House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Nov 1990

Mr. Robert Litherland (Manchester, Central) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara), who moved us all with the kind sentiments that he expressed about his predecessor, Sean Hughes. My hon. Friend spoke with passion and knowledge about his constituency, and by tradition, Knowsley has returned a first-class Member of Parliament, who will certainly look after his constituents' interests.

We join the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti), in condemning the evil act that took Ian Gow's life, and we wish him well. He displayed a good sense of humour.

I want to confine my contribution to the subject of infant schools in my constituency. The Gracious Speech stated :

"My Government will continue to take action to improve quality in education."

Her Majesty would be extremely embarrassed if she realised the emptiness of those words, and if she knew the true state of primary education in the inner cities, I am sure that those words would have frozen on her lips. However, Her Majesty does not write the Gracious Speech, so the blame must be laid elsewhere. My postbag leaves not the slightest doubt about where the blame lies. The letters that educate me of the reality of the situation come from the frontliners--the teachers themselves.

Many aspects of Government policy affect education, and I want to advance the protestations made to me by head teachers from all parts of my constituency because of their concern about the quality of education in primary and infant schools. The pressures and problems facing those schools, teachers and children are of crisis proportions.

A former Secretary of State, now chairman of the Conservative party, when informed of the difficulties experienced in schools in the state sector, said, "Show me the evidence." There was a response to that challenge, and the effects of Government policy on those who work to educate our children have been placed before the Secretary of State. That last magician created the illusion that something would be done, but that was before he vanished into obscurity. There is no doubt that those arguments will also be placed before the new Secretary of State who must provide some answers to the serious problem of quality of education and how teachers can address that without adequate resources to meet the needs of the children. I sincerely trust that the present Secretary of State will pay heed to what the teachers are telling him. However, if he brings to the Department of Education and Science the same arrogance that he displayed against the nurses,

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doctors and patients in the health service, the situation will become even more desperate. At least the former Secretary of State listened, if nothing else.

Many head teachers stress that the problem has nothing to do with low pay awards. They are not griping about self-interest but expressing deep concern for a profession in which they take pride. Regrettably, that profession is suffering from the negative effects of the stress and low morale felt by teachers.

The pressures are unremittingendless DES circulars demanding immediate response and implementation, demands on top of the national curriculum that have created an increased work load and disruption for all children, hastily organised courses and workshops and weekly governors' meetings. Teachers' partners have complained that family life has been affected by the amount of time that their spouses are having to spend in the evening and at weekends on school work--all at the expense of their family commitments.

One head teacher wrote to me :

"In twenty years of teaching I have never known morale to be so low and so widespread. Staff at all levels, both young and experienced alike, feel that they are being swept helplessly along by a tide of change which threatens their integrity and status as professional educators. I am left with a team of demoralised colleagues who are mentally and physically unable to give of their best in the classroom"

Other head teachers describe numerous and valid problems including lack of teaching support for teachers who have up to 30 children in a class, lack of non-teaching support, lack of support for children with special needs as well as a lack of administrative and clerical support. The list is endless.

Stress becomes more acute in an inner city with all its inherent problems. Teachers suffer from stress-related illness because of the extra burdens placed upon them. They are losing heart and seeking jobs elsewhere. They are losing interest because the Government do not appear to have grasped the seriousness of the problem. Teachers in the inner city are suffering from a growing disillusionment, especially in those schools in which there are added stress factors. The head teacher of an inner-city special school where the majority of children come from a deprived and disadvantaged background and suffer complex emotional and social problems recently informed me of that disillusionment among his staff. He wrote : "One very experienced teacher has, despite being a valued and committed teacher, reluctantly requested early retirement, solely because of the increased stress and pressures he feels under the new regime. It cannot be beneficial to the well-being of our children and of the state education system if our more experienced teachers cannot cope or are burned out' by these pressures."

