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House of Commons

Tuesday 25 June 1991

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. Speaker-- in the Chair ]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

Llanelli Borough Council (Dafen Estuary) Bill

[Lords] Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.

Read the Third time, and passed.

Cattewater Reclamation Bill

London Local Authorities Bill

[Lords]

As amended, considered ; to be read the Third time.

Greater Manchester (Light Rapid Transit System) (No. 4) Bill

[Lords]

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Teachers

1. Mr. Bellingham : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to raise the status and professionalism of teachers ; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) : The Government are committed to raising the status and professionalism of teachers. Our proposals to establish an independent review body for teachers' pay and conditions are intended to reinforce this. The end of collective bargaining and poor industrial relations in education will raise still further the esteem in which the teaching profession is held.

Mr. Bellingham : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that teachers need greater status and more public esteem? Is he aware that recently I met members of the National Union of Teachers from my constituency who told me that they had made various representations to him? Can he comment on those representations and on his reply?

Mr. Clarke : I have repeatedly confirmed that it is necessary to build up the public esteem and the self-esteem of the profession. I have had discussions with NUT representatives and heard their ideas. I have mainly discussed the pay review body with them and have sought to persuade them that its establishment will enable them to build up a career structure for their members and enable their members to be rewarded in the light of the advice of

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an independent body. It will also turn us away from the history of bad relations which has damaged the public reputation of the profession.

The other five trade unions are quite satisfied--as I believe, are the majority of NUT members. The introduction of the pay review body will be a valuable step forward for the profession.

Sir Rhodes Boyson : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one way to raise the status and morale of teachers is to ensure that every curriculum committee set up by his Department has on it a majority of practising teachers, rather than advisers and organisers who live far away from the scene?

Mr. Clarke : It is important that there should be active and practising teachers on all these bodies and, most important of all, that the bodies pay particular attention to all the advice that they receive from practising teachers, but it is going a bit far to say that practising teachers must be in the majority. Apart from anything else, there is always a danger in thinking that all teachers agree on these matters. My right hon. Friend will know as well as I do that the more teachers one talks to, the more one realises that there is a wide range of opinion in the profession about the best methods of testing and assessing children.

Mr. Skinner : Is the Secretary of State aware that the status and professionalism of teachers would be increased if the Government got off their backs, stopped attacking their pay claims and stopped interfering, while allowing the heads of privatised industries to make money hand over fist? One of them had a pay increase of 66 per cent.

Mr. Speaker : Order. The hon. Member is miles wide of the question.

Mr. Skinner : Let us have less of the double standards. If the Government can turn a blind eye to such pay increases for chairmen of privatised industries, they can get off the teachers' backs.

Mr. Clarke : I do not approve of the scale of some of the pay rises in the private sector, but neither am I responsible for them. We have implemented the advice of the independent advisory committee which gives all teachers a 9.5 per cent. increase this year and head teachers and deputy head teachers 12.75 per cent. this year. That is far greater than the usual pay increase for the vast majority of people or for those in the public sector. It is right that teachers should have that increase because of the work that they are putting in at the moment and because of the regard in which we hold them.

Speech Therapy

2. Mr. Thurnham : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he has taken to estimate how many statemented children require speech therapy ; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Michael Fallon) : The identification of the special educational needs of children is the responsibility of local education authorities. Centrally held statistics on children's statements of special educational needs do not break them down by type of learning difficulty.

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Mr. Thurnham : Does my hon. Friend accept the appeal court judgment in the Lancashire case that schools now have a duty to provide speech therapy and rather than its being left to the discretion of the local authority?

Mr. Fallon : Yes. I recently made it clear that if speech therapy is prescribed for educational reasons, local education authorities are under a duty to provide it ; if health authorities which are asked to arrange it are unable to do so, the local education authorities must provide it.

