---

19 Dec 2002 : Column 1104—continued

Education Funding

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Joan Ryan.]

6.59 pm

Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): I am enormously grateful for the opportunity to raise this important matter again in the House. In this season of good will it is right that I should follow the example set by hon. Members in the previous debate and wish a happy Christmas to all those present in the Chamber, and to all those beyond who have served hon. Members so well in the past year.

Not everything is bad in Worcestershire. Our police, fire, and social services, as well as our schools, may all be underfunded, and our hospitals may be at breaking point, but tomorrow morning will find me at the opening of the Wyre Piddle bypass. That road is a great Christmas present to my constituents from this Government and, specifically, from the hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill), whom I am delighted to see in his place. I thank him publicly once again for that road, and I thank his ministerial successor for the money to begin the other crucial link in the strategic route from junction 6 of the M5 to Evesham, known as the Squires link. For that, the Government have my sincere thanks. After all, this is the season good will.

But—and there is a but—the education spending settlement announced two weeks ago was nowhere near as welcome as those two roads. This debate is about giving Worcestershire's children an equal opportunity to succeed, and that is what they are being denied.

I am grateful for the presence in the Chamber of my hon. Friends the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) and for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer), and of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith). It is good to see them here. I know that the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) wanted to be here, but he chose today to move home. Anyone foolish enough to move six days before Christmas deserves our sympathy, not our condemnation. In any case, he is a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Minister's Department, so he could not have spoken in the debate. That is a shame, as I should have liked to hear what he had to say—but that will happen another day.

The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) had hoped to be here, but now finds that he cannot. In a letter of apology to me yesterday, he wrote:

XAll I want is the truth stated using comparable figures. If you can get this you really will have achieved something."

I am indeed in search of the truth, and my colleagues and I will listen carefully to what the Minister says in his speech later.

Of course, we acknowledge that there have been real-terms increases in funding for education across the country. The golden economic inheritance of this Government from their Conservative predecessor made that possible. However, this debate is not about how much more Worcestershire may or may not have got in absolute terms. It is about the county's position in the funding table relative to other similar and neighbouring education authorities.

19 Dec 2002 : Column 1105

I welcome today's announcement on capital for access measures, but I am concerned about revenue—the year-on-year funding for the education that our children need.

This debate must also be set in the wider context of the extraordinary demands placed on teachers, across the country and in Worcestershire. Local teachers feel under great pressure. As Heather Staite, who works at St. Egwins middle school in Evesham, said to me:

XSchools are not given enough time or resources or money to 'implement' all the strategies that they are bombarded with."

That is the subject of another debate on another day. Critically—and it is the central reason for this debate—Worcestershire has continued, and looks set to continue, to get less than its fair share of national increases in education funding. For schools in Worcestershire, a 4.2 per cent. increase per pupil is basically a standstill budget. With the employers' national insurance contribution increase coming into effect from April next year, the upper pay scale 2 payments and a likely teachers' pay settlement in excess of 2.5 per cent.—some say it will be as high as 3.5 per cent.—Worcestershire will end up with something very close to zero in real terms.

All that is in complete contradiction to the assurances given by the former Secretary of State, then the Schools Standards Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris). Replying to a debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire, she said:

XI cannot in all honesty explain why children in Worcestershire get less money than children in Wiltshire . . . the system is irrational . . . It is a historic system, which does not serve us well."

Later, she added:

XI am not seeking to defend a formula that ill serves the children of Worcestershire—that would be dishonourable and dishonest. I am saying that we are trying our best, with all reasonable speed, to change that. We are the Government who have given a pledge that that will change."—[Official Report, 1 February 2001; Vol. 362, c. 562–564.]

In a debate that I initiated on 24 October 2001 in Westminster Hall, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) said that

Xthe Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has . . . now clearly committed itself to introducing a fairer formula on 1 April 2003. That is not a possibility or an aspiration but an unequivocal commitment that there will be a new, fairer and more even SSA formula not only for education, but for local government generally. It will make a significant difference to the hon. Gentleman's constituents and to mine."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 24 October 2001; Vol. 373, c. 128WH.]

In fact, the gap between Worcestershire and Wiltshire—and between Worcestershire and all the counties and metropolitan authorities bordering it—has grown.

Sir Michael Spicer (West Worcestershire): My hon. Friend makes a vital point about the growing gap between expenditure in Worcester and in comparable counties. Does he accept that the effect is beginning to be felt, certainly in my constituency? School sports and

19 Dec 2002 : Column 1106

drama facilities are now worse in many cases than those of comparable counties nearby. That is a direct result of the gap that my hon. Friend has so brilliantly described.

