House of Commons Hansard Debates for 3 Mar 1992

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : I have made a careful note of what the hon. Gentleman said. He said that adult education colleges will be dependent on the further education colleges being willing to submit a claim to the funding council. Those were his precise words. That point was raised with me by my adult education college, so I took the trouble of discussing the matter with the chief executive designate of the funding council. He said that he would not permit any further education college simply to try to sweep under the carpet a bid from an adult education college. He said that, if the college did not forward the bid to him, he would want to know why. If there were a dispute between the college of further education and the adult education college, it would be reasonable in the circumstances for him or one of his team to go to the college and discuss the matter in extenso. He

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said that there would be no question of further education authorities being allowed simply to bin the applications of adult education colleges.

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Mr. Fatchett : I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point, and I do not deny the words of the chief executive designate of the funding council. He makes almost the same point as Dr. William Waterworth, and shows up the cumbersome nature of the procedure. I will explain what would happen. The individual adult education centre would have to ask the further education college to submit a bid to the funding council. Time scales are important. The college may well refuse to do so. Let us set that up as a hypothesis and presume that the college is not co-operative. In those circumstances, presumably the adult education centre will take the problem to the Further Education Funding Council, and Mr. Stubbs can then intervene.

Previously, the system would have been that the matter would have been resolved locally by the local education authority. Now there are at least three distinct parties : the funding council, the further education college, and the adult education centre. That is no way to increase the efficiency of the system.

Mr. Elliot Morley (Glanford and Scunthorpe) : I will take the argument further. We have been talking about an adult education college. In my county there is an adult education service--a countywide service--with a range of individual colleges and services. My county is divided between north and south Humberside, with different further education colleges. There are problems about which college will make a bid and how the bid is to be made for a complete service, not just one college. If the system is bureaucratic in relation to one college, it will be almost impossible in terms of a complete service.

Mr. Fatchett : My hon. Friend makes much the same point as has been raised in many letters to us. The system is likely to be inefficient and to lead to a reduction in the overall provision.

The letter from St. Clare's is important. That successful adult education centre is providing a range of schedule 2 and non-schedule 2 provision. How will that centre be funded in future ? It could ask a further education college to make a bid to the funding council for schedule 2 provision--the first mechanism. Let us assume that there are no difficulties there. Some of the work--I calculate about one third--will be through the funding council. The other two thirds will need to go to the local education authority to seek permission and resources. That is a messy system.

As the committee chairman says, at present Devon local education authority, which has a substantial commitment to adult education, for which I praise it, is able to devise a programme and a set of resources to help St. Clare's run an expanding programme. What sense does it make not to listen to those powerful arguments and not to produce an efficient system based on them ?

In Committee, we tabled an amendment that would have dealt with some of the problems and circumvented some of the administration. We moved an amendment to allow the individual adult education centre to make a bid

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to the Further Education Funding Council. The amendment was voted down by Conservative Members. It would have helped to alleviate some of the problems raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) and would have helped many of those who have written to us about what has happened to their service.

As a result of the guillotine, I do not have time to mention all the letters, but I refer the House to some of them. They do not come from just one part of the country and are not merely a lobby organised by the Labour party or a trade union, which is how the Secretary of State often dismisses such opposition. They come from people in all walks of life, from all parts of the country and represent important views on adult education. We have letters from Reading, Leicester, Chelmsford, Essex, Derby, Devon, Yorkshire and Humberside, all reflecting deep anxiety about the provisions. If, in Committee, the Secretary of State or the Minister of State had listened to the arguments and voices, the adult education centres, of which there are many up and down the country, could have had automatic designation so that they could have tendered the bids to the funding council. That would have helped the position. That system would not have been ideal as it would have created a divided responsibility, but at least we could have made some progress, rather than being faced with the existing position.