The response from the Secretary of State has been pathetic and insulting. He made no attempt to answer the letter in detail. His reply to me and that teacher was patronising in the extreme. He said :

"The teaching profession deserves gratitude, recognition and respect I value their commitment to the pupils"

and so he whines on. They were empty words and empty gestures because at the end of the letter came the inevitable sting--the end of term report. He stated that the Government are providing the necessary resources and support for the introduction of their reforms. He said that he was confident that teachers will strive to raise standards in the schools, in other words, they must try harder.

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A similar reply was given to the head teacher of Varna street primary school in Openshaw after he had taken the trouble to explain his dismay to the Secretary of State. He wrote :

"I do this as an experienced and highly qualified headteacher who is increasingly angered and frustrated by the apparent lack of care the Government has for the young children in this country and the total ignorance it displays about the true conditions in which they and their teachers have to work in the schools."

Varna street school is housed in a 90-year-old building on a cramped inner- city site, sandwiched between a railway station, a scrapyard and an old mill. The roof leaks, the windows and door frames do not fit well and water has penetrated through the walls. Despite those appalling physical conditions, the staff, parents and children care for their school.

Children are our future and our greatest asset and best investment. Those who serve the educational needs of the country urge the Government not to destroy the seed corn, but to invest in our kids before it is too late. My speech is a protest from all the head teachers in my constituency who have written to me. The Government must do something, or make way for another Government who do care. 7.35 pm

Mr. Malcolm Thornton (Crosby) : I join in congratulating those two hon. Members who made their maiden speeches tonight. I welcome them to the House, but I am sure that they will forgive me if I say that that welcome is slightly tempered because they replace two hon. Members who were widely respected and whom we miss very much. We have wanted a full day's debate on education for some time. It is a matter of regret that little in the way of constructive educational comment has been made in this debate so far. I should like to add some constructive thoughts and to address the problem we face in education.

The reforms that have been introduced--or certainly the principle behind them--have received a large measure of support. We must recognise, however, that the work required to implement them has had a serious effect on our educational system. I welcome the new Secretary of State, and urge him to reflect upon what his predecessor started to do--he recognised that the momentum of the reforms could be increased by slightly easing the pressure placed upon schools. It was no coincidence that, in the first few days after the long recess, many colleagues told me that, during the course of their constituency work in the summer, they had received encouraging reports from teachers in many of their schools. Those teachers said that they were getting to grips with the reforms and were starting to implement them and that, in that respect, things were getting easier. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will take that on board.

The education reforms can only be delivered by teachers. In the past, I have said that all the political rhetoric in the world does not alter the fact that it is the teacher in the classroom who will deliver those reforms. Much of what we do to develop the education service must centre upon the teacher in the classroom.

As I have told the House before, I have had the great privilege of being chairman of one of the largest primary schools in the country, a group 8 primary school, for 17 years. I am very much a hands-on chairman. I am also

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married to the head teacher of a group 6 primary school, so I have had considerable day-to-day involvement with education at the sharp end.

I am a great believer in primary education and I have seen as recently as last week, in Liscard primary school, the marvellous work that is being done to improve standards and implement the essential parts of the Government's reform programme. The work being done on that score is not limited to that one school. Many schools are delivering the commitment, by teachers, of the Government's reforms. But it would be futile to pretend that the reforms will happen without recognition of the fact that teachers need the support that extra resources into their profession demand. Unless those resources are allocated, as I have said before, the Government's reforms will not be implemented. Successive HMI reports have shown clearly that non-contact time in primary schools is virtually non-existent. If we are to give the amount of preparation time, over and above the time that is already being given by dedicated teachers, there must be an increase in non -contact time, and that has clear resource implications.

I have no brief for LEAs that seek to build empires or create ever more advisory services, but LEAs can have a more dynamic and proactive role in future than they have had in the past, and they should be examining what they provide by way of in-service courses and support services and the amount of support that they can give to the qualitative improvement of the delivery of education in their areas. That does not mean that the warnings of Her Majesty's inspectorate should not be heeded. LEAs should look closely at the balance between the numbers in their administration departments and teaching in the schools.

