his specific question. It is
positive that we are in a place where the IFS has recognised the
investment that has gone into the education sector.
Ultimately, for levelling up to be achieved fully and to be
delivered in places such as Mansfield or Stoke-on-Trent, we must
create young people with the knowledge and skills they need to
access the higher-skilled and high-wage jobs that we are so
proudly bringing to our local area, such as the 9,000 jobs
created since 2015 under Conservative rule of both the city
council and the Government, including 2,000 linked to the Ceramic
Valley enterprise zone and 500 thanks to brand-new Home Office
jobs. We are tapping into the talent pool through colleges, local
jobcentres and our university to ensure that we have local people
in local jobs, which will be fantastic for our local area. That
is exactly what we want to see.
(North Shropshire) (LD)
rose—
In fact, we had a 5.1% increase in per-pupil funding at Kidsgrove
Primary School. That is an astonishing increase, which will make
a massive difference to the school. I have seen it use that
support.
(Loughborough) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I give way to my hon. Friend and then I will happily come on to
the hon. Member for North Shropshire ().
In my hon. Friend’s wonderful speech, will he talk about
T-levels, for example, and how we are putting some fantastic
skills into local communities, as we are doing at Loughborough
College?
At the Conservative party conference last year, I sat next to my
hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion of the T-level
programme. The Minister—I served on the Education Committee when
he was in the Chair—was also a fantastic advocate. T-levels such
as the digital T-level offered by the City of Stoke-on-Trent
Sixth Form College will truly transform people’s lives with that
access to on-the-job training as well as the in-classroom
opportunity. It is a fantastic scheme. I fully support the
Department in all its efforts and success to date in rolling this
out. As I promised, I give way to the hon. Member for North
Shropshire.
The hon. Gentleman is making a passionate speech. I have met the
headteachers of all my secondary schools in North Shropshire, and
they tell me that last year’s pay rise was unfunded and that they
are really struggling to recruit teachers in the key areas of
languages, maths and science. Does he find that the teachers in
his area are reporting the same kinds of difficulties and
concerns about educating their young people going forward?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her fantastic intervention. Of
course, her area faces challenges different from those faced by
the city of Stoke-on-Trent, given that hers is a much more rural
constituency with, I assume, higher rents and house prices in
some areas than the average of Stoke-on-Trent.
When I was at the Department for Education, albeit for only 51
days under a certain former Prime Minister, I was delighted that
one of the briefs was the recruitment and retention of teachers.
In my very brief time there, I signed off on the 5% pay increase,
as put forward by the independent pay body review, which was
accepted in full—the highest increase in teacher salaries in 30
years—as well as on the manifesto commitment to deliver a
£30,000-a-year starting salary, which is so important if we are
to drive recruitment.
Of course, recruitment and retention have been an issue for many
years, particularly in science, maths and certain other subjects.
One of the challenges is that, rather than getting into the game
of “Who’s going to give more grants, and to which subjects?”, we
need to have a frank and honest conversation.
Ultimately, the Labour party says that it has a plan to recruit
and retain more teachers. I would be delighted if Labour Members
could reveal the specific details. They have told me where they
will get the money from: they are going to remove the non-dom
status—that is fine; that is their entitlement. What they have
not said is what they will do differently. Are they going to
increase salaries, including starting salaries? Are they going to
increase the grants? Are they going to give more grants to more
subjects? Are they going to nick talent from around the world by
paying people to come here from other countries? That is their
prerogative if they so wish, but the detail has yet to be
supplied, despite the fact that I have repeatedly asked for it on
the Floor of the House and been given some brush-off answers
designed to get some Twitter clip—I seem to trend on Twitter
quite successfully, almost as successfully as the hon. Member for
Coventry South.
The devil is always in the detail, and I look forward to hearing
from the shadow Minister about what the non-dom-status money is
specifically going to do. If that money drops year on year, how
will the funding be covered by any loss incurred by people moving
outside the country? These are harsh realities that we have to
address and accept.
I go back to the issue of the midlands area. It sometimes feels
as if Stoke-on-Trent is rather unfairly treated as the ugly
duckling of the west midlands, but we are the gatekeepers to the
northern powerhouse, based on where we are located
geographically. In the midlands, £6 billion has been allocated
for in-forecast schools with higher needs funding—a 7.4% increase
from 2022-23. There has been a 5.7% per pupil increase in the
west midlands, but the city of Stoke-on-Trent is getting 6.8%, so
we are getting 1.1 percentage points more than other parts of the
region. That is great news for our schools and, most importantly,
for our pupils, because local authorities will have the teachers
and resources they need to invest in their local communities and
schools, and to deliver the world-class education that,
ultimately, is so important.
Of course, it is important to remember that there is a £5 billion
education recovery fund, which includes £400 million for teacher
training, £1.5 billion for tutoring and, thanks to the Education
Endowment Foundation, £2 billion for evidence-based interventions
that we know make a difference on the ground. The tutoring was
indeed a problem. When I was on the Education Committee, I was as
critical as anyone else about the fact that the Government needed
to introduce reform and give the money directly to headteachers,
who could either bring in their own tutors or pay teachers
additional money to work beyond their normal hours.
When I was the Minister for School Standards and spoke to
teachers on the ground in Sandwell, Wolverhampton, London and
elsewhere about why they had put themselves forward, I heard that
it was because they knew the pupils, their background and the
support needed. They felt that they were able to deliver the
best. The Government legacy has to be a long-term plan for
tutoring. If we do not get that right, the gap between advantage
and disadvantage will, sadly, continue to grow after all the hard
work that the Government did between 2010 and 2019, when the
attainment gap narrowed drastically. That is something I was
certainly proud of when I was in the classroom and working day
in, day out on the frontline.
It is also important to remember that we have to look at teacher
numbers. We know that there are 465,500 full-time teachers in the
workforce—up 24,200 since 2010. That is more teachers in the
classroom, which is a good thing for us all. As I say, there are
all the grants that we are handing out, including around £28,000
for some science-based subjects, in order to bring in more
people. There is also the new starting salary and, in education
investment areas, the levelling-up premium: an additional,
tax-free, bonus salary given to the subject areas where we
struggle most, so that someone in Stoke-on-Trent and possibly
Mansfield—I am guessing that Mansfield is an education investment
area.
(Mansfield) (Con)
indicated assent.
It is—fantastic! I am glad to know I got the right place. Those
are the types of areas that can offer something unique—something
to put on the job advert that says to people why they should come
to our area.
