House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Feb 1992

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Mr. Mitchell : It is the Government's attitude that non-vocational education is somehow unworthy and should be financed in a different fashion. This money is for the important aspects of education and all the rest is fit for the local authorities--that is the Government's attitude.

Mr. Fatchett : It is in schedule 2.

Mr. Mitchell : My hon. Friend is correct--it is in schedule 2--and I shall come to that in a minute.

The Government have created that distinction, and it is an artificial one, because people who enter the adult education service in Humberside move from one type of education to the other. After being attracted in, they develop their expertise, and their interest in education is stimulated. They grow. Because it is a comprehensive service, it can siphon them from one aspect to the other and allow them to develop their interest and improve their education. That is an important service.

Adult education represents an important, countrywide service. It is now threatened because 50 per cent. of its work will effectively be taken from it. That work is now to be eligible for application for funds from the funding council, and will not be paid for by the local authority. That means that there is a great danger of splitting the work provided right down the middle. If that happens, the comprehensive service that has been maintained on Humberside cannot be sustained. There will be certainty about obtaining one half of its funding, but uncertainty about the other half. Therefore, that comprehensive service, which maintains facilities for vocational and non-vocational education, will go by the board. That is the danger we face.

I accept that the local authority funding is not ring-fenced, but I am certain that a Labour authority in Humberside will want to maintain services for the benefit of the people. The problem is whether the provision of education in literacy, numeracy and vocational training, which will be transferred to the funding council for resources, will be able to survive.

I know that it is proposed that the adult education service can use a college as a type of post office for the means of applying to the funding council. That is a ludicrous arrangement, partly because the adult education service is larger than any of the colleges. That service provides education for more students than those provided for by several colleges put together. Adult education provides a more comprehensive service than that offered by the colleges, but those colleges will be competing with it. The colleges will not be interested in maintaining adult education services in rural areas, and that is so important because people will have to come to study on campus. In that sense, the colleges are competitors.

If the adult education service in a particular area does not get a college to support its application to the funding council, even though such colleges will probably cater for a smaller number of students and will therefore be less important than the adult education service, the Secretary of State has said that it can appeal to him. I am not sure what appeals to the Secretary of State, but such an appeal procedure adds to the uncertainty. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a comprehensive adult education service unless we have some guarantee and an arrangement whereby it can have direct access to the funding council. The power to apply to a funding council could be defined in terms of the size of that adult education

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provision. Why not define the adult education service in terms of the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988? That Act defined a college as one with 400 full-time equivalents and at least one full-time student. That would give the adult education service the ability to apply directly to a funding council. Unless it has that direct ability, it will suffer. Uncertainty will abound, and it will be difficult to maintain the comprehensive service of which we are so proud in Humberside.

It is also important to consider the dangers posed by the remoteness of the funding council. I know that regional advisory bodies will be established, but we need regional funding councils made up of representatives from the local authorities. Those people would know about the local needs. That is essential. A remote national body will change the system constantly, whatever the fashion is in education, and it will be remote from the needs of local areas. That means that the council will not allow for diversity, which is another valuable part of the education system. We must consider that threat.

Labour colleges and long-term residential colleges, such as Ruskin and Northern, are worried about their role as a vital safety net. Those colleges allow those who develop their interests in education late on to be drawn into the education system. The achievements of those colleges are enormous ; I cannot speak highly enough of Ruskin and Northern colleges, the two that I know best. Their achievements are in danger unless there is some specific recognition and entrenchment of their role in the Bill. Those institutions should be added to the existing list. The adult bursary scheme should be maintained, because it is essential to defend and advance it. It allows people to come into education late on--an essential safety net in society.

I hope that the Minister will heed the pleas of the adult education service, the colleges and the long-term residential colleges for the establishment of a funding council that appreciates and understands their needs and is geographically closer to them.

8.4 pm

Mr. Spencer Batiste (Elmet) : It is right that, at the outset, I should declare an interest. For many years, I have been a member of the council of one university and on the court of another. My law firm also acts for a number of institutions in higher and further education.

I had the privilege of serving on the Committee on the Education Reform Bill. That Bill is already seen as one of the milestones of educational development, and that will become increasingly apparent in the years to come. It was visionary, but I remember clearly that the Opposition attacked and criticised every aspect of its provisions only to find that, within a year or two, they had become part of the accepted wisdom of the education world. It began the process of overturning some of the discredited dogmas which had bedevilled education for more than 20 years.

