House of Commons Hansard Debates for 9 Nov 1992

Mrs. Taylor : No, I shall not give way. It is too late. The Secretary of State's reaction to this year's GCSE results was typical of what is wrong with his approach to education. His knee-jerk criticism of the examination

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results was splashed all over the papers regardless of its impact on youngsters who had worked hard for their success. Tory right-wingers do not like the GCSE because of its course work and because they find it difficult to accept that half of our children can obtain the top grades. The Minister had to respond to his right wing and criticise the examination. His time and the time of the House would be better spent on other issues, such as trying to reform post-16 qualifications.

The Bill should be judged on its contribution to improving education. Does it properly address the long-standing education problems faced by our children? It does not. Despite the Secretary of State's assertion that he wants to open the White Paper's door of opportunity to all children, he is returning to a divisive selective system that will open doors only to some. We have been down the road of selection, of specialised education. It led directly to second-class education for the majority of our children. It encouraged massive and widespread under-achievement and underpinned our low rating in international education comparisons. It gave the favoured few, those who were supposed to be succeeding, a narrow and limited view of what education opportunity was about.

The Bill does nothing to ensure that every child in Britain will be offered the chances, choices and resources to raise educational achievements to the highest possible level. It gives the green light to those who wish to select and reject and will deny many children the chance to learn. It sells the majority of our children short and closes doors rather than opens them.

Successive Conservative Governments have destroyed all hope of consensus in education, although many Conservative councillors share many of our values. There is a fundamental difference in approach between the Opposition and the Minister. We believe that the doors to education should be opened as wide as possible and kept open for as long as possible. The Government seem intent on creating a series of hurdles to discourage young people.

The Bill is dangerously irrelevant to the needs of education. It has nothing to say about how to raise standards and levels of achievement for all our children. Every country in Europe knows that pre-school education with trained teachers provides the basis for higher achievement. Where does the Bill deal with early-years education? Every country in Europe knows that coherent post-16 education which ensures the highest quality of education, leading to real achievement--not the low-level courses designed to reduce unemployment that we have had from this Government--is the key to an efficient economy and real achievement. Where is the post-16 education in the Bill?

Where is there any mention of the need to gain the co-operation of teachers using their professional skills in the enterprise of raising achievement levels? The Secretary of State is failing our children. The White Paper spoke of "developing moral values" and of teaching children to be involved in their communities. How can that happen if schools and pupils are encouraged to opt out of their communities? The Bill will not only encourage a divided set of schools but will create an amoral framework in which community, parents and children will be encouraged to despise and denigrate each other. The Bill will not help to create the kind of education system that our country wants and needs as we move into the 21st century. We shall oppose it on every occasion.

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5.30 pm

Mr. Michael Alison (Selby) : The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), to borrow an analogy from the classroom, has proved herself a disappointing examination candidate. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set her a number of examination questions on grant-maintained schools. He did not expect every question to be answered, but most examination papers say, "Attempt to answer one question."

The hon. Lady did not attempt to answer even one and then, perversity on perversity, she set some examination questions for my right hon. Friend--a curious inversion of the procedure that candidates in examinations are supposed to follow. When she did so, he promptly answered them all. The hon. Lady has given a disappointing performance in her answers about Labour party policy on grant-maintained schools.

Let me warn the hon. Lady about one thing. She and the Labour party must tread warily. They are trying to minimise the impact that grant-maintained status is having by marginalising the 300 or 400 schools that have already gone through with grant-maintained status. They claim that that is only a tiny statistic in relation to the great mass of schools. She should recall early Labour party attitudes towards the sale of council houses--a good analogy, as that was the enfranchisement of tenants, just as this is the enfranchisement of parents.

To begin with, the sale of council houses was a cloud no bigger than a man's hand--my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will know this familiar biblical metaphor. Now, it fills the firmament of political life. I believe that, while grant-maintained status may be a cloud no bigger than a man's hand now, it will grow similarly to fill the whole education firmament. The hon. Lady and her party should pay careful attention to the coming reality.

Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North) : I should like to underline what my right hon. Friend says. The Labour party would do well to pay attention to this revolution in education. Is the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) aware that, in my constituency, every high school or secondary school has opted out, apart from one that was not allowed to do so last year but will do so this year? That represents parents who have money, parents who have only a little, and parents who have none. Old and young, rich and poor alike see

grant-maintained status as an opportunity for their children and grandchildren, and the Labour party does not understand that.

Mr. Alison : My hon. Friend underlines my point. Grant-maintained status is starting slowly, but it will gather momentum and will become one of the great realities in the political firmament. I was grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State not only for his general presentation of this important Bill but for his special reference to religious education, in which he has taken a great personal interest, reflecting his own commitment, and about which he had a number of important things to say. Better still, there are important religious education features in the Bill.

I shall briefly say a few words about this rather rarefied and specialised subject. The Education Reform Act 1988 required that all new religious education syllabuses should reflect mainly Christian religous traditions. However, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out, this requirement has been applied only by the one third of all local

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education authorities that have drawn up or are in the process of drawing up new syllabuses. That is a poor performance.

Therefore, in clause 224, my right hon. Friend proposes to close a legal loophole by requiring all local education authorities to bring their syllabuses into line with the Education Reform Act 1988, if they have not already done so. This provision is greatly to be welcomed and is likely to receive that welcome in all parts of the House.

Clauses 10 and 11 give governing bodies of grant-maintained schools the right to be represented on local committees that prepare and monitor agreed syllabuses on religious education. This is also most welcome and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for this. My only concern is that these arrangements do not come into play until 75 per cent. of either primary or secondary pupils are educated in grant-maintained schools within the area of the local education authority. This trigger point should more appropriately be set at 50 per cent. and I hope that my right hon. Friend will examine the matter if an amendment along those lines is tabled in Committee. Grant-maintained schools will wish to play a part, working with others, in preparing local religious education schemes, but it has to be recognised that in some cases, agreed syllabuses are of poor quality, making few intellectual demands on children. For this reason, the Government are right, in clause 126, to give the governing bodies of grant- maintained schools the right to choose the agreed syllabus of another authority. That is a reflection of how poor some of the existing syllabuses are.

I welcome the support the Bill gives to Church schools and in particular I welcome--I believe that I shall not be the only one to do so--the possibility of the creation of new denominational and non-denominational Christian schools.

My right hon. Friend will have received some evidence from the Church of England Board of Education. This is an immensely influential and beneficial body in the firmament of the Church of England, and the Church of England has a substantial stake, as my right hon. Friend knows, in education. About 20 per cent. of all schools are based on a Church of England foundation, and that is a high proportion.

However, the board of education has submitted some rather controversial proposals to my right hon. Friend. Without wearing my modest official hat as the Second Church Estates Commissioner, and speaking as an ordinary Back Bencher, I warn my right hon. Friend that I disagree with a couple of the ideas that the board has put forward. One is a change in the provisions affecting school worship. It proposes that the requirement for all grant- maintained schools to hold a daily act of worship should be dropped and replaced with the requirement for an occasional act of worship. As part of rendering the requirement occasional, the board proposes that children should be able to visit acts of worship according to non-Christian faiths. Most people accept that schools should teach about non-Christian faiths, provided that the integrity and coherence of each faith are respected and that the legal requirements of the 1988 Act that bear on a mainly Christian content are fulfilled.

There is a great difference, however, between children studying a world religion in a classroom and participating in acts of worship of another world religion. The Church of England's Board of Education of the General Synod proposes that schools should be free to arrange visits to

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acts of worship taking place within "faith communities", as it puts it. Many parents, however, will see little distinction between children observing acts of worship and participating in them. I fear that the board's proposals give insufficient weight to the concerns of parents who have a sincere faith, of whatever religion. Its proposals may prove counter-productive in the aim of developing respect, tolerance and understanding.

