As banners are unfurled today at Schools across Brighton and Hove and indeed in many other localities under the title ‘Save our Schools’, it seems reasonable to ask a politician to stand by his own words. When statements are made in Parliament observed by millions of people via TV, Radio and the Hansard reports, it seems perfectly reasonable for the nation to expect those who make such statements to honour them. As this article makes clear On 29th January Education secretary Damian Hinds stated in parliament that schools were set to receive a real-terms increase in school funding up to 2020. “We know that real-terms funding per pupil is increasing across the system – and with the national funding formula, each school will see at least a small cash increase.” This promise was of course a surprise to the people across the UK who had spent time analysing the national funding formula as it appeared to define the very opposite. That there is no real-terms funding increase intended. Angela Rayner who is the shadow education secretary raised the question with Sir David Norgrove who is chair of the UK Statistics Authority and asked him to get some clarity and in due course the Department for Education has changed the statement by Damian Hinds to read “We know that overall real-terms funding per pupil is being maintained between 2017-18 and 2019-20 – and with the national funding formula, each school will see at least a small cash increase.”

When statements are made in the House of Commons, or perhaps lies are told, it seems important that the way in which corrections are made is more fundamental than simply changing the words in a document. After all Damian Hinds is a Minister of State. His knowledge of the situation should ensure he can tell the difference between a real terms increase and no real terms increase. If he was a car salesman and he promised that the car would travel further on the same amount of fuel and the person buying the car then discovered that this was not the case, they would expect some compensation. Given that our schools are under so much pressure, surely the honourable thing for the Government to do is to adjust the strategy to match Damian’s words, rather than allowing his department to scurry along to the Hansard Office and re-write the statement that he made! That might bring his political future into question in the same way as a car salesman might lose his job for promising something that was not intended by the car manufacturer, but it would demonstrate a new way of doing politics that would raise, rather than lower peoples confidence in the way our Governments work. Businesses are constantly held to account for their promises by the Government and other public bodies, if Governments are not willing to work to the same standards, then society is bound to crumble in due course.