It is right to consider the polytechnics first, because they have made such outstanding progress since they were liberated from the control of local authorities. The improved participation rates in higher education from one in eight in 1979 to one in four now and moving towards one in three, the flexibility which polytechnics have brought to courses, particularly through the modular method of studying and the significant success of the graduate output rate, which is just as crucial as the number of people starting in higher education, are all features of

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the growing development and maturity that the polytechnics have brought to our higher education system. That goes alongside the splendid progress already achieved by universities.

The polytechnics have shown that any benefits which resulted from local education authority participation and control in their affairs are far outweighed by the benefits that result from independence. It is clearly time to build upon that progress, to abolish the binary line and to introduce a coherent structure for funding teaching and research across the higher education sector.

If that is true of polytechnics, it is equally true of further education colleges. It is time for those colleges to be given the chance to make similar progress. I am concerned at the stories from a number of colleges about attempts at asset-stripping by LEAs in the final months of their control. They are not just stripping those colleges of their land and buildings, but reducing funding to them in anticipation of those colleges moving out of their control next year. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will say something about the protection that he intends to apply to ensure that those colleges, when they emerge free from LEA control, will emerge with their proper share of assets and the revenues to which they are entitled. My right hon. and learned Friend spoke of the importance of sixth forms and his desire to enhance their future role. My constituency consists mainly of towns and villages on the outskirts of the city of Leeds, and the sixth forms in the local comprehensive schools are important. Many colleagues will recall the bitter battle that was fought over two years when Leeds council sought to abolish our sixth forms. It was only the intervention of the then Secretary of State and, in particular, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn), which prevented it.

Obviously, we are concerned that the LEA might threaten those sixth forms again, and I should be interested to learn now or in Committee exactly what my right hon. and learned Friend plans to do to give additional protection for the status of sixth forms. In areas such as mine, schools plan, whether under the local management of schools, or possibly through grant-maintained status, to become more like community colleges. They want to provide enhanced services for the local communities.

I should like to know from the Minister how grant-maintained status will affect the ability of those schools to offer courses to the local community and whether they will be in a better or worse position as grant-maintained schools than they would be as part of an LEA. I hope that the result will be neutral as between the two. Sixth forms are a vital ingredient of schools in rural communities, and the protection that my right hon. and learned Friend announced for them will be very welcome indeed.

Another area of concern, touching the earlier debate about university drop- out rates, arises from what happened at the end of last year in a number of local authorities, Leeds being one of the worst. Mandatory grants to students were not delivered on time. Eight weeks into the term, over 40 per cent. of students from Leeds entitled to mandatory grants still had not received them. Some did not receive them until the first term of the year was over. That was totally unacceptable.

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I feel for those students when I recall when I went to university for the first time. Pressures are bound to build up. The thought that one must face those pressures while having to worry where the money to which one is entitled may be--how one will manage one's affairs without that money--is a horrifying prospect. Should there be a repetition of what happened last year in any local authorities, my right hon. and learned Friend will have to consider measures to remove the administration of mandatory grants from LEAs.

In that context, LEAs represent only a post box for funds from the Department of Education and Science. If LEAs cannot deliver that service effectively, he should provide alternatives, and I shall tonight be tabling amendments to the Bill to give my right hon. and learned Friend power to do that. After all, we have organisations such as the Student Loan Company which are building up effective computer databases on the loan aspect. Such a company would be capable of delivering mandatory grants in addition to performing its other tasks. Indeed, we might save much duplication and cost by using one system.

There has been much talk about education for its own sake or education for vocational training. The two are not incompatible. A good education system should have the widest possible availability for as many people as possible. Students who go into the system should be free to make up their own minds about what benefits they wish to take from it. Some will wish to be highly vocational, others will not.

I had an interesting insight into the value of what we have in Britain when, a few weeks ago, I attended a conference organised in London by Toshiba International Foundation. It was looking at the educational demands on a developed society by the turn of the century and trying to predict what changes would be needed. The conclusion of some eminent speakers, including the dean of Tokyo university and other highly distinguished academics, was that the great hallmark of success in the future would be the ability of a nation to handle complex information in large quantities and to apply it to a whole range of activities.

Those Japanese academics were looking enviously at our education system ; while undoubtedly they can produce engineers in large numbers, what they found attractive about our system was the flexibility of mind that it produced, of young people able to turn their minds to a variety of applications and retrain relatively easily as technologies developed.