Of course, there is also the PE and sport premium for primary
schools. I keep referring to my hon. Friend the Member for
Mansfield because I enjoyed watching him from 2017 being a
doughty champion for education when I was in the classroom. That
£600 million, two-year funding settlement means that more primary
schools can better plan for what they are going to do to invest
in young people. I thank the Lionesses and Baroness Sue Campbell
for their incredible diligence in leading that campaign. I thank
the fantastic local companies in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove
and Talke, such as Bee Active, which delivers the high-quality PE
lessons that young people truly deserve—not just in
Stoke-on-Trent, but across Staffordshire. That is fantastic, and
it again shows that the further investment going into our schools
is creating healthier bodies and minds.
There is also the holiday activity food programme, which has been
excellently led by the Hubb Foundation. Former Port Vale football
player, Adam Yates, has been leading the charge, ensuring that
nearly a million meals have been provided across the city to
those who need them. In nearly every single school holiday, that
programme has been providing thousands of opportunities for young
people, working with local schools to target the pupil premium
and the free-school-meal students who most deserve those
opportunities. That is education at its finest, which is why we
should be using the school building more. We should use the
building when it is holiday time. We should see the building used
to its full potential.
The hon. Member made a point about free school meals. Scotland,
Wales and even London have a policy of extending those to all
primary school pupils. Can I count on the hon. Member’s support
for my campaign to extend that provision to all primary school
pupils in England?
It is important to remember that there are far fewer young people
in those areas than there are in England. I do not support the
hon. Lady’s campaign, and I will say clearly why. Ultimately, why
should my children, who are currently aged one and two—it is not
long before they could be receiving infant free school meals—get
a free school meal given that their father is earning around
£85,000 a year and their mother is earning around half that? Why
should they be entitled to a free school meal?
I would rather my money went to getting a free school breakfast
and a free school meal to people legitimately in need. By
targeting the support to those who need it most, we can help the
most. Blanket giving people something does not help those most in
need; it helps the middle and upper classes, ultimately. That is
where it is wrong. I want to see those on lower incomes get the
help and support that they need.
One of the things we need to do in our schools is tackle the fact
that we have corner shops all too ready to sell big bags of
Doritos and Pringles, massive chocolate bars and 1.5 litre
bottles of pop to young people. I used to confiscate them by the
boatload. I was able to throw parties at the end of every term
for year groups because of the amount of confiscated stuff.
Corner shops are profiteering from unhealthy junk food targeted
at those young people; parents are working hard to give children
their hard-earned cash, but those young people are not putting
that cash on to their fingerprints, which is how people pay for
their meal in most schools now. That is not right; that is
wrong.
I want young people to get the support and help they need—those
who truly deserve and need it. The vast majority of my
constituents will absolutely deserve a free school meal in most
cases. Sadly, the average wage is still well below where it
should be in Stoke-on-Trent, despite the fact that it increased
by 11.8% between 2015 and 2018—outperforming the west midlands
and UK averages. I am working hard to bring in those high-skilled
jobs. Of course, someone like me has absolutely no right to have
their child get a free school meal. I would be embarrassed for a
school to give its hard-earned money to my children, when I can
afford to put food on their plates. If I cannot, I have failed as
a father, frankly, in the position I am fortunate enough to be in
and with the money that I earn.
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that universal free school
meals help to remove the stigma for those pupils who need to
receive them?
I must tell the hon. Lady that in all my time in the teaching
profession—and I was a head of year, so I dealt with behaviour
and attendance—I never once had an incident where a pupil came to
me to say that they had been singled out because they were on
free school meals. Ultimately, that was never publicised. Unless
the pupil shared that information, other pupils in the classroom
were unaware of it. The pupil went up to the till, put their
fingerprint on, and no one else knew what was going on; there was
money in the account as far as the other students were aware.
There was no stigma attached, and there should be no stigma
attached.
Everyone needs help and support in their lives at some stage.
During the covid pandemic, my own father had to rely for the very
first time on the welfare state to prop him up; he had been
working as a music teacher contracted out to teach individuals
and could not do face-to-face teaching. As he is caring for my
stepmother as we speak—she has had quite serious surgery—the
welfare state is propping him up after the years he has paid into
it. Those are appropriate moments to use the welfare state, and
the welfare state should support those most in need, but of
course I accept the importance of ensuring that a child has food
in their belly in the morning. There is absolutely no doubt in my
mind about that.
The Education Endowment Foundation fully backs up what the hon.
Member for Coventry South, the hon. Member for North Shropshire
and I want to achieve. If students have food in their stomachs,
their concentration levels, attendance, behaviour and ability to
achieve are better. As I say, free school meals should not be
given to those who can afford to put food on their children’s
tables. That money should be used to provide breakfast and lunch
for those most in need, because those children deserve it.
Mr Perkins
Does the hon. Gentleman not see a contradiction between his
saying, “I would be embarrassed as a parent if my children needed
free school meals,” and on the other hand saying, “There is no
stigma attached to having free school meals”? The reality is that
there are many parents who do not apply for free school meals and
might not consider that they are in poverty but who may well be
eligible for them. Do the hon. Gentleman’s comments not rather
miss the point?
I am sure that the hon. Member would never want to mislead this
Chamber, and I accept that there was probably a mistake there. I
think that I was perfectly clear when I said that, with the money
that I earn, I would be embarrassed if I was unable to put food
on my children’s table, day in, day out. I think that that was
perfectly clear and the transcript will show it. I hope that the
hon. Gentleman will reflect on his words. If I were to see my
words misconstrued in any way, I would have to contact Mr
Speaker’s office to get remediation, because it would be wrong to
politically twist what was said abundantly clearly. Hansard will
pick up my words. I would be embarrassed, personally, if I was
unable to put food on the table, based on the salary that I earn.
That would be taking a meal out of the mouth of a child in my
constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, who
rightfully would deserve that meal. That is why I would be
embarrassed: it would mean that those who need it most would not
get the level of help that they truly deserve.
My mother was on a council estate in London, and she got off it
thanks to grammar school—something that the hon. Member for
Coventry South herself will know well about, having been such a
beneficiary of that world-class education, which I hope to bring
to Stoke-on-Trent. My father, who failed his O-levels, went back
to being a cleaner at his school during the day and did night
school in the evening. He went all the way through to becoming a
council worker while doing night school for his A-levels, and
then he went to the Open University and became the first ever in
my family to get a degree.