Mr. Tom Clarke : Is the Minister not concerned about the report issued yesterday by Mencap, which said that arrangements for children with learning difficulties leave a lot to be desired, including those for speech therapy and the problems of young people when they leave special schools after the age of 19? Does the Minister have any proposals to deal with the views of Mencap and others?

Mr. Fallon : As the hon. Gentleman will know, local education authorities have a clear duty under the Education Act 1981 to ensure that the provision statemented for such children is made and that the necessary resources are provided. My Department is working with the Department of Health to secure better deployment of, among others, speech therapists.

Sir Bernard Braine : Surely my hon. Friend is aware that there is considerable concern in many constituencies--and certainly in mine--at the lack of information about the number of children who need to be statemented. Has he made any estimates of the number of speech therapists required to meet what many of us know to be a real need?

Mr. Fallon : My right hon. Friend is right. The number of speech therapists has nearly doubled, from 1,510 in 1979 to 2,810 in 1989, but we are working with the Department of Health to secure better deployment of speech therapists, to make greater use of assistant speech therapists, and to promote more even professional practice among local education authorities.

Pre-school Places

3. Mr. Harry Barnes : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to ensure that every three and four-year-old has the opportunity of a pre-school place.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Tim Eggar) : It is for local authorities to determine the extent and forof their provision for these children.

Mr. Barnes : Why is it that the top 15 providers of nursery education for three to four-year-olds are all Labour authorities, which provide more than 70 per cent. of places, whereas of the 15 authorities providing the least nursery education for three to four-year-olds, one has no overall control and the other 14 are all Conservative controlled? How do the Government intend to ensure that Conservative local authorities live up to their obligations and make use of the available funds for nursery education?

Mr. Eggar : One of the reasons why Labour authorities have provided nursery education is that the Government have made available considerable funds for them to do just that. The hon. Gentleman should know that there are now 150,000 more three and four-year-olds in school than there

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were 10 years ago. This year alone, we have increased the amount that we make available to local authorities to spend on nursery education by £140 million. That is our record.

Mr. Dunn : Is my hon. Friend aware that the Labour party claims that universal nursery provision can be met by the abolition of the city technology college programme? Is he also aware that that would raise only £15 million, whereas the cost of universal nursery provision would be more than £1.5 billion? Is there not a strong case for giving the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) remedial maths tuition?

Mr. Eggar : There are many other good reasons for giving the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) remedial mathematics tuition. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A month ago, I asked the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) whether she was prepared to state from the Labour Front Bench that the Labour party was committed to introducing universal nursery education and, if so, whether she would get the endorsement of the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett). We have had nothing but silence from the hon. Lady on the issue. She owes the House and the country an explanation of what her spending plans are.

Ms. Armstrong : May we have a commitment from the Government about their determination, or otherwise, to offer young children the chance of a nursery place, which is seen as a right in many other European countries? Do the Government support nursery education?

Mr. Eggar : We have made our position clear. There are 150,000 more children in nursery education than there were when the Labour party was in power, and we have made an extra £140 million available for nursery education this year compared with last year. That is a record of which we are rightly proud.

Primary Testing

4. Mr. Viggers : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a further statement on the testing of children at the age of seven years.

Mr. Eggar : The first national tests for seven-year-olds in English, mathematics and science are now complete and a full evaluation is under way.

Mr. Viggers : Can my hon. Friend confirm that the tests are meant not to be competitive between pupils but on the contrary, to provide a most useful appraisal of their skills in reading, writing, arithmetic and basic science so that their future education can be planned in each case?

Mr. Eggar : I can certainly confirm that. The tests are diagnostic and are intended to identify the strengths and weaknesses of seven-year-old pupils so that teachers, pupils and parents can work together to remedy weaknesses and further to strengthen the strengths.