Many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, so I will not make other points that I would otherwise have made. Our intention must be to make higher and further education available to as many people as possible. It must be to ensure that all, whatever their ages, are able to return to the education and training system and take from it the things they need, be they vocational or just for interest.

The Bill will mark another important milestone down the road that we took with the Education Reform Act. I hope that we shall organise our affairs in a way that will ensure that it becomes law before the general election. An enormous amount of work has already been done in the polytechnics and colleges in preparation for their change of status. Much momentum has built up, and if that were slowed down because of the need to start the whole process

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again after the election, we shall have lost a year that we can ill afford. I commend the Bill and hope that it will reach the statute book as rapidly as possible.

8.14 pm

Dr. Ashok Kumar (Langbaurgh) : I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir R. Rhodes James) for his contribution and I regret that he is no longer in his place. I confess to have been reading his books since I was a school boy. I have deep respect for his sincere views and wish him well in his love of learning and in his new post. I shall adduce some arguments on the proposed structure for further education arising out of part I of the Bill. I welcome the aims and aspirations of the measure, but deeply disagree with the methods proposed. I shall highlight only a few aspects of the Bill, and I speak as one who has had long experience of further and higher education--first, at the receiving end, as a student, and then as the former chairman of governors of one of the largest colleges in Cleveland, the Longlands college of further education. Under the existing further education structure, that college, with the support of a totally dedicated and hard-working staff, has pioneered innovative and enterprising programmes of training and education in an area which has consistently experienced some of the highest unemployment in mainland Britain.

The Bill is an attempt to emasculate and undermine community and local input into our colleges. If it is passed, there will be another major reduction in the powers and responsibilities of LEAs and the virtual eradication of local staff or non-private sector representation on governing bodies, with no local ability to influence the direction and content of the work carried out in our colleges.

In the name of liberation from local government oversight and administration, as the Secretary of State put it, the Government are intent on installing a system of funding, appointment, direction and control that is positively Napoleonic in content. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's reserve powers will be wide ranging and immense. The Secretary of State talked about liberating further education colleges from local authority control. Without any representation on governing bodies or any role in quality assurance, the vast accumulation of local knowledge will be squandered. Experience and expertise will be lost and local democratic accountability removed. If the Bill is enacted, we shall see the total fragmentation of responsibilities in the post-16 sector and in adult education generally. There will be needless competition, rivalry and duplication of effort between local colleges, LEAs, the proposed national councils and free-standing, ostensibly independent, grant-maintained schools and city technology colleges.

There is no proposal as yet for the Secretary of State to set up any form of national co-ordinating body or forum at which the different interests may meet and debate. There is no provision for cross-representation between planning bodies and the governing bodies of colleges. That is a recipe for utter confusion, a waste of scarce resources and a breeding ground for futile rivalries.

The Bill is another sad illustration of the hatred and contempt with which the Government view any institutions that are locally controlled and managed. My hon. Friends and I are totally opposed to the continuing

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erosion of local democratic accountability for the delivery of such vital services. We utterly oppose the concentration of power at the centre and the spreading and menacing influence of appointed agencies--often run by the Conservative party and its central office--to manage institutions on a day-to-day basis.

Let us examine the facts, including the damage that narrow and ill-thought- out proposals could have on our future. At present, only one third of the 2.8 million 16 to 18-year-olds are in full-time further education. A further 16 per cent. are undertaking full-time YTS training and work experience, while others are attending part-time or evening classes. One third of our youngsters are receiving no education or training. They are unemployed or in the twilight world of dead-end--often temporary or casual- -work. Furthermore, those in full-time further education are often participating in a system that, under the prevailing ideology and political stewardship of the Government, is open to the charge of being divisive.

All too often, A-levels are seen as the only pathway to success, forcing the academically able into specialisations that often do not match the country's real needs. The majority of FE students become the recipients of a vocational training system that does not measure up to the standards set by other nations in the European Community--our direct competitors in the coming decade. The Bill will not liberate those students. The competition that it will unleash between local colleges will almost certainly result in local colleges going under, or being forced to close or merge.

The financial controls and financial regime that the Secretary of State will impose will mean that "stand-alone" projects based within colleges will be unable to receive funding and thus may be forced to close. I was involved in Cleveland in setting up one such project relating to the local chemistry industry at the college of which I was chair of governors. There is no guarantee that such innovative projects will be allowed to survive under a rigid, centrally directed further education structure. The knowledge of essential local circumstances that allows a local education authority or training and enterprise council to support an innovative project will be absent, and it cannot be replaced.

