House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Feb 1992

Mr. Clarke : Do not be ridiculous.

Mr. Straw : It is on the record. What is more, had there been a complete separation of thought between the transfer of about £2 billion of funding and the need to get the Government out of a hole on the poll tax, why on earth did the Secretary of State allow that statement to be made on the same day as all the other statements on the poll tax? The Secretary of State for the Environment stole his thunder.

Mr. Clarke : Before this kooky theory runs any further, may I say that I went on to make a statement and announced the policy. The quotation that the hon. Gentleman read from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment does not say that I made a statement because of the need to transfer further education spending from local to central Government taxation. I introduced such a policy and it has been adopted by the Government. It was announced on the same day because it happened to switch some of the expenditure from local to central Government, but it did not put further

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education under central control. The only reason why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment made his statement first was convention : he is senior in the Government. Regrettably, on that day there was far more interest in the announcement on the community charge than in the vital matter of the reform of further education.

Mr. Straw : I am not sure what a jury would make of the right hon. Gentleman's explanation, but my view is that he is guilty as charged. As we have a corroborated confession statement, voluntarily offered before consenting adults in the House, we have the Secretary of State "bang to rights". If the Secretary of State does not like us saying that that is why he took that route--I have no doubt that that was the reason as it was how Government publicity managers and the Secretary of State presented it on that day--the Secretary of State cannot wriggle out of it.

The second reason why the Secretary of State has gone down that odd route of taking central control over further education is his obsession, as we heard again this afternoon, about local councillors. It verges on paranoia. He cannot speak about local councils without sneering at them. When he does so, he sneers at the rights of local people to elect their representatives and have a say in the running of their areas.

Mr. Bob Dunn (Dartford) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw : I shall give way in a moment.

The Secretary of State's contempt is even greater for Conservative councils than for Labour ones. No one has ever said that local councils should have complete control over the education service, but they should have a say in it and their right, as elected representatives, is significant. A substantial part of further education should not be passed to unaccountable, unelected quangos, as the Secretary of State proposes. His failure to acknowledge that right has already led him into a policy that is grievous to him--the privatisation of the schools inspectorate--and I regret to say that it is leading him into another.

In a few weeks' time, Ministers and Conservative Members will expect Conservative councillors to work for them in an attempt to bring them back into office. It may be sensible if they listen to what their Conservative colleagues in local government have to say about the Bill. For example, the Prime Minister's

Conservative-controlled local authority, Cambridgeshire, said : "There is widespread and deep concern in both the FE and schools sector that the proposals are fundamentally flawed, that they lack a convincing and cogent rationale and that ultimately they will not work".

The Secretary of State was disparaging when I suggested that that would lead to central control--a phrase that the Secretary of State for the Environment seemed to imply.

Conservative-controlled Essex council said :

"In reality, the apparently free-standing colleges would be controlled by new remote national councils in England and Wales which would, in turn, be controlled by their respective Secretary of State who would appoint their membership, and ration their funding. This represents an unhealthy centralisation of power over a service that is essentially concerned with meeting the needs of individuals locally".

Mr. Dunn : I wanted to take up the hon. Gentleman's point about contempt for local authorities. Was there not contempt in circular No. 1066, which required local authorities to go comprehensive under a Labour

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Government? Was there not contempt for local education authorities in the Education Act 1976, which compelled local education authorities to go comprehensive? Is there not contempt now for local authorities in Labour party policies--and a future Labour Government, if ever elected--which would compel local education authorities to go comprehensive against the wishes of the local authority and elected representatives?

Mr. Straw : I thought that the hon. Gentleman would say that. Incidentally, it was circular No. 1065. Nothing in what I have said is inconsistent with the suggestion that admission arrangements for schools should be settled by the House. That has happened under this Government as much as under previous Governments. I understand the hon. Gentleman's embarrassment, especially in his constituency, because on the one hand he says that he wants to keep grammar schools but on the other some of the 106 grammar schools closed by this Government were closed when he was a Minister responsible for education. In the 13 years since 1979, 106 grammar schools have been closed.

