National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

Debate between Peter Bone and Justine Greening

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I make two points. In spite of the need to reduce the deficit over time, which the Government have set about doing, we have protected the core schools budget in real terms. In addition, I recognise that there is a need to reduce the year-on-year reductions schools faced, so those will be no more than 1.5%. Indeed, the overall reduction for any per-pupil amount will be no more than 3%. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will welcome that.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Following on from that point, there is a similar fair funding formula in the health service, but Wellingborough is always at the bottom. It never catches up because we are not prepared to reduce the money that the best funded get. I am slightly worried that my right hon. Friend’s answer suggests that that sort of thing will creep into the school system. Are we actually ever going to move to the formula—are schools actually going to get the cash that the formula says they will?

[Justine Greening]

In the transition year, some schools that are so far behind as to be eligible will get 3%; those schools that are even further behind under the fair formula will get a further 2.5% the following year, when the formula operates in full and properly. My hon. Friend is right to flag up the issue. It is important that the schools that have been underfunded see those gains coming through. That is what we are proposing.

New Grammar Schools

Debate between Peter Bone and Justine Greening

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not accept this either/or characterisation of policy. What we need to do is improve education at every stage of a child’s life, including early- years.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

I am not entirely sure what Northamptonshire has done to deserve getting the last questions.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on securing this urgent question, but I think she is under a misapprehension. I know that under Labour announcements were made in the press, but this Government make announcements here. At the meeting last night, there were no new announcements of policy, and I would be the first to object if the Government started to do that. Will the Secretary of State confirm that once the policy has been decided upon, she will come to the House and report on it?

[Justine Greening]

I think that was a very good choice, Mr Speaker, and yes I can assure my hon. Friend that I will come to make a statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Bone and Justine Greening

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I had the chance to meet the head of UNRWA only last week with the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), and we discussed the need to ensure that its funding is sustained. UNRWA does critical work, and in the context of the need to improve the international response to more protracted crises, we can learn a great deal from its work with Palestinian refugees.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

15 . Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be better if money was put into direct projects rather than through third-party organisations when we cannot really be sure of the outcome?

[Justine Greening]

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that the agencies and organisations with which we work are ones in respect of which we know we can achieve value for money and results on the ground. He knows that I am passionate about being an aid disciplinarian and making sure that we get value for money. Critically, though, we have to work with the organisations that are there. We have a multilateral aid review under way to make sure that improvements in value for money continue progressively over time.

Humanitarian Aid: Refugees in Greece and the Balkans

Debate between Peter Bone and Justine Greening

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I have set out very clearly the approach that the UK has taken to helping people who are affected by this crisis. Our approach of taking people directly from the camps is safer and more secure. I have also set out how we have already provided asylum for several thousand people who have arrived in the UK, after making the journey because of the Syrian crisis.

The hon. Gentleman asks about unaccompanied children. If we look at Jordan, for example, about 80% of the children who originally arrived there unaccompanied were subsequently reunited with their broader family. The point that the Prime Minister quite rightly made is that it is very easy in this House to talk emotively about numbers and children. The reality is that we must be extremely careful to ensure that we do not make decisions on their behalf that fundamentally take them further away from the family with whom they would wish to be reunited. The hon. Gentleman has made his point very well, and I have responded to him.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Obviously, there is not agreement in the European Union on how to deal with these problems. Has the excellent Secretary of State thought of talking to the Council of Europe, which covers many more countries, about an overall solution?

[Justine Greening]

We are having a range of discussions to see how the situation can be better managed in Europe. This is not just about the challenge we face in the Syria region. Frankly, that challenge is to have the kind of support at the scale needed, but which is currently not being delivered. I have seen for myself from discussions among EU Ministers from countries in the Schengen region that there is very little agreement. What we need, in effect, is a co-ordinated approach within the Schengen region, but as far as I could see at the time—this was certainly the case last Monday—there was no political prospect of achieving that.

Although such discussions need to go on, the UK is right to provide additional support on the ground. However, we clearly all need to keep in mind the key objective, which is to help Syrian refugees in the region. People are leaving the region because food rations from the World Food Programme are starting to be cut, and because they are worried about how their children will have an education when so few Syrian children can be in school, in spite of the best efforts of countries such as the UK. We were instrumental in setting up the No Lost Generation initiative, through which many children are in school, and we are working with the World Bank to look at how to have better livelihood programmes. There is no doubt that the answer involves, first, some political resolution—ultimately—in Syria, and secondly, some political resolution in Europe, too.