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8.29 pmMr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North) : I have the honour to congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment and to say how delighted all Members are about it. I wish also to congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms. Coffey) on her interesting speech and to say how much the House enjoyed her humorous approach to an important and serious topic, which helped greatly.
As the hon. Member for Stockport said, the Gracious Speech places importance on education. I shall spend a few moments on that topic and, if there is time, refer to another matter which causes great concern to my constituents.
A number of speakers in this most interesting debate have questioned the comprehensive school system. Some have said that the system has failed totally. I do not accept that statement. The comprehensive ideal was one that those who conceived it could be proud of. It certainly inspired me for many years to work as hard as anybody could in the teaching profession. However, the comprehensive ideal has failed many children because it has proved to be impractical in many schools. That is its tragedy. That does not mean that it was not right to try. What went wrong was the insistence by Labour Governments that there should be a uniform system of comprehensive education. If they had not insisted on having a uniform system of comprehensive secondary education, I do not believe that the comprehensive school ideal would have failed. The ball has to be placed in the court of those who forced the issue to the extent that Labour Governments did.
People in this country and in many other countries will not accept uniformity. They do not want a monopoly. Monopolies lead to failure ; people do not work in the ways that they ought to work, which causes problems. The lives of generations of children have been seriously damaged by local authority reorganisation schemes. The reorganisation of London schools into 97 comprehensives by the London county council and its successor, the Inner London education authority, over a period of about 20 years led to the enormous disorganisation of the education of hundreds of thousands of children. To a great extent, that damaged their subsequent careers.
There is a stronger consumer demand now than there has ever been for diversity and choice in education. Happily, the Gracious Speech confirms that fact. Parents, with the encouragement of successive Governments since 1979, are insisting on a choice of school and a choice of courses within that school for their children. That must be right. If people suggest that schools should tell children what courses to follow, that lets children down seriously and damages this nation. Such a process leads to children being under-educated, which damages our country at a time when we need to be able to compete strongly with countries throughout the world.
I believe that parents want more city technology colleges and more church schools. There is a slow increase in the number of church schools. They are very popular and parents want more of them. There is still a strong demand for single sex schools. I believe that the demand for grant-maintained schools will increase enormously. The Opposition need to realise that grant -maintained schools represent a social, political and educational revolution. The Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have not come to terms with that fact. Five out of the five
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secondary schools in my constituency applied for grant-maintained status. Four of the five achieved it immediately ; the fifth will achieve it fairly soon. These schools are situated both in well- appointed and in very poor areas.That revolution is being led by the parents. It is led not by Whitehall but by the consumer. In an area in my constituency which the Labour party has always thought of as its own, there was a mock election during the general election campaign. The Conservative candidate was elected with a majority of more than 200 over his opponents. That was not accidental. There has been a revolution. The Labour party needs to come to terms with that fact, if it is to begin to understand what is happening in education. I believe that there will be more grant-maintained schools. There is bound to be an avalanche of applications for grant-maintained schools.
The headmaster of Northolt high school told me that the local authority's cleaning budget took away £70,000 from his school and that he found a private contractor who could carry out the job for £40,000. The £30,000 that he has saved will be spent on more teaching and more books, pencils and rubbers.
Mr. David Hanson (Delyn) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Greenway : No. My time is limited so, with respect, I cannot give way.
Such sums matter very much. Children will benefit greatly as a result. They can see that ; so can their parents. The revolt against some comprehensive schools and the lack of choice in some areas could lead, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) said, to a return of selection at 11 --probably not on an academic basis but on the same basis as in Germany. As a member of the Select Committee on Education, I went to look at the way in which secondary education is organised in Germany. There, children are guided into the local gymnasium or realschule. The children go perfectly happily into vocational or academic schools. All those schools have ample resources. The teachers are well paid and the children achieve their potential within those schools.
There is a chance that we shall return to selection simply because of the pressure of monopoly throughout the country as a result of the policies of Labour authorities. Parents are revolting against it. The Labour party needs to recognise that it inspired the nation to take this action, in much the same way as happened in eastern Europe where the imposition of uniformity led to rebellion and dramatically changed the system. The Labour party ought to consider that intellectual argument. It is central to what is happening here. The Labour party has contributed to what has happened in a way that it has not fully appreciated.
Parents want their children to be stretched educationally. The country needs our children to be stretched educationally if we are to compete, even with countries such as Korea. By putting it that way, I do not intend to insult Korea. The number of academic courses and genuinely academic schools must be increased. More children must be given the opportunity to follow genuinely academic courses. That does not rule out vocational education in schools. As I know from my long experience, that is an important part of education.
