Lord Blunkett
Main Page: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Blunkett's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
The Government have consulted on exactly who should receive the pupil premium. That consultation began earlier this year and there are still a couple of hours left should the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) wish to contribute to it—he has not yet done so. We are looking at a variety of measures of poverty and we wish to target the pupil premium most effectively on all children in need. One of the disadvantages of the way in which the previous Government targeted resources on the very poorest was that the premium attached to children who were eligible for free school meals was as low as £22 in some local authority areas.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
In fact, the pupil learning credit was £350 per pupil in the most disadvantaged schools.
Will the Secretary of State tell me what was the impact of the £600 million cut in area-based grant from the Department for Communities and Local Government, which was half the total announced on 22 June, and which cut child and adolescent mental health services, work dealing with teenage pregnancy and youth and careers services across the country, coupled with the £670 million cut in-year from his own Department? If we cut his salary by £40,000 and gave him £20,000 back, would he be better or worse off?
Michael Gove
I suspect that the taxpayer would be a lot better off, but I do not do this job for money; I do it because I am convinced that we need to do better to improve children’s education. The right hon. Gentleman was a great Education Secretary, and I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to him. During his years as Education Secretary, we were able to see an improvement in performance in primary schools that was not subsequently matched by any of his successors. Yet during his first three years as Education Secretary the amount spent on education in this country actually declined for three years as a proportion of national income, which proves that if the right policies are pursued and we are rigorous about cutting waste, we can ensure that children will perform better—that is what we are doing.