My grandfather spent 93 hours a week driving lorries, my
grandmother worked in hotels, my other grandmother was a teaching
assistant, and my other grandfather, sadly, passed away when my
mother was 17 years old. That is exactly why I am proud of my
legacy—of what my family have done to give me every advantage
that I have had in life. I am aware of the privilege that I have
had, and I want to ensure that the pupils I am proud to represent
in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke get everything that
they deserve.
I want Stoke-on-Trent to be great. It is a small but mighty city,
and levelling up will be achieved only by getting the education
in our sector right. That is why I am so damning of the “Not
Education Union” spending its time convincing teachers to walk on
picket lines rather than being in classrooms and helping pupils
to recover from the pandemic. We have accepted that the gravest
mistake was that pupils were not in the classroom during the
pandemic. Face-to-face learning is so critical, and the quality
of provision was a postcode lottery for some pupils—whether they
were given virtual lessons immediately or months down the line.
That was no fault of the hard-working teachers. Sadly, it was the
fault of Ministers who decided not to let pupils and teachers
into the classroom together. I hope that we will never again see
a day when face-to-face teaching is brought into disrepute.
I hope that Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted can put their bias
and political game-playing to one side. They are living out their
socialist utopian fantasy that they are so desperate for—
(in the Chair)
Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the scope of this
debate is quite narrow? I am sure that he would like to pursue
what he is discussing, but I am afraid that today is not the
time. We need to stay within the scope of the motion. I am sure
that he wants to get back to funding for his midlands
constituency.
Thank you very much, Mr Pritchard; yes, I am happy to go back to
the funding that has been so important to our local area. We are
lucky that the schools in Stoke-on-Trent are quite new, so we are
not in the desperate situation that, I accept, other areas are
in. I believe that £1.8 billion of additional funding is now
going into improving the school estate, which is important to
improving our local areas. In Stoke-on-Trent, I want that funding
to look at the challenge of the day, which is workload.
Money is going into schools. We now know that there has been an
increase, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies itself has said, of
above 8% in real terms. We know that that is keeping pace with a
13% rise in pupil numbers. Stoke-on-Trent has seen a 6.8%
increase. The money is in the system. Now I want to see that
money go where it is needed most. Schools obviously got support
through the energy bill relief scheme; up to potentially 40% per
month in the case of some schools was the saving from the cap on
energy costs, which was a huge intervention. The total figure was
about £500 million, if I remember correctly.
I want the money now to be used to think about workload. How can
we drive down workload to free up teacher time—to ensure that
teachers are spending more time in the classroom and more time
doing interventions, rather than getting caught up in
unnecessary, bureaucratic meetings? This is where I challenge the
Minister to go to the DFE, print off every single piece of
guidance issued and have a challenge to halve it. I asked the
Department to do that when I was there. People laughed and said
that it would fill up my office. It is a concern if schools have
to deal with that level of guidance. That means that they cannot
spend their time or money focusing on what really matters, which
is why we need to ensure that we get the guidance halved.
Of course, there is also the issue of behaviour. Investing in
behaviour hubs and behaviour specialisms is massively important
to improving outcomes, because it is what is driving teachers out
of the classroom and preventing people from coming into the
profession. Sadly, they hear too often from Opposition Members
how bad teaching is, how terrible teaching is. Talk about a
negative advert for the teaching profession—talk about an advert
to say why people should not go into teaching! When you are
telling everyone how bad it is, do not be shocked that no one
wants to go into it. What we need to do is to invest in behaviour
hubs, so that we can ensure that young people have good law and
order in their classroom, the teacher feels safe and secure and,
ultimately, every single pupil has a right to learn, rather than
one pupil having a right to disrupt and disregard the ambitions
of everyone else.
Thank you, Mr Pritchard, for my time.
5.06pm
(Mansfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South () on securing this really
important debate. It is a pleasure also to follow my hon. Friend
the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (), whose constituency
includes Kidsgrove and Talke—we have to ensure we get all of them
in or he tells us off. His passion for this subject is visible
for us all to see. I thank him for his kind words about my
advocacy around education. You will be pleased to hear, though,
Mr Pritchard, that I will be significantly briefer than he was.
He managed to talk for 20 minutes, and still I agree with every
single thing that he said, so I am grateful that he did.
The first thing for me to say is that I never intended to be in
this place. If anyone has ever listened to any after-dinner
speech that I have given, they will know that I never wanted to
be an MP. I always wanted to be a teacher—that was my intention
all the way from primary school, in fact. It is only by pure
accident that I have ended up in this place instead. Therefore it
is absolutely clear to me that education should be the biggest
priority of any Government. I have always said that if I had just
£1, I would put it into schools; that would be my first priority.
I had the privilege of serving on the Education Committee when it
was under the chairmanship of the Minister and I know his passion
for education, too.
I have been in this Chamber many times advocating around teacher
recruitment and retention in particular. I think my hon. Friend
the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North is absolutely right when he
says that teacher workload is so important and often overlooked.
We always talk about pay, but actually most of the teachers I
speak to recognise that we have some of the shortest school days
in Europe but some of the longest teacher working hours. That
cannot be right. There must be something that we can do to reduce
that workload and give teachers back autonomy and the ability to
be in the classroom and to teach, instead of dealing with
paperwork and data. That must be an absolute priority for the
Minister.
I want to highlight some of the positive progress in my
constituency, because there has been positive progress. There has
been a particularly positive trajectory in the number of schools
that are rated good. Certainly we could count the number of those
secondary schools on one hand prior to my election in 2017, but
we have made good progress. We have had a Government agenda on
education that benefits constituencies such as mine—not least the
shift towards technical and vocational qualifications and towards
what I often call cultural capital, as opposed to just the
academic. It will take time to embed it in our schools and our
education systems, but so often it is the most disadvantaged
children who just do not have that life experience to be able to
achieve more, to be ambitious and to understand all their options
and opportunities in life. I am grateful that Ofsted has started
to shift slowly in that direction as well.
I am grateful also for the early years funding budget, which was
increased in the Budget earlier this year, because our education
system is not just schools and colleges; it starts right from day
one of a child’s life. Thinking of some of the most disadvantaged
estates in my Mansfield constituency, I know that our early years
provision in particular is the key to ensuring that children have
a fair shot in life.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed in the autumn statement
that schools will receive an extra £2 billion over the next two
years. School budgets will rise by £3.5 billion next year, which
is absolutely massive. That is why this Labour rhetoric around
school cuts winds me up. The language of “school cuts, school
cuts”, the websites with misleading figures, and all the rest of
it suggest that somebody in Government has taken a decision and
said, “No, we’re not going to give money to schools anymore,” but
that could not be further from the truth. My hon. Friend the
Member for Stoke-on-Trent North listed the figures: since 2010
education budgets have been increased by about 60%. There has
never been more money in our education system.
