Last week in the quiet backwater of Westminster Hall, over forty MPs debated the longstanding unfairness in the funding of education in this country.

The partisan hullabaloo of Prime Minister’s Questions was a thousand miles away from this measured but persistent plea from the Government’s own backbenchers to close the gap between the best and worst funded local authorities. I was proud to be amongst them.

In Somerset, we get a particularly raw end of the deal. There are 150 local authorities who receive money for education; Somerset ranks 135th. Admittedly, we get about £150 more per child per year than the very worst funded local authority but we are fully £3,327 per child behind table topping Tower Hamlets.

I believe passionately in equality of opportunity so that all have their chance to succeed in life and this out-dated, unfair and illogical funding formula is utterly at odds with achieving that.

Some would say that the funding model has evolved to meet the needs of the most deprived areas; areas that previously lagged way behind in the attainment of their pupils. They would be right but there is evidence that the gap has not only closed but reversed.

Ten years ago, the London Borough of Southwark received around 55% more cash per child than we received in Somerset. At that time, the number of pupils achieving five or more A* to C grades in Somerset was 57% whilst only 47% were achieving those grades in Southwark.

Clearly there was a need to tackle the chronic underachievement in that part of London. However, ten years on and the situation is very different. Southwark continues to enjoy substantially more funding than Somerset and yet students there are now achieving 63% A* to C grades whilst in this county we are still pretty much the same at 58%.

I have no axe to grind with Southwark or anywhere else but there is evidence that our children are now falling behind and it is clear to me that this is because they are not getting their fair share of the education budget. If Somerset were funded just to the national average, it would mean an extra £40 million being spent on education in the county each year.

Somerset’s schools, colleges and their teachers do the most extraordinary job. Their budgets are tight – in many cases money in does not anymore match money out – and yet we have so many schools that are graded good or outstanding. But we cannot continue to rely on the alchemy of our head teachers and we certainly cannot stand by whilst the best funded areas surge ahead.

The Pupil Premium is the right tool with which to tackle hardship and deprivation. We no longer need to address that issue twice by having an unequal funding formula as well. It is time to have a national funding formula for our schools and colleges so that all our children – wherever they live - get the same opportunity. Anything else is simply unfair.