Desmond Swayne
Main Page: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)Department Debates - View all Desmond Swayne's debates with the Department for Education
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds
Of course we recognise the additional cost in high-cost areas, in particular in London. It is true that there are 200 more teachers in the Ealing local authority area than there were in 2010. However, it remains a very competitive recruitment market, particularly for graduate recruitment, partly because of the historically very low unemployment we have, and that makes our recruitment and retention strategy all the more important.
Mr Speaker
It is time for the right hon. Gentleman to issue his brevity textbook. Let us have an extract.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We are spending more per pupil than any other G7 nation, but headteachers are complaining that they are cleaning the loos themselves. Something is going wrong. What is it?
Damian Hinds
On the first point, we are spending more than any other G7 nation bar the United States in per capita funding for state primary and secondary education, but there are particular cost pressures in the system. We were discussing high needs earlier, and we do need to address that particular set of pressures. There are others as well, such as the way we go about purchasing and so on, and some of the costs that are particularly rising. I want to reassure my right hon. Friend that we are looking at all of those factors.