| Home Page |
Column 795
House of Commons
Tuesday 28 January 1992
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker-- in the Chair ]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
Avon Weir Bill
[Lords]
Read a Second time, and committed.
Crossrail Bill
King's Cross Railways (No. 2) Bill
Ordered for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday next.
Oral Answers to Questions
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
Education and Training
1. Mr. Sayeed : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the proportion of 16 and 17-year-olds in full-time education or training in (a) 1979 and (b) the most recent year for which figures are available.
The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Tim Eggar) : There has been a dramatic improvement in staying-on rates since 1979. In 1989-90, 75 per cent. of 16-year-olds participated in full- time education or youth training schemes, compared to 46 per cent. in 1979- 80. Corresponding figures for 17-year-olds were 58 and 29 per cent. respectively. If part-time provision is included, the figures rise to 86 per cent. of 16-year-olds in 1989-90.
Mr. Sayeed : Does my hon. Friend agree that assessing ability only in terms of academic achievement sells young people short? Is not one reason for the remarkable increase in the number of young people in training--from 6,000 in 1979 to 260,000 today--the fact that we have returned to the common-sense recognition that vocational training is of considerable value and more closely reflects the abilities of many young people? Will my hon. Friend explain how national vocational qualifications help vocational training?
Mr. Eggar : I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is terribly important that this country takes vocational training seriously. We need to motivate young people, whatever their aptitude or ability, to acquire further qualifications if we are to have a competitive and well-motivated work force in the 1990s and the next century. National vocational qualifications are a critical element in motivating youngsters and ensuring that their achievements are recognised rapidly.
Column 796
Mr. Skinner : Has the Minister considered whether it would make more sense if young men and women from working-class families who leave school at 16 or 17 and are thrown into slave labour schemes where they earn a little over £20 a week, but who want to stay on at school, could stay on and be paid a sum equivalent to what they would get on training schemes? As a result, they would be better educated and would not be thrown on the scrap heap.
Mr. Eggar : I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would apologise to the House for the last Labour Government's appalling record. In 1979, only 46 per cent. of youngsters stayed on in full-time educational training. That figure has now risen to some 86 per cent., which shows the Government's achievement. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that.
Mr. Anthony Coombs : Does my hon. Friend agree that the welcome improvement in staying-on rates may be related to the quality of education in schools? Is not it significant that the 10 authorities with the worst staying-on rates are all Labour controlled and that many of them also figure among the 20 authorities whose students have the worst GCSE results?
Mr. Eggar : I very much agree with my hon. Friend. It is extraordinary that the Labour party consistently complains about resources and other matters yet is not prepared to point the finger where is should be pointed--at the performance of Labour-controlled local education authorities, as evidenced in staying-on rates and examination results. The Labour party should worry more about the quality of education offered by the education authorities that it controls, rather than going through its political rhetoric.
School Buildings
2. Mr. John Evans : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has to enable local education authorities to improve the fabric of school buildings.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Michael Fallon) : We have provided £1.8 billion worth oannual capital guidelines and capital allocations to local education authorities and governors of voluntary-aided schools since 1990-91. It is for them to ensure that those substantial resources are used effectively.
Mr. Evans : Is the Minister aware that that sum will in no way meet the amount needed for the enormous backlog of repairs to schools in England, Wales and Scotland? Is he aware that in St. Helens, of the two bids submitted, £1 million was requested to meet health and safety requirements and £1 million was requested for essential repairs? The authority was allocated £587,000. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge, therefore, that a number of schools have not yet been made safe for pupils? Is not that disgraceful?
Mr. Fallon : I increased the allocation to St. Helens for improvement work from £311,000 last year to £556,000 this year. St. Helens' overall allocation was low because it did not bid for new places and put any proposals to tackle
Column 797
its serious surplus place problem. Some 6,900 surplus places exist there. That includes more than one quarter of secondary school desks, which are empty.Mr. Madel : Will my hon. Friend confirm that, when the Education (Schools) Bill becomes law, local education authorities will still have an absolute right to inspect the schools that they maintain, whenever they want to, so that they are always aware of the maintenance that needs to be done?
