School Funding Formula

Debate between Robin Walker and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that, given the continued fiscal pressure on the schools budget in the next Parliament, the speedy implementation of a fair and transparent school funding formula is more urgent than ever.

It is a pleasure to open this debate and to speak on an issue that I have raised during each year of my time in Parliament, and one that still needs addressing and never more urgently than in the run-up to a crucial general election. I hope today’s debate can inform the manifestos of all the main parties and lay down a challenge for the next Government to deliver on.

Today’s motion has cross-party support: more than 64 Back Benchers from across the House have signed it. I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for recognising that it is an urgent and important enough matter to merit debate in the main Chamber. I am also very grateful to the two vice-chairs of the F40 campaign, who are both in their places: the hon. Members for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). We are here to correct a long-standing injustice, and it is a credit to Parliament that there is such a strong turnout.

We have seen some progress on this issue, but the key decisions on the shape of a new national funding formula have been delayed until after the 2015 spending review. To say that that was disappointing in a place such as Worcestershire, which has lingered at the bottom of the funding table for far too long, would be an understatement. One local head teacher, in a letter to our local paper, recently described it as “immoral” that the issue of fair funding has been unaddressed for so long.

Local MPs have repeatedly made the case for a new formula that is based more on activity and the characteristics of schools and their catchments, and less on accidents of geography. We have attended debate after debate on this issue, and not just in the current Parliament. Colleagues with experience of previous Parliaments have often regaled me with their efforts to press this issue and point out the glaring disparities that affect their schools and constituents.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been here since 2001 and this has been a thorny problem since then. I was in the same intake as the Minister, who is in his place. I hope that when he gets the chance to speak he will address the situation in Somerset, where we face the same problem as Worcester.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen the gap between the best and worst-funded authorities continue to widen long after the flaws which caused it were acknowledged.