It is not fair to suggest that Ministers have decided to cut
schools. Saying, “We can’t keep up with 12% inflation when our
public services are massively squeezed,” is not a school cut.
Ministers have not decided to take money away from schools.
Highlighting that difference in intention is really important to
our public conversation. It is just not true to suggest that
Conservative Ministers are not willing to invest in our
schools.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, Ashfield and Mansfield are
education investment areas. The aim is to improve outcomes in
parts of the country where, unfortunately, literacy and numeracy
are poor. Eleven local authorities in the midlands are part of
that programme. More local funding is good, but I say to the
Minister—I want to drive the Government to do this—is that it is
always best when there is local autonomy in how funding is spent.
In my constituency, some of the funding has been spent on
structures, supporting the governance of academy trusts and
things such as that, but I would love it go to classrooms. I
would love it to be given to schools so that teachers and heads
can use it at their own discretion, as that is the most effective
way to spend schools funding.
I am pleased, therefore, that there is local autonomy when it
comes to the new budget uplifts. Mansfield is getting just over
£3 million in extra funding for schools in the next academic
year, as part of the £2 billion uplift. I think the first
payments are landing this week, which is excellent news. Schools
will have the freedom to choose whether to spend the money on
extra staff, better pay or whatever else they decide. It has
always been my view that it should be for schools to decide.
In my part of the world, there has also been significant capital
investment in school buildings and facilities. Over £13 billion
has been invested since 2015, but we are always playing catch-up,
because the schools estate in much of the country is very old. I
have always found it very frustrating that when I when I take
some of the most difficult examples to the DFE, I am told, “You
think that’s bad? Go have a look at X down the road. There are so
many examples.” That is frustrating, but there has been
significant capital investment in the schools estate around the
country.
I was delighted when, in December, three Mansfield schools—the
Meden School, the Garibaldi School and All Saints’ Catholic
Academy—were selected to be among the 239 to be rebuilt or
substantially refurbished. That was brilliant news, but I urge
the Government and the DFE to help us accelerate that programme,
because the sooner that investment is visible on the ground, the
better. I have spoken to the schools about their plans and they
are good to go; they are ready. They are applying for planning
permission, and as soon as they get the word from the DFE, they
will start to build.
That programme is so important for students and communities, not
just because of the state of school buildings and because they
will get new classrooms, but because of the feeling it generates
that somebody is investing in the community, particularly in
areas of significant disadvantage. There are levelling-up
outcomes when people can say, “Somebody has put millions of
pounds into my community, and invested in my children’s futures.”
That is so meaningful and powerful for communities. It
demonstrates a commitment to Mansfield and communities like
it.
In the recent local elections, I spoke to a lot of people on the
doorstep who said, “Look, there are lots of conversations about
this stuff and I hear about the figures, but show me the
buildings and the outcomes.” That is what we need to achieve by
the next election. We need to grow our communities’ confidence so
that they support us for another term. Let us get those schools
built.
Across Nottinghamshire, two new primary schools are opening in
September, and new extensions and secondary places in existing
schools have been funded in no small part by central Government.
I am also grateful for the energy price support provided to help
us to face this difficult economic challenge: £500 million has
been shared out for energy efficiency measures.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North mentioned
facilities, and in particular sports facilities. I am a huge
advocate of opening up school facilities to our communities. Our
schools are not just education providers; they are hubs of our
communities. That is particularly true of primary schools.
Engaging parents in education when their children are of primary
age is so important. For many estates in my constituency, the
school and school fields are the only sports provision and
community buildings, so let us get them open for as many hours as
possible. Let us get partners, councils, community groups in
there, delivering more on evenings and weekends. Let us use those
taxpayer-funded facilities to their maximum. I am grateful for
the additional funding for that.
I mentioned the direction of travel on skills and technical and
vocational education. I am a massive believer in work-based
learning. For many people, technical and vocational
qualifications—apprenticeships and similar such
qualifications—will provide far better outcomes and life
opportunities than university. The key thing for many students in
my constituency is choice and having the right information to
help them get the best outcome. The Skills and Post-16 Education
Act 2022 has started to drive things in the right direction,
getting more careers advice and third-party organisations into
schools. That is hugely important.
I want to highlight the good work of West Nottinghamshire College
in Mansfield. When I became a Member of Parliament six years ago,
the college was in financial trouble and was really struggling.
Under new leadership it has grown and developed into an
incredible asset for our community. It is important to recognise
the good work of the principal, Andrew Cropley, who has turned a
failing college into a huge asset by opening the facilities for
the community. It is not just about our young people, their
learning and what can they deliver; it is about wider investment
and regeneration work. Andrew leads the place board, delivering
on levelling-up fund and towns fund outcomes.
The college has become a centre for growth and change in our
community. It has also become a university campus, which is game
changing for the young people in my constituency. These figures
are a few years out of date now—they are pre-covid—but used to be
that only 11% of people in Mansfield went to university, and
typically they went to university somewhere else and never
returned to Mansfield. That is hugely damaging to our economy,
our culture and our fabric, and has massive, wide-reaching
implications. I lead the council, so I know this means that there
is nobody to look after older people, which is hugely
problematic.
We are providing education locally, not by setting up a
“University of North West Mansfield” and delivering junk
qualifications that will not get people anywhere, but by working
with the award-winning Nottingham Trent University via a local
campus, where people can earn and learn and get on with their
higher education while staying in Mansfield. We are building
pathways from school through college into higher education, so
people can get their qualifications and then go to work at the
hospital next door. These opportunities are amazing and game
changing for young people in my community. Both Andrew Cropley
and Edward Peck at Nottingham Trent University deserve a lot of
credit for their commitment and investment in Mansfield. It is
hugely important.
The colleges get significant capital investment as well as the
NTU presence, which means better access to higher education. We
are delivering new centres for advanced manufacturing and
automation and training for aerospace roles in Newark, just down
the road. There is a Mansfield knowledge exchange, which provides
training opportunities for science, technology, engineering and
maths and innovation through the levelling-up and towns funds. It
is not just Department for Education funding that is going
towards these outcomes; there is a wider range of Government
support through the levelling-up agenda.