Mr. Toby Jessel (Twickenham) : Do not a vast number of individuals, companies, education and arts bodies, and institutions of all sorts obtain funding from more than one source? Is that not perfectly normal in this country? That is not normally seen to threaten the future of those organisations or individuals, provided that the sources of finance are sound?

Mr. Fatchett : We have a system that works.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : No.

Mr. Fatchett : The Government claim that there has been an expansion --an expansion funded under the existing arrangements. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) should have listened to what some of his colleagues said on Second Reading about adult education and, more broadly, in terms of further education. They made the simple point that, if something is working, we should not mend it or change it. The system is working at present. If the hon. Gentleman were the principal of an adult education centre and were told that he might now have to make bids in two or three different directions to raise money for a programme previously financed from one source, he would have some difficulty being persuaded that that was the most efficient way of making progress. That is what we said throughout the Standing Committee. That was what was said in our amendments and by many thousands of people up and down the country who are worried about long-term provision.

That is said in the constituency of the hon. Member for Twickenham. The flourishing adult education centre in his constituency is much better served by the existing arrangements than it would be under the change that is likely to come about under the legislation.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : The flaw in the hon. Gentleman's argument is that he predicates that all except

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Conservative-controlled local authorities are well intentioned towards adult education. However, the snag is that local authorities' standard spending assessment money is never earmarked, but always at large. The money going to the funding council is categorically to be used for one purpose, and cannot be taken away--it is much more certain. In my county, I would far rather trust my adult education students and the funding council, directly or indirectly, than leave the matter to Lancashire county council which has just completely cut off discretionary allowances to those aged 19 and over for a whole year.

Mr. Fatchett : In a sense, the hon. Lady has taken the argument half way. I will take it a stage further. I agree with her that the money for the further education funding council is ring-fenced, so it may be guaranteed. We do not know how much money there is, but we cannot criticise that, as Government programmes are coming forward. However, the other part of the funding for non-schedule 2 work--the bulk of the work of an adult education service in a county such as Lancashire--has to come from the local education authority. The hon. Lady is absolutely right in terms of her argument when she says that there can be no guarantee that individual local education authorities will spend the full amount.

But that is the weakness, not in my argument, but in the Secretary of State's, because to make his proposed system work he has to rely on individual local education authorities picking up the bill. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State may find that amusing, but millions of adult education students do not. LEAs have to pick up the bill in circumstances of a tight SSA and a tight budget and in which the local authority, Labour, Conservative or Liberal, will have just lost control of its further education college.

The weakness in the Secretary of State's argument lies in the fact that, with the best will in the world, it is difficult to see how local education authorities can pick up the bill and meet the demands for an adult education service.

Mr. Terry Rooney (Bradford, North) : Following the comments of the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman), does my hon. Friend agree that the funding council will probably enjoy the same guarantee of funding under this Government as training and enterprise councils did?

Mr. Fatchett : That is a good point ; anyone from Bradford or Leeds will know of the large cuts in TEC budgets.

Once it is clear that the schedule 2 work is crucial work that will be funded through the Further Education Funding Council the signal sent to local authorities will surely be that their other work is of secondary importance.

We debate the new clause against a backcloth of anxiety about the future of the adult education service. That anxiety has not been whipped up for political purposes

Mr. Simon Burns (Chelmsford) : It was whipped up by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Fatchett : I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's attribution to me of power to influence millions of people throughout the country. The fact remains that people who do not vote Labour or Liberal but vote Conservative are worried about this Bill--although they are less likely to vote Conservative in the future as a result of its provisions.

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The new clause is all about putting the Secretary of State's word to the test. Let us set up a highly unlikely hypothesis : that the Government win the election and the Bill is passed, whereupon the proposals are implemented. I do not know whether the Secretary of State wants to remain in his office if there is a Conservative victory, but he has said that the proposals will work. New clause 1 merely builds into the Bill the necessity to find out whether they will. That is a reasonably modest responsibility to impose on the Secretary of State.