Many Muslim parents, for example, might have strong reservations about their children visiting Hindu temples. If it is not right to expect Muslim children to take part in acts of Christian worship, it cannot be right for Christian children to be expected to take part in acts of Muslim or Sikh worship. I heard that, a fortnight ago, primary school children within a northern education authority, on a school visit to a mosque, were made to pretend to be Muslims at prayer. Surely that is just as offensive to Muslims as to Christians.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will realise that real difficulties are likely to arise if we act on the board's advice in this context, although we all wish to maintain and integrate the mainly Christian emphasis of the 1988 Act with the need to learn discreetly about the reality of other world religions.

Mr. George Walden (Buckingham) : I ask for my right hon. Friend's views on the substance of religious education. It seems that the Government have done well in trying to ensure that the Christian tradition is used as a basis of teaching. In my experience, however, moralistic wiffle-waffle is taught about the third world, rain forests or some damned thing. Nothing is taught about the history of the Christian religion, let alone the Bible. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will tell us his views on the substance of religious education rather than its form.

Mr. Alison : I have great sympathy with what my hon. Friend has said. It is one reason why we owe an immense debt of gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and some of his predecessors for having joined in the general campaign to ensure that religious education syllabuses are brought properly up to date under the auspices of the 1988 Act and that "mainly Christian" means that most syllabuses have features of Christian religion that are properly taught, which means that there should be room for only one, or at the very most two, other world religion or religions.

Syllabuses are now subject to complaints by parents, and, as a result of the innovation that is contained in the Bill, grant-maintained schools, at least, will be able to shop around for a proper religious education syllabus. That means that there will be a huge emphasis increasingly on a proper Christian content. Schools will be able to introduce religious syllabuses that are not likely to be the subject of complaint and that genuinely teach mainstream traditional Christian religion.

I emphasise that religious education is not to be confused with religious instruction, religious indoctrination or religious nurture. The key word is "education". The complaints procedure and my right hon. Friend's innovation will, I am sure, lead to a great improvement in the content of syllabuses. We do not want thematic teaching to be aimed to impart, for example, the relevance of light in all world religions. That sort of teaching takes

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us nowhere ; it is thematic and hopeless. That is the sort of thing from which we are hoping to escape as a result of my right hon. Friend's innovations and changes.

I hope very much that the anxieties of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden), as he articulately expressed them, will be met in what has been provided.

I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to some representations that I have received from Christians in Education--a department of CARE, Christian Action, Research and Education. It greatly welcomes the Education (Schools) Act 1992, which requires that all schools should be inspected on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of their pupils. Its provisions will help to implement some of the positive concerns that are set out in the White Paper about moral values in our schools. Spiritual, cultural and moral values, however, are given slightly less emphasis in the Bill than in the previous two important education Bills. We would welcome the possibility of an amendment that would require schools to publish information about their spiritual, moral and cultural values. Such an amendment would help parents to make appropriate choices and give inspection teams a baseline for inspection.

Mr. Patten : Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the tasks which I have laid down upon the Office of Standards in Education, the new inspectorate of schools--it will be examining and reporting on every primary and secondary school in the country over four years, and thereafter once every four years--is to report on the spiritual, moral and cultural ethos of a school? The chief inspector and his colleagues will be giving greater attention to that and setting great store by it.

Secondly, is my right hon. Friend aware that I will, if he thinks that the procedure which I have outlined is inadequate, take seriously his request to consider the possibility--no more than that--of an amendment to the Bill along the lines that he has suggested?

Mr. Alison : My right hon. Friend has fulfilled the almost divine prerogative of "Before you call, I shall answer." He has made a fabulous contribution to the debate. We shall wait carefully on what he has said.

I would welcome also--

Mr. Pawsey : In addition to what my right hon. Friend has said about the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, does he agree that we have seen a positive example of further consultation on the Bill taking place this evening?

Mr. Alison : My right hon. Friend is an immensely flexible and receptive Secretary of State. He is well supported by allies and friends such as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), who keeps a sharp eye on us when we debate education matters.