There are enormous objections to the scheme for taking over further education specified in the Bill. The Secretary of State has sought to justify the scheme by saying that it is based on the experience of the polytechnics. As was explained at enormous length in another place, there is no parallel between the position of the polytechnics and that of further education and sixth form colleges. The polytechnics were national institutions. For eight years before they went into the polytechnic and colleges funding sector there was a quasi-national arrangement under the national advisory board in which the local authorities participated. For years before that, there was the advanced further education pool, which ensured that there was a system of national funding, although local authorities were responsible individually for the institutions in their area. Therefore, there was a long history of build-up towards a national system.

We supported the final removal of the polytechnics from the local government sector to the polytechnic and colleges funding sector. By 1988 it seemed anomalous that they should be responsible to their local authority, because they were national institutions. There are only 80 of those institutions, including small colleges, compared with 550 sixth form and further education colleges. All those FE and sixth form colleges are local and serve local needs.

Contrary to what the Secretary of State said, he should be aware that the greatest proportional expansion in polytechnics took place between 1980 and 1988 when they were under local authority control. There was approaching a 40 per cent. increase in the number of full-time students attending polytechnics. It was just as well that that took place. Although I welcome the Government's present policy to expand higher education, that has not always been their policy since 1979.

At the beginning of this Administration, when the Secretary of State was Sir Keith Joseph, there was a policy not of the expansion but of the contraction of higher education. Paradoxically, the part of the system that was supposed to be the most autonomous, the university sector, maintained its numbers more or less level while the local authority controlled polytechnics met the expanded demand. The expansion was led and met by local authorities, albeit with some benign support from some people in the Department of Education and Science.

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Mr. George Walden (Buckingham) : The hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to the polytechnics for taking the burden of the expansion--and it was a burden at that time. In all fairness, however, he should praise the Government a little and perhaps give even a tiny sliver of praise to former Ministers responsible for higher education for gently encouraging the polytechnic system along that road by firmly steering them towards cutting their unit costs.

Mr. Straw : I said that the expansion was supported by part of the Department of Education and Science. I am sorry that I did not mention the hon. Gentleman by name, but I am happy to do so now and to commend him for his role. I hope that that does not damage him too much in the forthcoming general election.

There is no parallel with the polytechnics. Because of that, the Government are having to accept a much higher degree of bureaucratic control for the further education sector than exists with the polytechnics. For years the polytechnics have been effectively running themselves. They have effective, sound, central administrations.

The problem with the further education sector is that it is variable. The college of which I am a governor has a substantial administration. I fully support that under devolved management from Lancashire county council it has much greater day-to-day autonomy. That is welcomed by all. It can run itself, and I look forward to its receiving corporate status. There are smaller further education colleges--for example, one in Coventry that disastrously ran off the rails and was saved only by local authority intervention. Some sixth form colleges have no administration--

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Tim Eggar) : No free-standing administration

Mr. Straw : No free-standing administration. I am grateful to the Minister for that correction.

Because there are 550 colleges, we should recognise the need for much closer day-to-day bureaucratic control from the funding councils and the regional bodies than there is in respect of the polytechnics. In truth, the Government are replacing locally elected authorities with unelected regional and national bodies for running further education.

The third objection is that the elimination of local authority involvement will lead to a duplication of facilities for further education and 16 to 19 -year-old provision. It will remove the dynamic for change that has been there until now. The local authorities have been the midwives of change. The Secretary of State winces at the suggestion, but it is true. I know that he does not like local authorities, but he must acknowledge that they do some good. In one area after another local authorities have recognised when sixth forms have become unviable and have made proposals for transferring sixth form work to local sixth form colleges or further education colleges. It has often been difficult. Some schools will always object to the removal of their sixth forms, but it is widely recognised in Conservative and Labour-controlled areas that, in general, where a switch to tertiary education has occurred, it has led to a great improvement in and expansion of the opportunities, both academic and vocational. There is no question about that.

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One of the major defects of the Bill is that no body or institution has responsibility for securing that change. Small sixth forms will carry on despite high unit costs and will be unable to offer a range of courses. The whole system may atrophy.