Mr. Fallon : Not to inspect schools, no, but LEAs will retain reserve powers to ensure that the budget delegated is managed appropriately. Under the Education Reform Act 1988, if an authority believes that a budget is mismanaged it has the ultimate power to withdraw it.
Mr. Loyden : The hon. Gentleman's suggestion that there is some relationship between surplus school buildings and the fabric of schools is nonsense. There are many surplus buildings in Liverpool, but that does not affect the way in which the local authority can carry out necessary improvements, particularly to inner-city schools.
Mr. Fallon : I was simply making the point that there is a cost in keeping a school desk empty--in St. Helens it amounts to about £1.5 million every year. It is perfectly open to LEAs to obtain higher capital allocations from my Department by putting forward sensible proposals to rationalise their school provision.
Standardised Testing
3. Mr. Amos : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the implementation of standardised testing in schools.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Clarke) : Testing is the key to raising standards in our schools by providing clear information about pupils' progress. Effective annual tests of seven- year-olds are already in place. Tests of 11, 14 and 16-year-olds will follow in the next three years.
Mr. Amos : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that last year's testing of seven-year olds showed that our schools need less play and more learning, less discovery and more teaching, less mixed ability and more setting, less child-centred education and more whole-class subject teaching? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the best way to raise standards in our schools is to provide more testing and to make the results of those tests publicly available--both of which the Labour party opposes?
Mr. Clarke : Yes, I certainly accept that. The results show an unacceptably wide difference between the performance of the very best and that of the very worst. They show that those tests have nothing to do with the amount spent per pupil in individual authority areas--some of the biggest spenders were right down at the bottom. They also show that results do not necessarily have anything to do with socio-economic circumstances or anything of that kind. I share my hon. Friend's belief that the answer lies in the sort of suggestions that he made and which have been revealed in the report of the three wise men.
Column 798
Mr. Flannery : Does the Secretary of State understand that the testing of seven-year-olds does not quite mean that? He needs to be more careful. An academic year has three terms and children enter school at various stages in that year. Many of the children who are tested are only six. The results over two to three years will include those for children who missed out two terms and who were tested before the age of seven--they will account for a large percentage of the results. The Secretary of State has got it completely wrong. Daily assessment has gone on for all these years, with tests occasionally being undertaken--that is a reality. If testing is to be done, it should be done properly. The test for seven-year olds should not include children who have not yet reached that age.
Mr. Clarke : First, the good news. I am delighted to hear my hon. Friend--[ Hon. Members :-- "Oh?"] I meant the hon. Gentleman, but he almost became my hon. Friend because of his grudging acceptance of the principle of testing. It is certainly true, as he says, that tests for seven-year-olds are a shorthand way of describing the progress of those at a particular stage. Some of them have spent more terms in schools than others--which must be borne in mind when looking at the position of an individual pupil--but all those factors even out in the local authorities. For example, the performance of the hon. Gentleman's authority, Sheffield, was markedly inferior to that of Rotherham, although the discrepancies of the sort that he described do not exist in those two authorities.
Mrs. Maureen Hicks : Do not we owe it to all our children, right across the country and irrespective of their primary schools, to identify their needs, strengths and weaknesses at an early age? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Labour party is a party of slow learners? Not only has the Labour party not realised that GCSE results at 16 in Labour-controlled authorities are some of the worst, but it has learnt nothing--it still opposes standardised testing from the age of seven.
Mr. Clarke : I agree that it is essential to get the basics of primary education right, because until a child has mastered them it has no possibility of gaining access to the rest of education. I agree also that it is absurd to suggest that there is anything wrong with national testing of pupils' progress at certain ages, both to inform parents and to inform localities about the performance of their schools. It is extraordinary that that has been resisted even before we have received the first results.
