(Luton North) (Lab): What
assessment her Department has made of the impact of funding
decisions on maintained schools since 2010.
The Minister for Schools (): In 2010-11, school funding
was £35 billion. Next year, it will be £59.6 billion. That is the
highest ever level in real terms per pupil.
: Recent figures show that the
worst impacted schools in Luton North have endured more than £2
million of real-terms cuts since 2010. There are school roofs
with holes in, buckets scattered across corridors collecting
rainwater, and entire buildings held up by scaffolding. Those are
the defining images of 14 years of Conservative Government, 14
years of budget cuts and teaching staff expected to do more with
less. We need change. Children in Luton North deserve better. If
the Minister agrees, why will he not give children what they
deserve?
: On the condition of school
buildings, the hon. Lady will know that there is £1.8
billion-worth of capital for maintaining and improving school
buildings. On the broader questions about school funding, she
might have been alluding—I am looking for some visual
recognition—to figures put together by the National Education
Union If so, I have to tell her that we believe
those figures to be flawed in multiple respects, including in
assumptions they make about the money and the number of children
in schools in previous years. I hope she will join me in
celebrating the record resourcing rightly going in to educating
children.