Sir John Farr (Harborough) : I know that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to improve the Bill, although he has taken a long time to get to new clause 1. He has just mentioned it for the first time in a quarter of an hour. Can he give us any idea how much the new clause would cost? As I read it, it will provide for an army of additional civil servants. It would be--untypically--dishonest of the hon. Gentleman if he did not provide the House with that information.

Mr. Fatchett : The costs will be minimal. The information, however, is crucial and it would allow us to make judgments on issues about which I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned. This is a modest measure-- certainly not so draconian as the hon. Gentleman's amendment No. 7 which would have written out clauses 1 to 61. Our ambitions are much more modest- -we are merely trying to get from the Government some information about the future of the adult education service. We need this information. We believe that the Government's proposals for a new system of funding will not work. They will lead to a reduction in the service, which is why the new clause is designed to elicit the truth in the unlikely event that these proposals are implemented, although I doubt that they ever will be.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : I am pleased that the new clause gives us the opportunity to debate education for adults. The Government have an excellent record of presiding over a great expansion of provision. The Bill gives us an opportunity to improve on that record, and I welcome the chance to respond to the fears continually being raised--that somehow the Bill threatens to check progress of the service or to restrict local education authorities' ability to provide the sort of adult courses about which the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) expressed anxiety.

At one point, the hon. Gentleman rather disingenuously denied that the national campaign on this subject was politically motivated. I do not accept that ; it has been sustained for quite some time, although I would not pay the hon. Gentleman the compliment of saying that he had organised it all. I do not think that the women's institutes have been involved for purely political reasons, but I do see the hand of the Labour-controlled Association of Metropolitan Authorities behind the campaign.

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A great number of ridiculous fears have been whipped up. Many who take these courses have been alarmed by what they have been told will happen : it is all total nonsense. It has been one of the sillier campaigns with which the Labour party has been associated in recent months--a highly competitive field that has been, too. The Bill in no way reduces the legal responsibilities of various

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public bodies to provide adult education of all kinds ; nor does it reduce the availability of public funds from the Government for such education.

The Bill is expressly designed to extend opportunities further. I shall make one final effort to persuade Opposition Members of the basic principle underlying the Bill. The hon. Member for Leeds, Central claims that the purpose of the new clause is to offer some basis, in the form of reports, on which a future Parliament might be able to determine how well adult education has fared under Conservative rule. I certainly agree that in these debates we should be judged by those outside on our respective records, so let us look at the Conservative Government's commitment to adult and further education over the past decade.

During the past 10 years, the number of enrolments in adult and further education of all kinds has risen by about 27 per cent. and the numbers now taking part have increased by more than a quarter. The numbers in further education colleges alone have increased by more than 50 per cent. and approach 1.5 million enrolments a year in England.

Access courses, preparing adults for entry to higher education and virtually unknown 10 years ago, are now available. There are more than 700 in England alone. Partly as a result of those courses, the number of mature students in higher education rose by 55 per cent., or to 216,000 by 1990.

Mr. Fatchett : The Secretary of State talks about an expansion, but all of it has taken place under the existing system administered by local education authorities. Will he take this chance of congratulating those authorities on their success ; and will he answer the question asked by a number of his hon. Friends on Second Reading : if the system is working, why bother to change it?

Mr. Clarke : I accept that the expansion has been achieved by LEAs and colleges and by all engaged in adult education--and all with the active and practical support of the Government, who have provided increased expenditure leading to the expansion.

Let me underline the practical support that we have given and show what has happened to spending on adult and further education services. First, expenditure on adult education centres increased between 1979-80 and 1989- 90 by 31 per cent. in real terms. Spending on further education colleges-- here I cannot give figures which disaggregate adults--increased in real terms by 16 per cent. in the same 10 years. That is a substantial increase in public spending on adult education centres and further education colleges and is in stark contrast with the record of the last Labour Government. When Labour last had an opportunity to act, it neglected that whole area. I shall not dwell for long on the period many years ago when Labour was last in power. I trust that many years will pass before we see a Labour Government again, because we do not want a repeat of the shocking record of the last Labour Government. Between 1975 and 1979, spending on adult education centres went down by 12 per cent. in real terms, and spending on further education colleges rose by only 1 per cent. above inflation.

