School Funding

Debate between Laura Smith and Emma Hardy

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

Thank you very much. We do genuinely get on very well on the Education Committee, which is a welcome change from what happens in some of the debates that are conducted across the Floor of the House.

I sometimes feel that there is a false dichotomy between the sort of education we are putting forward here and the type of education that the Government are putting forward. There are also many things to do with statistics that are simply not true. It reminds me of when I was studying for my A-levels and I was talking to my lecturer about the use of statistics. They said to me, “Ah, Emma, you see, statistics are what a lamp post is to a drunken man: it is not so much for illumination as for leaning against.” That has often been proven to be true in debates about education.

What I experienced in my 11 years as an infant teacher until 2015 was the cuts to our schools and the impact they were having. The Government can cite figures and dance around the issue, and we can cite figures right back at them, but what are the parents, the teachers and the headteachers saying? That is where the truth of the matter actually lies. In March, 50 primary headteachers from Hull wrote to the Secretary of State about funding. They are desperate for more money for the special educational needs and high needs budget. In Hull, as many as 526 children aged four and under have been identified as displaying challenging behaviour or SEN.

[Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Do you agree with me that—

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Smith]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that schools are having to bid for extra funding, and that that is a really dangerous direction for us to head in?

[Emma Hardy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are so many people across this Chamber who have a shared sense of purpose and a belief that every child matters. I still believe that every child matters, but that seems to be getting twisted and distorted along the way. We simply do not have the money that SEN children in Hull desperately need. Headteachers wrote to the Secretary of State back in March and said:

“Mainstream schools are increasingly having to resort to fixed-term and permanent exclusions to deal with challenging pupils. This is despite the best efforts of dedicated staff in schools. There is a feeling that something has to change or schools will implode.”

Now, we know from the Education Committee’s recent inquiry into alternative provision that an increasing number of children are being expelled from the system or off-rolled. Why is that? It is not because teachers have suddenly become heartless or have suddenly stopped caring about the children in their classes, but simply because they do not have the necessary resources to deal with the different challenges that pupils come to school with due to the impacts of austerity and poverty.

What is happening outside schools is reflected in what is happening inside our schools. Children who come to school hungry or are coming to school after awful childhood experiences will display challenging behaviour, and schools do not have the necessary resources to deal with that behaviour. I say to the Secretary of State and the Schools Minister that alternative provision is a false economy that will cost the Government more money in the long run. Alternative provision is more expensive. Dealing with interventions for all these pupils as they go through their school career will be more expensive than helping and supporting schools at the beginning, when they need it. I never thought that I would be citing Estonia as a country with an education system that we should look at, but Estonia evaluates every single child at three years old for learning difficulties or any signs of special educational needs, so that interventions can be put in place to deal with the situation before those children start school. Our Government should be doing that if they actually want to save money.

Turning to saving money—another one of my bugbears—there seems to be a lot of talk from the Government about vice-chancellor pay at the moment. They seem to be getting hot under the collar and worked up about the issue, but there has not been a word about the pay of chief executive officers of multi-academy trusts. Is it right for some CEOs to be receiving over £450,000 a year? You are right to look shocked, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it right for CEOs to be getting paid that much money when our schools do not have enough money for their SEN pupils? Also on academies, is it right that millions of pounds have gone on related transactions within multi-academy trusts? Money could be saved by delving more deeply into the accounts of some trusts to examine what money is being wasted on. As a new Member of Parliament, I am subject to certain rules, which I absolutely support, and one such rule is that I cannot employ any direct relation, and nor should I. However, the CEO of a multi-academy trust can employ every single member of their family in a number of different roles on whatever salary they see fit. We could examine that to find a way of redirecting funds towards the SEN pupils in Hull who so desperately need them.

Headteachers in Hull have asked for an additional £5 million, which is all that they need to help give every single child in the city a quality education. But this is not just about the children with SEN; there is an impact on every child. I know that because I was a teacher for 11 years, and if a child in a class has challenging behavioural difficulties, the teacher needs additional resources to help that child, which will help every other child in the class. A teacher who is dealing on their own with a pupil’s challenging behaviour or learning difficulty will end up spending a disproportionate amount of time with that one pupil to the detriment of the others. The resources need to be in place to help SEN children and every other child in the class.

I get a bit—