I have not even had a chance to talk about lifelong learning, the
change it will deliver for many people in Mansfield and the
opportunities it will bring for jobs and growth. There is also
the STEP fusion energy programme, which is a £20 billion
investment in creating jobs in clean energy in my constituency.
Those kinds of jobs and opportunities have not existed for
decades—since the pits shut, quite frankly. It means that I am
confident that young people in primary school in Mansfield now
will have better opportunities than their parents and their
grandparents. That is hugely important in the wider levelling-up
agenda.
We all recognise that there are significant economic challenges
right now. I am sure everybody in this room would agree that our
pounds should be put into schools and our young people. They are
the future, and we need to deliver opportunities for them. It is
not always easy. We have to balance all the other services we
deliver. I am a local authority leader, and I see that we are
trying to deliver children’s services, which is my passion and
the area I want to work on and deliver in, as well as adult
social care and trying to sort out the roads and everything else.
These are not easy equations to balance, but it is clear from the
figures that the Government have sought to support and invest in
schools.
I hope I have highlighted some examples of positive things going
on in my constituency. I know the Minister agrees that education
and schools and colleges should be a huge priority for the
Government. I look forward to working with him to deliver on
that. For some of these projects, capital builds in particular,
the money has been announced and we have 18 months or so to get
things built in our constituency. I hope the DFE will drive
forward those outcomes and help to accelerate things like the
school rebuilding fund, not put barriers in the way of schools
delivering. That will be hugely important as we get into the
second half of this Government’s Administration.
5.19pm
(Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr
Pritchard. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for
Coventry South () for securing this really
important debate. She has neatly separated out the views from
across the House on the issues facing our schools and the funding
they receive. I respond to the debate in not only as the shadow
Minister for further education and skills, but as the Member of
Parliament for Chesterfield in the east midlands. Funding for
schools and colleges in the midlands is an issue I feel
passionately about and am very much aware of.
I will reflect first on some of the contributions made by hon.
Members. My hon. Friend spoke about a number of issues that
together show the scale of the challenge facing our schools. She
spoke about the 9% reduction in school spending per pupil, the
14% fall in college spending per pupil and the even bigger
spending cut of 28% in our sixth-form colleges. She reflected on
the reality facing many of our teachers: one in five routinely
buy equipment for their pupils. We all see that when we go into
our schools and speak to teachers or they come to our surgeries.
We see the extent to which people who were originally trained as
educationalists are increasingly taking on that social work
function and are expected to be the last line of resort for
pupils in poverty. Pupils turn up unable to study because they
are hungry or because of the social issues they face. Her speech
was powerful in that regard.
My hon. Friend spoke about teachers being on strike, and there
were differing views. There is a strange contradiction I hear
from Conservative Members between their lauding of teachers when
they are teaching pupils and their sense that these same hugely
impressive people are somehow being persuaded by trade union
leaders to rush out and strike with no idea of what they are
doing, despite their education and their knowledge of the
schools. The Government think school teachers are so weak as to
rush out to strike because a trade union tells them, but what we
are actually seeing is a powerful balance.
My hon. Friend hit the nail on the head on this and it was
something I read recently in a letter from one of my
constituents. If the pay offer was fully funded and teachers were
not being told, “Your pay offer will be based on us taking money
being used to educate children out of the school,” that would be
an entirely different thing, but they can see every day that
their school is struggling to get by, being told that it will
have even less money because the pay offer will come out of the
money that would previously have been spent on equipment,
teaching assistants, special needs or other aspects. The offer is
unacceptable in the extreme and teachers are turning it down
because they recognise the impact it will have on schools. That
reflects their commitment to their students.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the teaching unions and to
teachers. Does he agree it was wrong of the leadership of the
National Education Union to instruct teachers not to assess or
mark work during the pandemic?
Mr Perkins
rose—
(in the Chair)
Order. I apologise to the shadow Minister. I know he was replying
to the intervention by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North
(), but I called him to
order because the intervention was outside the scope of the
debate. It is incumbent on all Members to reflect on their
contributions. They should be in the context of the motion drawn
up by the mover who applied to the Speaker for the debate. The
debate is about funding for schools and colleges in the midlands.
I encourage everybody to focus on that out of respect to the
shadow Minister.
Mr Perkins
I understand your point entirely, Mr Pritchard, and I will of
course stick to your strictures.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South also spoke about
Coventry College being in a position where it can no longer offer
apprenticeships. That is so powerful and so damaging. We
recognise the incredible importance of apprenticeships. We also
recognise that in many areas there are huge difficulties in
accessing apprenticeships, particularly for small businesses.
Oftenm it is the colleges that are best at getting those small
businesses—the non-levy payers—in to do apprenticeships.
[Interruption.] I am sure I am not the only Member with a
post-election cold, so please excuse me. My hon. Friend’s point
on Coventry College ceasing to provide apprenticeships was
incredibly powerful.
Moving on to the contribution of the hon. Member for Stafford
(), I was delighted to hear
about the new facilities at Stafford College. The hon. Lady is
absolutely right that new facilities make a huge difference, so
it is good to hear about the progress being made on new capital
spending at that college. I thought the comment she attributed to
the Secretary of State for Education—that nothing demonstrates
the Government’s commitment to young people like the amount they
spend on capital equipment for colleges—was incredibly powerful.
For precisely that reason, it is appalling that we have had a
massive reduction in capital equipment spend on both our schools
and our colleges under this Government. The hon. Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North () referred to the IFS
report in November 2021, according to which funding for students
aged 16-18 saw the biggest fall of any sector, and the increases
only reversed a fraction of the cuts we have had. The hon. Member
for Stafford is absolutely right; I will join her in holding this
Government to account on their capital spending and use that to
demonstrate the extent to which they have let a generation of
young people down.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North gave a memorable speech.
It was, frankly, most misleading of him to suggest that schools
are being generously funded. Schoolteachers in his area will have
listened to his contribution aghast at his argument that there
has been generous funding under this Government. It is one thing
for the Government to say it was an economic decision to
introduce austerity and that they had to do it; it is quite
another to actually suggest that all these schoolteachers are
going on strike and leaving the profession at a time that the
sector is being generously funded.
The hon. Gentleman asked about additional funding for
schoolteachers. Removing the tax perk on private schools would
actually fund an extra 6,500 schoolteachers. Look at the record
of the last Labour Government: the reality is that we did not see
losses in the sector on the scale we have seen under this
Government. There has been a massive reduction in the number of
teaching assistants and pressure is increasing on schoolteachers.
All that has an impact. Look at the massive expansion in social
problems in our schools—again, that creates pressure on schools.