Some aspects of the Bill have not been sufficiently worked out. The splitting of vocational and leisure interest courses worries me. What may be a "leisure course" to narrow-minded Ministers can often appear to those at the chalk face as an essential complement to vocational training. A young man or woman studying engineering practice may regard a better command of English as beneficial to his or her ability to convey complex technical matters to someone in his or her firm or to the firm's customers.

I am aware that LEAs will be left with the funding of so-called "leisure courses", although it is not yet clear what funding the Government will provide to local authorities for those courses. It may be argued that local authorities will fund those courses, but in my area we have the spectacle of poll-tax-capped councils having to cut their core services and being unable to expand in other directions. The acquisition of basic skills such as literacy and numeracy must be regarded as essential vocational skills and I cannot stress highly enough the fact that they must be fully included in the funding arrangements.

I wish to highlight clauses 4 and 11, which deal with special educational needs and people with learning

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difficulties. The formulation of those clauses is weaker than any existing duty of LEAs under the Education Act 1981 and the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986. There is no provision for an independent review of the requirements of individuals or for rights of appeal against the level or quality of support available for students with special education needs. The duty extends only to full-time students in the 16 to 19 age group. It is apparent that there is no guarantee for older or part-time students with learning difficulties.

The Bill does not even begin to deal with the real issues of training and further education for 16 to 19-year-olds. We are only weeks away from a general election, after which a new Labour Government must begin the task of facing up to the responsibility of tackling those issues. We have a unique opportunity to enhance and raise the standards of educational provision for over-16s. By 1994, as a result of demographic movements, there will be 500,000 youngsters between the ages of 16 and 19.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman has run out of time.

8.25 pm

Sir John Farr (Harborough) : I welcome this opportunity of contributing to this stage of the debate, and I am well aware that there are likely to be further opportunities after 10 o'clock. It is important to my constituents and me that I should recognise the kindness of my hon. Friend the Minister of State in seeing delegations from my part of the world on two or three occasions. The most recent was last week, when a senior team discussed the implications of ABE--adult basic education--ESL-- English as a second language--and community further education. The first time that we saw the Minister of State he was impressed because I gave him an amendment to the Bill. That was before Christmas, and the Minister seemed to be inclined to accept it. The first time that a few hon. Friends and I saw the Minister he told us to come back with some experts so that they could argue with his experts to sort out the matter. That is what happened, and last week we were lucky enough to have a good discussion with all the top people on both sides. I then tried unsuccessfully to explain to the Minister of State why some clauses are totally unacceptable to some of my constituents. When my right hon. and learned Friend would not give way to me earlier on, I wished to say that his suggestion that clause 6 was suitable and wholly admirable had been considered by my constituents. Their views were made known to us last week and we had a subsequent meeting in Leicestershire. For reasons that I fully support, the amendment suggests that the safeguards in clause 6 are inadequate. Some hon. Members will be lucky enough to be on the Standing Committee. If I am on it, or if any of my hon. Friends from the same county are on it, I am sure that we shall table that particular amendment to clause 5. We have been so awkward, from the point of view of the Whips, because clause 5 is inadequate unless it includes a couple of lines to the effect that the further education funding councils will take account of existing quality providers, as listed under schedule 2. It is a simple amendment. The first time that I suggested it to the Minister he seemed impressed, but last time he seemed less impressed. Therefore, nothing in my consultations with my hon.

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Friends has shown that we should do other than press the amendment in Committee or on Report. It does not alter the character of the Bill, which we all welcome as an improvement to community and further education. It simply recognises that some parts of the world have reached a standard that my hon. Friend can only envisage for other parts of the country.

The Minister need not take my word for it. HMI carried out a detailed and exhaustive examination of Leicester's ABE recently. As hon. Members know, when HMI visits, it tears the institution to bits and takes it apart at the seams. HMI went through the Leicester adult basic education structure. I have with me the full report, but time will not permit to read it now. It is full of admiration for the work of Leicestershire ABE.

The report makes particular reference to the one-for-one education in the home as of right. I need not explain why that is necessary. Many perfectly normal people do not want to learn publicly. For example, pensioners may not want to show that they cannot spell. They may not be 100 per cent. fit physically, but they are alert mentally and often self-improvement is the only thing that keeps them alive. That is what ABE is all about.