There has been too much short-termism in education. I have heard much today about the failure of the Government to bring about educational reforms. Nobody can pretend to know anything about education without accepting the leads and lags in education. It takes a long time, perhaps two decades, for policies to work through, and the problems that were sown by woolly thinking and political dogma in the 1960s and 1970s are with us today. They will not be solved by successive Acts that have been passed since the Conservatives came to power. It will take perhaps another 10 years before we reap the full rewards of those benefits. But reap them we shall, and improvements will be seen to be working through the system.

The last HMI report showed that up to 40 per cent. of newly trained teachers felt that

"education studies had received too much emphasis, while the more practical aspects such as teaching methods, classroom observation and teaching practice had received too little."

Much expertise exists in the classrooms of many of the nation's schools. It is more important for the next generation of teachers to be trained by on the job experience, picking up the theory of education when they need it, rather than the other way round. Initiatives such as the articled teachers scheme can offer much to education. The Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts identified in its work the fact that it is pointless dropping such schemes into the education system and just hoping that it can cope. If teachers are to be mentors and tutors--call them what one will-- they must be given the extra resources to benefit from that qualitative aspect of on-the-job training.

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The two-year, classroom-based, on-the-job training which the articled teachers scheme gives means that 80 per cent. of time is spent in schools observing, assisting and teaching. What is more, the pay will be better than the one-year PGCE, and that will result in three times more supervised teaching practice, with less indigestible educational theory. That is a practical way forward, which will do much to improve the quality of our teaching force.

Unless we devote the resources necessary to those who deliver education--I am not speaking of ever more resources ; perhaps we should be thinking of the better deployment of existing resources--we shall not get the quality of teachers who will deliver the quality of education that the nation needs. They must have support in the classroom. If we give them the necessary support, they will deliver the reforms, remembering that we are speaking of reforms of which hon. Members in all parts of the House approve. Everybody who believes in education wants the reforms to be implemented. There is a practical way forward, and I commend it to the House.

7.45 pm

Mr. Martin Flannery (Sheffield, Hillsborough) : I agreed with much that was said by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Thornton), but first I pay tribute to the elegant and interesting maiden speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) and by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti). We look forward to hearing them speak in other debates.

In the 10 minutes allocated to me, I shall speak about education generally before dealing with some specific aspects of education. The hon. Member for Crosby, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, and I have worked together, with other hon. Members who are present, for many years. I regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner), also a member of the Select Committee, was accused of not taking part in education debates. I assure the House that, as a member of the Select Committee, he is a frequent participant in debates on educational issues.

Naturally, we differ on many issues when we debate education. The hon. Member for Crosby did not mention those differences. He simply spoke about the reforms, many of which, in the view of many of my hon. Friends and myself, are deforms rather than reforms, a subject to which I shall return.

Like the economy, the British education system is in deep crisis because of the policies of the Conservative party. They have done so much that is wrong that the Government are now dithering under the attack that is being launched against them. Conservative Members are split in a terrible way, and that split, we now discover, has been reflected in all their policies during the last 11 years. Parents, local education authorities, which Conservative Members loathe, and governors, many of whom will never be able to carry out the tasks that are allocated to them, are all complaining. I prophesy that many governors will give up their posts because of the responsibilities that the Government are placing, and will increasingly place, on them.

Teachers and their employers are worried because they have too much to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) came into the Chamber to take part in a debate just before the last Recess carrying a pile of books perhaps 2 ft high and placed them on the

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Opposition Front Bench. They represented reading material for teachers. Teachers do not have time to read that amount of literature. Many teachers have told me that it is absolutely insane to expect them, with all the work that they have to do, to read guff in that quantity.

