Watching David Cameron's assured performance yesterday in the first Prime Minister's Questions of this parliamentary term, many Conservatives will have been greatly encouraged to hear him speak up in support of the "pupil premium" - a measure designed to boost educational opportunities for children living in deprived areas.
It is widely perceived that, as part of the Coalition deal, David Cameron 'accepted' the Liberal Democrat policy idea of a providing a ‘pupil premium’ worth £2.5 billion in order to improve education standards for one million disadvantaged school children.
This is, however, a rewriting of history.
As early as 2005, Conservative MP Rob Wilson (now a candidate for the Chairmanship of the Education Select Committee) was championing this idea – some years before the Liberal Democrats adopted such a policy. Indeed, he wrote about it in early 2006 while a member of the Education Select Committee and soon after met with David Cameron to lobby him about the concept.
Writing in 2007, Rob took a slightly more radical approach than that advocated by the government today; advocating a 40% uplift in spending on children that qualify for free school meals funded by a reordering of spending priorities within the Education Department in order to place a primary focus upon providing educational opportunities for disadvantaged children.
It is good to see that Rob’s ideas for improving the life chances of young people in our schools are being adopted by a Conservative-led Government.
Campaigning during the general election it seemed to me that activists and voters were more enthused by the party's promises on education reform than any other policy area.
We must not allow the Liberal Democrats take the credit for this important reform.