Mr. Fatchett : Is it not clear from this year's tests that the assessment system told teachers little new about the children in their charge, involved a great deal of teacher and student time, diverted attention from other children in the same class, and cost the taxpayer a great deal of money for Government experimentation? Against that background, would it not have been sensible for the Minister,

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to avoid the embarrassment and criticism that he faced at the headteachers' conference, to take the advice given to him by his right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) and to listen, for once, to the advice coming from teachers and to use the expertise of individual teachers, rather than simply going ahead with a scheme based on the Government's own misplaced and outdated ideology?

Mr. Eggar : I was under the possible misapprehension that the Labour party was committed to raising standards in education and to external testing of children at age seven, 11, 14 and 16. If Labour Members have changed their tune, they had better say so publicly.

Mr. David Shaw : Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the main purposes of the tests is to test the effectiveness and quality of the education provided by local authorities, by the teachers, and by the governing bodies which run our schools, whereas under the last Labour Government there was no effective monitoring of the quality of education in schools?

Mr. Eggar : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The national curriculum makes it clear what we want children to be taught. Assessment and testing, which are integral to the national curriculum, are the only way available in which to assess whether pupils have learnt what has been taught.

Student Loans

5. Mr. Canavan : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many representations he has received this year about the student loan scheme.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Alan Howarth) : I have received very few letters about loans this year. The scheme has been successfully set up and is running smoothly. More than 180,000 students have so far applied for loans.

Mr. Canavan : Is the Minister aware that many students find it difficult to continue their studies due to poverty resulting from the introduction of the student loan scheme and the first ever freezing of student grants from this autumn, together with the Government's decision to stop students receiving housing benefit and their disqualification from receiving income support and hardship allowance during the summer vacation? Bearing in mind that the unit administration costs of the loan scheme are more than double the Government's original estimate, is it not about time the Government realised the error of their ways, scrapped the disastrous loan scheme and replaced it with a far fairer system of student grants?

Mr. Howarth : The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that the combined uprated grant and the new loan will increase student support by 25 per cent. this year. If students were facing the kind of hardship that the hon. Gentleman suggests, it would be very odd if student numbers continued to expand as quickly as they are expanding now. Applications through the Universities Central Council on Admissions and the Polytechnics central admissions system are up 8 per cent. this year. The loan to which each student is entitled, which this year is £420 outside London, is appreciably more than the average benefit claimed, which we estimate at £327. With

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regard to the costs of running the system, it is absurd to suggest that the initial establishment costs, which are an investment for the whole life of the scheme, should be a measure of the costs per account of each individual student loan. Obviously, as the number of students taking out loans steadily increases, as is happening now, the unit cost per account will steadily decline.

Mr. Pawsey : Can my hon. Friend confirm that in 1979 one in eight of our young people were in advanced education while today's figure is one in five? Can he also confirm that more than 1 million of our young people are in advanced education and that enrolments increased last year by 10 per cent? Does he agree that those figures vindicate the Government's position with respect to advanced education?

Mr. Howarth : My hon. Friend is right. He draws attention to an expansion of personal opportunity and a change in our society of the first order of importance, comparable in importance with the expansion of home ownership over which the Government are presiding.

Mr. Andrew Smith : Will the Minister confirm that among the representations that he has received were representations from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals drawing his attention to the fact that, on the basis of an extensive survey, the unit cost to institutions of issuing the certificates under the student loans scheme is running at £7 per certificate, compared with the £3.50 that the institutions are reimbursed by the Student Loans Company? Will the Minister instruct the company to reimburse the institutions fairly for the administration costs, especially as the banks were to be paid a £12.50 handling charge before they pulled out of the scheme? Or is higher education to be short changed yet again, as it has been so disgracefully by the Government's refusal to compensate institutions for the increase in value added tax?

Mr. Howarth : The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right.

Representations have been made to us that the reimbursement of administrative costs provided by the Student Loans Company might be increased. We are, of course, considering those representations. There has been a wide diversity of administrative practice across the range of higher education institutions and a wide diversity of costs. We shall look to reimburse institutions on the basis of the most efficient practice.

