NORTH Cornwall Conservative MP, Scott Mann, has recently visited St Catherine’s C of E School in Launceston, North Petherwin Primary School and Stoke Climsland County Primary School to discuss a ‘School Parliament’ project and his role as an MP in the House of Commons.

Mr Mann likes to meet as many schools as possible around North Cornwall and throughout the year he also welcomes schools to Westminster to show them around Parliament.

Mr Mann decided to take advantage of the parliamentary conference recess to visit St Catherine’s, North Petherwin and Stoke Climsland, who invited him to learn about their ‘School Parliament’ project.

During his visits, Mr Mann also explained to the pupils about his role as an MP and what he does in Parliament and the constituency to represent North Cornwall.

The pupils at the schools told Mr Mann about their ‘School Parliament’ project, which sees schools working together to elect pupils as ministers for various departments, just as MPs are appointed ministers in Westminster.

The project will help with leadership and communication skills as well as to make the pupils more knowledgeable about how government and the democratic process works.

As well as finding out about how the House of Parliament works and a little insight into the democratic process, the children were also able to ask Mr Mann lots of questions about local issues such as parking, housing and school places.

Mr Mann said: “I was delighted to meet with pupils to discuss their new ‘School Parliament’ project and my role as an MP.

“St Catherine’s, North Petherwin and Stoke Climsland are among many small rural schools in North Cornwall which are run by fantastic teachers and are filled with children eager to learn and engage. It was great to see the children learning about how government works, with pupils voting to elect ministers for various departments like health or education.

“Every week MPs get to question government ministers in the House of Commons, so I suggested that the pupils think of some questions and send them to me so I can put them directly to the real government ministers in Parliament.”

Mr Mann is campaigning for fairer school funding for small rural schools, which lose out on government money compared to other schools in urban areas, which get up to 50% more funding per child.

After much lobbying from Mr Mann and other MPs, the government said it would introduce a national funding formula to address disparities between schools. It has since been put out to consultation to the public and key stakeholders, and is now being worked on by the Department for Education for implementation in 2018/19.

Mr Mann added: “One of main overarching issues for schools in Cornwall is the disparity in funding, where a school like North Petherwin, St Catherine’s or Stoke Climsland only get half the funding that a school in the city gets.

“We’ve been lobbying for fairer funding, with the government announcing a new national funding formula last year. It’s imperative that we get fairer funding for our Cornish schools so they can employ more staff and invest in more resources for their pupils.”