The fourth objection to the FE provisions is that the Bill paves the way for future Secretaries of State or colleges to end free education for 16 to 19-year-olds. We have expressed our concern about creeping privatisation in the education system. Under the Education Reform Act 1988 education in schools, including those for 16 to 18-year-olds, must be free. There is no similar provision in respect of further education. Education for 16 to 19- year-olds has been provided free as a matter of practice, not as a matter of law. In the other place Lord Peston, because sixth form colleges are to be removed from the school system, moved amendments to make the law clear beyond peradventure that education would continue to be free for 16 to 19- year-olds, regardless of whether it took place in schools, sixth form colleges or FE colleges. I regret to say that, although the amendment was carefully drafted, the Minister, Lord Belstead, resisted it. He gave an undertaking that it was not the intention to change the practice. I am afraid to say that we have all heard that sort of undertaking : it was not the intention to double VAT.

In reply to the debate, Lord Peston said :

"This issue concerns the fundamental principle that education in the compulsory sector and in the full-time post-16 sector should be and must be guaranteed to be free."--[ Official Report, House of Lords, 14 January 1992 ; c. 172.]

As there is a major question about whether the law is adequate to guarantee that education for 16 to 19-year-olds should be free, I should like to hear from the Secretary of State that he is ready to accept an amendment similar to that moved by Lord Peston to make it free regardless of where it takes place.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : As the law stands, the Government could at any time have pressed for the introduction of fees for further education for 16 to 18-year-olds in FE colleges. We never have. It is not our policy to charge fees for further education. We are completely committed not to introduce fees for further education. All this is a bit of a red herring.

Mr. Straw : I am not sure that the Secretary of State is aware of the point. Far from being a red herring, the matter was debated extensively in the other place. If there is no intention of charging young people for their education beyond 16, why will the Secretary of State not consider the amendment that was carefully drafted and put forward by Lord Peston in the other place and accept it in Committee ?

The fifth objection is that these proposals contain no clear policy for increasing participation rates. The Secretary of State made heavy weather of the current figures on participation rates. He tried to include young people on youth training schemes to dress up the figures. I have with me the latest volume of educational statistics. Although they show a welcome improvement, the proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds in full-time education-- not just youngsters doing their GCSE resits--in 1989 was 37 per cent. That is below any other major industrialised country mentioned in the DES table.

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The Secretary of State himself admitted that the current situation is far from satisfactory. When he finally got round to making a statement, on 21 March last year, after the Secretary of State for the Environment, he said :

"We still lag behind our competitors in the participation of our school leavers in further education and training and their achievement of useful qualifications."--[ Official Report, 21 March 1991 ; Vol. 188, c. 432.]

I am glad that Ministers realise that we are at the bottom of the league.

We would do what the Trades Union Council and the Confederation of British Industry have been urging, which is to set clear targets with the aim of achieving, over five years, a situation in which 80 per cent. of young people obtain what is called national vocational qualification level 2, roughly equivalent to 5 GCSEs, grade A to C, and over a 10-year period 50 per cent. achieve NVQ level 3. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), in December 1989, committed the Government to such targets as a matter of policy, but those commitments were ratted on only a month later by the then Prime Minister and by the current Secretary of State for Employment, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). We believe that targets should be set and adhered to by Government and local authorities and that they should be the basis for funding and for expansion of the system.

The sixth objection is that, while the Secretary of State and the White Paper talk in fine phrases of ending the academic and vocational divide, there is nothing in the Bill about ending it. All that is proposed is a piece of elastoplast to stretch over the distinction between A-levels and vocational qualifications. That elastoplast is to be called an advanced diploma when what is needed is a merging, an integration, of the academic and the vocational examination systems, as we proposed, well ahead of the Government, in our advanced certificate of education and training. We propose a single examining authority which would bring together the National Council for Vocational Qualifications and that part of the schools examination assessment council dealing with 16-plus examinations.