Mr. Amos : Does my hon. Friend agree that as the student loans scheme has enabled more students to enter higher education this year, and as students do not have to repay the loan until the year after they have graduated and at a zero real rate of interest, that is a very good deal for students and can in no way be construed as depriving them of the opportunity to enter higher education?

Mr. Howarth : My hon. Friend very fairly points out that the student loans scheme is a humane and practical scheme which offers students additional support well above the previous level of support and at a zero real rate of interest. Students only have to repay in real terms the money that they borrowed in the first place. That contrasts interestingly with the terms offered by the banks. It has been rather gratifying that the banks have responded to the stimulus of the competition provided by the Student Loans Company by offering relatively advantageous

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borrowing terms to students while they are studying. However, the repayment terms compare very unfavourably with the repayment terms under our scheme.

Schools (Repair and Maintenance)

6. Mr. Ronnie Campbell : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to deal with the backlog of repair and maintenance in schools ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Fallon : Support for recurrent spending on education, including repairs and maintenance, totals £17.5 billion this year, an increase of 16 per cent. over the comparable total for last year. Annual capital guidelines for schools total £472 million, an increase of 15 per cent. on last year. It is for individual local education authorities and school governors to determine their expenditure priorities within their total resources.

Mr. Campbell : Is the Minister aware that the Northumberland education authority has accrued a repair bill of £10 billion during the lifetime of this Government? [Interruption.] I am sorry-- £10 million. Is the Minister further aware that school teachers in the county of Northumberland have been given plastic buckets to catch rain coming in through school roofs?

Mr. Fallon : I am aware of the problems of Northumberland education authority, including its difficulties with timber-framed structures. That is why we have increased Northumberland's capital guideline from £1.9 million last year to £3.5 million this year.

Mr. Dover : Is the Minister aware that the best plan that he ever had to clear the backlog of repairs was to have local management of schools and to enable schools to look forward to the opting-out system? It is only when schools have control of their own funds that they can do the repairs that they badly need to have done.

Mr. Fallon : My hon. Friend is quite right. Giving schools their own budgets is the fastest way of ensuring that money allocated for schools is actually spent on schools. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that the average amount being held back per pupil this year is £230. That is the local education authority tax on every pupil, which is being spent on so-called central services when it could be spent in the classroom.

Mr. Matthew Taylor : The Minister knows that in allocating funds to local authorities for school building programmes there are real problems in areas such as my own, with aging Victorian schools, particularly primary schools, without school halls and without inside toilets. Year after year, those schools have not been getting funds because they are third in the order of priorities and therefore the problem has never been tackled. Again, last year, we had £6 million to spend and £100 million problem growing, so there was another year of decline. Will the Minister tackle that problem? When will he conclude his review of the minimum standards for school building, or is he planning to cut them and wait until after the general election to admit it?

Mr. Fallon : I understand the problems of local education authorities in areas such as that which the hon. Gentleman represents. That is why we have ensured an overall increase of 15 per cent. in schools' capital and a

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specific 50 per cent. increase in the capital category specially allocated for improvement and replacement work, which this year has gone up by 50 per cent. to £109 million.

Mr. Devlin : I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) that local management of schools is the best way to deal with the backlog of repairs. Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that in Cleveland, the LEA has let three-year contracts to the direct labour organisation for all school maintenance and repairs? That has been done on a cost-neutral basis to frustrate the Government's policy of delegating budgets to schools. What does the Minister intend to do about that?

Mr. Fallon : I can assure my hon. Friend that we are going to do something about that. The contracts were entered into before local management of schools began. As soon as each of those contracts expires, the amount concerned must be delegated down to the head and the governors, who we believe are able to arrange maintenance and repairs much more cost effectively than can be achieved by the local education authority through its direct labour organisation.

