Tom Richmond: Unlikely alliance fighting North's corner on schools

All three have just made passionate interventions on the importance of skills and the need for the North’s schools to receive additional funding.

Perhaps opposites attract, as Theresa May said prior to her White House meeting with President Donald Trump. Dr Sentamu, the much-respected Ugandan-born Archbishop of York, is Yorkshire’s spiritual conscience; former Chancellor Mr Osborne is a silver-spooned Conservative; while Mr McDonnell is a socialist Shadow Chancellor.

And this cumulative impact of these ‘three wise men’ must not be lost as London’s MPs press – again – for the capital to receive preferential treatment.

Though I do not begrudge the London Challenge which has transformed under-performing schools into the very best in the country, pupils across Britain should be entitled to the level of funding that enabled LEAs in the capital to build new classrooms and recruit world class teachers. The class divide is stark – two thirds of teenagers in London achieved the Government’s GCSE benchmark last year compared to 54.9 per cent here.

And it’s simply not acceptable for Ministers to absolve themselves by transferring responsibility for skills to the fledgling city-regions and other devolved bodies as Rotherham-born Education Secretary Justine Greening did in Parliament on Monday – the funding can only come from the Government.

Perhaps Ms Greening will read the contributions made by this unlikely alliance and reappraise her approach.

First to speak out was Dr Sentamu whose views were shaped by the 148 school visits that he undertook during a six-month pilgrimage of prayer. Acknowledging the importance of exam results, he said children also needed a more rounded education and that he was worried at how lessons, like music and PE, were being sidelined. “Our children learn just as much out of the classroom as they do in it,” he said.

Next was Mr Osborne who said – starkly – that levels of attainment were not good enough despite recent improvements. Speaking at a Northern Powerhouse Partnership event in Leeds, he warned: “There is now overwhelming evidence that attainment at 16 is too low in the North, leaving us lagging behind the UK and international competitors.”

This effective admission of failure preceded Mr McDonnell’s address to Labour activists in Liverpool where the Shadow Chancellor called for specific spending controls to narrow the North-South divide when it comes to all public services, education included. By his calculations, the North receives only half as much investment per head as London.

Given this unexpected unity, the challenge now is convincing Ministers that schools funding is a key test of Theresa May’s promise to govern for all.

Unfortunately, there was not one MP from these parts present when the Commons staged a late night debate on education spending in London. This was regrettable on two counts – they weren’t able to learn lessons from the capital’s successful approach or challenge Ministers to do more.

As Westminster North MP Karen Buck said, London’s school estate was crumbling in the mid-1990s with half of secondary schools in special measures. Yet, over 15 years, this changed with “focused management” and “inspirational leadership”. “Critically it was brought about by money,” she added.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb made a number of telling points in response – the education budget will grow to £42bn, changes to funding formula will always bring about winners and losers and that “London will remain the highest-funded part of the country”, adding that “schools in inner London will attract 30 per cent more per pupil than the national average”.

The Minister’s justification was multi-culturalism, namely the number of youngsters who don’t speak English as their first language, as well as the levels of deprivation masked by the capital’s affluence. Again, this should not be decried. Quite the opposite. All I call for is fair funding across the whole country, including those Yorkshire towns and cities coming to terms with social and societal change. Bradford, for example, has the youngest population in the UK – but many of its students are bereft of the key skills that employers now expect.

As Mr Osborne made clear, as he reinvents himself as a compassionate champion of the North, concerns about education are more urgent than the area’s creaking transport infrastructure or devolution deadlock. Estimating that the untapped potential in the North’s economy could be worth £100bn, he implied that businesses will only invest here – and help the region come to terms with Brexit – if young people have the qualifications demanded by a highly-skilled, digital-first, multi-lingual global economy.

“Our education system, right the way from the start of school to higher education, must provide the next generation with the skills, inspiration and training to fulfil their goals and build our economy,” he added.

Few would disagree. Though Ministers say they can’t afford to invest in the North’s schools because of financial pressures, on this evidence they can’t afford not to.

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