I can refer only briefly to the report. It gives many good examples of how ABE is carried out and praises the ABE service in Leicestershire. The conclusion is :

"Leicestershire has established a strong foundation of provision. It is now timely to consider building on this foundation." That is not what I say ; it is what HMI advised the Secretary of State. With great respect, how dare he ignore that sort of advice about a service that has been taken apart and been seen to be serving the country almost beyond comparison.

The Secretary of State is not in ignorance. He has been told about the report by the Minister of State. As a result of the report and the recommendation that I have just quoted, the Leicestershire ABE service was expanded. All the recommendations in this two-page report have been put into effect. Leicestershire is one of the most progressive ABE providers in the country and it is recognised as such both locally and nationally.

As a result of the report, 13 half-time posts have been turned into full- time posts, a deputy county co-ordinator has been created, its class provision has been greatly increased and a number of its ABE bases have been upgraded. To lose this local, student-centred, urban-rural co- ordinated, well resourced, efficient service with highly trained, well motivated, dedicated staff can be in no one's interest, least of all the adult students for whom it caters. The time for speeches is limited now, but after 10 o'clock it will be slightly longer, so some of my choice comments can wait until then, but I should like to say a word about community further education. My delegation came from all parts of the county of Leicester. My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) came with a delegation of experts from the county and I brought a few experts. We also dealt with further education. I brought Mike Lee, the vice-principal of Welland Park community college in Market Harborough. He had been in correspondence with me for a long time. We have been extending successive invitations to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and others to visit us.

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I must conclude now as I have run out of time, but I hope possibly to resume my speech after 10 o'clock.

8.34 pm

Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) : I will not follow the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) on the Leicestershire question, but I am sure that the Secretary of State will, indeed, make his visit before the election.

I should like to remark on the particularly moving speech of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir R. Rhodes James). He said that he was returning to learning for its own sake and for the love of learning. I am certain that his contribution, as with the contribution of many other scholars, is not learning for its own sake because that learning also enriches language and the whole community. It has always been a pleasure to have him in the House during education debates. I hope that he reads the tributes to him from this side of the House as well as from his own side.

I shall deal with the aspects of the Bill that concern my favourite Department of state, the Welsh Office. The Bill represents the latest and final step in the devolution of education policy and administration to the Welsh Office. We now have in place a fully devolved education system. Last year training was devolved and now we have the further education funding council for Wales and the higher education funding council for Wales. I was pleased at the appointment of Professor John Andrews as the joint chief executive of both councils. We look forward to the appointment and functioning of the shadow council.

The official Opposition criticised the FE changes as a form of centralisation. Even from the Welsh perspective it can be argued that to transfer the 30 FE colleges to a body that is accountable to the Welsh Office rather than to have them as part of local government is a form of centralisation. I do not share that view. I see this as creating opportunity for a relatively small-scale system to be treated as one system for planning purposes. Nevertheless, I share some of the concerns expressed about the effect of that on the adult education component. Again, my experience of the FE sector is that already FE colleges are taking funding from different agencies, not least from the training and enterprise councils and, previously, the Manpower Services Commission, where we had many of the most effective innovations in higher education.

In particular, I welcome the commitment in schedule 2 to Welsh medium teaching and to Welsh language literacy. The further education funding council will certainly want to pursue the work that has already been undertaken by the Welsh adult education committee and the Welsh Language Education Development Committee.

It is high time that in classifying education policy we moved away from these artificial distinctions between secondary education, further education, higher education and adult and continuing education. I came to the House from adult education via higher education and for me life is all about education. Education must necessarily include training. I was supportive of the earlier parts of the Secretary of State's speech in which he mentioned the need to develop an education system that was life-long based and able to tackle the present social changes. This provides

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us with an opportunity for greater co- operation between the TECs, the training component of education, and the further education sector.

I welcome the higher education funding council for Wales. On this occasion I am wearing one version of the university of Wales tie--not the version favoured by the Leader of the Opposition because it is important that we should display diversity.

I am pleased to see the university of Wales being devolved and I certainly do not share the concerns expressed by some in the universities that the devolution of the university to the Welsh Office will give rise to problems in the internal structure of colleges, or the assertion that every higher education institution in Wales should come into some kind of relationship with the university. I believe that there was a strong argument before the devolution that it was important to maintain the university of Wales as a federal institution. If there are arguments now for maintaining the federal structure, they have to be won by that federal structure proving that it is the best way of providing common services to constituent institutions. We have to look not just to the university but to the other institutions of higher education in Wales. They are all now equal partners. There may be an argument, in that context, for moving away from a strong federal structure, as that would tend to dominate the rest of our education within Wales.

