Catherine McKinnell, MP for Newcastle North and member of the Education Select Committee, has challenged the new Secretary of State for Education on proposed cuts to apprenticeship funding, and the North-South schools funding gap.
Appearing before the Select Committee yesterday for the first time since being appointed Education Secretary, Justine Greening was pressed by the Newcastle MP to confirm how cuts to funding rates for apprenticeships fit with the Government’s stated commitment to increasing social mobility.
Proposed apprenticeship funding rates from 1st May 2017, published by the Skills Funding Agency in August, would see current rates paid to colleges and training providers for 16-18 year olds cut by around 30% – rising to over 50% in some of the most deprived parts of the country.
Concerns across the Further Education sector about the impact of these cuts has led to the creation of the #SaveOurApprenticeships campaign by the FE Week newspaper, and Catherine also attended the campaign’s official launch in Parliament yesterday, hosted by her Labour colleague David Lammy MP.
In response to Catherine’s question at the Education Select Committee, the Secretary of State indicated that the proposals were ‘a consultation’, to which the Government would ‘look really carefully at all of the responses.’
Commenting afterwards, Catherine – who has campaigned on apprenticeships since first being in elected in 2010 – said:
‘It’s simply not possible to be committed to increasing social mobility, whilst cutting apprenticeships funding on this scale. These cuts will clearly only reduce opportunities for young people across the country to get on in life and realise their potential.
‘The fact that these cuts could hit young people in some of the most deprived parts of the country, including the North East, the hardest is just unthinkable.
‘The Government must think again on this issue, before it makes a terrible mistake.’
Catherine also used yesterday’s Select Committee evidence session to reiterate her concerns about the impact of the Government’s proposed National Funding Formula on the North East’s schools, and the North-South funding gap which already exists.
Plans to introduce an ‘area cost adjustment multiplier’ to the funding formula would see schools in ‘higher costs areas’ receiving more money from Government – with pupils in the North East therefore losing out.
The current average funding for schools equates to £4,732 per pupil nationally, but this can be as high as £8,595 for pupils in the City of London. In the North East, the per pupil figure stands at £4,616.
This means that the funding gap between the national average, and that received by the North East, already stands at some £45.6million a year. And if North East schools were funded at the same level as London schools, the region would have an additional £360million per year to spend on education.
In response to Catherine’s question, the Education Secretary again emphasised that the current proposals were part of a consultation.