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As the Gracious Speech points out, teacher education and teacher training must certainly be improved. If we are to achieve that aim, those institutions must certainly be in competent hands. Lecturers must be drawn from those who have recent experience of teaching in schools. They must not have been away from it for a long period, so that they lose contact with what is needed. Teachers will need to be prepared more thoroughly than they have been so far, both academically and in the craft of the classroom, which is the basis of good teaching and sound learning.8.39 pm
Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down) : My first pleasant duty, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is to congratulate you on your appointment and to wish you many peaceful years guiding the debates in the House. In common with other hon. Members, I have listened to many fine maiden speeches which augur well for the House in the years to come in depth both of knowledge and of compassion for the social problems that afflict these islands today.
The environment is mentioned twice in the Gracious Speech. It says that the
"Government will work both at home and abroad to protect the environment. They will ensure that the environment remains a key issue in all policy- making".
Those undertakings contrast strongly with a lack of any commitment in the Government's programme that will address the pressing and vital environmental problems that we face, not just on earth as a whole but in our country today. In 1990 the Government announced their conversion to green issues. I should have hoped that they would have had the time and the opportunity to present to the House a strong programme for environmental protection legislation and to show that they intend to lead other nations towards environmental recovery for this generation and those to come. There do not appear to be any proposals for green legislation in the Government's programme. It is equally disappointing that when the Prime Minister addressed the House on 6 May he did not give any commitment in respect of the great environmental issues, with the exception of a brief reference to the Rio de Janeiro conference, promising the Government's commitment to a target of returning carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the turn of the century. That is an inadequate response to the urgency of the problem. In fact, that rather poor commitment was qualified further by his statement that it would be carried out only "provided that others will do the same."- -[ Official Report, 6 May 1992 ; Vol. 207, c. 73.]
Surely we should be setting an example to the world in respect of all aspects of environmental protection. If need be, we must go it alone, for the practical reason that the process of tackling these major problems must start somewhere, must be started by somebody and must start within one of the western industrialised nations. On ozone layer depletion, the Government seem immune to the urgency indicated by their own research group. In July 1991, the stratospheric ozone review group produced a report drawing attention to the strong evidence that destruction of the ozone layer in the northern hemisphere is greater than anticipated. It stated that above Britain and Europe there had been an 8 per cent. loss of the ozone layer in the past 10 years. That report was followed in October 1991 by a report from a group of 80 international scientists working under the auspices of the
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United Nations environment programme and the World Meteorological Office. It produced extremely disturbing findings and the Government seem to have paid little attention to them. We are talking not about ozone depletion in some far off place such as Antarctica, but about severe and dangerous ozone depletion over northern Europe and the very islands in which we live. Surely the Government are aware from their own research groups and scientific bodies that UVB radiation will have considerable consequences for the health and welfare of the people of these islands, Europe and the entire earth. They should be striving with the maximum urgency for control of ozone-depleting gases and their withdrawal from use, not by the year 2000 but at the earliest possible opportunity. The Government should have the courage to proceed with protecting the earth, whatever the economic disadvantage. They should provide leadership and, if necessary, by moral force should show the way forward to other nations. The Government fall far short on matters other than simply ozone layer depletion. We have heard many sympathetic comments about the destruction of the rain forests. However, it was reported not long ago that several British firms are importing rain forest timbers in contravention of the 1989 Philippines Government ban. No action has been taken. At the earth summit in June it is anticipated that the Government will be seeking international consensus on a set of principles governing the conservation of forests. Surely the Government would have a much stronger arm if they sorted out their departmental disagreements. That would provide them with the authority to go before a world convention to negotiate a legally binding forestry conservation agreement.We must also look at the Government's record on air quality control in the United Kingdom. It has already been noted that there is poor quality air in many parts of these islands. However, the Government boast of having created six new monitoring stations, making a total of 13 sites engaged in ensuring the Government's compliance with EC directive No. 2. That should be compared with Germany where there are 200 sites monitoring air quality control. Surely that is equally important to our citizens.
There is an urgent need, which the Government have neglected, to deal with environmental problems in our own households. They should support a Bill to ban phosphates, increase the biodegradability of detergents and introduce better environmental protection labelling for the consumer. Household detergent pollution is an urgent matter crying out for Government attention.
