National Funding Formulae for Schools and High Needs

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for the sense of realism that he brings to the debate. I entirely agree with the point about focusing on areas with financial need; that is why we have developed these opportunity areas, and our regional schools commissioners are particularly focused on areas, many of which are up north, where a particular improvement in education is required.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, gave a rather perfunctory response, if I can be forgiven for saying so, to his question about differential statements at different stages in the educational system. Speaking personally, I have not yet fully understood the rationale behind this. Could he give us a little more clarity on that, please?

[Lord Nash]

I invite the noble Baroness to submit any thoughts to the consultation process. As I say, the details of the impact that the formula will have on all schools one by one will be available later today and all schools can look at it, but the net effect is that most schools will have a gain and none will lose more than 3%. As I said, small rural schools will gain on average over 5%, and they are the sort of schools that particularly struggle with some of the issues that have been mentioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

It will be entirely possible for anybody to make any representations in the consultation, and maybe the noble Baroness would like to do so in that respect.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I am sorry to take the time of the House, but I am not sure that I made myself clear with my first question. It appeared to me, from what the Minister said in the Statement, that he was suggesting—indeed, he confirmed it to the noble Lord, Lord Storey—that the amount of money per pupil would be different for children at an early stage in the education cycle, with smaller amounts being available for nursery school children, for example, to that available for pupils in sixth form. Given the amount of attention given by research lately to the importance of early years education, that seems an extraordinarily surprising decision for the Government to have taken. Could the Minister help us to understand it a bit better?

[Lord Nash]

We take the view that there are additional costs in secondary over primary and that they increase as one moves from key stage 3 to key stage 4. There will be three bands: key stages 1 and 2; key stage 3; and key stage 4.