Mr. Straw : Is the Secretary of State aware that one of the most damning conclusions of the report on primary education which he published last week was the evidence that standards of reading among seven-year-olds have slumped since 1988, over precisely the period when Ministers have produced one change after another in the system of standardised testing for seven-year-olds? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman ashamed of that record--of the fact that the reading standards of seven-year-olds have slumped by up to five months? Is he ashamed of the fact that every month he has been in office reading standards of seven-year-olds have fallen? Why is it that the Government promised higher standards of education in 1979, 1983 and 1987 but the results of 13 years in office have been lower standards of education?
Mr. Clarke : I seem to recall that the hon. Gentleman was one of those who until recently persistently argued
Column 799
that standards in our schools were not falling and that he resisted pressure for changes in teaching methods and other ideas designed to correct the fall. He merely strengthens the conclusions of the three wise men, who think that there may have been some recent decline but who certainly did not atribute it to the national curriculum, as the hon. Gentleman did. They reject that argument.The hon. Gentleman has no evidence for asserting that standards have dropped month by month. If he is beginning to share the public anxiety about standards in our schools, he should be ashamed of himself for having resisted each and every reform that has been aimed at reversing the trend and improving them.
University Education
4. Mr. Darling : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of the population attended university education in (a) England and Wales and (b) Scotland in 1990-91.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Alan Howarth) : Separate age-participation indices for universities only are not calculated, nor are separate indices for England and Wales ; but taking higher education as a whole, provisional data for the 1990-91 academic year show that 19.3 per cent. of young people entered higher education in Great Britain compared with 26.5 per cent. in Scotland.
Mr. Darling : The hon. Gentleman might do well to remember that Great Britain includes Scotland. I think that he meant England and Wales for one part and Scotland for the other.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, given the higher participation rate in Scotland and the importance of the four-year degree there, it would be right to allocate proportionately more resources to the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council? If he does agree, how much more does he propose to allocate?
Mr. Howarth : The division of Universities Funding Council funding will be decided in due course in consultation with all the Departments concerned, but my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office, always a powerful advocate for Scottish interests, has said that Scotland will receive a fair share of those resources.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo : Does my hon. Friend agree that our achievements in that aspect of education could not be better illustrated than by that which pertains in Nottinghamshire, where the university now has the highest ratio of applications to available places and where Nottingham polytechnic, which is soon to be a university, is planning to increase its capacity over the next couple of years to 16,000 student places ? Is not that real success in higher education ?
Mr. Howarth : As a Nottingham Member, my hon. Friend is justly proud of the higher education opportunities for his constituents in their own home city where we have a fine polytechnic and a magnificent university. I readily join him in paying tribute to the remarkable achievements of the academic and other staff in those institutions of higher education in terms of the wonderful opportunities that they are offering to more and more of our young people and to people of all ages.
Column 800
Mr. John D. Taylor : Scottish universities now take many students from the Republic of Ireland and Scotland has to pay the full tuition fees for all those students. Given that the Republic of Ireland does not pay the tuition fees of the few Scottish students in the Republic, is that additional burden on Scottish universities taken into account and are larger grants made available to those universities on that basis ?
Mr. Howarth : The right hon. Gentleman is alluding to the arrangements for the support of students in higher education that apply within the European Community. All relevant factors are taken into account by the funding councils when they decide how to allocate resources.
Grant-maintained Schools
5. Mr. David Evans : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many schools have applied for grant-maintained status.
Mr. Eggar : I am delighted to say that, to date, 315 schools have opted for grant-maintained status.
Mr. Evans : I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Is not it a fact that the Labour party would throw out of the window all the grant- maintained schools and return them to the control of its friends in the town halls? Is not it also a fact that pupils in the worst authorities, run by Labour, have the worst GCSE English and maths results? That is what would happen to education if that lot ever gained control.
Mr. Eggar : The Labour party is dedicated to lowering standards. One of its latest pledges is to destroy our A-level system. My hon. Friend is right that the Labour party would be prepared to overrule parental ballots and to take grant-maintained schools back into the throes of LEA control, which is exactly what parents have voted to escape.