It is to be welcomed that inspection teams will be reporting on the spiritual and moral aspects of school life. It is important that the teams include those who are equipped to report on such matters. That is especially important where schools have a particular and, in my advocacy to my right hon. Friend, clear Christian ethos.

We must ensure that we avoid unsympathetic or even hostile inspections. Many schools will not be able to choose their own inspectors. It will be damaging if

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non-Christians, or those hostile to the Christian religion, carry out an inspection of spiritual and moral aspects of school life. I am talking of those who are basically unsympathetic to the entire ethos of a school. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will bear these matters in mind.

My right hon. Friend is to be welcomed for his immense grasp of education matters, representing as he does the greatest seat of learning in the known universe. He has taken a particular, committed, profound and sympathetic approach to the issues surrounding religious education, for which we are all profoundly grateful. We wish him every success with the Bill.

5.49 pm

Mr. Gerry Steinberg (City of Durham) : As we are all aware, the Government have dictated education policy for the past 13 years, yet whenever any criticism is levelled against the system, they blame anybody but themselves : they blame the teachers, the schools or the local education authorities. Now, instead of taking the opportunity to invest in education, they intend to make our education system the most centralised, bureaucratic and nationalised system in the western world.

We are told that the Bill will give us a double offering--choice and diversity--but in fact it contains more of the divisive reforms which have already caused upheaval in our schools and antagonised the education professions. Without any concessions to allow schools time to absorb the many and various alterations in recent times, the Bill moves the privatisation of the education system up a gear. It will extend opting out, further reduce the role of LEAs and increase specialisation and selection.

There is a disguised and ominous theme to the Bill. I served on the Committee which considered the Education Reform Act 1988, which gave the Secretary of State immense influence over the education system. We complained at the time that he was taking on too many responsibilities. The proposals in the current Bill reinforce that influence and give him inordinate control over education matters at local level. At a Select Committee meeting last week, the right hon. Gentleman agreed that he would be taking on more than 40 new powers. The ultimate effect will be that the rights of parents and the entitlements of children will be eroded.

Among other things, the Secretary of State will gain the power to approve changes of school character, to decide local admissions policies, to replace governors of opted out schools, to take over failing schools and to reduce surplus places. The sheer length of the Bill makes it impossible to mention every proposal during a Second Reading debate, so I shall concentrate on just a few.

The Secretary of State will have the power to appoint a new school curriculum and assessment authority--a single body to replace and combine the functions of the National Curriculum Council and the School Examinations and Assessment Council. That new body will be firmly under the control of the Secretary of State and will not be in any sense representative. In fact, it will be similar to the NCC and SEAC, which are controlled by puppets of the Government.

The Secretary of State's new powers to intervene in a wide range of matters will create confusion and administrative uncertainty for parents, teachers and

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schools. The main confusion is about the Government's proposal to appoint a statutory body, the Funding Agency for Schools for England. Its members, again appointed by the Secretary of State, will share the duty to secure sufficient primary and secondary school places from the point where 10 per cent. of pupils are in grant- maintained schools.

If more than 75 per cent. of pupils are in opted-out schools, the funding agency will take complete responsibility for education planning. We are told that local education authorities can apply to be relieved of that responsibility well before that point is reached. I expect that many Tory- controlled LEAs will jump at that opportunity. At the Select Committee meeting last week, the Secretary of State suggested that that was already happening and that many Tory-controlled LEAs were applying to get rid of their

responsibilities for education.

Once the Bill is enacted, LEAs will have only a range of residual functions. The potential administrative chaos and institutional conflict is obvious, especially as the funding agency will have an interest in extending grant-maintained status. The members of the agency will be appointees of the Secretary of State and are therefore highly unlikely to show any inclinations to resist Government direction. Indeed, it would be against their interests to do so. The Bill promises the continued existence of LEAs, but how can we believe that promise when they will have a markedly diminished role and the prospect of further delegation? The pressure to delegate even more will further weaken them and, as more schools opt out, the LEAs will lose powers to the funding agency. Eventually, they will be relieved of all their functions. Local government has been taken out of education. Democratically elected LEAs are being replaced by unaccountable quangos answerable only to the Secretary of State. It is once again clear that the opportunities for growth and development are to be restricted to the grant-maintained sector. The Government want all schools to opt for grant-maintained status, despite the fact that opting out has proved an embarrassing flop, as the figures that I shall give later in my speech so clearly show. Immediately before the general election, the then Education Secretary predicted that an avalanche of schools would opt out as soon as a Tory victory was assured. The Grant-Maintained Schools Trust claimed that 2,000 schools would quickly opt out. That has not happened. In fact, there has been a minimal response, with fewer than 400 schools opting out.

Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the reason why so few schools have managed to opt out thus far is the LEAs' vigorous, vicious and hostile campaign against such schools?

Mr. Steinberg : The majority of schools do not want to opt out because they are satisfied with their local education authorities. Those that have opted out are in local education authorities which have underfunded their schools, and those schools opted out only because they had no alternative but to do so. Opting out has been a complete wash-out in Durham, where there is no support for such a system. That has been profoundly embarrassing for the Government and has contributed to their desperation to make grant-maintained status easier to achieve and more attractive to individual governing bodies. Head teachers and school governors have been

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bombarded with propaganda. We have heard about expenditure on campaigns by LEAs, but it cannot compare with the amount of taxpayers' money spent by the Government on bombarding head teachers and governors with propaganda.

To ease the route to opting out, the Government intend to abolish the second governors' resolution before a parental vote, thereby reducing the amount of time for resistance. They intend to limit LEAs' spending on information about opt-out ballots and to allow voluntary bodies to impose the establishment of new grant-maintained schools. The Government are prepared to spend large amounts of public money on campaigns in favour of grant-maintained status, but they intend to wipe out any attempts by LEAs to oppose them, by placing a restriction on LEA expenditure. The Secretary of State has confirmed that today.

The proposals are not so much about offering the choice to opt out as about the far more menacing implication of enforced opting out. There is a very real possibility that schools will be forced to opt out against the will of their governing bodies. Opting out is aimed at the break-up of the cohesive pattern of local education. It encourages moves towards selection, with a school able to choose its pupils, and it leads to neglect of the less able or disadvantaged child. Until now, financial bribes have been offered to opting-out schools at the expense of other children in the community. It is no wonder that the largest group of opted-out schools are those under low- spending Tory authorities. It is in Labour areas that parents have the greatest confidence in their locally accountable education service.

Schools where ballots are pending include Blackfriars, Devon Foundation and King Edmund schools in Conservative-controlled Essex, and the George Warr school in Conservative-controlled Wiltshire. The list goes on and on. They are all schools in Conservative-controlled areas wanting to break free of useless local education authorities. Where schools are labelled as failing, LEAs will give way to local education associations--more ominously known as hit squads--which will move in to take control. Those hit squads are already being labelled as a dad's army, because they will consist of retired head teachers and former managers of industry. Again, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint association members, who will have the authority to take over the management of a school, or even a group of schools, from the governing bodies and the LEA. Associations will have the power and the funding of a grant-maintained governing body. Education associations pose significant threats. No criteria are given to define a failing school. It will be left to unreliable, privatised inspectors to decide which schools are at risk. Only schools in LEA areas will have the pleasure of education associations. That presumably means that grant- maintained schools will never fail--or if they do, it will not matter.

Mr. Walden : The hon. Gentleman appears apprehensive--as, in my experience, are some Conservative voters--about pitting one school against another and thus introducing friction. It is important that the public understand that the vision of a smooth-running machine is false. That is a totalitarian vision. Friction, as T. S. Eliot pointed out, is a necessary component of any successful

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culture. Controlled friction between schools, by generating more competition, will be fruitful and beneficial. Friction is inevitable if one has freedom.

Mr. Steinberg : The only friction that I know is that generated by a Tory Government who have been destroying education for the past 13 years. The Bill is the last nail in the coffin.

An education association will have the power to propose changes in the character of a school under its management and, if necessary, to suggest closure. It will have the power to hire and fire staff in order to achieve its goals, and it will manage a school until the Secretary of State is satisfied that it has achieved a satisfactory performance.