Under the last Labour Government, adult education was declining and further education colleges were

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stagnating. In the past 10 years under this Government, further education and adult education of all kinds have been expanded. The Bill's purpose is to improve on that.

Mr. Pawsey : Given the appalling record of the last Labour Government, does my right hon. and learned Friend find it extraordinary that Opposition Members rise as the defenders of further education colleges?

Mr. Clarke : They do it without shame. When that sector of education was declining, it was apparently the fault of Conservative local authorities, but when it expands it is apparently because of Labour local authorities. Labour's partisan bias on this supposedly non-political campaign is becoming utterly childish and simplistic. When Labour was in office providing the resources and setting priorities, this part of education was neglected and declining. It required a Conservative Government to give priority and resources, and we have presided over a period of dramatic expansion. That is accelerating, because enrolment rates at further education colleges are high this year. The Bill seeks to expand education, and the vast majority of principals agree with us that it is likely to enable them to expand opportunities even faster than before under the Government.

Labour's dramatic contribution to the debate is, "If it works, don't fix it." For the past 10 years, England has had the only left-of-centre party in western Europe which is against changing anything. On most social issues, Labour has no policy worth the name. It occasionally invents a quango, but it resists any reform at the behest of some vested interest. That is about Labour's only contribution. Labour's years in power are a history of neglect of the subject, but our years in power have been marked by expansion, and all that Labour can say is, "Don't change anything. We prefer to keep the present arrangements."

The broader discussions on the Bill have shown that its purpose is to speed progress and expand opportunities. We want to build on our record and improve further the education opportunities that are available to adults. Schedule 2 sets out, for the first time, a list of the courses which we want to see available all over the country and for which we propose national funding. Access to those courses should not depend on where a person lives, as often happens at present. Therefore, we are making the Further Education Funding Councils responsible for securing adequate provision of those courses.

The courses are not, as some people claim, solely vocational. They go a long way beyond that and include academic, access and basic skills courses, courses for those who need to improve their English and courses for the disabled. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State has said, schedule 2 describes our national priorities. They are national, because we shall provide national funding for them and we wish to guarantee access to such courses to everyone who can benefit from them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) rightly said that such funding is a positive advance for that part of further education because at the moment it is possible for funds that are intended in part for further education to be used by local authorities for something else. The principals of sixth form and further education colleges are anxious to have the provision whereby money will be made available to a funding council for a specific purpose and cannot be filched by councils such as Labour Nottinghamshire and

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Labour Lancashire for other purposes. That money will have to go into further education. Principals know that we are following for funding councils the pattern that we established for polytechnics, which have had expanding resources and growing provision, and there has been a tremendous growth in education.

Mr. Tony Speller (Devon, North) : I accept what my right hon. and learned Friend says and congratulate him on his admirable desire to provide wider education opportunities. However, I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to deal with the more specific point of Devon's local community colleges where the existing machinery works well. Does he agree that such colleges would respond better to local needs in rural areas if they operated on a manageable timetable? I fear the problems of an appeal taking overmuch time while courses are being structured. Our community colleges reinforce the Government's successful implementation of the local management of schools. Because they are locally based, community colleges can suss out exactly what is needed locally for adult education. I agree that funding should come from the centre outward to rural areas, but it need not come via the local sixth form college, which might have a tendency to abstract.

Mr. Clarke : My hon. Friend takes me to my second point--courses which will still normally be funded locally. Under clause 11, community colleges will get funds from the local authority for some courses, and schedule 2 will provide funding council funds. The hon. Member for Leeds, Central tried to describe that procedure as complicated, slow and threatening. I know that there are concerns about that in Devon, Leicestershire, Richmond and elsewhere. I sought to address those concerns on Second Reading and I shall repeat the process.