Mr. Tony Banks : The Minister has just appointed two of his own governors to Stratford school in my constituency. Given the national publicity surrounding that school and the instability and chaos there, what procedure exists for schools that lose or have removed from them their grant-maintained status?
Mr. Eggar : It would be wise if the hon. Gentleman actually looked at the record of Stratford school. When Newham had finished trying to destroy that school, it had about 300 pupils, but there are now almost double that number. When Newham's custody of that school ceased, the standards of education were appallingly low, but Her Majesty's inspectors now report a significant improvement in educational standards there--
Mr. Tony Banks : Answer the question.
Mr. Eggar : Those are the real facts about Stratford, not the black propaganda that the hon. Gentleman wishes to put around.
Mr. Pawsey : Does my hon. Friend agree that the principal attraction of grant-maintained schools is not the additional funding that they receive but the greater independence from the LEAs that they then enjoy? Does he further agree that, following the re-election of the
Column 801
Conservative party to office after the next general election, there will be an avalanche of applications from state schools seeking grant-maintained status?Mr. Eggar : I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I know that he has first-hand experience of the benefits of GM schools, as the school that used to be known as Wold Newton transferred to grant-maintained status a few months ago and is showing the way and what can be achieved as a result of a move to grant-maintained status.
Ms. Armstrong : Will the Minster confirm that if the bribes that the Secretary of State reinforced in terms of capital allocations for grant- maintained schools last week were extended to meet the right hon. and learned Gentleman's other pledge to extend that to every possible school, the cost would be the equivalent of more than one penny on VAT?
Mr. Eggar : The hon. Lady is somewhat confused. I have not heard even the chief Opposition Treasury spokeman talk in terms of putting one penny on VAT. Perhaps the hon. Lady should go for a tutorial with him to understand how VAT is collected. As to her other point, I can say only what I said to her about her calculations on nursery school resources. She is not even at level 1 in maths, and should get some help. Torrells School, Grays
6. Mr. Janman : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he intends to make a decision on the application for grant- maintained status from Torrells comprehensive school, Grays, Essex.
Mr. Eggar : Not later than the end of February.
Mr. Janman : My hon. Friend will be glad to know that my constituents, particularly those who are parents at this school, will be pleased to hear that he will make a fast decision. He will be aware that the parents at the school voted by a ratio of nearly 3 : 1 for grant- maintained status. I am sure that he will wish to join me in congratulating the governors, the headmaster and the parents involved in the school on their wisdom in applying for
grant-maintained status so as to free themselves from the bureaucracy and interference of the local education authority. Will he ensure that the decision that he makes is a positive one?
Mr. Eggar : I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend. I stand by what I said--I shall do my utmost to get a decision by the end of February. I welcome the commitment that has been shown by the head of the governing body, but I cannot give any hint of the decision that I will be taking by the end of February.
Mr. Leighton : Will the Minister have a care with Torrells school in view of the mistake that he made with Stratford school? Is he aware that Father Reilley, the chairman of the governors, has already been disposed of, that the new chairman had a brawl with the head teacher, to which the police had to be called, that the chairman has purported to sack the head teacher and that the Department has intervened and had correspondence and has appointed new governors? Do we have--
Mr. Speaker : Order. The question is about Torrells school.
Column 802
Mr. Leighton : Do we have local management of this school or is it run by the Department?
Mr. Eggar : The hon. Gentleman probably needs a geography lesson. Stratford school is not in Essex, as he should know. With regard to what he said about Stratford school, if he had taken rather more interest in the school when it was in the control of Newham and insisted on the school keeping up to reasonable standards and if he now put pressure on Newham LEA to ensure that it raised standards in schools, he would be doing more for his constituents than he is by his performance today.
