Urgent Debates Declined — Schools—Performance-based Funding

Honourable members, I have received a letter from Chris Hipkins seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 an announcement of a plan to move toward performance-based funding in schools. For there to be an urgent debate the matter raised must be a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. Although school decile ratings will be recalculated by the Ministry of Education following the census, claims that the Government is looking to fund schools according to student performance appear to be media speculation and have been rejected by the Minister of Education. Media speculation can never give rise to an urgent debate. The urgent debate procedure is a means of debating matters that have occurred. It is not a means of debating matters that might or might not happen in the future. The fact that a Minister may have indicated “we need to be looking for something else.” is not on its own sufficient to constitute a case of recent occurrence. The application is therefore declined.