The idea that this is simply about providing a little bit more
money and then schoolteachers’ lives will be better is just
missing the point entirely.
The hon. Gentleman has outlined, fairly so, that if Labour was in
government, it would recruit an extra 6,500 teachers, having put
VAT on private school fees. I mentioned non-doms earlier; I
apologise for the mistake in the policy idea. Can the hon.
Gentleman say what specifically Labour would do with the money it
raised that is not already being done?
Mr Perkins
I was in the process of answering precisely that question. As I
was saying, it is not that if there were simply a little bit more
money and we had these extra teachers, everything would be
resolved. The entire approach that this Government have taken to
schools has led to a massive decrease in morale that has meant
lots of teachers leaving the profession and has led to a
reduction in the number of teaching assistants, while the
Government’s social policies have led to far more children
turning up hungry than there were 13 years ago. All those
additional pressures end up diminishing the morale and experience
of schoolteachers—they all add to the problem. Frankly, if the
hon. Member does not mind my saying so, the very transactional
approach that he suggests misses the point about this
Government’s failure on schools.
It is a great pleasure, however, to say that there was something
I agreed with in the hon. Member’s contribution, which was about
the use of buildings in school time—a really important point. In
the all-academy world that we largely inhabit in terms of
secondary schools, there are pressures that make that different
when they are run by local government. None the less, he made
that point well.
I will return to the point on which we had a debate. The hon.
Member rather missed the point with the tone of his rhetoric on
free school meals. I checked again what he said: he said that he
would be “embarrassed” if he could not put food on the table with
his salary, then created the straw man that his family receiving
a free school meal would take it out of the mouth of another
child. That is not what universal free school meals do at all.
The hon. Member needs to reflect on his language if he genuinely
does not want parents and children to feel that free school meals
are something to be embarrassed about.
The hon. Member for Mansfield () spoke about teachers he had
met who recognised that they had short days and long holidays. It
almost beggars belief to suggest that the reason that lots of
teachers leave the profession is that they think they do not work
hard enough and their holidays are too long. That does not bear
any relationship to the schoolteachers I have met, who suggest
that the huge workload outside their teaching time is one of the
reasons that they are leaving the profession.
rose—
Mr Perkins
I am very happy for the hon. Gentleman to correct my
understanding of what he said.
I will seek to correct the hon. Gentleman on what I said. I do
not wish to chastise the hon. Gentleman, who I like very much,
but in a similar way to my hon. Friend the Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North, I am afraid that he has inadvertently
misrepresented what I said. I said that it was a travesty that
schools in our country have the shortest days while teachers work
the longest hours in Europe, that that is not right, and that we
should seek to reduce that bureaucratic burden on teachers to
allow them to spend more time in the classroom with our children.
I do not know many teachers who would disagree with that point,
but it is not what the hon. Gentleman said my comments were.
Mr Perkins
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was able to set the record
straight on that.
There can be no doubt that 13 years of Tory Government have left
England’s school and college buildings crumbling, left many
teachers and their support staff demoralised and left our schools
robbed of the funding needed to support the opportunities that
all our children deserve. I see that in the facilities every time
I attend a school in my constituency. One of the very first
things I recall from when I came to this place as a new MP in
2010 is the chaotic announcement from the right hon. Member for
Surrey Heath () about the cancellation of the
Building Schools for the Future projects.
Every single month at Education questions, it seems that there is
another Conservative MP coming to their feet to reflect on how
appalling the school building is in one of their schools, and
saying, “If only the Minister could take the time to address
that,” without recognising that it is the entire system of
capital funding, not the individual case, that is a failure under
this Government. There is a stark difference between the
facilities that children have at Outwood Academy Newbold and
Springwell Community College in my constituency, with brand-new
buildings secured under the last Labour Government, and the 13
years without a single new secondary school building in my
constituency, which have meant schools such as Brookfield
Community School and Parkside Community School soldiering on in
inadequate facilities despite the best efforts of their
staff.
It is not just school buildings that have been left to rot. The
Conservatives also cut off the fledgling Building Colleges for
the Future programme on their arrival in government. Both
statistically and anecdotally, the failure under this Government
is there for all to see. The attainment gap between disadvantaged
secondary school pupils and their better-off peers has widened to
its largest level in years. Under the Conservatives, teacher
vacancies have risen by 246%, with the Government missing their
teacher recruitment target again this year, recruiting just 59%
of their target for secondary schools.
In late 2021, research published by the headteachers’ union, the
National Association of Head Teachers, found that schools across
the west midlands have been forced to cut staff or activities
because of a lack of funding. One in three schools said that they
had made cuts to balance their budget, while 38% expected to make
cuts in the following year. Last November, similarly, a Unison
report revealed that councils across the east midlands faced a
collective funding gap of £181 million in the next financial
year, forcing them to cut essential services including early
education. The extent to which schools have felt totally
unsupported with the increase in energy prices is just one
example.
Inasmuch as there has been any recovery in funding in recent
years, it does not begin to address the shortfall over which the
Government presided in the previous 11 years, and it comes in the
context of huge cost of living crisis pressures, which mean that
it has been swallowed up. Only last week, the Sutton Trust found
that essential school staff and activities are being cut as a
result of funding pressures inflicted by central Government. Such
measures can only have a detrimental effect on our children’s
futures. The IFS analysis to which the hon. Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North referred showed that schools in England
still face a significant budget squeeze.
(in the Chair)
Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to sit to finish the
remainder of his speech, he may do so, because his cold is
severe. It is entirely up to him.
Mr Perkins
You are very generous, Mr Pritchard. I am not sure that sitting
down will make it much better, but we are approaching the end,
you will be glad to know.
What would a future Labour Government do? An incoming Labour
Government will end tax breaks for private schools and invest
that money in more teachers and excellent state education for
all. We are committed to recruiting more than 6,500 new teachers
to fill vacancies and skills gaps across the profession; to
ongoing training for school staff, including in support for
children with special educational needs; and, as I say, to an
entirely different approach to schools, which we hope will
support teacher morale and mean fewer teachers leaving the
profession, as that has been one of the major issues over the
past 13 years. In addition, we will recruit more than 1,000
careers advisers to give every young person in our schools and
colleges professional careers advice, as well as two weeks of
work experience. We will give every child access to a qualified
mental health counsellor at school. Labour wants every parent to
feel confident that they can send their child to a great local
state school where they are supported to achieve and to
thrive.
As last week’s election results demonstrated, 13 years of
Conservative mismanagement have taken our schools to the brink.
