To ask the Minister of Education to outline the steps she is taking to increase spend on education, per pupil, to bring it closer in line with other parts of the UK.

There are inherit difficulties in trying to compare per pupil funding across jurisdictions, examples of which include, regional differences in school starting ages, data sources, how different types of schools are funded and how funds, including support services to pupils, are accounted for.

That said, I welcome last year’s report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), Comparisons of School Spending Per Pupil Across the UK, which highlighted that spend per pupil is expected to be the lowest in Northern Ireland, in the current financial year, compared to the other UK regions. This must be viewed in the context of the historic funding squeeze on the education budget where, between 2010-11 and 2019-20, the Northern Ireland education budget reduced by £229m in real terms.

This reduction in funding was against a backdrop of a 7% increase in pupil numbers; that is, 20,000 additional pupils. It is also important to note that Northern Ireland has the largest school-age population as a proportion of the total population of any of the UK nations. Our relatively large school-age population contributes to a lower spend per pupil.

All of this is a serious concern to me. In my time as Minister, I have continually emphasised the issues to the Finance Minister in my work with him and my fellow Ministers in seeking to secure the necessary funding for Education as we move forward.

It is also likely that the Independent Review of Education will consider the distribution of funding to education settings and the quantification of any potential funding gap, including a consideration of factors which may create funding disparities in Northern Ireland relative to the rest of the UK.