It is a simple debating device for the hon. Member for Leeds, Central to read out the provisions in as complicated a way as possible and to say that this is a wholly complicated way to get funds. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) spoke about concerns in Devon and the fear that the timetable would be elaborate and slow. The Further Education Funding Council has made it quite clear that it will have to establish a timetable for dealing with clause 6(5) applications to ensure that there is no chance of worthwhile applications being lost because of delay.

The hon. Member for Leeds, Central could benefit from the initiative demonstrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster. He could visit the chief executive-designate, who is well respected on all sides, to go over the mechanics. As my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) said, countless education facilities are used to getting funds from more than one source. Almost every further education college principal does that already when obtaining funds for various courses. Dual funding is not necessarily complicated. The Labour party continues to speak about such funding as if it is some arcane new discovery, in an unnecessary attempt to sound alarm bells in rural areas. It says that the funding council will not be able to cope with dual funding, but there are perfectly adequate facilities to ensure funding.

Mr. Fatchett : The Secretary of State can continue to insult the Labour party because that is par for the course. Why is it that, after Second Reading, Committee and proceedings in the other place, he has still failed to

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persuade the principals of colleges and their governing bodies in places such as Devon and Leicester ? Is that a policy failure or a failure of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's eloquence ?

Mr. Clarke : I think that it is as a result of continual campaigning by those who wilfully fail to follow the explanations, and set out to fan the fears again.

I am being somewhat aggressive towards the Labour party because I do not think that Opposition Front Benchers genuinely believe in the case that they are advancing. They have known all along that there is no threat to the less formal adult education classes, but they have invented legalistic and other arguments that have aroused understandable fears among those who take the courses and those who provide them.

Although debate on this important Bill is timetabled, Opposition Members are devoting a large part of it to an attempt to fan those fears yet further. They have not adopted the simple expedient of doing Ministers the courtesy of listening to their

arguments--presented on the Floor of the House and, repeatedly, in Committee--rather than constantly misrepresenting those arguments. Moreover, had they taken the elementary step of consulting the chief executive of the funding council and asking for reassurance about the practicalities, they would have dispelled most of their fears. Opposition Members do not want to listen to the arguments. It is easy to lark about on the Floor of the House, misreading the Bill and getting the issues slightly wrong in the hope of securing cheap votes. Labour does that because it is devoid of any sensible policies on further or adult education : on this and every other subject, the party is entirely wedded to bureaucratic control by local authorities.

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Sir John Farr : I am anxious to do all I can to support my right hon. and learned Friend. Given the rate at which we are progressing and the strict timetable by which we are governed, it is possible that we shall not reach new clause 7, which deals with a specific worry affecting my constituency in Leicestershire. Under the new clause, colleges of further education, and the basic adult education system, would remain untouched, and further education colleges would have the right to apply directly to the funding councils. I will not go into detail, but my right hon. and learned Friend knows what we want in Leicestershire. We have a splendid system there : Her Majesty's inspectorate has visited the area and praised it. Will my right hon. and learned Friend at least tell me that he recognises that that system works, and that it will therefore be allowed to continue to work as effectively as it does now?

Mr. Clarke : I have given my hon. Friend such an assurance before, and I now give it to him again. I realise that the point is addressed more directly by new clause 7--tabled by my hon. Friend, among others--but the hon. Member for Leeds, Central has drawn us back to it, and it is partially relevant to the report that is being discussed. I have just been covering the procedure whereby the moneys will be pursued. In my opinion, closer examination not only of the Bill but of the declared intentions of the funding council and its chief executive make it clear that

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there is no threat to the system in Leicestershire, the system in Devon or the position of Richmond college, or to the service provided in Humberside.

