First, Mr Speaker, may I associate myself with the message you have just sent to our Australian friends? I also take this opportunity to wish you and all hon. Members a happy new year.
At last year’s spending round, I announced a £7.1 billion increase in schools funding for 2022-23 compared with this year. That will level up funding across the country and ensure at least £5,000 a year for every secondary school pupil next year and £4,000 a year for every primary school pupil in 2021-22.
Mark Logan
During the election campaign, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor visited Bolton Lads and Girls Club, which is a real hub for inspiring our children. Does the Chancellor agree that the uplift in funding for schoolchildren right across Bolton North East will ensure that our young people fulfil their true potential?
I remember that visit, and I was incredibly impressed by the club.
May I say how delighted I am to see my hon. Friend take his place in this House? I agree with him wholeheartedly. Our plans will ensure that funding for every pupil in every school can rise at least in line with inflation. Schools in Bolton North East will attract £4,800 per pupil in 2020-21 on average and, based on the current number of pupils, that means a 7.7% total cash increase.
Having grown up in Bristol, the Chancellor will be familiar with the education system there, but we have a crisis in funding for special educational needs provision. More children are coming forward with special educational needs, but we do not have the funding to support them. I urge him to pay some attention to that and to donate the necessary funds to remedy the problem.
I agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of making sure that special educational needs are properly funded. That is precisely why in the last spending round I increased spending by £780 million, which I believe is the biggest increase in a decade.
My right hon. Friend, coming from the west midlands, will know that Staffordshire has historically been one of the most underpaid counties per pupil. How will his changes affect counties such as Staffordshire and others in the f40?
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. He has been a champion of fairer funding for schools, especially in the west midlands, and I agree with him about the importance of this issue. That is precisely why, in the spending round, we made an exception for schools by having a three-year settlement, which means there will be a £7.1 billion increase for schools throughout England by 2022-23, helping to bring fairer funding.
19. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of funding allocated to programmes to reduce carbon emissions.
Productivity
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Vehicle Excise Duty: Motorhomes
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Frontline Health Services
Net Zero Emissions
Topical Questions
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
ConservativeMiddlesbrough South and East Cleveland
The Government take our environmental responsibilities very seriously, and the Prime Minister established the new Cabinet Committee on Climate Change for that very reason. The UK is, of course, the G20 leader in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while growing our economy. Later this year, the Government will set out further plans to reduce emissions in key sectors such as transport, energy and building while seizing the economic benefits of clean growth. We have launched a review into the transition to a net zero economy and how that will be funded, and the review will publish its findings this autumn.
I am pleased to see two ideas in the Queen’s Speech that were recycled from previous Labour manifestos: the waiving of NHS car parking charges, and renters’ rights. Will the Government go that bit further and adopt a third idea, our completely costed green new deal? Greenpeace rated the Labour party as best for the environment, whereas the Conservative party languished in fourth. This idea would help the Government to reach their carbon emission targets, which are woefully off track at the moment.
The electorate obviously gave their verdict on the relative credibility of our manifesto. This Chamber, on a cross-party basis, should welcome the real consensus that the UK has done the right thing by becoming the first major western economy to commit to a net zero policy. We have allocated £1 billion for the take-up of ultra low emission vehicles, £350 million for the industrial energy transition fund and £800 million in our manifesto for carbon capture and storage.
The hon. Lady says our ambitions in this area are inadequate, but the Committee on Climate Change report of May 2019 did not consider it credible to reach net zero emissions earlier than 2050. The report called it the “highest possible ambition” supported by the science for us to target 2050 rather than an earlier date.
The UK Government currently offer more financial support than any other European state for fossil fuel industries. The oil giant Shell paid no corporate income tax last year due to tax rebates, despite making a £557 million profit in the UK. This situation is unsustainable and unacceptable in the context of a climate emergency. Can the Minister explain how a Government who continue to subsidise fossil fuel extraction to such a degree can ever be trusted to deliver net zero?
The most important thing to recognise is that last year was the first year on record in which renewable energy constituted more of our energy mix than fossil fuels. We also need to recognise that oil and gas support many thousands of jobs in the United Kingdom, and we must be careful not to jeopardise economic growth during the transition.
The best way to reduce carbon emissions is not to produce carbon when building houses. Given that the Conservative manifesto proposes to extend Help to Buy to people who wish to build their own homes, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer knows all about, will he meet me and the Right to Build taskforce to see how it can implement this excellent policy as quickly as possible?