When we look at the environmental control measures promised in the Government's election manifesto, we see that they have already reneged on the commitment to set up an environmental protection agency by postponing it until not later than 1994. When I questioned the Northern Ireland Office regarding the situation in Northern Ireland, I was told that the commitment would not be implemented until well after that date. So we are probably talking about the turn of the century. That flies in the face of a 1991 all -party report on the environment, which recommended that the environmental protection agencies should be set up immediately.
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Coming from South Down, I would not do justice to the environmental problem if I did not refer to the pollution of the Irish sea and the daily emissions from Sellafield of radioactive material. That is happening as we debate tonight and has been happening for the past 40 years. The radioactive content has been reduced from what it was several years ago, when there were some horrendous emissions of highly radioactive plutonium. Modern technology is available to clean up the discharge completely and it is one of the first issues that must be tackled.Added to that environmental pollution, we are now creating another danger. I understand that as from June this year plutonium will be exported to Japan in a specially constructed cargo ship. Ironically, the adaptations to that ship were carried out at Harland and Wolff. That ship must contain a military complement and will be escorted by a military vessel. Apart from the expense involved, I have no doubt that that trade will be dangerous for the inhabitants of these islands. I am extremely concerned that, once again, nuclear waste reprocessing is being expanded by the introduction of thermal oxide reprocessing plant this year. The Government could at least have had the decency to await the environmental impact study that was promised.
I urge the Prime Minister and his team who will attend the Rio de Janeiro conference in June to have the courage to go forward with a greatly accelerated programme, redressing all aspects of the destruction of the environment. If they do so, they will receive the massive support not only of this country but eventually of the rest of the nations of the world. It is a question of determination, foresight and leadership. I hope that the Government can rise to the challenge.
8.49 pm
Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : I wish briefly but warmly to welcome you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to your elevated office and to wish you well in the future.
Many hon. Members have referred to housing, and I want to do so briefly. The Opposition's amendment refers to omissions from the Gracious Speech. Many of those features are omissions because they are already happening--in other words, much work and money is being invested in solving the problems of homelessness and rooflessness. That is already bearing fruit in London. If the Labour party were to encourage some Labour authorities to return to use some of the empty properties within their gift, many of the problems of homelessness in London and other parts of the country could be solved. They and we could also bring into use unused premises above shops and so on. The Gracious Speech deals with leasehold reform and rents to mortgages. I hope that the commonhold concept will soon be introduced in legislation. I hope that commonhold reform will embrace consideration of the problems that arise when a small house is divided into flats. In my constituency, it is often leaseholders of two, three or four unit blocks whose rights are abused by freeholders. I hope that my hon. Friends in the Department will bear in mind that leaseholders need the protection of commonhold as much as the occupants of larger units.
I hope that we will not forget leasehold reform of the public sector. All too often, people who bought flats from local authorities have no say in service charges, in when or
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what repairs are done or in capital improvements. I believe that they should have a greater say in such decisions. I hope that will be part of the Government's leasehold reform.I welcome the proposals on rents to mortgages, but I hope that they will not stop simply at council tenants. Public sector tenants include housing association tenants, many of whom have been allocated to housing association properties by local authorities. In that process, they often lose the right to buy. The transferable discount scheme is offered for non- charitable trusts, but in London that is a joke because most people cannot afford the property values at which the discount applies. I hope that the rent-to-mortgages concept, which is good, will apply equally to tenants in housing associations.
I agree with the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) about the global environment, but I wish to talk briefly, too, about the domestic environment. The biggest cause of pollution in London, the motor car, is clogging our roads. We desperately need a package of measures to encourage people to use public transport. However, they will use public transport only if it is adequate. We had the great cross-party debate in London, where we threw out the consultants' proposals for major road building schemes and opted unanimously for better and more public transport. I welcome the bold statement in the Gracious Speech that there will be emphasis on providing more rail facilities to solve our problems. I gently suggest that such a proposal could be implemented quickly by bringing forward the improvements to the Northern line, by ensuring that the Hackney to Chelsea rail link travels south through Wandsworth and--this is a very domestic point--by ensuring pedestrian access to railway bridges across the Thames so that people can use the river buses, which stop only on the other side of the Thames at Chelsea as opposed to Battersea. I hope that my proposals for improving public transport will be listened to.
