“THERE are only three people” remarked 19th century Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, “that have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business: the Prince Consort, who is dead; a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it!”

Palmerston was referring to the knotty problem of Royal inheritance in the provinces that made up the modern-day Danish peninsular.

But he might equally have been referring to the formula used to allocate funding to schools in England.

I certainly don’t claim to understand how the current system works, but I do know that it is unfair – and that it penalises Warrington.

For example in 2014/15, the average school in Warrington received £4,218.53 for every pupil on its books.

That’s £300 per pupil less than the English average and it is less than half what schools in the City of London got (£8,594.55 per pupil).

Indeed Warrington is one of the 20 worst-funded education authorities in the country.

Now clearly there will always be a need to give more money to schools with high numbers of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Unfortunately, the more I investigate the matter, the less convinced I am that the current formula achieves this.

I’ve been working with the non-party F40 campaign which campaigns on behalf of the 40 worst-funded authorities for reforms to school funding.

They have put forward their own model which would see nearly 100 LEAs receiving more money than they currently do.

The Conservative Government has made a commitment to revise the unfair formula and I will certainly be lobbying them to keep that promise.

Last week I was one of more than 100 MPs from all parties who signed a letter to the Prime Minister, urging him to bring in reform as soon as possible.

In the last Parliament, Labour refused to contemplate even the principle of reform.

It is somewhat difficult to keep track of what the current Labour policy is (on anything), but I do hope that the new Labour team will have a rethink.

Making sure that schools are fairly funded is something we should all be able to agree on.