I shall make one further attempt to explain matters--first, the local authority powers, because they have been challenged, and then the procedures applying to an adult education college wishing to pursue funding council money for the part of its work that falls within schedule 2 to the Bill.

Mr. Morley : I am not convinced by what the Secretary of State said. The anxiety that I have encountered has been expressed by professionals in the adult education system--who provide a first-class service--rather than by members of the Labour party, or any other party.

The Secretary of State has not addressed this point. We are not talking about just one adult education college ; we are talking about--in some cases--a full service, with many centres all around the country. How can those colleges bid for the element of funding that they will lose : funding for basic education, access courses and award-bearing courses? How can they plan to maintain the full structure of their services, when they have no idea whether they will receive the money? If they do not receive it, the

infrastructure--small centres in rural areas--will collapse, and the service will deteriorate.

Mr. Clarke : Those colleges will obtain a large part of their funding in the ordinary way, from the local authority. It will fall within the part of further education provision--adult provision--that continues to be determined locally. That does not mean that it will be given a lower priority, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Leeds, Central. Given the variety of less formal courses that exist, it is much better to judge the position at local level.

To deal with that part of the funding--50 per cent. in the case of the Humberside service, according to the hon. Member for Leeds, Central--the local authorities will retain the powers that they have now. Those powers will be re-stated : they will not be lessened at all. As we have always made clear, the funding will be based on what the colleges spend now. Not only will we maintain the local education authority's duty to provide the courses for adults that are not the responsibility of the funding council ; as we have said repeatedly, we will ensure that local education authorities have--through the revenue support grant system--at least as much money in real terms, allowing for inflation, to fulfil their duties in 1993-94 as they had in 1992-93.

Let me repeat that the 50 per cent. that will continue to be provided locally will not be affected by the Bill. That aspect of adult education will not change. Campaigns about what have been described as leisure courses have been organised. The Bill, and the Government's policy, will not affect the present position ; nor will it affect funding for such courses in any way. The case made in regard to the so-called leisure courses was entirely misconceived--and remains misconceived, where it continues to be made.

Because local provision and local authorities are involved, authorities will have discretion either to increase or to reduce provision--to raise fees, or to lower them. Some LEAs are raising fees now, and seeking somehow to attribute that to the Government's reforms. The fact is

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that those reforms make no difference to so- called leisure courses, or to the many other vital adult courses that lie beyond the funding council's remit.

If a service is being cut or the fees are being raised, that is because local councillors are making their own determined judgments, for their own reasons. There is no point in bringing in party politics--some Labour- controlled local authorities have a poor record of either sustaining or expanding expenditure in that regard. Another point that gives rise to concern is the fact that adult colleges providing services that fall within the provisions of schedule 2 will look to guaranteed funding council money. As was made clear at length on Second Reading, clause 6(5) explains how a college or service will have access to funds if it is not designated under other provisions in the Bill. Under clause 6(5), institutions maintained by local education authorities that make provision for adults should be able to apply, through the further education colleges, for funds to support that part of their work that falls within the funding councils' remit. The further education colleges must forward their applications to the councils where the provision in question would not otherwise be adequate in the area.

The whole purpose of clause 6(5) is to enable community providers to have their schedule 2 work considered by a funding council. We have not merely stated that as an intention ; a number of safeguards have been provided to ensure that it happens. If the procedures are to work effectively, a clear framework will of course be needed. We do not want complications, inefficiency or delay, for--as my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North rightly says--that would threaten essential provision in some places.

The Government will assist by giving guidance on the procedures for schedule 2 applications. A circular letter issued recently by my Further Education Funding Council unit includes the initial guidance for institutions on clause 6(5), and we shall follow it up with further guidance on procedures as soon as possible.

As we said on Second Reading, the Further Education Funding Council will lay down a timetable which will allow plenty of time for the clause 6(5) procedures to work. Local education authorities--and through them, their institutions or services--will be given good notice of when applications should be made. The colleges will be asked to prepare for the applications by making sure that they are well acquainted with all the existing schedule 2 provision in their areas.

