Steve Double, Member of Parliament for St Austell and Newquay has joined a cross-party group of MPs in writing to the Government asking for fairer funding for education as part of this year’s spending review.
Steve is a member of the f40 Campaign Group, which seeks fairness and equal opportunities in education for all children, regardless of where they live.
The letter requests the following are considered in this year’s spending review:
- The removal of the historic inequalities and funding protections in the system;
- The raising of basic entitlement to ensure the core cost of running a school is met
- An immediate injection of at least £1.4bn of additional funding to deal with a crisis in High Needs provision across the country
- A significant increase in funding for all schools to ensure there is enough to meet the cost pressures facing all schools and to allow them to operate successfully and provide quality education for all children, regardless of where they live.
The letter is co-signed by Vice Chairs from all the main political parties as well as a number of other MPs.
Commenting Steve said:
“Fairer funding for Cornwall is something I have long pressed for, both in education and elsewhere.”
“These are historical inequalities made by past governments of all colours and it is time something was done to redress them.”
“Changes to the funding formula in 2017 to recognise sparsity issues for rural areas like Cornwall were a step in the right direction but there is still more to do.”
“I hope the Government listens to our letter and its sensible suggestions and I look forward to the spending review with interest.”