Karen Lumley
Main Page: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)Department Debates - View all Karen Lumley's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
An estimated 3.6 million children in the UK live in poverty according to the Government’s own measure, but recent figures from the Children’s Society have uncovered that 1.2 million of those children who are of school age do not receive free school meals. Notwithstanding the nutritional benefits that children receive from free school meals, the problem is that free school meals are used as a predominant marker for educational attainment. The well known attainment gap at GCSE level is between those who receive free school meals and those who do not—36% of pupils in receipt of free school meals achieved five or more A* to C grades at GCSE, compared with 63% of all other pupils. That is a useful indicator of the inequalities in children’s educational achievement.
That is also why the pupil premium, which is undoubtedly one of the proudest achievements of the coalition and of Liberal Democrats within the coalition, follows those children who receive free school meals. Designed to help pupils who are most in need and to close the attainment gap, the pupil premium is available to children who are currently eligible for free school meals, who have been eligible in any of the past six years or who have been in continuous care for six months. Those criteria are known as “ever 6 FSM.”
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that, although the pupil premium is a great first step, we should be looking for a national funding formula that is fair for every child in this country?
Sir Nick Harvey
I strongly agree, and I welcome the suggestion from Ministers that they are working towards that objective. I also appreciate that, particularly in the current financial climate, it cannot be achieved overnight, but it would be a great pity if, during the five years in which the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats form a Government together, we do not see at least some tangible progress towards that object.