Department for Education

Debate between Robert Halfon and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

While I accept that funding is much higher than it was in 2010—no doubt the Minister for School Standards will set that out—I also agree that there are increasing cost pressures, but I will make that argument in a moment.

I am full of admiration for my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary, who has successfully made the case for a longer-term vision for health and social care. I am convinced that his longevity has been a significant contributing factor and can only regret the fact that we have had a higher turnover in Education Secretaries in recent years. However, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) will, given the opportunity, prove to be an advocate for the public services that his Department oversees and funds.

Without wanting to stretch the scope of the debate too far, I would like to talk a little about the financial health of the school system, of nurseries and of further education and skills. While all the evidence tells us that over the long term, in comparison with relevant international comparators, schools in England are relatively well funded, it is unarguably the case that rising cost pressures have not been matched by the sort of investment that would allow them to be met without impacting upon the quality and delivery of education in our schools. My right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) was absolutely right last autumn to redirect £1.3 billion of public funds from her own Department’s budget to the frontline and raise the so-called floor in the national funding formula.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Despite what the right hon. Gentleman says about the Government’s claim to have put £1.5 billion back into the system through the new formula, I have gone around schools in Coventry, and they are still just under £300 per head short—in other words, they are still facing cuts. He talks about further education, which has seen cuts of about 27%. How does that affect the quality of apprenticeships, for example?

[Robert Halfon]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will come on to those points later, and if he does not feel that I have responded to them, I would be happy for him to intervene again.

In truth, the £1.3 billion should never have been necessary. While the introduction of a national funding formula is an entirely logical and necessary process of structural reform, for many schools the question is one of sufficiency just as much as of equity. The concept of fair funding may, I fear, be just too subjective to be delivered, so I want to see a change in the debate in this Chamber and elsewhere about school funding. The two supposedly competing accounts—one from the Conservative side of the House about record levels of overall investment going into schools, and the counter-argument that schools face real-terms reductions in per pupil funding—are both true, partly because there are simply more pupils in the system. We badly need to accept that reality, and move towards a practical solution not just for schools, but for further education, which has, without any sense or logic, been chronically underfunded for many years.

Higher Education

Debate between Robert Halfon and Jim Cunningham

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do what it means when we talk about further education. For example, in Coventry there have been 27% cuts to further education budgets. What impact does that have on apprenticeships? More importantly, if we take that further and look at university education, UCU is in dispute with the Coventry University because it cannot get recognition. To come back to the point, it cannot get recognition in further education or in university education.

[Robert Halfon]

It is true that for a number of years FE funding was neglected. It has been stabilised, and I welcome the £500 million extra announced by the Government for the technical education reforms in a recent Budget, but further education needs a lot more funding. People say that it is the Cinderella sector, but I say that Cinderella became a princess and we should banish the ugly sisters of snobbery and intolerance.

Hospital Car Parking Charges

Debate between Robert Halfon and Jim Cunningham

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. Too often, these charges are imposed without any consultation, or without fair consultation, and they hit the most vulnerable. He will hear later in my remarks that I completely agree with him.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I will not take too many interventions, but I would be honoured to take one from the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Cunningham]

I agree with the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). A lot of the hospital charges are part of private finance initiatives, and he is right that the Secretary of State or the Minister responsible should now be looking at eliminating those charges. We could argue that they are a tax on illness.

[Robert Halfon]

That is the sad thing. Many private companies are making profits from the taxpayer and the most vulnerable people in our society. That must stop. The PFI things that have happened under Governments of both main parties have caused huge amounts of problems to many people, particularly when they park at hospitals up and down the country.

There is still a postcode lottery on car parking charges; different hospital trusts set wildly different fees. The core principle of the NHS is to provide free healthcare for all at the point of access but the charges are a stealth tax on drivers using the health service. The parking charges are the bane of people’s lives. No one goes to hospital out of choice; they go because they have to. No one chooses to be ill, and we rely on our doctors and nurses to look after us. I urge the Health Secretary and the Minister to take urgent action to end this social injustice once and for all, and to introduce substantive legislation to ensure hospitals scrap their parking charges.