Damian Hinds

No? If the Government simply mean teachers with qualified teacher status, then I gently remind the Minister of something we covered in Bill Committee, which some colleagues might recall. The number of teachers today who do not have qualified teacher status is 3.1%, which does not sound all that high. What do colleagues suppose it was in May 2010, the previous time that there was a change of Government? The answer is 3.2%. So the number of teachers without qualified teacher status has hardly changed, and to the extent that it has, it has slightly gone down. We know that other RDEL—revenue spending, effectively—is going up, but it has to cover an awful lot. There is £1 billion-plus in national insurance contribution costs. We know from reports from teachers and headteachers in the sector press that shortfalls in the range of 10% to 35% are being reported. School suppliers are also facing higher national insurance contributions, which will also have a knock-on effect on the cost of other services into those schools. Schools are also picking up the cost of breakfast clubs, and there is an extension in free school meals eligibility and so on. Overall, if we look at the detail in the estimates and the spending review, all these increases are front-loaded—that is to say, for 2024-25 the increase is 6.8%, but that then comes down to 5.2% the following year, and then 3.4%, then 2.1%, and then 1.6%. The main point I put to the Minister—constructively and co-operatively—is that things are changing significantly in schools because of demographic change. We have reached a point where I do not believe it is legitimate to use the measure of real-terms per pupil funding as the yardstick for whether effective school resourcing is increasing or decreasing. That is because the number of pupils will fall. We know already from TES, which used to be called The Times Educational Supplement, that surplus secondary places have increased by some 50% in just two years. Labour MPs may well argue—and I kind of hope they do—that when there is a smaller number of children there will obviously be less funding, and there is some logic to that argument, but in a sense it does not matter what arguments they make in this Chamber, because back in their constituencies, if they talk to headteachers, they will hear something different. When pupil numbers are rising, if real-terms per pupil funding is held constant, that is a net increase in resourcing to the school. When numbers are falling, and even if real-terms per pupil funding is increased by a few per cent, that feels very much like a cut. Let us think about it in the following practical terms. If a primary school class of 27 goes up to 29, that is an increase in revenue to the school of something like £10,000, £11,000 or £12,000, but the vast majority of costs do not change. It works the same way in reverse. If a class moves from 29 pupils to 27, the school loses £10,000 to £12,000, but there are still the same costs, and the teacher is still being paid the same and so on. In an urban setting, some whole schools may close—some already have. That is a painful process to go through, and no MP wants to represent an area where schools close, but at least that way the numbers can be made to work over a wider area, and some of those schools can convert to nursery schools, I hope, or to special schools. A big secondary school might reduce, say, from an eight-form entry to a six-form entry and manage the numbers that way. For a rural primary school, neither of those things is an option. There are major indivisibilities. Right now, 92% of DFE funding for schools is driven by pupil numbers, and I just do not think that will work over the years ahead. What will Ministers do to reform funding so that it is fair and effective at a time of falling overall pupil numbers?