SOUTH LAKES MP HOLDS GOVERNMENT TO ACCOUNT OVER SCHOOL CUTS
This week, local MP Tim Farron has been calling on the Chancellor to protect education spending, as shocking new figures show that schools within Westmorland and Lonsdale face cuts in their spending power of £1.9million next year.
Tim has called on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt not to make children and young people pay for the Conservatives' botched mini-budget by cutting education funding further during next week's Autumn Statement.
The figures, published on the 8th of November by the 'School Cuts' campaign run by teaching unions, reveal that schools in Westmorland and Lonsdale will have £190 less to spend per pupil next year (2023/24) compared to this year (2022/23).
In total, 43 of Westmorland's 50 schools will see a reduction in their spending power next year.
The figures estimate the true spending power that schools have after increases in teacher salaries, pensions, tax and non-staff costs have been taken into account. It comes after the Government instructed council-run schools to give teachers a much-deserved pay rise of between 5% and 8.9% this year but gave no extra money to pay for it, meaning that they had to make cuts elsewhere.
Overall, nine in ten schools across England will have less spending power next year compared to this year. More than two in three schools in England will have a lower spending power next year than in 2015.
Speaking on the floor of the House of Commons during the Levelling Up Rural Britain debate earlier this week, Tim said: "Rural schools are smaller.
"Their budgets are smaller to start off with and the unfunded pay rises and unfunded increases in energy costs mean that every single one of the schools I have spoken to in my constituency over the last week are planning staff reductions. That will only hurt our children.
"The Government do not understand that they need to support rural school funding, and it is only the children who will suffer."