(Nottingham East) (Lab):
What assessment she has made of the impact of real-terms
reductions to school budgets since 2010 on school
children.
The Minister for Schools (): I am grateful to the hon.
Lady for her question, but I am afraid there is a flawed premise
within it. School funding is, at £60.7 billion, the highest it
has ever been in real terms per pupil. There has been a
real-terms increase of 5.5% per pupil nationally compared with
2010-11.
: I thank the Minister for
his response, but what he says about the state of school funding
is not the full picture, and he knows it. Schools' costs have
increased much faster than funding. In fact, analysis by the
National Education
Union shows that every single school in Nottingham
East had less real-terms funding last year than 14 years ago—that
is £1,266 less per pupil on average. If the Government really
cared about the future of children and young people, should they
not be funding high-quality education instead of whipping up
culture wars?
: We are funding high-quality
education, and the quality of that education is seen in the
results, be they the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics,
English and science, or the results of primary school children,
which have improved dramatically since 2010. On the
NEU “analysis”, I am afraid that it is flawed in
multiple respects: it does not include a number for the
high-needs budget, which has grown so much, and ultimately it
does not use real numbers for 2010.
Dame (West Worcestershire)
(Con): On the subject of school budgets, will the Minister join
me in welcoming the letter that I received from Malvern College
in Worcestershire this week? Not only is that independent school
one of the largest employers in Worcestershire, but it
contributes £28 million to the local economy, and if its 300-plus
fee-paying pupils had to be educated in local schools, that would
come at a huge cost to the public purse.
: My hon. Friend is exactly
correct. If the Labour party got into government, there would be
a hike in the cost of going to private schools, which would push
a number of families out of that provision. We do not know how
many, Labour does not know how many and nor does anybody else,
but we do know that some— possibly very many—would come into the
state-funded system, causing great strain and possibly cuts that
would affect other children.
