West Sussex Schools Funding — [Mr James Gray in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 10:41 am on 2 November 2016.

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Photo of Nicholas Soames Nicholas Soames Conservative, Mid Sussex 10:41, 2 November 2016

I am grateful for the constructive and helpful way in which the Minister is winding up the debate. To pick up her point about the welcome increase in education expenditure and the number of new pupils coming into schools, the excellent St Paul’s Catholic College in Burgess Hill—a really good school in my constituency—has had a 31% increase in pupils, but there is so little money and room to manoeuvre in its staff budget that it does not have enough staff to cope with that 31%. It makes do, but it does not have adequate staff, which is one of the problems of the existing baseline and why the school needs the transitional funding to get through to the national funding formula being introduced.