The colleges will be given time to consider the applications and, certainly if the descriptions given to me by my hon. Friends the Members for Harborough (Sir J. Farr), for Twickenham and for Devon, North are correct, I am sure that in most cases where relationships are perfectly satisfactory, the colleges will put them to the council. However, if they do not and if all the suspicions that have been fanned are correct, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster is right and they will have to notify the council. The council will not tolerate further education colleges ignoring the provisions of clause 6(5) and failing to put forward well-judged applications for services that are accessible either because they are in rural areas or because they merely happen to be convenient in urban areas and people wish to pursue them.

Where a bid is not put forward, the provider--the college or the service-- will approach the council. In England it will approach its regional office which, as Mr.

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Stubbs apparently said in the meeting with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster, will seek to resolve the conflict. It is not necessary to write that into the Bill. There is one overriding protection in the Bill to which the council will have regard when deciding what to do. The council has a statutory duty to ensure that adequate provision is made in different parts of the country. I am sure that Mr. Gunn, the chairman-designate, Mr. Stubbs, the chief executive-designate, and the people appointed to the Further Education Funding Council will not stand by if people in Devon or Leicestershire start saying that the colleges are not forwarding well-judged applications for schedule 2 funding. The funding council will be under a statutory duty to secure adequate provision in different parts of the country. I do not believe that the procedures that I have described are overly complicated or will cause delay. If for some reason they do not work and if the community provider is still unsatisfied, it is open to the college to appeal to the Secretary of State on the ground that the further education college or the council has acted unreasonably or has failed in its statutory duty.

We can return to these issues, if we wish, when we debate new clause 7. There are perfectly clear mechanisms which people will follow but they can be made to sound complicated. When we discuss on Report a Bill which has necessarily been drafted in legal language, it is easy to debate it in terms which sound unfamiliar to the layman. With the greatest respect, I have been in the House for a long time--unlike most Conservative Members, I can remember being in opposition--and I confess that I have probably played that trick of making something sound frightfully obscure and complicated. But there is no point in alarming people in Devon or Leicester and making them fear that there is no perfectly straightforward procedure to get the funding council and the Secretary of State to sort things out if a local further education college starts messing about and not forwarding applications. We can deal with that when we debate new clause 7.

Mr. Morley : If there is a countywide service, could that service make an application through one particular college, bearing in mind that some of the other colleges in the county would have annexes which would include part of the adult education service?

Mr. Clarke : Again, I am sure that we can correct this later if I am wrong, but a service would not have to go to the nearest further education college. If there were a countywide service, it would go to one within the county but a college would not have to go to the nearest FE college if it feared that the FE college might regard the adult college as a rival. It must go through a further education college in the locality to get the college to hand on the application to the funding council if the college is satisfied that there is a legitimate claim.

I hope that we have covered that issue adequately at this stage. I accept that it is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, who is very experienced in these matters, is very concerned about the state of affairs in Leicestershire, but I believe that repeated debates will at least satisfy people that a procedure exists which will maintain the worthwhile provision needed to maintain an adequate service in all parts of the country.

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6.15 pm

Mr. Jessel : Where there is split funding for an adult college and a request for capital provision, can my right hon. and learned Friend throw any light on who would be responsible for the funding where incorporation had taken place?

Mr. Clarke : It depends on what the funding is for--that is my first reaction. Again, I shall write to my hon. Friend. For most purposes, if the capital bid is to provide schedule 2 funding, it is plain that one will look to the capital provision that we have made for the Further Education Funding Council. If it is for local services, one will look to the local authority. However, just as money from two sources will not defeat the flow of revenue, split provision will not defeat the flow of capital.