The old argument that it is a national university and therefore a national institution and thus needs to be maintained is not one that I would pursue. After all, the Welsh Office is our prime national institution and now it is in charge of our funding. Soon the autonomous council will be administering that funding on the basis of objective standards, and there is not a case, in my view, for a duplication of allocation between the funding council and a joint university structure.

I am also pleased to see reference in the Bill to the position of the Open University. My reading of clause 62(b) is that both funding councils will be able to fund the OU, which means that in the context of Wales the OU can receive additional funding for its operation within Wales. I speak as a former part-time member of its staff in Wales. The OU will be able to receive funding from the higher education funding council of Wales to augment its activities there. I also have concern, of course, about the position of a college in my own constituency, also an institution in which I once taught. It is important that we have a guaranteed role for such institutions within our reorganised HE and FE sector.

I want to make certain that when we debate the Bill in detail we shall be able to do something about research funding in Wales. Many of us are concerned that, over the years, the UFC, although it has its own scheme for the allocation of research funding, has not sufficiently looked to the distribution within the nations and regions of the United Kingdom of its research funding. I hope that there will be a sufficient funding base for the new funding councils and that they will be able to look at the need for a broad profile of research throughout the higher education institutions which they fund.

When we consider the Bill in Committee we shall need to look in detail at the representation on both the equality body and the funding councils. The major consumers of education are its users and its student body. It is very important that we follow some of the debates that are

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already taking place in the other place about representation of the student body on the higher education structures.

The Bill represents a positive move forward in the structuring of Welsh education. I cannot share some of the concerns expressed in various parts of the House, certainly as far as Wales is concerned. My anxiety has always been, ever since I came into the House, to see the development of a strong, autonomous education system within Wales. My first Second Reading speech was on education, when I called for a comprehensive over-16 education system in Wales. I was at that time trying to persuade the then Labour Government that it should introduce such a system. I find myself making what I assume is my last speech in a Second Reading debate on education congratulating a Conservative Government on having done just that.

8.43 pm

Dr. Ian Twinn (Edmonton) : I start by declaring an interest as an adviser to the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, the union I joined when I first started work as a polytechnic lecturer in 1975 just across the river at South Bank. Since 1975, we have seen some tremendous changes in higher education--certainly, since 1979, changes of which Conservative Members have every reason to be proud. We have seen student numbers increase and the quality of the graduates keeping pace with the numbers going into higher education.

I am very pleased to say that it is the polytechnics that have played the lion's part in the expansion of higher education. I am happy to have been a lecturer during that time and to have contributed to that expansion. Other speakers in this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Sir R. Rhodes James), have talked about the joy of teaching. Certainly those of us who come into the House and who have taught before find that it is the one thing that we miss. I would have liked seminar classes the size of the audience this evening at times when I was lecturing. I am particularly pleased that the polytechnics have now been recognised as coming of age and are to be able to be universities. It was a great step forward when they were set free from the local authorities. I worked for the South Bank poly, which was controlled by the Inner London education authority, and I saw the effects of that control on my polytechnic. We were a limited company, with something very similar to the corporate status which the Opposition would like for further education colleges, while still remaining within local government control. I know the problems which that situation caused. I can therefore well appreciate the attitude of principals of further education colleges in wanting to follow the polytechnics down the line of independence from local authorities, although, one would hope, still maintaining very close links with those authorities, but having their independence and their funding coming from elsewhere.

When I started as a polytechnic lecturer, I had moved from the university system, where I had been trained. The contrast was stark, in that all the students whom I taught as a polytechnic lecturer had a very clear idea what they wanted to do in their careers when they left. They therefore had a certain keenness in their vocational training.