City Technololgy Colleges
7. Mr. Cryer : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the current number of established city technology colleges.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke : Thirteen city technology colleges are already established, and two more will be open by autumn next year. The extension of CTC principles and practice into the rest of state education is also under way. I announced on 15 January the establishment, with the joint support of British Aerospace, of Hutton grammar school in Lancashire as the first voluntary-aided technology school. We are receiving many worthwhile bids from schools wishing to become technology schools in response to the announcement we made of the availability of capital funds for this purpose.
Mr. Cryer : Is not it the truth that CTCs have emerged only as a result of the lavish use of taxpayers' money to prop them up? Will the Secretary of State accept that in Bradford, the capital expenditure on one CTC is roughly the equivalent of the whole of the capital expenditure for one year awarded by the Government, but Bradford public schools are in dire need of expenditure? Is not it true that the Government's attitude towards CTCs is private affluence and, towards the rest of the education system, public squalor?
Mr. Clarke : The Mickey Mouse figures on CTC expenditure that critics in Bradford tend to use compare capital expenditure on schools starting from scratch with that for existing schools that do not have to be built. The funding of CTCs is on a par with that of other local education authority schools, and their recurrent funding will not be different from that of other schools in their areas. CTCs offer education opportunities to children of all
abilities--particularly those drawn from the most deprived parts of the cities that they serve. It is unbelievably churlish if, for ideological reasons, the hon. Gentleman remains hostile to the best innovation in Bradford for years, while defending a local authority that had the worst results in the country in the recent tests for seven-year-olds.
Mr. William Powell : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the establishment of city technology colleges--not least among them, Brooke CTC in Corby--provides a model for the future normal state schooling system? Will he take urgent steps to ensure that the spread of city technology colleges is accelerated as quickly as possible? I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's school technology initiative, and hope that he will favour Our Lady and Pope John school in Corby for funding under that scheme.
Column 803
Mr. Clarke : I am closely following the progress of Brooke CTC, the site of which I visited only recently. I know how popular and successful it has become. I agree with my hon. Friend that the next important consequence to flow from the CTC programme is that the benefits of all the curriculum development work undertaken by CTCs will spread to the rest of the education system. The technology initiative is an important element in that.Mr. Simon Hughes : Whatever the difference of view held across the House, given that CTCs are funded by public money, will the Secretary of State take urgent steps to give parents whose children are refused admission to them the same right of appeal that is available in respect of all other publicly-funded schools?
Mr. Clarke : I view CTCs as exemplifying the principle of parental choice that operates in many other parts of the education system. I will certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's point, because it is our aim to put CTCs on a level with others in regard to funding and other aspects. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising such a point, rather than displaying the ridiculous opposition that we have seen from Labour, which still seems pledged to getting rid of some of the finest schools in the state education system.
State Schools, West Norfolk
8. Mr. Bellingham : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what recent representations he has received in connection with state schools in west Norfolk.
Mr. Fallon : We have received representations about capital funding for several schools in west Norfolk. Earlier this month, I saw a deputation that opposed Norfolk education authority's proposals to close Bradenham voluntary controlled primary school, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mrs. Shephard).
Mr. Bellingham : Will my hon. Friend the Minister pay tribute to the professionalism of Norfolk teachers and in particular to those who work in small, rural primary schools? He will be aware of the important role that such schools play in local communities. Will my hon. Friend confirm that, unlike the Labour group on Norfolk county council, he believes in small primary schools? Will he confirm that, provided they can deliver the national curriculum, they will continue to have an important role in modern education?
Mr. Fallon : Yes. I am happy to pay tribute to those teachers and to the well-run Norfolk education authority. It was one of the first to introduce local schools management, which paved the way for a series of applications for full grant-maintained status.
Special Schools
10. Mr. Janner : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make increased provision for special schools.
Mr. Fallon : The local authority finance settlement for 1991-92 allows for local authorities in England to spend nearly £17.5 billion on education--16 per cent. more than the 1990-91 settlement. The settlement for 1992-93 allows for spending of over £18.7 billion, a further increase of 7
Column 804
per cent. Given good management, that should be sufficient to enable LEAs to provide for children with special educational needs.Mr. Janner : Is the Minister aware of the special need in all such schools for nursing cover of the kind currently provided through the health authority? Is he further aware that many special schools, including the excellent Weston Park school in my constituency, are worried about the threat to that cover? If it is not to be provided by the health authority, will the Government give an assurance that the schools themselves will be empowered and funded to offer the nursing care that children with special needs require?
