What we know is that standards have risen around the country, and this is an exercise in levelling up funding, with a commitment to provide an absolute minimum to every pupil in the secondary sector and every pupil in the primary sector. That surely is the right way to go about it. On top of that, there is directed funding to meet the individual needs of individual areas.
My first request is about one of those individual needs. Will the Secretary of State look carefully at the small number of schools in my area and others with a disproportionate number of special needs pupils? We have a real opportunity here. Headteachers in those schools are saying that they are finding it an increasing burden on their shoulders to deal not just with the special needs issues but with the issues that often surround those special needs pupils. The two Secretaries of State here today would do those schools a great favour if they could consider ways of strengthening the partnership between local authorities and those schools in dealing with the individual challenges presented by the more troubled students. Particularly in the primary sector, some schools are still facing financial challenges because of the sheer volume of special needs in their schools. I am thinking specifically about some, though not many, of the schools in my own constituency.