The other improvement in domestic pollution that I should like to see is to do with the air--by which I mean not the air that we breathe but the air through which we hear. All too often we hear far too much. Noise pollution in the inner city is one of the curses of this age. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to give local authorities and the police real powers to confiscate equipment and to stop noise, whether from a private residence or from a public performance. Noise is a menace to people throughout the night, and in the summer, when people wish to have their windows open, it occurs throughout the day and at weekends as well. We need urgent action on those measures. Finally, I want to follow the hon. Member for South Down in speaking about global environment problems. There has been much discussion about the preparations for Rio related to the need for population control to preserve and conserve the assets of our planet. That is right, but we in the west must understand that often the population increases because people in the developing world do not have confidence in the survival of their children. When we can increase their confidence, family sizes will decrease and we shall begin to preserve the planet as a whole. Today, 6,000 children will die of pneumonia ; 7,000 children will die of diarrhoea and dehydration diseases ; and 8,000 children will die of measles, tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria. All those deaths--a total of 21,000 today, 7.6 million this year and 38.3 million over
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a five-year Parliament--are avoidable for a comparatively small sum of money. If the western world, with this country playing its part, were to spend money on enabling those children to survive, the size of families would decrease.The cost of solving the pneumonia problem is 50p per child for antibiotics ; the cost of solving the diarrhoea problem is 5p for oral rehydration tablets ; and the cost of solving the measles problem is sixpence ha'penny for immunisation. For £1,170 a day, 21, 000 lives could be saved today ; for £427,000 a year, 7.6 million could be saved ; and £21.3 million could save 38.3 million lives in a five-year period. Surely that is a price worth paying when we are talking about children and families that need our support. It is a question of chicken and egg. In this case, if the young chickens are able to survive, parents will not produce so many eggs to hatch and so we will start to solve some of the global environmental population problems that face the world at Rio and beyond.
8.58 pm
Mr. Stephen Byers (Wallsend) : Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech in the debate on the Queen's Speech, and may I take this opportunity to extend to you my personal congratulations on your selection as Deputy Speaker.
It is appropriate for me to pay a tribute to Mr. Ted Garrett, my immediate predecessor, who retired at the general election. Ted Garrett was popular with hon. Members of all parties. He did not seek the political limelight but was happy and content to discharge his responsibilities to the constituents of Wallsend in a simple, unassuming manner. However, his constituents knew full well that if they had a grievance--no matter against whom--Ted Garrett would pursue it with tenacity until it was resolved. I only hope that in my time in the House I shall be able to discharge my responsibilities to the constituents of Wallsend in the way that he did since becoming a Member of Parliament in 1964.
The constituency of Wallsend runs from the banks of the great River Tyne northwards to the old coal mining pit villages of the south-east Northumberland coalfield. Alas, the pits are no more, but the river is still active. Swan Hunter Shipbuilders has an international reputation for producing high-quality ships on time and at a competitive price. Its success is largely due to the positive partnership created over the years between the management and the work force.
Just along the Tyne, the other major employer is Press Fabrication, an offshore yard producing modules for the offshore industry. Last year it was named as the northern business of the year--a well-deserved accolade--but such success stories are only small glimmers of light in a dark and bleak environment.
In the 1980s we lost jobs and, for those in work, incomes decreased in real terms. Because of changes to the benefit system, those receiving benefits were pushed deeper into grinding poverty. The feeling of despair and despondency in my constituency is not unique--it is shared by most constituencies in the north-east. That is why, on 9 April, those constituents--those electors--registered a massive vote of no confidence in the Government's policies. Instead, they endorsed Labour's
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programme, which was based on care and compassion for all sections of the population, but that programme has now been denied to them. We are debating a Queen's Speech that has more to do with envy, self-interest and greed than any concept of citizenship or community. On 9 April, more than 50 per cent. of the people who voted in the north-east voted Labour. Many of those people now believe--rightly so-- that the Government have no mandate to govern the north-east. We are all aware of the current constitutional debate in Scotland. I believe that as a result of the election on 9 April a similar debate must now take place in the north-east.I want to make one or two remarks about education. The Chinese have a proverb which says that the schools of a country are its future in miniature. I believe that to be true--we must invest in our future. But that has not happened in the past decade. An ever smaller share of our national wealth has been committed to education spending--a decline of 16 per cent. since 1979. That lack of investment has been combined with constant change in our education system. That system has been subjected to an almost permanent revolution in the classroom. As a result of that combination, our education service is now at breaking point.
The Queen's Speech refers grandly to choice, diversity and standards in education. However, what does that mean in practice if we strip away the rhetoric? The National Foundation for Educational Research has shown that reading standards in primary schools have declined dramatically over the past four or five years. We have heard today that if schools opt out of local authority control, that would raise standards. It is interesting to note that Her Majesty's inspectorate spent 300 days in opted-out schools, but no reports have been published. I have no doubt that reports would have been published if standards had risen.