Mr. Walden : This is not a frivolous intervention. I am quite impressed by the Labour party's recognition of the need to stream in secondary schools as between the academic, the vocational and the technological, if I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly. That is very much in the thrust of Government policy, although it goes only halfway. What is the logic of doing that at secondary level and then creating what I would regard as a dangerous mush between the academic and the technological and vocational at a higher level?

Mr. Straw : The hon. Gentleman, I know, writes for The Daily Telegraph and evidently he also reads it, but he should not always believe what is written in it. I will send the hon. Gentleman a copy of our proposals both for key stage 4 and for post-16.

Mr. James Pawsey (Rugby and Kenilworth) rose --

Mr. Straw : It is quite important that I get on, because many hon. Members wish to speak. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, if he insists, but it is taking up other hon. Members' time.

The right hon. Gentleman closed off once again the question of the reform of A-levels. This has been proposed

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widely, not only by the Opposition but by Conservative Members as well. We want the Government to accept the proposals made in the Higginson report, which the Secretary of State's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), was ready to endorse on behalf of the Government until his opinion was countermanded by the then Prime Minister. The Secretary of State is virtually alone in seeking to maintain support for the over-specialised three-subject A- levels. The vice chancellors want reform, the directors of polytechnics want reform, most employers want reform and not only do those involved in the state school system and the further education system want reform but so do, for example, the Girls' Schools Association and many Conservative local education authorities. The case for reforming A-levels is not about reducing standards, because the five-subject A-level would be more stretching, tougher on most students, than the three-subject A-level. The case for the reform of A-levels, as Higginson proposed, is that it would end this over-specialisation at 16-plus, which ensures that a very large proportion of our brightest youngsters leave full-time education between the ages of 16 and 19 without adequate education, particularly in science and technology subjects.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can be saying that the Labour party supports Higginson ; I do not think that anybody supports Higginson any more. The hon. Gentleman is evading the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden). He is describing the abolition of A-levels and their replacement by one system of examinations for all 18-year olds, whatever their aptitude, ability or inclination, because he cannot stand the idea of distinguishing between the academic and the vocational. Does he really think that by the age of 18 every young man and woman can be expected to take the same examination or enter into the same system of qualifications without damaging the standard of the A-levels, which he so dislikes?

Mr. Straw : The Secretary of State completely fails to understand the issue. It is a matter not just of understanding our policy but of understanding the argument against three-subject A-levels. We have supported the five-subject A-level for almost as long as the Higginson report has been published. If the Secretary of State wishes to end the academic and vocational divide and is serious about that, there is no reason why there should not be different examinations which cater for young people with a vocational bent, or for those with an academic bent, or for those who wish to follow some subjects of an academic nature and some of a vocational nature--

Mr. Pawsey rose--

Mr. Straw : I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment because he is always very persistent.

There is no reason why that range of opportunities should not come under the umbrella of a single examining board. Indeed, if that is not done, we will not break down the academic and vocational divide. That is the experience in France and in many other countries.

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Mr. Pawsey : If the hon. Gentleman has his way and abolishes A- levels, what will the implications be for the existing three-year degree of his five-subject A-level course?

Mr. Straw : It is not our five-subject A-level course ; it is the Higginson committee's. That committee was set up by this Administration, reporting to this Administration, and whose recommendations Education Ministers wanted to accept in 1988. The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that the vice-chancellors and the directors of polytechnics want the five- subject A-level because they realise that it will mean that their students will be far better educated and prepared for higher education than they are at the moment.

Let me deal briefly with the issue of adult education. Adult education, as the Secretary of State finally, although reluctantly, admitted, has been in many ways a credit to local education authorities in this country. Some people have described it as the jewel in the crown in the work of local education authorities. It is a service which has developed locally, like further education, and has been wholly neglected by Government.

The proposals in the White Paper and in the Bill threaten the whole structure and delivery of adult education. It is no good the Secretary of State dismissing all the objections to his proposals as nonsense. I am very glad to have acknowledgement of what I am saying by the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr). One cannot just dismiss the views of local education authorities, Conservative as well as Labour, of students in adult education and of associations of a non-partisan, non-political nature, such as the women's institutes and the Women's Royal Voluntary Service. One cannot dismiss the 6 million people who take part in adult education as having objections which are nonsensical, as the Secretary of State has sought to do, as if they had invented the proposals which the Secretary of State explained so poorly to the House earlier this afternoon.