Mr. Fatchett : The Secretary of State is opening up an interesting new part of the Bill. If a bid from an adult education centre is for capital, largely in relation to schedule 2 work, is the Secretary of State saying that the centre would have to make that bid through a further education college, or can it make its bid separately? If it can make its bid separately for capital, why cannot it do so for revenue?

Mr. Clarke : If a further education college is incorporated with the funding council, it will make its capital bid to the funding council. If the adult college remains a local authority college, it will look to the local authority for its capital provision. It is the sector that will largely determine the source of capital. Of course, there are provisions under which colleges that do not automatically become incorporated as further education colleges within the funding council's ambit can apply to be incorporated if they so wish, but it is the sector that will largely determine their capital bids.

Mr. Fatchett : I think that the Secretary of State is finding out more about the Bill as we go along. Is the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) that if the work is predominantly schedule 2 work and that, if there is a need for capital expenditure on the adult college in, for example, Richmond, that bid must be made through the local education authority--yes or no?

Mr. Clarke : It would, if the college had decided not to seek incorporation ; but if it had chosen to concentrate on schedule 2 work, it would perhaps be a straight decision by the college not to seek incorporation. The sector would determine the application. We have covered the same ground again. This debate is becoming well-trodden ground. It is a popular Bill with a non-contentious purpose--the expansion of further education, of sixth form opportunities and of adult education. Most of our debates have eventually come to rest in the narrow area of complication with the procedures for schedule 2 funding for adult colleges. That is because there is so little real dispute about the Bill among people genuinely concerned about the subject. The Opposition are ideologically committed to local authority management of this matter as they are in almost every other part of education. They know that most people involved in further and adult education disagree with them fundamentally.

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The new clause is a red herring. It covers issues of genuine concern in some parts of the country, but I hope that the fact that we have debated it at great length yet again at the behest of the Opposition at the start of the timetable motion will enable us to put fears to rest. The Bill will expand opportunities for young people and for adults in all parts of education and training. I ask the House to accept that, to reject the unnecessary new clause and to enable us to move a step nearer to putting these new opportunities in place.

Mr. Michael Carr (Ribble Valley) : The Secretary of State referred to the success story of adult education under this Government, although he acknowledged when pressed that that may have had something to do with the local education authorities. That is typical of the Government, who like to claim success as a Government success, but who see failure in terms of local authority failure. We do not see that only in education.

It was rightly said that every amendment tabled in Committee was defeated. That was not because Ministers did not accept some of the arguments, but simply because the Government want to get the Bill through before the general election. They can then claim that they did well to get it on the statute book.

Hon. Members have received many representations regretting the haste with which the measure is proceeding. The representations have come not only from councillors, but from the providers and users of adult education and further education. They regret very much that the timing of the measure means that debate will be curtailed and that there may not be the right atmosphere for a considered discussion of the issues.

There may be support from further education college principals for the aim of getting the measure on to the statute book quickly, but they represent only a small fraction of those who have an interest and an active involvement in using and providing the services. I counsel that the wider view, not simply the view of a narrow group, is heeded.

As we know, schedule 2 work is to be transferred to the funding councils, and adult education colleges may apply through the further education colleges to the funding councils for their schedule 2 work. Would it not have been sensible to allow direct application from adult education colleges as many are larger than the FE colleges through which they may have to apply? It would also have been sensible to allow consortia of adult education centres to combine in applying directly for schedule 2 funding.

The same applies to whole county adult education services, which should not have to go through FE colleges. Although the Secretary of State has spoken at great length today to try to reassure people that there is not a valid worry, there is a genuine worry that some further education colleges may be a little less likely to apply promptly if they see the threat of competition from another source. Since the White Paper was published last summer, hon. Members of all parties have received shoals of letters from people who are concerned about the proposal--from users and providers of adult education. The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) referred in his inimitable way in Committee to the pile of environmental refuse around him, much of which was no doubt letters

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that he had received on the subject. We all received such letters. The fact that Ministers have made many attempts

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