Mr. Fallon : I shall certainly consider that point. Total spending per pupil on special schools and related provisions is currently running at a level four times higher than on pupils in ordinary mainstream schools.
Mr. Haselhurst : Is my hon. Friend aware that needs and expectations in regard to special types of education seem to be rising all the time? It is felt that resources do not always match every kind of special need that may occur, especially in rural primary schools. Does my hon. Friend consider that it is time to take a fresh look at the whole question?
Mr. Fallon : It is for local authorities to allocate their priorities. We have encouraged those who introduced local management of schools first to look again at their schools, and to ensure that the right balance exists between the funding of secondary schools and that of primary schools.
Cleveland Schools (Maintenance)
11. Dr. Kumar : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about the level of expenditure on maintenance for Cleveland's schools ; and if he will make a statement.
Dr. Kumar : Is the Minister aware that Cleveland's schools need a £50 million maintenance programme? His Department has not allocated a single penny to that programme for 1992-93. Is that part of the disgraceful, phoney citizens charter?
Mr. Fallon : As I increased Cleveland's capital allocation from £2.9 million to £3.8 million, I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Indeed, the allocation for improvement work in Cleveland's schools has risen from £90,000 this year to £1.4 million next year.
Mr. Harry Greenway : When considering the principle and amount of funding for schools in Cleveland, will my hon. Friend also consider the funding of schools in Ealing? Today, the Department approved grant- maintained status for five schools in wealthy, middle-class and less wealthy areas in that borough. Are we not being taught the lesson that parents want independence for their schools--whether or not they are in the state sector--because that is the best way of achieving the best possible education for children in Ealing, Cleveland and everywhere else?
Mr. Fallon : Indeed. I congratulate those schools on obtaining grant -maintained status. Ealing has led the way, and I hope that it will not be too long before other education authorities such as Cleveland follow.
Column 805
Mr. Fatchett : Is it not sad that no Cleveland Conservative has been able to come and represent the children of Cleveland today, and that that task has had to be left to a Conservative from Ealing? Is the Minister aware that 18 schools in the Cleveland authority area were built before 1914 and that in the current financial year Cleveland has received only a quarter of its capital allocation? It is therefore not surprising that thousands of children in Cleveland's schools are being taught in sub-standard conditions--which must have an effect on education standards. Is it not about time that the Government invested in Cleveland's schools? Or are we seeing yet another example of the application of double standards, with Ministers providing no money for the public sector, while sending their own children to school in the private sector?Mr. Fallon : I do not see how either the hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Dr. Kumar) can describe the £3.8 million allocation for Cleveland as "no money". The plain fact is that there are steps that Cleveland should be taking to improve the way that it manages education spending. Cleveland has some 20,000 empty school places, and spends some £80 per pupil on its central administration, while only £40 per pupil is spent across the border in North Yorkshire.
Seven-year-olds (Testing)
12. Mr. Squire : To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the results of testing seven-year- olds.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke : The national and local results of the tests of seven-year-olds which I published on 19 December give, for the first time, a clear picture of how our seven-year-olds are performing. We should remember that over 70 per cent. of seven-year-olds did reach the targets for that age in English, mathematics and science. However, the wide fluctuations in the performance of individual local education authorities cannot be fully explained by variations in social and economic circumstances or by variations in spending on education, and show that there is plenty of scope to improve standards.
Mr. Squire : My right hon. and learned Friend will know that school children in my borough of Havering came fifth overall in the national listings. That is a considerable achievement.
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that my local Labour party is circulating a leaflet, from which I shall now quote--
| Next Section
| Home Page |