Hon. Members, especially those with an understanding of education, appreciate that we receive from the Department of Education and Science almost daily a dozen or so pieces of advice on what should or will be done in the future. There is no time to read that amount of stuff. How dare Conservative Members talk about bureaucrats, when that state of affairs has existed throughout the 11 years when they have been in power, during which time they have maligned and abused the teaching profession?

Only when they have seen the degree of damage that they have caused have they begun to change their tune when referring to teachers, who are being worked to death. They are doing more hours than ever before, working during their lunchtimes, having to come in early in the morning and to stay late at night. Not only do many Conservative Members know that what I say is true, but I believe that I see some of them nodding in assent.

The Government say teachers have choice and opportunity, but the Government have constantly undermined their freedom. Teachers feel undervalued and underpaid and have had no negotiating rights for years. The United Nations condemns the British Government for taking those rights away. Resources are short and getting shorter, books and equipment are lacking, hundreds of schools--possibly thousands--are crumbling due to lack of repairs, and the Government blithely deny it. The Government have received £100 million from North sea oil and gained another £30 billion to £50 billion by selling off the family silver. That money has been frittered away, instead of being used for education and kindred problems. Major and minor authorities up and down the country complain bitterly about the so-called local management of schools.

As hon. Members know, the Select Committee produced an important report on the lack of teachers, which the Conservative party would not accept at the time. Local management of schools means that large numbers of teachers have to leave the profession. When the Government talk about putting one body in front of each class, they should remember that, whereas there were often 30 or 40 applications for some of those posts, now there are only one, two or three and the school has to accept a teacher who may have no knowledge of the relevant subject, merely so as to put a body in front of the class. No previous British Government have ever engaged in such dogma or taken such a doctrinaire attitude. The assisted places scheme and the so-called city technology colleges are two methods of siphoning off millions of pounds of public money into semi-private education, which is private education by the back door. Any idea that a Labour Government would keep those systems is a dream. We shall not keep methods that have cost all that money, at the expense of others. City technology colleges that should have been paid for by private industry are being paid for by us, and the money is taken away from the rest of the education system.

It will be useful if I state how much money the assisted places scheme costs. In the first year, 1984-85, it cost £22

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million, in 1985-86 it cost £30 million, in 1986-87 it cost £38 million, in 1987-88 it cost £46 million, in 1988-89 it cost £51 million, and in 1989-90 it cost £59 million. That is £246 million spent on the assisted places scheme. That was public money spent for private education. The Government plan to spend another £62 million in 1990-91, £60 million in 1991 -92, £70 million in 1992-93--making a total of £438 million.

The Minister has been boasting about getting £500 million, as though that were wonderful. Do the Government know how much the assisted places scheme and the city technology colleges will cost? By 1993, they will have cost £625 million. The figure is steadily heading towards £1 billion. That is public money siphoned off from the education of 95 per cent. of our children. That is no way to run an education system for 95 per cent. of our children.

The education of the vast majority of our children is in the hands of people who never use the state education system. They can always boast that one or two of them did, but the reality is that they are the same people who would have destroyed our national health service, were it not for the struggle that we have put up, and they never use that service either. They do not understand what ordinary people need. Therefore, they are about to fall because of what they have done to our people--we have seen that coming this afternoon. The only real hope for this country's education system is to get rid of the Government so that we can work for the education of all our children. The Government have so little faith in the national curriculum that they do not even impose it in all private schools. The law does not say that such schools have to have it. We would put the national curriculum, which we think is good if looked into carefully, into private as well as state schools, to improve the whole of our education system.

7.54 pm

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest) : I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) and for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) for their excellent and erudite maiden speeches. I am sure that we shall hear more from them in future.

It is sad, particularly for people who wish to see standards raised throughout the British education system, to see the vacuous and hypocritical amendment tabled by the Labour party. The amendment was followed up by a speech by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) which did not contain one constructive idea about how to raise education standards in primary or secondary schools. The only major proposal he made was that he would vandalise the high standards now achieved by the grant- maintained schools by bringing them back into the local authority sector. He failed to recognise that, during the past 10 years, spending per pupil in Britain's schools has risen by 40 per cent.--twice as fast as the rate achieved under the last Labour Government, when spending rose by only 11 per cent.

