School Expansion

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I really do not know where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. The whole point of this is that it is about parental choice. [Interruption.] Families can absolutely choose; there is no compulsion to attend a grammar school. As I have already said, Trinity free school and the Knole academy will be nearby. There will be other schools as well. There is no contradiction. We are very clear: we believe in parental choice and we believe in excellent education for all.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This is an important statement because a legal precedent has been set; it will be very difficult to stop any good school setting up an annexe if it can prove it can carry on the same ethos, and I would welcome that. I want to ask the Secretary of State about the funding point, however, which is much more important than one extra annexe. Because of the equalisation of funding of successful schools with large sixth forms—not just grammar schools—the funding of grammar schools has declined precipitously in relation to other schools. The best performing grammar school in Lincolnshire gets only £3,000 per head per year whereas the worst performing comprehensive, which nobody wants to go to, gets £7,000 per head per year. This is simply not fair. I have asked the Secretary of State in Adjournment debates and in meetings to address this: will she do so?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. He will know our party gave a clear commitment in our manifesto to fairer funding, and he will also know that we are working on it. I cannot comment on anything ahead of the spending review, but we are all aware of the need to look at this and make the funding fairer, which is why we invested £390 million in this financial year and the last financial year to try to get towards a fairer funding system, but there is further work to do.