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The polytechnics started out with that mission--in my case, the Borough polytechnic at the turn of the century. The polytechnics have had a long and noble career in fulfilling their mission of technical and vocational education. But we saw the breakdown of the binary divide while I was still lecturing. It was impossible to talk about the quality of an individual institution ; it was impossible to talk about the quality of individual faculties. If one wanted to make comparisons within higher education, one had to look at the quality of a department, if not of a degree course itself. Certainly, there were plenty of university degree courses within my field of geography and town planning that were recognised as being very inferior to those courses that had been provided by polytechnics for many years. As a lecturer, I was rather cynical about polytechnics which started to ape universities and call their heads of department professors, for instance, and start to look and behave like universities. I was rather against changes of that sort. But, as time went by and the difference between universities and polytechnics disappeared and polytechnics were taking their part in the expansion of higher education, it became more and more difficult to justify that binary divide. Finally, I changed my mind when I came across the problem when talking to representatives of overseas higher education institutions, who just did not understand what a polytechnic was. On a number of occasions when South Bank polytechnic was trying to negotiate research contracts jointly with European institutions, the latter said that they dealt only with universities, not technical colleges. It took a considerable time to get through to a German institute, for instance, the fact that we were not just a technical college, but a polytechnic, a higher education institute. So the practicalities of being a polytechnic became very difficult indeed. The change to university status will be welcomed. However, I see one problem and perhaps in his winding-up speech the Minister will address it. Although we are to abolish the divide in terms of funding, I am concerned that the new funding council could end up discriminating between institutions. It may take a stance on the level of research and give more research money to some colleges and universities than to others. I hope that that does not happen. We must ensure equality of treatment by the new funding council. I hope that funding, certainly for research, will be based on the results obtained in faculties or departments and not in institutions. Let us introduce some real competition to higher education. All academics know that competition already exists. We know which university and polytechnic departments we rate highly and which we do not. We do not always speak about that, but we are free with such advice to prospective university students.

I hope that the new institutions and the Government will ensure that this great step forward for polytechnics comes to fruition. There is a dire need to implement the Bill's provisions. As hon. Members have said, the polytechnics have been planning for some time for university status and the power to award degrees. Some students in my constituency who are registered for Council for National Academic Awards degrees expect to have a degree from the University of Middlesex and not from the

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CNAA. I can understand their excitement about that. As a former academic who had to deal with visiting panels and who had to try to get new degree courses established, I am pleased to see the CNAA go. It did not inspire much confidence on the bottom rung of lecturing, although I have no doubt that it was popular with those who sat on the visiting panels trying to stop new courses. I have never known an institution that tried to crush competition in quite the way the CNAA did when I was a lecturer. I welcome the debate on the guillotine motion because it will ensure that polytechnic students can look forward to graduating from a university.

8.52 pm

Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) : I should like to declare an interest that may be relevant. I am a trustee of Barnsley college educational trust. I shall confine myself to further and not higher education, and I shall deal with the problems in my constituency which for many years has had a low take-up of post-16 education. We are at the bottom of many league tables for such take-up. The local authority tried desperately to remedy the situation, which has a long history. Many years ago, employment in mining was easily available and many 16-year-olds took a job in the industry. That entailed a certain amount of training. There are, of course, other reasons for the low take-up, one of which is a culture bias against further education.

The local education authority rationalised its sixth forms and established a sixth form college. It became a tertiary college with open enrolment to encourage more 16-year-olds to take up further education. The Bill threatens much of what my local authority has been doing for some years and puts at risk the hard work and money that it has invested in the tertiary college. I remind the House that my local authority is 36th out of 36 in allocations of revenue support grant to metropolitan districts. We get the lowest amount, and the effect is especially acute in education. We are now faced with the loss of the tertiary college and, perhaps more importantly, with the loss of any input into the college's future education provision.

The Bill will allow colleges and further education institutions to become corporate institutions funded by the further education funding council. That will cut off any local authority or local government influence. There will be no opportunity for local authorities to pursue further education policies to encourage take-up or to increase take-up, such as is required in my LEA. There will no longer be any LEA governors. Even the minor input to the governing body will be removed from local authorities. That illustrates the Government's opposition to local government influence in any aspect. We have seen attack after attack on local government, and mine has suffered more than most, especially in terms of the grant allocated to it in the past few years.

It seems strange that, while a Bill to restructure and inquire into local government is going through the House, another Bill seeks to remove further education provision from local authorities. The Government could have waited until after the publication of the commission's findings. The commission may well report that it would be better to keep education under the control of local authorities rather than passing it to the further education funding council or to corporate colleges. Those colleges will compete with each other through the provision of courses

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simply to attract more and more students. Poor take-up or the loss of students to other colleges could lead to college closures. The director of a college that is the neighbour of a college in my constituency summed it up when he said that he intended to turn Barnsley college into a car park. My town and my local authority could lose a college as a result of the competition engendered by the Bill. How will the people in my area have a choice if our college is closed? How will local needs be addressed if students in my area have to travel many miles to colleges in other towns? Obviously, colleges will have to try to reduce costs and increase the numbers of students if they are to stay in business.