The hon. Member for Knowsley, South spoke of the number of computers in primary and secondary schools, which is indicative of the sort of resources going into schools. Under the Conservative Government, teachers' pay has risen by 30 per cent. in real terms. Under the last Labour Government, it rose by only 4 per cent. in real terms. We have not heard much about training today, but

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the Government are spending three times more, after inflation, than was spent 10 years ago. We have the largest employment training scheme in Europe.

Opposition Members talk of a crisis in the education service, but the vast majority of teachers in our schools provide good education. I see that every time I go into schools in my constituency, and to say anything else is a gross calumny on their efforts. Between 1976 and 1988, the proportion of pupils who achieved five O-levels at grades A to C or more, rose from 23 to 30 per cent., the number of 16-year-olds continuing education, either at school or at further education establishments, rose from 42 to 56 per cent. The number of people attending full-time or part-time courses in higher education at present is at a record all-time high of 1 million. That is not prima facie evidence of a crisis of standards in our schools, albeit some of them need to be improved.

As evidence of the durability of the Government's reforms, the agenda is changing. Whereas the national curriculum was once opposed, we now hear those in the Labour party talk about the need for annual pupil appraisals ; whereas once the secret garden occupied by members of the educational establishment in the teaching profession was something that nobody could enter, now we hear about the need for statutory appraisal for teachers ; whereas open enrolment was once attacked, we now hear of the benefits of competition between schools.

During the passage of the Education Reform Bill, the Labour party attacked the local management of schools, but now many of its authorities, such as Birmingham, are in the forefront of bringing forward pilot schemes to ensure that the allocation of more resources is decided at school level, so achieving greater efficiency and involvement by parents and teachers, and thus higher standards. The Government recognise that increasing choice for parents and giving them greater control over how their schools are run will inevitably lead to higher standards. That choice is anathema to the Labour party which, as we have heard, wants to abolish

grant-maintained schools, strangle the independent sector and abolish the grammar schools, despite the fact that parents in Birmingham are forcing the Labour authority to set up another grammar school. The Opposition would like to abolish CTCs and have even called A-levels--the linchpin of educational standards for the past 30 years--into question.

I wish to offer two examples of how our reforms, leading to greater spending control at a local level, have led to higher standards. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Thornton) I am the chairman of a large comprehensive school--in my case in Birmingham. Since we achieved local management of schools, we have been able to increase the teaching force by two teachers and increase the equipment, tools and materials budget by no less than 50 per cent. in one year. I do not wish to discuss the success of grant-maintained schools in terms of academic results or statistics ; I want to discuss them on the basis of what I know from people who are daily involved in them. In Birmingham, the first midlands school to go grant-maintained was Baverstock--despite a campaign of vilification by the local education authority and its purblind governing body. Now, according to the headmaster, a school that used to be the local skinhead school, surrounded by competition in the

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shape of two former and one existing grammar school, has turned the corner and become a place which provides proper education and marvellous opportunity.

Grant-maintained status has benefited the school ; it has six more staff members than it did when under the education authority. It has a new science technician and even a new school nurse. Every teacher who wants to go for in-service training--teachers pay for it out of the school's budget- -can do so. The school has increased its equipment, tools and materials budget by four times. Whereas before it was grossly under-subscribed, a sink school to which no one wanted to go, there are now 400 applications a year for 240 places. Most importantly, whereas before the school had babysitters foisted on it--people who took over from absent teachers--now there are 20 applications for every science post that the school advertises for one week only in The Times Educational Supplement.

Given the parental involvement and improved standards made possible by grant-maintained status at Baverstock school, without extra resources and in a deprived area of Birmingham, I should have thought that the Labour party would embrace the idea as one that gives hope to people who could not otherwise attain high educational standards. Instead, the Opposition reject it out of hand.