The Queen's Speech refers to diversity. We know that "diversity" is a code word for selection and a return to the 11-plus--the examination that dares not speak its name. We have already heard that selection denies parental choice. That is nothing new. We have had the 11-plus and we have had selection. However, local authorities of all political controls moved against selection for good reasons. We all recognised and believed that childhood division would create a disadvantage for the majority. We cannot allow the Government to turn the clock back to the bad old days when 75 per cent. of our children were deemed failures at the age of 11.
Margaret Bondfield made her maiden speech as Member for Wallsend in 1926. She said :
"The Government appear to be trying to apply 19th century methods to a 20th century population, and it will not work".--[ Official Report, 30 July 1926 ; Vol. 198, c. 2516.]
I do not believe that measures announced in the Queen's Speech will work. It fails to address the needs and realities of the 1990s. All that the Government can offer my constituents is a future made up of all their yesterdays. Our country and our people deserve better. 9.7 pm
Mr. Jonathan Evans (Brecon and Radnor) : I add my congratulations to those which have been showered on you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from both sides of the House.
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I also congratulate the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) on his maiden speech. I look forward to debating with him across the Chamber for many years to come.When Madam Speaker called the first hon. Member to make his maiden speech during this debate on the Queen's Speech, that hon. Member said that he had been elected on his fifth attempt, something that he had in common with Madam Speaker. I have waited a little longer, although I also fought five general election campaigns before making this maiden speech.
I first stood as a Member of Parliament against the former Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Michael Foot, in the constituency then known as Ebbw Vale. I am sad that my arrival in this place coincides with his decision to depart it. Throughout the time that I have known him, he has been a man of the greatest courtesy, irrespective of our political differences.
I also have this claim to fame : at the last general election I managed to lose the Brecon and Radnor constituency by the smallest margin in the country, and I lost to Michael Foot by the largest margin. That is something to take with me. The experience of winning a seat, even by a vote as marginal as 130, is much better than losing by just 56 votes.
Politics are taken very seriously in my constituency. At the last general election the turnout in Brecon and Radnor, at 84 per cent., was the highest in the country. This time around the turnout was 86 per cent., but it is interesting to note that that was only the third highest. That shows me that there are people in my constituency who still believe that this is the cockpit of the nation, that this is where important decisions are taken, and that it is relevant and important that they should participate in elections.
My first words on being elected were of tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Richard Livsey, for all his hard work as constituency Member for Brecon and Radnor, and I am happy to repeat that tribute in this Chamber. As one would imagine from the political history of the seat, we have been keen political opponents for a considerable time, but that has never stopped us from enjoying a close friendship. I wish him well, although I hope that he decides to pursue an alternative career.
It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the other Members for Brecon and Radnor, starting with the example of constituency service set by the late Labour Member, Lord Watkins, the former Tudor Watkins, who held for Labour what is now regarded as one of the closest three-party marginals in the country for 25 years. He held the seat on the basis of the example of constituency service that he set, followed by his successor Caerwyn Roderick and then by the late Tom Hooson, whose untimely death led to the famous 1985 by-election. It is my understanding that there has never been a one-term Member of Parliament for Brecon and Radnor and, as a supporter of tradition, I am hoping that that is a tradition that my electors will stick with. Having said that, I am aware that many hon. Members on both sides of the House and among the Liberal party have spent some considerable time campaigning in Brecon and Radnor. Most of them have come back from the constituency saying that it is one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, in Britain. I know that every Member of Parliament is bound to say in this Chamber that their constituency is the most beautiful, but I can say with some force that I have support from both sides of the Chamber for that proposition.
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However, my constituency has its difficulties. It has the largest proportion of the land-mass of Wales and so I suppose that I may say that I speak for more of Wales than anyone else in the Chamber. It covers more than three quarters of a million acres of Wales, stretching from the upper Swansea valley to Shropshire, and from the suburbs of Abergavenny to the hinterland of Aberystwyth. It would not fit within the curtilage of the M25 motorway, which is a sign of how vast the constituency is.It is well known that agriculture is an important industry in the constituency, and I welcome the observations in the Queen's Speech about agricultural marketing and reform of the common agricultural policy. I hope to return to those issues in this Chamber on other occasions.