Mr. Straw : In a recent magazine interview, the Secretary of State said :

"I don't believe the figure of a £3 to £4 billion backlog of repairs",

and described that figure as "campaigning nonsense". As that figure was based on his own Department's survey of school buildings, will the Minister say what the correct figure is, or does he not know?

Mr. Fallon : In the four years since that survey was carried out, £2 billion has already been spent in clearing the backlog. The amount spent on repairs and maintenance per pupil has risen from £28 in 1979 to £64 in 1989--a real terms increase of about 20 per cent.

Literacy and Numeracy

7. Mr. Speller : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his estimate of literacy and numeracy levels at 16 years of age (a) nationally and (b) in the south-west ; and what were the comparable rates 30, 20 and 10 years ago.

Mr. Eggar : Information is not available in the form or over the period requested. However, GCSE results in English and mathematics indicate a welcome improvement in pupil performance since the examination was introduced in 1988.

Mr. Speller : Does my hon. Friend agree that it is disappointing that we do not have the figures to work on? What is he doing to improve standards of literacy and numeracy, which are perceived by the general public to be lower rather than higher as the years go by?

Mr. Eggar : I understand my hon. Friend's point, which is why we introduced the national curriculum and insist on rigorous external tests for those aged seven, 11, 14 and 16. That is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State announced that he was looking into how the teaching of reading is taught to teachers on training courses. That, and a number of other measures are

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designed to improve standards of numeracy and literacy, and the way reading, writing and arithmetic are taught in schools.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell : Does my hon. Friend accept that, although the statistics are not readily available at present, his recent decision to oblige schools to publish, in common form, their public examination results will produce that information, which will be widely welcomed by parents, many teachers and many schools?

Mr. Eggar : I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and congratulate him on his ten-minute Bill, which added a spur to our efforts to ensure that the measures I announced a few days ago would be introduced.

Primary Schools, Staffordshire

9. Mr. Knox : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how much was spent per pupil at primary schools in Staffordshire in the most recent year for which figures are available ; and what was the comparable figure in 1978-79, at constant prices.

Mr. Fallon : Staffordshire spent £1,050 per nursery and primary pupil in 1988-89, the latest year for which information is available. On the same price basis, Staffordshire spent £815 per nursery and primary pupil in 1978-79. Therefore, Staffordshire's spending per nursery and primary pupil in 1988-89 was some 29 per cent. higher in real terms than in 1978-79.

Mr. Knox : Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures refute absolutely Opposition charges of underfunding primary school education in Staffordshire since the Government came to office?

Mr. Fallon : Yes, absolutely. The Staffordshire figures clearly demonstrate the Government's continuing commitment to funding the education service and the substantial increases that have taken place over a 10-year period.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : On the question of primary school funding in Staffordshire, if it is the Government's policy to cut taxes, how much will have to be cut from the Department of Education and Science budget? Perhaps the Minister can relate those cuts to his proposed expenditure in Staffordshire in future.

Mr. Fallon : The hon. Gentleman might not have noticed that, at the same time as increasing education spending, we have reduced the direct rate of taxation. That is in direct contrast to the Labour party policy which would tax teachers more heavily than they are taxed at present.

Reading Standards

10. Mr. Andrew F. Bennett : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he will be responding to the Education, Science and Arts Committee's third report of Session 1990-91 on standards of reading in primary schools.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : Soon, Sir.

Mr. Bennett : I am sure that the Secretary of State would agree that if we want children to learn to read quickly and efficiently, one of the key components is for teachers to listen to their pupils while they read. Has the Minister

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considered the problem of organising lessons so that teachers can listen to 30 pupils reading in class, one after the other? Does he accept that many teachers have found it extremely difficult to fulfil that commitment during the past six or seven weeks while also carrying out the testing of seven-year-olds?