It is a matter of regret that so far only 44 grant-maintained schools have been set up. I am sure that there will be more and the Government should consider reforms under which governing bodies, after a positive vote to opt out by parents, would have a statutory duty to co-operate with the opting- out procedure, instead of seeking to delay it, as has happened so often.

Greater devolution for education and the higher standards that it brings hold lessons for our national curriculum. Although it is good that more 16- year-olds are staying on at school and that more people are achieving higher standards than ever before in GCSE, there are still anxieties in many urban schools, such as the one that I chair, about the fact that truancy rates of 14 and 15-year-olds, particularly less able pupils, remain high. In our school we have a clear policy of providing BTEC courses, oriented to the world of work and therefore seen as more relevant by less able pupils.

I was glad to hear the previous Secretary of State say in Norwich on 20 October that he was looking at developing policies of more vocational qualifications after the age of 16. There is a strong case for developing BTEC qualifications to run alongside the national curriculum for less able pupils after the age of 14. I hope that the Government will give that serious consideration.

Finally, I make a plea to the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. There is a strong case for giving greater tax relief to people who provide training out of their own

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman must leave it there.

8.4 pm

Mr. Gerry Steinberg (City of Durham) : As we are all aware, the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act became law early in 1987 and at the time the Government insisted that it was a temporary measure, but it has been extended year by year to 1991. The Government were condemned in May

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1988 by the International Labour Organisation for denying teachers their negotiating rights. They have not complied with international law and they have flouted international conventions that they ratified. During the period in which the interim advisory committee has been in operation, and certainly by the end of March 1990, teachers' pay had increased by 2.5 per cent. less than inflation, and a teacher at the top of the main professional grade was more than £400 a year worse off. During the existence of the IAC the pay scale of a teacher at the top of the main professional grade, with an allowance, will have increased by almost 14 per cent. less than the increase in average earnings.

Is not this one of the major reasons why we have a shortage of teachers? A detailed survey of vacancies carried out by the six main teaching unions made it clear that schools have about 10,000 vacancies, yet still the Government will not listen. The Secretary of State refused to listen even before he had sat down at his new desk--for that matter, before he knew where it was. We all know that graduates are not opting for teaching as a career in anything like the numbers needed. Only by removing the IAC and giving teachers back their negotiating rights can the restraints on them be lifted. The patience of teachers is almost ready to explode, and their morale is at its lowest for years. Proposals in the Gracious Speech to introduce a Bill to establish permanent negotiating arrangements covering teachers' pay and conditions will be very much welcomed, but to be a success any Bill must restore direct pay bargaining between employer and employee. Before I congratulate the Government too much, I want to study the Bill carefully, because I suspect that it will contain a number of stings in the tail.

However quickly teachers get back their negotiating rights, like everything else in this country education and training are in a dreadful mess, thanks to 11 years of this Government. In the 1990s Britain spends less of its national wealth on education than it did in 1979. We are in danger of becoming the worst educated and trained nation in Europe. Beyond the age of 16, Britain's young people have half the opportunities for high-quality education and training that their counterparts in West Germany, the United States and Japan enjoy. That is a disgrace.

Good quality training and education are the best ways of building a flexible and effective work force with high levels of skills which enable everyone to reach his or her full potential. Of all the imbalances in our country, no deficit is more damaging than the gap between the need for and the supply of modern skills. Just one third of 17-year-olds stayed on in full-time education in 1988, compared with two thirds in most European countries.

The amount spent by the Government on training 16 to 19-year-olds is to be cut by £159 million between now and 1992. Surely this is a chance to expand quality, not to make savings. If the Government continue this policy, more opportunities will be lost.