The truth is that Ministers never properly considered the impact of these proposals on the adult education service. They were put in as a postscript and never considered. If they had considered them they should never have come forward with these proposals.

Sir John Farr : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because it gives me an opportunity that the Secretary of State denied me to tell the hon. Gentleman that the adult education proposals have been put to Leicestershire education authority since I saw the Minister last week. The authority unanimously turned them down as being totally inadequate.

Mr. Straw : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who usually fully supports the Government. In addition, Leicestershire county council is not a Labour authority. If the Secretary of State cannot convince his hon. Friends about the sense of the proposal, he cannot convince anybody. That is because the proposal is plainly daft. It is fundamentally flawed in distinguishing between what is work related and what is leisure related.

The Secretary of State said that the Bill does not cut a line between one part of adult education and another. But it does, and that is clearly shown by the drafting contortions in schedule 2, which lays down the courses that will come under the further education funding council. It is ludicrous, farcical, that because a course for

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basic literacy in English or to improve the knowledge of English of those for whom English is not the language spoken at home comes within the ambit of the further education funding council, a German who wants to learn English will get the money from the FEFC but an English person who wants to learn German, but not in pursuit of a GCSE, has to get the money from the LEA. How will that affect those who deliver adult education? The Secretary of State sought to explain this bureaucratic circus, this monstrosity that he has invented, but I am afraid that not only were we not convinced but few of his hon. Friends were.

Let us look at the case of someone who attends a flower arranging course. On the face of it, flower arranging seems to be a leisure-related rather than a work-related course. During the course, someone might discover an aptitude for flower arranging and decide to become a florist. Who will fund that course? What about cake decoration? To begin with, a person following such a course might do so out of interest and might later decide to become a caterer and work for a qualification. Who will fund that? These are serious questions.

Mr. Elliot Morley (Glanford and Scunthorpe) : In his speech, the Secretary of State did not allow an intervention on Humberside where there is a large adult education centre. It is devolved to the rural areas, including the rural parts of my constituency. It will be split in two, with half the vocational courses going to the funding council and half being left with the LEA. When they are split in half, they lose the infrastructure of the outstations and small colleges, which they maintain, and they lose half the staff. They have to go cap in hand to the college which has vocational courses. What happens if they are not relinquished? The proposal cuts the service in half and threatens courses in rural areas.

Mr. Straw : My hon. Friend is right. The Secretary of State said that the proposals for adult education were "straightforward". I say to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) that they are as straightforward as the maze at Hampton Court.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : I fail to see what is complicated beyond understanding in Humberside college having to obtain funding from two sources. If two sources support different courses, that does not have the consequences that the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) claims. A cake-making course is a ridiculous example. If a local authority finances such a course, and sets fees, which it can do, it does not have to strike off the course a student who suddenly decides that he wants a cake- making qualification. This is a nonsensical campaign about a part of the Bill and the reforms which do not affect the ordinary provision of adult education in anything like the way that the hon. Gentleman seeks to claim.

Mr. Straw : It is not a nonsensical campaign. If there was any merit in the Secretary of State's proposals, it would be reasonable to suggest that any of his hon. Friends would support him. Not one sought to speak in support of his proposals.

Mr. Harry Greenway rose--

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Mr. Straw : I shall not give way because I wish to make progress. There is enormous scepticism and a great deal of opposition to the proposal, and the Minister knows that as well as I do.

I shall deal briefly with higher education. The first issue is quality control. During the debate on the Queen's Speech, the Secretary of State sought to assert that quality control in higher education could be adequately protected simply by using the funding council. He failed to see any reason for distinguishing between those involved in quality control and those involved in funding. I am glad to say that, in the other place, the Government accepted the need for some separation in terms of quality control because the quality control committees of the funding council will have to have a majority of members who are not drawn from that council. In Committee, we shall table amendments to seek to make quality control quite separate from the funding councils, because that is the best way to ensure the proper maintenance of standards.