Only a change of Government will bring about the improvement in
education that the midlands and many schools across our country
so desperately need.
5.37pm
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education
()
It is an honour to serve under you today, Mr Pritchard. I
congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South () on her impassioned speech,
and I look forward to responding to her debate.
I will go through the details of what is going on, but it is
important to talk not only about funding, but about how
educational standards are improving. As of December last year,
88% of schools were rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, which is
up from 68% in 2010. In the west midlands, 86% of schools are now
rated good or outstanding, up from 60% in 2010. I am delighted to
report that in Coventry, 86% of schools are rated good or
outstanding, up from 55% in 2010. The hon. Lady will know
Hereward College, which is not in her constituency but is in the
Coventry local authority area and is rated good.
I was surprised that the hon. Lady did not mention that Coventry
was an education investment area. She talked about encouraging
more teachers, and 36 secondary schools in Coventry benefit from
the levelling-up premium, which is available in maths, physics,
chemistry and computing to teachers in the first five years of
their career. Payments are worth up to £3,000 tax-free each year
from academic year 2022-23 right up to 2025. Connect the
Classroom has 17 schools upgrading their wi-fi access, and the
trust capacity fund is helping trusts to develop their capacity
to grow. Furthermore, the Thrive Education Partnership was
awarded funding of more than £290,000 for Corley Academy.
The hon. Lady also mentioned Coventry College. Sadly, as she
knows, it received an inadequate grade for apprenticeships, which
is why it is no longer offering that provision. Apprentices
accounted for 4% of its overall provision, and learners have been
transferred to other local colleges and providers. I should,
however, congratulate the principal and CEO, Carol Thomas, who
has overseen the improvement of finances at her college from an
inadequate health grade in July 2020 to a good health grade in
July 2022. The college was also nominated by Barclays bank for a
financial turnaround award, which is important news.
I will respond to the hon. Member for Coventry South further, but
I just want to respond to some of the other hon. Members who
spoke. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford () made an impassioned speech.
She is a champion for schools and education in her
constituency—she is well known for it across the House. She
mentioned the £28 million for Stafford College that she
personally lobbied for. The Secretary of State recently visited
the new site following her invitation, which is a credit to what
she has achieved for her constituency. My hon. Friend will also
know about the additional capital funding for schools in her
constituency of over £800,000.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North () made an impassioned
speech. I absolutely agree with him that free school meals need
to go to those who most need them. The hon. Member for Coventry
South mentioned free school meals, and I understand her campaign,
but we are spending over £1.6 billion on free school meals, and
1.9 million pupils, or 22.5%, are claiming them, which is more
than in 2021. We introduced free school meals under the universal
infant free school meals policy. That happened under a
Conservative Government. When I was a Back Bencher in the last
Parliament, I personally campaigned for free school meals for
disadvantaged FE college pupils, which we introduced as a
Conservative coalition Government. It is also important to
mention the multimillion-pound package for breakfast clubs,
especially in disadvantaged areas. My hon. Friend the Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North is right about workload—I am absolutely
convinced that my colleague the Minister for Schools will be
getting a printer in his office to print out all the examples of
bureaucracy that he talked about. I congratulate him on his
speech.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield () knows that he and I agree—I
think there is a card separating us—about skills and FE. He knows
that I am an honorary professor of Nottingham Trent University,
and I am particularly impressed with its brilliant work with
Mansfield College. He talked about West Notts College, which has
also done impressive work in offering T-levels in business,
construction, digital education, engineering and manufacturing.
He made some wise points about schools and skills, and I thank
him for his speech.
To return to the hon. Member for Coventry South, she will know
that in the autumn statement we announced £2 billion of
additional investment for schools in 2023-24 and 2024-25, over
and above the increases already announced for schools at the 2021
review. That means that total funding across mainstream schools
and high needs will be £3.5 billion higher in 2023-24 than in
2022-23, and that is on top of the £4 billion year-on-year
increase provided in 2022-23. Together, that is an increase of
£7.5 billion, or over 15%, in just two years, and school funding
will increase further next year, so that by 2024-25, funding per
pupil will be higher than ever in real terms. The Institute for
Fiscal Studies has been quoted, but its independent analysis
shows that total school funding is growing faster than costs for
schools nationally this year and next.
(Nottingham East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way; I recognise that he speaks
on this topic with a great deal of experience. I also
particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South
() for securing this important
debate. In the midlands, four in five schools are set to have to
cut their education provision to cover costs this coming year. In
2020 in Nottingham, secondary school teachers left schools at a
rate of 33%, which was one of the highest in England. Does the
Minister accept that the situation is completely unsustainable
and is damaging children’s education? Will he look again at
funding for schools and teachers’ pay?
I thank the hon. Lady, who has listened very carefully to the
debate. I will be setting out the extra funding going into the
midlands. She will know that schools in Nottingham East are
attracting over £69.7 million through the schools national
funding formula. On top of that, schools will see £2.3 million
through the grant. Also, 90% of schools are rated good or
outstanding, up from 77% in 2010. I should add that I was pleased
to work with the hon. Lady as a Back Bencher on green skills in
school, which I know she cares about deeply.
We are levelling up school funding and delivering resources where
they are needed most. Nationally, per-pupil funding for
mainstream schools is increasing by 5.6% in 2023-24 compared with
last year, and the east midlands and west midlands are both
attracting above-average increases of 5.7% per pupil. Alongside
those increases to revenue funding, we are investing
significantly in schools’ capital. We provide funding to support
local authorities with their responsibility to provide enough
school places in their area. We have announced £2 billion for the
creation of places needed in the next four academic years. The
east and west midlands regions are receiving over £500 million of
that funding.
We are also investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to
support the delivery of new and improved high needs provision for
children and young people with special educational needs. We have
allocated over £15 billion since 2015, including £1.8 billion
committed for financial year 2023-24, to improve the condition of
the school estate. As part of that investment, Coventry City
Council has been provisionally allocated £3.5 million for
financial year 2023-24 to invest across its maintained schools.
We expect to publish final allocations shortly.
The school rebuilding programme is transforming buildings at 500
schools, prioritising those in poor condition and with potential
safety issues. We have announced 400 schools to date, including
Bishop Ullathorne Catholic School in Coventry South, which is one
of 91 schools in the programme across the east and west midlands.
We also allocated £500 million of additional capital funding for
schools and FE colleges to help improve buildings and facilities
and so to help them with energy costs. Schools in Coventry South
were allocated over £900,000 of that funding.
