My Lords, I will start by setting out the principles of Clause 33, in response to the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to oppose the question that the clause stand part of the Bill. I am thankful for the opportunity to debate the role of Clause 33 and this part of the Bill more broadly. This measure implements the direct national funding formula and, as I said in response to the third group, delivers on our long-standing commitment to achieve fair funding for schools. We received wide-ranging support from the sector for this vision of how we fund schools in our consultation last year, and we heard your Lordships’ views on the importance of not only holding consultations but listening to them.
A single national funding formula, replacing the current 150 local arrangements, will make funding for schools simpler, fairer and more transparent. It will allow the sector, and your Lordships in this place, to hold the department to account for school funding. This measure outlines the framework of roles and responsibilities for the new funding system. The reforms set out in this part of the Bill have been developed carefully, in extensive consultation with stakeholders, to ensure we reflect the needs of pupils and schools in the fairest and most consistent way.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about how well the system had worked previously, but when I look at the data for funding per pupil from 2017—I think this was something the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, also touched on earlier—for Brent and Lincolnshire, both of which had 12% of children on free school meals, the funding per pupil was £5,523 in Brent and £4,305 in Lincolnshire. Similarly, there were big differences in a number of other areas, not only London boroughs. For example, Blackpool and Manchester, at that time, had 25% of children on free school meals and there was about £800 higher funding per pupil in Manchester than there was in Blackpool. I hope the noble Lord will acknowledge that is hard to see as either transparent or apparently fair.
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The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, might have enjoyed the earlier group where we talked extensively about smaller rural schools. It may interest him to look at Hansard and see that significant increases in investment have been made in small rural schools and changes
have been made to funding to make sure they get what they need. Changes to the way rurality is measured, one of which will be very relevant in Cumbria, has meant that the number of schools qualifying has increased from about 1,600 to about 2,500. There has been a big focus on that area.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, is extremely generous to describe us as being in the same job; if I remember rightly her job was a lot more senior, but that is very kind of her. I understand why she challenges in the way she does. She talks about centralisation of power; another way of saying it, as she will recognise, is that one of our privileges as Ministers in government is that we can try to make sure there is justice for children wherever they are in the country. One thing uniquely within central government’s power is the ability to think through making sure that every child in every area gets fair and equitable funding for their school. She presented it this evening through the lens of centralisation of power, but she will also acknowledge that there are fundamental freedoms in the academies system around finances, curriculum and a number of other areas which, as I have already said at the Dispatch Box, we intend to protect. I encourage her to see that there are different ways of looking at this, and our way is in terms of justice for children.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked how an MP would respond to his challenge on this. I encourage him to look at the fact sheet we put out with the Bill on the national funding formula. If I were the MP responding, I would certainly pick out that it is fair, efficient, transparent, simple and predictable.