During my maiden speech I must speak more fully on housing, on the basis that a large rural area such as my constituency often has difficulty persuading people that there is a rural housing problem. I recognise that there is such a problem. Until the election was called I enjoyed the honour of being the deputy chairman of Housing for Wales, Tai Cymru, the Welsh equivalent of the Housing Corporation. I am pleased that while I was involved in the board of that corporation we were able to convince the housing establishment--the housing professionals--that there really was a housing problem. We were able to commit some 27 per cent. of all Housing Corporation expenditure in Wales to trying to resolve that problem. I am pleased to see that now the Housing Corporation in England is starting to catch up. I am disappointed at some observations in the amendment concerning the role of local government and criticising the Government's policy on housing as though housing were to be delivered only by local government. I am rather sorry that Opposition Members pay so little attention to the role of housing associations, their major achievements in recent years and the great support that they have had from the Government. Our Housing Corporation in Wales operates in positive partnership with local authorities. Local authorities have a role, yes--not perhaps as the provider, but as the enabler. Since Housing for Wales has been established it has been a key, leading body in developing the close relationship between local authorities and the Housing Corporation that is so important.
There has been a massive expansion in resources for the housing association movement and it is important that the money is targeted better than has been the case in the past. That is why we in Wales have decided that money must be directed, yes, to where local authorities say it is needed, but on the basis of their surveys of local opinion. Often local authorities adopt the stance that they always know best. It is important that they should be involved in liaising with local groups and local communities to assess exactly what the housing needs are, so that we are sure that money spent on housing goes where it should go.
I am pleased to say that the amount of finance made available to housing associations, particularly in Wales, has increased considerably. I was pleased to see the Conservative party's commitment in its manifesto to ensuring that the figures in the public expenditure line will be commitments for the years ahead. I see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales on the Front Bench and I say to him that I did not see any such commitment in the Welsh manifesto. I hope that there is nothing significant in that.
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It is also important to recognise the role that private funding has played in the mixed financial regime with housing associations. Thirty per cent. or more of the expenditure available must come from the private sector. If it is to come, it must come on the basis of private funding being available. I congratulate the Government on commissioning a report from Hambro which, I understand, may have been in the Government's hands since January or February. So far the report has not been published. It is important that it should be published because it is necessary to take every available step to ensure that private funding exists.I am a Welshman who has lived and worked in Wales all my life. I represent a Welsh constituency, but I am here as a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament. We have heard many remarks from Opposition Members about mandates. As a Member of this Parliament, I consider Wales to be an integral part of the United Kingdom, and I shall work during all the time that I am here to ensure that it remains so. 9.18 pm
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn) : May I offer you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my hearty congratulations on your appointment? You may recall that we first met 20 years ago when I was newly elected as a member of the Labour group on Islington borough council and you were leader of a rump of Conservative opposition members which had been reduced to five aldermen. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) did not intend to call you Mr. Deputy Mayor, but if he had said Mr. Former Alderman, he would have been correct. We are delighted to see you in your place.
It is my happy task to congratulate the 13 hon. Members who have made maiden speeches today as well as to congratulate the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who has returned to the House for a third time. He is not so much a retread as an inner tube, but his speech was entertaining none the less.
There were eight maiden speeches by Labour hon. Members, including those from my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Ms. Campbell), for Cannock and Burntwood (Dr. Wright), for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms. Morris) and for Stockport (Ms. Coffey) who took seats from Conservative Members at the general election. The fact that those five won those seats underlines the great difference between this Parliament and the previous one. Thanks to the effectiveness of our election campaign, the Government's majority has been reduced from more than 100 to just 21.
We have heard fine speeches from all my hon. Friends. I greatly enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock and Burntwood, who spoke of the principle of alphabetical order and the way in which he suffered greatly as a result. His name begins with a W, and although mine begins with an S, I share his sense of discrimination. He also made a very important point, which the Secretary of State may wish to address, about the crisis in the recruitment of parents and other members of the public to serve as school governors. That crisis is caused by the fact that the nature of the job has changed, from one of giving support and assistance to the education of children within the school to the often unpalatable task
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of having to make cuts in budgets and deciding which teachers should be sacked or which budgets for books should be cut. I greatly enjoyed the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, which is near to the area where I was born. He may not know-- it is a little known fact--that for three weeks in 1965 my sister and I were employed full time by the Labour party to canvass the whole of the constituency as a prelude to a famous by-election win which took place some months later. I was paid the princely sum of £7 per week, and on the basis of that £21--Mr. Straw : That was before the idea of the minimum wage had even passed the lips of Labour spokespersons.
On the basis of the money I earned, I bought myself a suit. I still have that suit, and I can still get into it. [Interruption.] The good men and women of Marks and Spencer would be offended by the suggestion that the suit I am wearing today is 28 years old. We heard fine speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Yardley and for Stockport, and I shall return to them. There were also fine contributions from the hon. Members for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth), for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland), for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), and for Bath (Mr. Foster), as well as from the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker).