Although 16 to 19-year-olds are undoubtedly the most neglected group in the education system, the problem is wider than that and begins with the basic entitlement to education. Every child should be entitled to pre-school education. Nursery education gives youngsters a good

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start in life, and after nursery school the under-fives are better prepared both educationally and socially for primary school. Tragically, less than a quarter of Britain's three and four-year- olds get a chance of a place in a nursery school. Fortunately, in my local education authority area of Durham we have a good record because more than 40 per cent. of our children have nursery places. Each year that is increasing, because the county has seen the necessity for such education. Over the next three years there will be a great expansion of nursery provision.

Four-year-olds are being admitted early to primary school, but as a recent HMI report on the education of children under five states : "Children under 5 in nursery schools and classes generally receive a broader, better balanced education than those in primary classes." Nursery education is the answer, but the Government refuse to promote it. It is left to Labour- controlled local education authorities to advance the cause of nursery provision. A child in a Labour area has twice the chance of a nursery place than a child in any other area. However, it is no longer enough to rely on the whim and the good will of local education authorities. We need a strategy to increase the opportunity for quality education for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want it. There is nothing in the Gracious Speech to improve that situation.

Half Britain's children are educated in sub-standard accommodation. For a quarter of them the buildings are so bad that Her Majesty's inspectorate says that the children's education is suffering. The previous Secretary of State for Education's £500 million so-called victory means that each school might just get an extra coat of paint. We need between £3.5 billion and £4 billion just to put schools in the right condition. My local education authority in Durham needs £50 million for necessary repairs to schools in the area. This year, only emergency repairs will be carried out because the authority is so short of finance.

I should like to read from the minutes of a governors' meeting at a school in Neville's Cross in Durham. The minutes were sent to me and they state under general comments :

"It was agreed that efforts should be made to have the high ceilings decorated, and the plastering work, carried out professionally. We could then seek the services of volunteers to paint the classrooms etc. and attempt to obtain the paint at favourable rates, free it possible.

Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. Fenwick and myself would like to thank wholeheartedly Mr. Hudson and other members of staff who have given up their holidays to redecorate their classrooms. We would like the Governors to record this appreciation."

Where is education going when teachers have to come into schools during their holidays to carry out decorating? That is a dreadful state of affairs.

Her Majesty's inspectorate recently said that 30 per cent. of our children receive a sub-standard education. The Prime Minister's response was that 70 per cent. were therefore okay. That is a dreadful and uncaring response of the sort that we have come to expect from the Government. The next Labour Government will repeal the opting-out clauses of the Education Reform Act 1988 and will return all such schools, along with CTCs, to the local education authorities. That will start to cut the privilege that the Government so readily hand out. We also need to amend the local managers scheme so that local education authorities can plan more easily the distribution of the resources that are needed and will be needed. It is plain

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that at present the system favours the big and already better financed schools, although that is still not saying much for the resources.

On my way here on the train this morning, I read an incredible little article in the Daily Mirror . The heading was "Schools Kept Going by Raffles." The article states :

"Teachers and parents with kids at Britain's hard-pressed schools are learning about a new version of the three R's raffles, raising money and redecorating. They are digging more and more into their own pockets to help schools starved of cash by local councils." It is incredible that teachers have to spend more time trying to raise money than they spend teaching our kids. That is disgraceful. There can be little argument about the importance of raising education and training opportunities and standards for 16 to 19-year-olds. In Britain it is the norm to leave school at 16. It should be the norm to obtain as many qualifications as possible. The number of 16 and 18-year-olds in full-time education or college-based training must be doubled and opportunities widened, thereby increasing the number of youngsters with access to higher education. While the Government speak of doubling the numbers in higher education in 25 years, they reverse direction

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sorry to have to stop the hon. Gentleman. It is amazing that I have had to call so many hon. Members to order this evening. There is just half a minute left once the digital clock changes.