We were glad to hear that the Secretary of State had finally accepted the arguments in favour of controls on his power to dictate to individual institutions. The original powers were not minor. There was a try-on in 1988 and the powers were potentially monstrous. We are glad that the Minister has accepted the Beloff amendment. However, there is great merit in the amendment moved by Lord Simon of Glaisdale in the other place for affirmative resolution control on the use of the powers. We shall table such amendments in Committee. The Government have no mandate for the Bill, which represents a centralising and authoritarian takeover of local colleges and the replacement of local accountability by a new, untried and bureaucratic system under the Department of Education and Science. They have no mandate to railroad the measure through under the guillotine that will be debated later. The further education sections of the Bill are fatally flawed. They have no educational justification but were born of the poll tax. We may not defeat the Bill, but it is one more reason why we shall defeat the Government in the coming election.

6.36 pm

Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton) : There is much in the Bill which is to the credit of the Secretary of State who conceived it. Unhappily, he has knowingly and deliberately polluted it with a breach of principle so serious as to render the Bill itself unacceptable, and it is to that which I shall direct my attention. It is concerned with the community colleges. May I mention in passing that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State appears to be under the mistaken impression that community colleges are confined to rural areas? His actual words were : "In rural areas, we will have community colleges." The city of Plymouth is not a rural area. Does he mean that the college there will be closed? Is that the Government's intention?

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : No, nor, as I have sought to explain, do the provisions which I suspect my hon. Friend slightly misunderstands pollute the Bill in the way in which he feels strongly that they do. The Government have no intention of closing Plymouth college, and nothing in the Bill need lead to any change in the arrangements at that college. The funding council will make its arrangements for provision as it judges best in accordance with the Bill's

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provisions. I think that that meets my hon. Friend's point. The proposals were amended at one stage to try to meet his point.

Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop : If the Bill had been produced at very short notice and introduced first to the House, it might have been possible to assent to it on Second Reading in the reasonable hope and expectation that it would be acceptably amended in Committee. But that is not its history. Early in September, having ascertained that that was not too late to secure alteration to the Bill, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller), who for more than 12 years has taken a constructive interest in public sector education, took a deputation of five community college principals to see the Secretary of State.

The important breach of principle is this. It is an elementary principle of natural justice that an arbitrator must never have a personal interest in the result of his arbitration. I would have hoped that that principle could not be denied by anyone in this House. It is that principle which the Secretary of State has knowingly and deliberately breached.

The community colleges have to submit funding applications to arbitrators, that is to say, to further education colleges, who themselves have a perfectly natural and proper interest in attracting maximum course funding for themselves so as to spread their overhead costs over the largest possible number of courses. They are arbitrators because they are not automatic forwarders of such applications to the funding councils. They have an incentive not to do so. So the principle of natural justice, that an arbitrator must not have a personal interest in the outcome of his arbitration, is violated, and that pollutes the Bill unacceptably.

I have the distinct impression, which I cannot escape after five months of negotiation and correspondence with my right hon. and learned Friend over this, that he resents the fact that the actual pattern of education in some parts of Britain is different from his conceptual pattern which he wishes existed instead. Community colleges are an extremely intelligent way of using resources because the physical structure of the school, much of the equipment and the facilities in it are used by adults when they would otherwise be used by no one.

For that reason, quite often they are part-funded in those facilities, not just by local education authorities but by district councils as well, so that people living locally can use, for instance, the gymnasium or the sports hall or the swimming pool when it would otherwise be put to no use at all. In other words, the whole surrounding community benefits, and the taxpayer, both national and local government, gets better value for his investment in the premises concerned.

I shall have to speak of reality rather than concept. It is all very well for my right hon. and learned Friend to say that the local education authority can pay for this and pay for that. The reality is that, within the constraints of the standard spending assessment under the revenue support grant system currently in use, they do not have that real option, as opposed to conceptual option, because their resources are so fully committed--particularly in rural areas where the pattern is one of the widespread existence of small schools--that they simply do not have the optional resources left over to employ in a way which the

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Bill permits, but there is no reality of use for those powers because the resources are not there, and we cannot expect them to be there.

