MP Preet Gill backs calls for more funding for schools

Preet Gill, the MP for Edgbaston and a former Sandwell councillor, spoke in a debate on school funding in the House of Commons yesterday.

The house was debating an e-petition, started by teachers and signed by more than 100,000 people, which calls for an increase in school funding because “schools are having to make difficult choices on how to spend their limited funding as their income has not kept pace with the rise in costs since 2010”.

Ms Gill, who is also the vice-presdient of the Local Government Association, said in the house: "We know the statistics, even if the government often seem unwilling to accept them.

"The Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that school funding is down by £1.7 billion in real terms since 2014-15. While one in four primaries and one in six secondary schools have had their funding cut in cash terms this year.

"According to the National Education Union, in my constituency Birmingham Edgbaston, the per pupil funding between 2015 and 2018 has dropped by £347.

"When we discuss the numbers and the scale of cuts we must remember the impact that the staffing and resource decimation means in practice, what they mean for our schools and what they mean for our children.

"I have had constituents and schools staff, contact me about this debate. They are not asking about more money to support the children, instead, they are increasingly asking for the savage cuts to be less vicious, asking if the cuts can be graduated to try and minimise the negative impact they are and will have on the children and young people."

She continued: "As a mother with two children at school this is a shocking state of affairs and a situation that the government should be thoroughly ashamed of.

"The government has cut funding while expecting schools to do more. Schools are meant to manage the increasingly complex needs of children with mental health problems, special educational needs and disabilities.

"The LGA estimate that councils are facing a high needs funding shortfall of £472 million in the 2018-19 financial year and this funding gap could rise to £1.6 billion by 2021.

"With schools close to breaking point, having already cut resources, staff and opening hours, how are they meant to support children and young people with high needs?"