I also warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) on his appointment as the new Secretary of State in the freshly renamed Department for Education. The right hon. Gentleman comes to his post with many advantages. He knows more than a little about education, but perhaps his greatest advantage is that he is not the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), his predecessor who is now Home Secretary. Though that right hon. and learned Gentleman often entertained the House with his unusual combination of bravado and invective, the world of parents, governors, teachers and pupils, over whom he temporarily presided, was far from entertained.
The previous Secretary of State left the education service in turmoil, in a worse state even than he had found it 16 months before. He turned teacher training upside down, he pre-emptorily decided that history should end in 1963 and he planned the wholesale dismemberment of Her Majesty's inspectorate and the local inspectorate of schools, and the privatisation of what remained. Worse, he gave the impression of disinterest in the views and opinions of teachers and parents and rarely visited any state schools.
The former Secretary of State, now the Home Secretary, is, I believe, a practising agnostic. He has been seen inside a church less often than he was seen inside a school. The new Secretary of State, on the other hand, is a devout member of the Roman Catholic church and in a now celebrated article in The Spectator --which, fortunately for him, hit the stands after, rather than before, the election--he enlisted the assistance of the Almighty to explain away Conservative Administrations' lamentable
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record on law and order, namely, the doubling of crime in less than a decade. The Secretary of State said that it was all a consequence of declining church attendance and a"dwindling belief in redemption and damnation which has led to a loss of fear of the eternal consequences of goodness and badness." We shall, no doubt, be hearing more about the Almighty in relation to education policy. Even now, I understand that hard-pressed teachers of disaffected adolescents in inner city schools are clamouring for hell to be officially made part of the national curriculum, most likely in exchange for craft, design and technology, and personal and social education.
In his speech on Wednesday on the Loyal Address, the Prime Minister said :
"Our target is to raise standards, widen choice and open up opportunity for hundreds of thousands of children".--[ Official Report, 6 May 1992 ; Vol. 207, c. 71.]
Opportunity, choice, standards--they are easy words to say and we can, and do, all drink to them. Their practice, however, is a great deal more difficult, and it is the likely practice of the Government's education policies and their probable consequence that I shall address tonight.
There are many policies on which there has been broad agreement in the Chamber, as with the introduction of the national curriculum and the local management of schools, and on many others there could easily be agreement, such as the rapid expansion of nursery education, for which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) called in an effective speech, or the serious integration of academic and vocational qualifications.
In the time available to me today, however, I shall deal with one policy on which there is far less agreement--opting out and the extension of the grant-maintained sector. Of all Conservative education policies, none has been sold more heavily on that litany of opportunity, choice and standards than the policy of opting out. Paradoxically, of all Conservative education policies, none contains within it more potential for reducing opportunity and parental choice than opting out, while doing nothing to raise educational standards. Why the present Administration should have turned opting out into an article of Conservative faith is beyond me. It was, it may be recalled, dreamed up in the early months of 1987 by the Downing street policy unit as no more than a crude wheeze to destabilise a few allegedly unpopular inner city Labour local education authorities. It was a policy forced on a wholly sceptical Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), who publicly clashed with the then Prime Minister on its likely impact. She said that by 1991 more than half of all schools would have opted out, but the right hon. Member for Mole Valley wisely predicted that only a few schools would opt out of the local authority system. Despite the cynical enticement of schools named for closure then being offered opt-out as a salvation--despite the naked bribery of opt-out schools--by the last election, only 200 schools, less than 1 per cent., had opted out of the local authority system, and most of those were to be found in a handful not of Labour authorities but of low- spending Conservative authorities.
Opting out has now moved up from wheeze to dogma, with Tory Members and the Conservative press openly encouraging an avalanche of opting out, with the end of local democratic involvement in the school system as we know it. The Secretary of State said yesterday that he
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anticipated that the floodgates for opting out were now open, but The Daily Telegraph wrote in an editorial last Wednesday : "A serious policy vacuum is becoming apparent at the heart of the Government's policies for secondary education."It went on :
"Unless it is addressed soon, the opting-out process could become anarchic and thereby discredited."
That policy vacuum exists because of a central problem which the Secretary of State's predecessor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly ducked. The question is what kind of system will schools be opting into, not that from which they will be opting out. What lies beyond the floodgates of which the Secretary of State spoke yesterday is turbulence, uncertainty and territory that is unknown, not calm, charted waters. In that territory schools and their pupils could easily become the casualties. The wider the floodgates and the more schools opt out, the less will the past be any guide to the future.