8.16 pm

Sir David Mitchell (Hampshire, North-West) : As a preliminary to what I wish to say about education, I should like to speak about the benefits of choice and competition. Ten years ago, our internal air services were a British Airways monopoly and the service was known as the shuttle. It was utilitarian in the extreme. There were no meals, tea, coffee or papers. Then we licensed British Midland to fly in competition with British Airways. That gave choice to the user and ended the British Airways monopoly. Overnight, the shuttle service died and in its place was born super-shuttle. On that service passengers receive a newspaper when they arrive. There is a hot breakfast, free tea, coffee and drinks throughout the day and passengers count as people of importance.

Five years ago, buses were utilitarian, moribund local monopolies. There were shrinking services, huge subsidies and no innovation. At that time no one outside Exeter had seen a minibus. We deregulated and introduced competition. Costs tumbled, services improved, and minibuses appeared in countless towns all over Britain. That was innovation for the benefit of the customer.

A year ago, the doctors' new contract provided for per capita pay. The more patients a doctor had, the more he was paid. That was the start of competition in the national health service. Now the average doctor spends four hours a week more with the sick, the elderly and the dying than he did a year ago, and 75 per cent. of doctors have started or increased preventive health clinics.

Choice and competition put suppliers of goods and services on their toes and they constantly seek to improve the standard of what they provide. Choice and competition are the great motivators for improving the lot of the customer, the user and the consumer. However, when choice and competition are proposed there is opposition from the monopolists. The workers, the

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unions and their political friends and the owners and management all fiercely defend the retention of the status quo and oppose the opportunity for competition. Every ingenious argument is produced, and withering scorn is poured on those who dare to attack the concept of a continuing monopoly.

If courage is shown and the monopoly is challenged, the benefits to the user are immense. That leads me to my argument that choice and competition is a valuable aid to education. We now have or will soon have the national curriculum defining what a child ought to know. We have testing at the ages of seven, 11, 14 and 16 to monitor whether a child knows the subjects that he or she is studying. That also provides an opportunity for extra teaching and coaching where such a need is shown to exist. There are objective data for comparing one school with another and there is parental choice. We do not yet have enough state schools offering free state education but run independently of the local education authority monopoly. We need more of these grant-maintained schools. In practice, they have substantial benefits such as more cash under the control of the governors ; on average some 15 per cent. more.

I have here a tale of administrative overheads. There is a dramatic difference between those in the private sector and those in the public sector. Hampshire is one of the better counties in terms of its costs and overheads, but over one third of the staff employed by the local education authority are not employed in teaching--a fact that is both unbelievable and staggering. The private sector in education would have nothing remotely like that proportion taken up by non-teaching personnel. Grant-maintained status would also give governors the opportunity to trim their overheads and have a higher proportion of their staff as teaching staff.

Grant-maintained status will also give governors greater freedom of action, will improve teacher numbers and ensure self-management by staff and governors who are answerable to parents. I pay a tribute to the teachers in my constituency who are exceedingly professional. I have great respect for the standard of their dedication. Many of the schools in my constituency are so good that they would stand up well in a fully competitive system as grant-maintained schools.

Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South) : How many have opted out?

Sir David Mitchell : I am coming to that. It is wholly desirable to raise standards, using the spur of choice and competition. Already, applications for school places in grant-maintained schools have increased by 40 per cent. That is a sign of parental confidence in the system.

I come now to the point that was half raised in a seated intervention. I warn any who seek to follow this path that they will need as much political courage as those who have tackled other monopolies and secured large benefits elsewhere. Experience teaches that there will be fierce condemnation at county level, just as unscrupulous, ingenious and determined as any in industry in which we have broken monopolies. Even officials, who should be neutral in this matter, leaving policy to be made by the elected representatives of the people in the country, will in many cases be directly involved in campaigns of twisting arms of governors and frightening parents to ensure that a school does not go down that road.

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Should a school go down that road, what huge benefits there will be for the children and for the standard of education.

Grant-maintained status will ensure that those concerned will have in their own hands the management of the school, which will be answerable to the parents and which will set standards that will be higher than those anywhere else.

8.22 pm

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