Mr. Luff: My hon. Friend is entirely right and, if time permits, I will cite some examples of what that has meant for individual schools later in my remarks.

Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove): I do not want to interrupt my hon. Friend's flow, but I want the Minister to understand that it is not just a question of comparing us with the shire counties. My constituency abuts Birmingham and many head teachers in my constituency who have worked there tell me that they had so much money in Birmingham that they did not know where to spend it. We have 4.2 per cent. and Birmingham is getting 7 per cent. on top of an already much bigger budget, which gives high schools in excess of #500 per pupil per year extra. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would take that into account in his excellent speech on which I congratulate him.

Mr. Luff: I will be dealing specifically with the Birmingham question later. However, my hon. Friend is right—the comparison with Birmingham is becoming very difficult to sustain or justify.

The pledges that the Government made in debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall have been broken. Worcestershire has been awarded a 4.2 per cent. increase in funding per pupil. The average for the shire counties was 4.4 per cent. For England as a whole it was 5.2 per cent., for Gloucestershire—our neighbour— 5 per cent., for Warwickshire 7 per cent. and for Birmingham and Dudley also 7 per cent. As Worcestershire was not getting much to begin with, that means that the cash gap between us and the English average will have increased, not reduced as Ministers promised. Worcestershire is now 33rd out of 34 counties on education funding per pupil.

Today's debate has been made more complicated by the introduction of the new formula, which makes comparisons with past settlements more difficult to draw. So let us remind ourselves what the new formula was supposed to achieve—stability, simplicity, robustness and, most importantly, fairness.

The new system will prove to be unstable. It is amazing that a new formula has had to have such floors and ceilings in it to slow the amount of change that it is generating. This will lead to a clamour from the winners to remove the ceilings. Bradford should have had an increase of #21 million, but it got #14 million. It feels short-changed to the tune of #7 million. Similar considerations apply to Birmingham. Because of the way that it is made up, the winners will continue to have their position reinforced year on year. No one knows what the long-term effects of the system will be.

As for simplicity, I challenge the Minister, even with his considerable intellectual skills, to stand up in front of a group of parents, governors and teachers and explain in, say, 15 minutes, exactly how the new formula works. He would have to explain, for example, how income support interacts with the working families tax credit, and its successor in the spring, as a deprivation indicator; what met and unmet educational needs are; why, in meeting these needs, the Government have gone

19 Dec 2002 : Column 1107

for the medium threshold when the F40 group sent 53,000 letters asking for the high threshold; why Worcestershire does not receive the area cost adjustment when Warwickshire and Gloucestershire do, and so on. Worcestershire county council has asked these questions of the Government and has had no answers.

As one head teacher said to me:

XFor a formula that is supposed to be transparent the data produced by the ODPM and the DfES is at best opaque and one might suspect has been made so detailed as to obstruct understanding."

As for robustness, there are already many rumours circulating in local government that Ministers are planning to engage in tweaking the formula in future years, hardly a sign of strength or belief that what they are doing is correct.

As for fairness, the most important element, how can a system be fair that values my constituents' children as needing #333 less than the top county of East Sussex, #176 less than the average county of Lincolnshire and #98 and #90 less than our neighbours in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire? All children in similar circumstances should be equally valued. That is the point.

Mrs. Mulryne, head teacher of Pebworth first school—a school with a Warwickshire postcode—told me:

XThe mismatch between Worcestershire and Warwickshire funding is striking and very disappointing."

Mike Appleby, head teacher of Broadway first school, shares this view. Broadway is a limb of Worcestershire that juts into Gloucestershire, surrounded on three sides by its neighbouring county. He wrote to me to say:

XAll schools are judged by their results—such as Ofsted inspections—but all schools are not being given an equal chance of providing the necessary equipment or staffing because of the disparity in the funding arrangements. Schools that are only two miles apart should receive the same funding per pupil, however this is not the case. Surely Worcestershire children are worth the same level of investment as a child in Gloucestershire or Warwickshire...If this government believes in giving everyone a fair and equal chance to better themselves then this system of funding must be changed."

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove has already pointed out, the comparison with Birmingham and Dudley is even worse. Another local head teacher wrote to me:

XStaggeringly the gap between ourselves and the Birmingham schools actually increases. The gap between my school and a similar size school in Birmingham looks to be even larger under this funding system than the previous one. Indeed, it now looks to be in excess of #750,000."

That is for one school, each year.