Mr. Clarke : I entirely accept that it is important that teachers listen to individual pupils reading. That is a key part of the tests for seven-year-olds that have just been carried out. I agree that we have had representations from teachers about the difficulties of managing that exercise and many schools have had to employ supply teachers while that is being done. We shall take all representations carefully into account when deciding on the form of next year's tests for seven-year-old but we cannot give up arrangements whereby each pupil reads to his or her teacher if we are to ensure that reading standards are of the required level in primary schools.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that primary school children's reading is greatly facilitated if they have an opportunity to attend a nursery school? Does he recall the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), when junior Education Minister, saying that nursery education was not a high priority and that the Labour Government would not increase funding to it?

Mr. Clarke : For many years, successive Governments have not been able to insist on the provision of universal nursery education because the cost is very high. However, I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the experience in Wandsworth, where the local education authority is funded on the same basis as other inner London boroughs but is able to provide nursery education for all three and four-year-olds who want it because of the sensible way in which it has organised the finances of the remainder of its education provision.

Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation

12. Mr. Gerald Howarth : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to ensure that school children have a proper understanding of grammar, spelling and punctuation ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : We are progressively implementing the national curriculum requirements for English. Spelling will be taken into account in the marking of GCSE examinations in 1991 in the usual way. I am awaiting advice from the School Examinations and Assessment Council about what additional steps can be taken in public examinations in 1992 and in subsequent years. In my opinion, the teaching of grammar and the correction of spelling and grammatical errors will resume their proper place in the classroom if they are known to be relevant to the marking of public examinations.

Mr. Howarth : My right hon. and learned Friend's remarks are welcome. Is he aware that a survey conducted in Birmingham by City 2000 found that there was widespread concern among employers in the city at the poor basic quality of skills in grammar, spelling and punctuation, particularly among support staff? Does he agree that, with the apostrophe being subjected to the most intolerable abuse and split infinitives everywhere, the

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biggest favour that we can do young people today is to give them a thorough knowledge of the form and structure of the wonderful English language?

Mr. Clarke : My hon. Friend's description of the experience of employers and others in the west midlands is borne out by the experience of many other people, who feel that standards of spelling and grammatical use of English in this country have been deteriorating in recent years. It is important that we restore those standards and express parts of the English national curriculum will enable us to do just that.

Mrs. Margaret Ewing : Does the Secretary of State accept from someone who has trained as a learning support teacher that, where children are diagnosed through the correct administration of diagnostic testing, the urgent need throughout the education system is to ensure that resourcing is made available and that every primary school has access to a learning support teacher to enable children to cope with the difficulties that they experience?

Mr. Clarke : I am grateful for the hon. Lady's support of what she calls diagnostic testing and the need, after such testing, to help particular children, which is the basis of our current policy. It is also important that all schools are properly resourced, but all the evidence, including that from Her Majesty's inspectorate, shows that there is no direct correlation between the resourcing of a school and standards of performance in reading, spelling, grammar, and so on. Well-organised classes are required and they are achieved in well-resourced as well as less well-resourced schools. Organisation is the key to the whole subject.

Mr. Allason : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, although grammar, spelling and punctuation are extraordinarily important, they are also sometimes indicative of learning difficulties in a particular area? Does he accept that Devon, although not apparently an area of difficulty, has special problems and that some parts of Devon might be classified as areas of social deprivation? Will he bear that in mind when he considers the grant for next year?

Mr. Clarke : In distributing grant to local education authorities we must take a variety of matters into account, including social deprivation. I have no doubt that we shall continue to do so when we make allocations to Devon and other counties this year. Again, success or otherwise in teaching children to read does not seem to be closely related to the children's social deprivation. There are some extremely successful schools in deprived areas and less successful schools in affluent areas. That is why it is so important to get the method of teaching, the curriculum and the testing system right, which is what the Government are doing.

Mr. Hain : Does the Secretary of State accept that his words amount to no more than hot air? The reality is of attacks on teachers, attacks on school budgets as local management of schools bites, attacks on standards and the undermining of education standards. When he leaves office he will leave a legacy that amounts to nothing more than criminal neglect.

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