Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Gainsborough, has organised a House of Commons debate attacking the disparity in per pupil funding of grammar schools. 

Citing the research of David Allsop, head of Queen Elizabeth’s in Gainsborough, Sir Edward told MPs “the grammar school that [Mr Allsop] heads was the least well funded school per pupil in the county. It receives £4,474 per pupil on average, while a similar sized comprehensive school in Lincolnshire receives £6,481 per pupil.”

“If we are to promote educational excellence,” Sir Edward continued, “it is not a good idea to give the best school in Lincolnshire, which everybody tries to get into, only £4,000 per pupil per year, while giving the worst-performing comprehensive in Lincoln, which nobody wants to go to, £7,000 per head per year.”

The MP with over thirty years’ experience said he was “proud to have two excellent grammar schools in my constituency” and hailed them as “centres of excellence” while saluting county councillors for appreciating their importance.

Sir Edward described the scrapping of grammar schools across most of the country as “one of the greatest policy disasters of the post-war era” and recalled that the schools had achieved “an unqualified and unprecedented level of social mobility”.

In his response the Minister of State for School Reform, Nick Gibb MP, paid tribute to the “exceptional” results achieved by grammar schools in the area.

“Since 2010, 100% of students attending Caistor Grammar School have achieved at least five GCSEs at grades A* to C,” Mr Gibb noted, adding that “at Queen Elizabeth’s High School, 61.5% of A-level grades were A* to B.”

“Those schools are achieving remarkable, high-quality, high-standard academic education results.”