We all acknowledge that Birmingham has deprivation that must be addressed with extra resources: it is how much extra that is at issue. After all, there is plenty of poverty, drug abuse and social exclusion in Worcestershire, too, so what that head teacher went on to say is important. I have heard other head teachers say it, too—it reflects exactly the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove. The head teacher said:

XIt is galling in the extreme to hear from colleague headteachers in Birmingham that they have so much money they don't know what to spend it on next, when we in Worcestershire are having to

19 Dec 2002 : Column 1108

increase class sizes, make do and mend with outdated computer equipment and most galling of all, lose our best staff to Birmingham schools."

Basic pupil funding has now been introduced and should be welcomed; it is a step in the right direction, but it could have made things much fairer. For example, top-ups, especially the area cost adjustment, still irrationally disadvantage Worcestershire. Actual teaching costs in areas that receive the adjustment are less than 3 per cent. higher than ours—indeed, sometimes they are lower—yet they receive between 12 per cent. and 16 per cent. higher funding. The cost of employing teachers, which is about three quarters of all educational costs, is higher in Worcestershire than in 61 other council areas, including Oxfordshire, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey—all counties that receive extra funding because their costs are supposed to be higher.

In July, I analysed a document deposited in the Library that shows that Worcestershire teachers are, on average, paid more than their counterparts in England. Excluding the very high salaries paid in London, but adding in all the city areas such as Birmingham and all the counties of south-east England, the average salary paid to teachers last year was #25,103. In Worcestershire, the figure was #25,110—#7 more than the English average, excluding London.

Ministers argue that those other areas face higher recruitment costs, but, apart from London itself, the argument is not sustainable; it just does not hold water. Salaries paid are in accordance with scale rates and I do not believe that schools are finding other ways of spending so much extra cash on boosting teachers' salaries that do not feature in measures of actual teaching costs. I am sure that the Inland Revenue would be interested if they were!

The only fair formula should reflect three things: the real cost of employing teachers; the relative poverty of the area, as measured by average incomes in the area; and any necessary adjustment for special needs, for example, of ethnic communities. That is the only basis for a fair formula.

Locally, some of the county's MPs have been describing the settlement as a victory. If this is victory, I would hate to taste defeat. Even more monstrously, some of them said that, as some local schools had not done well at key stage 2, it might be wrong to give them extra resources. I hope that the Minister does not concur with that argument.

In the recent comprehensive performance assessment, Worcestershire county council scored four out of four for the use of resources. There is precious little waste in Worcestershire. Although I am sure that there is always room for improvement, the taxpayer's pound goes about as far as it can in my constituency, thanks to the county council.

My grievance is not a new one. I challenged the last Conservative Government on the same point. However, things have got worse, both relatively and absolutely, since 1997. What we have been asking for during the past five years—and appear to have been promised by Ministers in successive debates—has not been delivered; expectations have been raised and cruelly dashed.

I accept that there are welcome technical features in the new formula. As I said earlier, a basic entitlement is a good idea, although it should have been given greater

19 Dec 2002 : Column 1109

weighting. However, there are serious technical objections, too; above all, the application of the area cost adjustment.

In concluding, I make the following points. We have a national pay scale, a national curriculum and a national inspection system. In other words, teachers are paid the same amount to teach the same things and are inspected in the same way, yet all schools receive vastly different amounts of money.

I could quote from many letters that I have received on the subject from teachers during the past few weeks and months: Charlie Lupton of St. Barnabas Church of England first and middle school; Jenny Batelen of Hartlebury Church of England first school; Gerry Hughes of Chawson community first school; David Coll of Witton middle school; Gerry Burgess of Simon de Montfort middle school; David Kelly of Evesham high school; Bernard Roberts of Prince Henry's high school; David Braham of Bengeworth first school and the chair of Governors of Harvington Church of England first school, Brian Tarling. They have all written broadly to say the same thing.

I want to end by putting on record my deep appreciation of a tireless campaigner for the schools in our county, Mr. Cledwyn-Davies, headteacher of Droitwich Spa high school, who moves to a new position in Swindon in January. His last words to me on school funding in Worcestershire will also serve as my last words in this debate. He says:

XI regret to say I feel disillusioned, disappointed and frustrated by this new formula. It perpetuates iniquities of the past and apart from setting a baseline funding for students across the country it does nothing for the children of Worcestershire. I do feel badly let down by politicians in the Government who promised much and asked us to trust them and be patient. We were certainly patient and had no other option other than to take their word but that has now been found sadly wanting."

---