So the community colleges, which probably make the best single use of the capital investment in them, provide further education and adult education as well as their primary function of secondary education. This means that the children at that school for secondary education can have a wider spectrum of syllabus opportunity, since some of the same staff who teach less popular disciplines to the children can be retained because they are also teaching adults in the adult education function of it.

Now I come to timing. It is no good my right hon. and learned Friend asking us to look at clause 53, which gives him power to make orders, if there are bloody-minded FE colleges that unreasonably refuse to further applications. Time is of the essence. When there was a Liberal-controlled education committee in Devon, and its then chairman, a certain Mrs. Rogers, grossly abused the governors and staff of Burlescombe County Primary School so that I had to ask the Attorney-General to intervene, and he located a power which the then Secretary of State for Education and Science had to remedy the situation by order, only one day before the commencement of the new term could that order be made, because of the steps that had to be gone through to avoid the possibility of the order being frustrated by an application for judicial review.

The essence of this is timing. To enable a community college to put on courses that are actually attended, time is crucial. To start with, in April for the coming year the governors and senior teaching staff have to draw up their syllabus programme--the programme depending on the syllabus, of course. They have to do that within their financial resources, and they do not know what the total throughput will be, over which they are spreading their overhead costs, unless and until they know what adult courses they are going to be able to put on as well. To imagine that they can wait week after week while section 53 is first put into operation and then grinds slowly on in such a way that it will not expose the Secretary of State to judicial review is unreal, because, after the community college has decided what courses it wants to put on, for which it believes there to be demand, it cannot then send its application to the funding council : it has to send it to an FE college. The FE college has then to discover what all the local bus services are, in an area with which it may not be very familiar, for access to the FE college, because it has to decide whether it itself is making adequate provision for the area served by the community college. It is no good the Minister of State shaking his head. If he does not know that, he has not mastered his subject. This can be very time- consuming where there is more than one FE college covering the same area. It means that the one FE college to which the application was made has to discover what courses are contemplated by the other FE college, as well as local availability of public transport, which itself is not guaranteed to run for any particular period of time. The governors then have to make sure that the staff, equipment and materials are available. All that has to be done in time to advertise the courses and get a response from the potential users, the adult students of

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those courses. Only then, before the beginning of the new term, can it be decided whether the courses will actually be provided. Meanwhile, those who have applied for them, in the expectation that the courses will be there, do not and cannot know, because the governors themselves do not and cannot know, whether the courses will be there. If the application is not sent on by the FE college--in other words, is not approved and sent on to the funding council--the whole of that will have aborted, and in many cases the potential adult students concerned will have lost the opportunity to apply for alternative courses elsewhere.

This is the real world about which my right hon. and learned Friend and his junior Ministers appear to be wholly ignorant, or alternatively about which they would prefer not to know.

Mr. Michael Latham (Rutland and Melton) : Much of what my hon. Friend is saying is also relevant to Leicestershire--particularly his point about remoteness and distance. In Leicestershire, the adult basic education service is not provided in colleges of further education. Sometimes, it is not even provided in community colleges but instead in church halls or even people's homes. Therefore, it is all the more important that it should remain as a free-standing service rather than being dealt with, unfortunately, in the way that the Bill would deal with it. The whole basis of my hon. Friend's speech, which I am following with great interest, is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop : I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. He has knowledge of the educational pattern in his area of which I am ignorant, just as I am more familiar with the educational pattern in my part of Devon than I am with that of north Devon.

Mr. Tony Speller (Devon, North) : Does my hon. Friend agree that what we really require for good education is peace? That is the problem as I see it--I hope that my hon. Friend will agree. In my area, we have six community colleges and sixth form colleges of which I have not, in 30 years, had one single complaint relating to the courses offered or to the pleasure of learning taken from them. Should not the logic be that we allow these community colleges to continue with direct access to the funding authorities so that they can go on, without let or hindrance, wasting time or anything else, doing a very good job? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) said, if the machine works, for goodness' sake leave it alone.

Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop : I am grateful for that contribution from my hon. Friend, because his area is different from mine, in one of the most dispersed educational patterns of any LEA in England. I shall conclude by saying this. The Bill has already been through another place, where there was every opportunity for my right hon. and learned Friend to secure amendment to it so as to deal with the real problems, which I am not drawing to his attention for the first time tonight, which were drawn to his attention when he was good enough to receive the deputation in September, to which I referred earlier, and which have been pressed since by correspondence invoking such weight as the Patronage Secretary may happen to carry as well : but without success.

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What has emerged is a certain number of sub- clauses which cannot meet the need because they are incapable of functioning with sufficient speed to meet the time programme, which I have described, I think, with complete accuracy. It is because of the determination of my right hon. and learned Friend not to accommodate his Bill to the reality that exists, but instead to resent the reality that exists for not meeting the concept of the Bill that, with great regret, I shall find myself in the No Lobby tonight.

6.53 pm

Mr. Michael Carr (Ribble Valley) : The Liberal Democrats share the Secretary of State's aims for a better educated and trained people. We also applaud his reference to a continuing entitlement to education, and his stated aims for a near-universal further education and a mass higher education system. All these are laudable aims. In higher education, we welcome the ending of the binary divide. This move has widespread support, both inside and outside the House, and it is long overdue, as the Secretary of State said. We hope that this will lead to a choice of courses unfettered by the names of institutions. People have been guided by the reputation and the names of certain institutions when they might well have chosen a course more appropriately taught in a polytechnic. We hope that this will disappear with the ending of the binary divide.

However, the expansion of numbers in higher education poses a number of problems. Are the expanded numbers to be catered for simply by cramming more students into existing buildings and on to existing courses ? Will there be an extension of the large-scale block lecture approach, to cater for the number of students who we hope will enter higher education ? Will there be access to research on equal terms ? Perhaps the Minister will explain how the Secretary of State intends to achieve that--the Secretary of State referred to it briefly. There has been reference to the terms and conditions of academics teaching in higher education institutions. The Secretary of State dismissed the idea of a pay review body, but not too convincingly. We should welcome a pay review body.

The Secretary of State also mentioned quality control in higher education. I was glad to hear that the quality control function of the further education councils is to be distinct from their other functions. However, I should have preferred an extension of the powers of Her Majesty's inspectorate in this sector to ensure independent review of quality control in these institutions. The divide between academic and vocational qualifications is to be ended. We see this as a vital and essential step forward, but it is difficult to see how it can be achieved with A-levels continuing in their present form. Without reform of A-levels, the removal of the academic/vocational divide will remain illusory and elusive. In itself, the gold standard of A-levels will ensure that the divide continues, although I accept that that is not the Government's stated intention.

It is clear from the Bill that the Government do not like local government or trust local democracy. It is apparent to many people working in education that the Bill is part of a continuing attack on local government, given the background of successive Acts of Parliament since the Government first came to power and their repeated attacks on local government, not just on its education powers. It is also clear that the Bill gives the Government a way to get

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off the poll tax hook--something that has also been referred to already. It can create, and will create, an opportunity for the Government to fiddle about with poll tax levels.

On a more practical level, there is a danger that the variety of 16-to-19 provision that will exist after the Bill becomes law will make the rational planning of post-16 education more difficult. The local education authorities will retain responsibility for sixth forms in schools, albeit on a locally managed basis, and for non-vocational adult education, while further education funding councils will have the responsibility for sixth form colleges and FE colleges. Diversity may be one word for it--we welcome diversity--but there is also a risk of confusion and difficulties in planning. I want to refer very briefly to colleges that combine further education functions and higher education functions. I am thinking of institutions, such as Bradford and Ilkley community college, that students can enter with no formal qualifications whatsoever and leave with a degree. I visited the Bradford and Ilkley college two or three weeks ago. There, and in similar institutions, there is genuine concern that it may be difficult to achieve that combination. I hope that the Minister, in his summing-up speech, will address this problem.

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