West Sussex MPs are working together as a great a team and I was delighted that the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, agreed this week that we should look afresh at the schools funding formula. For many years it has unfairly penalised our local schools. I will be meeting her with a delegation of local MPs and it is good to get this on the agenda right at the start of the parliament. Any changes to the funding formula will, across the country, have losers as well as winners but we need a plan of action for correcting what has become an unfair settlement. Not that anyone would know that is the case from excellent students that are coming through our schools.
I recently attended a tremendous event at South Lodge to which schools from all over Sussex sent teams to compete in the “Mocktail” competition run by Horsham Matters. Of course there is a welcome educational message behind learning how to create alcohol-free drinks (and there is plenty of evidence that underage drinking is currently in decline). However the competition also required the teams to create costings, branding and a marketing plan: planting the seeds of our next generation of entrepreneurs.
It was great to see a local team, Tanbridge House, triumph! Last week I met with a similarly great group at the Rudgwick youth centre. We had an impressive, wide ranging, discussion. There was debate this week in Westminster about lowering the age of voting in the European Referendum from 18 to 16. As ever in these circumstances no MP is short of lobbying material! I would stick with 18.
However as I am so frequently discovering its meetings in the constituency that often do more to challenge MPs perspectives than any number of leaflets, CDs or email shots directed at the Westminster bubble!