I shall deal with five linked issues : cash, selection, parental choice, administration and standards. Roman Catholic bishops held a conference 10 days ago during which they expressed their deep unease about the prospects for opting out. The bishops said :
"We are deeply opposed to the considerable imbalances in funding brought about by the administration of the grant maintained school system, and we shall press for the removal of preferential funding for such schools."
When opting out was first put before the House five years ago, solemn undertakings were given by Ministers and by the then Prime Minister that local education authority schools and opt-out schools would be treated in a financially neutral way. As opting out began to flop, bribes were offered by Ministers and were taken.
Most schools which have opted out so far have done so simply for the money. The average sized secondary school has been at least £155, 000 better off in its first year as a result of opting out, with capital funding running at twice the rate for local authority schools. Some of the extra cash has been taken directly from other LEA schools, which has impoverished them, but much has come from extra Exchequer expenditure. Immoral such bribes may have been, but with opting out on such a scale their costs were easily absorbable.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is not surprising that there were additional capital grants for some schools in the county of Lancashire, schools which had been grossly starved of funds and which therefore had to make up a great deal of leeway? Those schools, two of which are in my constituency, had been starved over the years by Lancashire county council. Having had the wisdom to opt out, they are now receiving the money that previously had been devoted to administration and democracy in county hall. They are now doing exceptionally well. Many such schools would not have received a bean from the county.
Mr. Straw : The hon. Lady is right to say that three or four schools out of hundreds that have opted out in Lancashire were starved of cash for their capital building needs. Where she is wrong--she knows this--is in suggesting that Lancashire county council is responsible. She came with me on deputation after deputation to Ministers, and she knows that it was the Conservative Government who starved the schools of funds, not the failure of Lancashire county council.
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The question raised by the Catholic bishops and the question now being raised by governors, parents and local authorities throughout the land is whether the bribes can continue. I put the question to the Secretary of State, and I ask him to answer it. If, as the Government predict, 2,000 more schools opt out, that will cost the Exchequer--I leave aside the moneys that will be taken from local authorities and local authority schools--an extra £300 million. If another 4,000 schools opt out, that will cost the Exchequer another £600 million. Does that money exist? Are schools which now opt out to be offered the same level of bribes--"financial incentives", to use the Prime Minister's words--that schools have been offered in the past? I offer the Secretary of State the opportunity to explain. Come on--answer the question! This is a crucial issue for every school in the land. If the Secretary of State is unwilling to answer now, he had better answer in the course of his speech, because parents and governors have a right to know whether the same sort of bribes that have hitherto been offered will continue in the future.A second issue, even more important than whether the level of financial incentives will continue, is selection. An increase in opting out will inexorably lead to greater selection at 11, since the schools and not the local education authorities will make the selection. Some grant-maintained schools have made it explicit that they want to turn from being comprehensives to being grammar schools. In any area we may rapidly see the creation of a rigid hierarchy of schools, with favoured, well-funded opt- outs at the top--grammar schools in all but name--and a second tier of council schools, secondary moderns or no hope schools, to use the words of The Daily Telegraph, at the bottom.
Time and again, during the election campaign and before, I pressed the former Secretary of State to say whether this two-tier system--this recreation of the secondary modern schools--was what the Conservative party wanted. Time and again he dodged the issue, but whether and how children are given their life chances at 11 cannot be a matter for agnosticism. Nor, as The Daily Telegraph witheringly commented in the same editorial, can the Government
"maintain its pretence of neutrality over the future of comprehensives by implying that it is simply allowing a hundred flowers to bloom".
Selection was never mentioned in the Tories' manifesto, yet selection at 11 there will be if opting out becomes the norm--and it will be far less fair and far more random selection than ever it was under the 11-plus. That, too, was a point made by the Catholic bishops, who said that
"Grant-maintained status would bring a random return to selection, which leads to the neglect of the less able or disadvantaged children."
The Secretary of State should also recognise a point in the powerful speech by his hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden), who said that if the Government continue to have no clear policy on whether they favour comprehensive schools or some sort of explicit selection, the consequence will be random selection and a primitive and disorganised policy from which the Conservatives will be the losers.
As the local authority system breaks up and as competition between schools intensifies, so, too, will parental choice decrease. As my hon. Friend the Member for Yardley pointed out, parents will no longer choose schools-- schools will choose parents. In the four years since the Education Reform Act 1988, the proportion of
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