We are also concerned about the removal of accountability. As I have said, colleges will not be able to respond to local needs. There is no way in which people in my constituency could take up any issue or grievance about further education other than through the private college and then, presumably, to the Secretary of State.

Over the years, my local authority has tried desperately to obtain a higher take-up of post-16 education. In Barnsley there have already been clashes between the local college and the local education authority because the college, which is now a private company, has decided to go in the opposite direction to that in which the local authority wished it to go. The courses offered formerly by the college which generated income for the local authority are now being offered through private companies, with the money from those courses going to the college itself as opposed to the education authority. It is that type of control over the content of education provision that is worrying. Courses will probably be offered that do not assist in a local area or are irrelevant to it--that may happen in an area such as mine which is trying to encourage the take-up of post-16 education. Another big fear of mine concerns charging for further education. That will be particularly unwelcome in an area such as mine which has unemployment of well over 11.5 per cent. Were further education charges to be imposed, they could have a detrimental effect on the people in my area.

The transfer of assets also concerns me. Two colleges are involved--the tertiary college to which I referred and the Northern college. The tertiary college was formed from two town-centre college buildings and a secondary school which was closed to become part of the college. If those facilities were to be transferred to a corporate college, it would result in a substantial loss of facilities for my local education authority, such as sports fields, arts facilities, a theatre and a hall. They would represent a major loss to the local authority and would not be available for the local area. How can the local education authority make anything of its residual power for adult and part-time education if it has no facilities in which to house those assets?

Perhaps the transfer of such assets would be better done by way of a lease so that, should the college fail or should it have to come back into local education authority ownership, the buildings and facilities would still be in the ownership of the authority. That might ensure the continuation of the college.

The assets of any college include its staff. Although there is to be continuation of employment for the lecturers and staff, there seems to be no guarantee of any jobs for

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the lecturers and teachers once colleges become corporate institutions. What guarantee have the staff of a future within the college structure?

Northern college is in a unique position in that it is funded by local authorities in south Yorkshire, one of them being Barnsley metropolitan district council. The college was established by local education authorities and, were it not for the involvement of those authorities, it would not exist. Other hon. Members have paid tribute to Northern college. It would be a shame if it were put under threat by the Bill.

The college is housed in a stately home owned by Barnsley metropolitan district council. It is surrounded by a considerable acreage of land which includes an ancient monument, Stainborough castle, and other areas of natural beauty which belong to the authority. It bought them in the 1940s and 1950s to house the then Wentworth Castle teacher training college, which later became Northern college. It is inconceivable to me that the Government will remove from my local authority the ownership of the college and the grounds in which it stands. They are a major tourist attraction, apart from being a college and its surroundings, and over the years my local authority has spent a considerable amount on building up the original college and then on providing facilities for Northern college to start up.

Ownership of the facilities should remain with the local education authority, even if Northern college is designated as a relevant college for the purposes of the Act. I hope that in his response the Minister will say what will happen to Northern college under the provisions of the Bill. I should also like him to say whether it will be able to retain the character of its courses--mainly adult education and trade union courses. Although there are one or two colleges like it in other parts of the country, it would be a shame if such courses were to be threatened by the Bill.

9.3 pm

Ms. Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar) : I am particularly concerned about youngsters between the ages of 16 and 19. I have always been a supporter of sixth form centres and colleges, even when many people were against them, and I should like to make sure that nothing in the Bill will limit choice for 16 to 19-year-olds who want to go to sixth form centres. Until now, 16-year-olds who have outgrown school or some who have not done well at school and want a fresh start have had the choice of going on at school or of going to local sixth form centres.

The Secretary of State was evasive about whether education would continue to be free in the new organisations. There may be charges for textbooks and materials, which would be prohibitive for children from poor families, as many families are in Tower Hamlets. I want to be absolutely sure about the question of child benefit. The child benefit regulations say that the mothers of youngsters from 16 to 19

"still in full-time non-advanced education"

are entitled to child benefit. I want to be sure that they will still be classified as school pupils entitled to child benefit when the changeover takes place. I would not like us to wake up and find that there had been an unfortunate change in this respect. I want child benefit payments to be guaranteed.

More in doubt are the means-tested discretionary grants, worth about £300, that many local education authorities give to youngsters from poor families. That is

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