On post-16 education, the further education capital
transformation programme is delivering the Government’s £1.5
billion commitment to upgrade and transform the FE college
estate. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) obviously
knows that his college in Chesterfield has had £18 million, which
I am sure he is delighted with. The FE reclassification and
energy efficiency allocations have committed over £200 million in
new capital funding to the sector. That has meant a £2 million
capital investment in the FE college estate in Coventry, with
Coventry College and Hereward College benefiting from that
investment.
We also want to ensure that every young person has access to an
excellent post-16 education. The 2021 spending review made
available an extra £1.6 billion for 16-to-19 education in 2024-25
compared with 2021-22. That is the biggest increase in a decade,
and we have made significant increases in funding rates. The
national funding rate, which was £4,000 in 2019-20, will rise to
£4,642 in academic year 2023-24. Over £1.3 billion has been
allocated for 16-to-19 education in the midlands area for the
current academic year, and £43 million of that has been allocated
to institutions in Coventry.
The hon. Member for Coventry South rightly always champions
social justice. In 2023-24, we have targeted a greater proportion
of the schools national funding formula towards deprived pupils
than ever before: 9.8%—over £4 billion—of the formula has been
allocated according to deprivation. That means that over the
coming year of 2023-24, schools with the highest level of
deprivation have, on average, attracted the largest per-pupil
funding increases. That is not even including the pupil premium
funding, which has increased by 5% in 2023-24, a £180 million
increase that takes total pupil premium funding to £2.9 billion.
High needs funding for children with special educational needs
and disabilities is rising to £10.1 billion nationally in this
financial year, an increase of over 50% from the 2019-20
allocations. This year, Coventry is receiving an 11.5% per-head
increase in its high needs funding compared with 2022-23.
The Minister is being very generous with his time. On SEN
funding, local authorities in England are facing a £2.4 billion
black hole in special educational needs. I had the pleasure of
visiting a SEN school recently, Rosehill School in my
constituency, which had the same story to tell. What will the
Minister do to improve that situation?
As the hon. Lady knows, we are spending many millions more on
special educational needs funding. She will have heard the
statement by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon.
Friend the Member for East Surrey (); that will help
significantly in dealing with special educational needs.
In 16-to-19 funding, we include factors in the funding formula to
help institutions recruit, retain and support disadvantaged
students. That includes an uplift for those from disadvantaged
localities and those with low prior attainment. The 16-to-19
bursary fund targets financial support at disadvantaged young
people. In the academic year 2022-23, £152 million in bursary
funding was allocated to institutions. That includes £33 million
for the east and west midlands, of which just under £1 million
has been allocated to institutions in Coventry. The amount has
been further increased for the academic year 2023-24, with a 10%
rise in the rates per instance of travel, disadvantage and
industry placements compared to the 2022-23 academic year, to
help with rising costs.
We briefly discussed T-levels. We are currently working with the
FE sector and others to roll out T-levels. There are 42 colleges,
schools and independent training providers across the west
midlands that are planning to deliver T-levels in the next
academic year. Coventry College will offer T-levels in digital
and education, and the WMG Academy for Young Engineers will offer
T-levels in engineering and manufacturing. I also mention
Mansfield College for my hon. Friend the Member for
Mansfield.
We have invested over £500,000 for providers in Coventry South to
purchase industry-standard equipment for teaching T-levels. We
have also funded nine T-level projects in the west midlands to
help create state-of-the-art buildings and facilities. Overall,
T-levels are backed by revenue funding of up to £500 million a
year, and we have also announced a 10% uplift in T-level funding
rates over the coming year to support providers as they scale up
delivery.
We are backing institutes of technology, with over £300 million
in capital funding going to 21 institutes across the country,
including £9 million to the Greater Birmingham and Solihull
Institute of Technology and £18 million on the Black Country
& Marches Institute of Technology. We plan to spend £13
million on the East Midlands Institute of Technology.
We talked about apprenticeships. It is brilliant to see that
there have been 9,000 apprenticeship starts in Coventry South
since 2010, and over 1 million starts in the east and west
midlands in that time. We want to support even more apprentices
and employers to benefit from high-quality apprenticeships, which
is why we are increasing funding for apprenticeships to £2.7
billion by 2024-25.
We have also removed the limit on the number of apprenticeships
that small and medium-sized enterprises and small businesses can
take on, making it easier for them to grow their businesses with
skilled apprentices. That will benefit the small businesses and
apprentices in Coventry South. We continue to provide a £1,000
payment to employers when they take on apprentices aged 16 to 18,
and we are increasing the care leavers’ bursary from £1,000 to
£3,000, so that they have the chance to do an apprenticeship.
I am enormously grateful for the opportunity to discuss these
important issues. Despite the narrative set out by the hon.
Member for Coventry South, we are investing huge sums of money in
her constituency and across the midlands for school funding,
which will be at its highest ever level by 2024-25. Funding for
16 to 19-year-olds will see the biggest increase for a decade,
and we are investing in capital funding for schools and colleges.
I have carefully highlighted the huge investment we are making in
the hon. Member’s constituency and across the midlands so that we
have high-quality places, and I believe that the investment we
are putting into schools and skills will have a transformative
effect for children and young people in the hon. Lady’s
constituency, the midlands and across the country.
5.55pm
I will keep it brief. I thank you, Mr Pritchard, for chairing
this debate, and colleagues who took part. I began my speech by
saying that I hope the teachers who came down from the midlands
would find hope, and I appreciate the tone of the Minister’s
remarks, which provided a contrast to some of the other
contributions we have heard. The Minister listed several funding
arrangements, and the Government boast that real-terms education
funding will match 2010 levels by 2025, but I do not think that
13 years of decline and wasted potential is much of a boast. As
my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) said, our
schools are struggling and teachers have felt abandoned by the
Government. At the heart of this, our young people’s potential
and opportunities are being stifled.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (), who is a tireless
champion of her constituents. She highlighted the unsustainable
situation around teacher retention and investing in SEN for the
most vulnerable in our constituencies.
I hope that the Minister will hear the calls of teachers and
parents; acknowledge what has happened over the past 13 years,
where underfunding in real terms has affected educators and
children alike, selling them short; and commit not just to
investing in our education, but to putting learning and teachers
at the heart of everything the Government do. Hopefully, when a
Labour Government come into power, that will be our aim too.
(in the Chair)
Before we conclude, I am sure that hon. Members will join me in
wishing the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) a speedy
recovery. It was a great performance—bless you.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered school and college funding in the
Midlands.
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