Following the involvement of the education association, the school would be forced to become a grant-maintained school without any ballot of parents. Where is the choice that we hear so much about? The truth is that education associations are being introduced as a way of ensuring that inner-city schools opt out when they would not otherwise do so.

In some areas, three separate authorities will operate--the local education authority, the funding agency, and the education association. What is that but a recipe for absolute chaos? The Government are determined that the number of surplus places should be reduced to make financial savings. The Secretary of State has given himself ultimate control in the power to force a local authority to reduce the number of its school places.

It is to be expected that LEA-controlled rather than

grant-maintained schools will be targeted. The funding agency is almost certain to favour grant-maintained schools, and the new policy of rationalisation will result in "full" grant-maintained schools and the closure of LEA schools. Parents' choice will be limited when they find that a school of their choosing has been closed so that a grant-maintained school can flourish. That is total hypocrisy. LEAs attempting to close schools in an overall provision plan have found that the Government allowed threatened schools to opt out--and in some areas produced even more places by opening a city technology college.

The Bill contains a substantial section on specialisation, which is distinct from selection. Specialisation is presented as schools "playing to their strengths" and is to be encouraged by the option of adding sponsor governors with a background in commerce or industry. Specialisation is, therefore, likely to be associated with increased funding inequality. Also, a school wanting to develop its specialism will be allowed, if necessary, to alter its structure.

Grant-maintained schools will be given a free rein, with the possibility of becoming selective. They may apply to change their character and admission policies and will then be judged on their merits by--guess who--the Secretary of State. That will undoubtedly lead to selection re-emerging by the back door.

Mr. Clappison rose--

Mr. Steinberg : I have already given way, and I have much more to say.

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Mr. Jack Thompson (Wansbeck) : Is my hon. Friend aware that the Bill's provisions will not work in counties such as Northumberland, which have a three-tier system comprising first schools, middle schools and high schools?

Mr. Clappison rose--

Mr. Steinberg : No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I wish that he would sit down.

If I were the Member of Parliament for my hon. Friend's constituency, I should be very worried about the local schools. They are the targets of the surplus places that the Government are talking about. Such schools are likely to be closed down. Unless they opt out, they will probably have no future. I should be a very worried man if any such schools were in my constituency.

Selecting children for specialist schools ignores the developing and changing nature of children's abilities and needs. It assumes that the number of children having a particular aptitude at 11 years of age is definable--and that the same children and number will have identical aptitudes and needs later in their education. Educationists know that that is not the case, but the Government, as usual, ignore reality and claim to know best.

In Durham, the local authority co-ordinates local planning and control in deciding what is best for the school, parents and students. We face the prospect of individual units specialising in music, science or languages vying for business. A number of schools will thrive in that environment and will be able to develop into selective centres with a high reputation for quality in their area of expertise. That will be achieved by selecting the brightest children. Anyone can do that. There will always be the survival of the fittest, but a proper national education system cannot develop in a free market atmosphere.

The Government continue to reject equitable resourcing to nationally agreed minimum levels ; yet with a national funding council, national curriculum, and national testing, the need for nationally agreed levels of resourcing is inescapable. The Prime Minister's insistence that pupils everywhere should have the same opportunities is solely a reference to the national curriculum. There is no such insistence in relation to funding.

The Government continue to promote the myth of parental choice. They do not face the fact that, ultimately, parents will find their children being turned away from schools which are full, whether they are specialised or selective. The policies proposed by the Government will lead not to parents choosing schools, but to schools choosing pupils. As surplus places are removed, choice becomes more limited, because more schools are full. Parents are able to express a preference from a variety of options, but do not have the right to a choice of school. It is not explained what will happen to pupils when their parents are unable to secure their first choice.

Although the Bill goes some way towards improving provision for special needs, I do not think that it goes far enough. Those with special needs are still under threat, and the introduction of the funding agency will bring confusion. The LEA and the funding agency will, from the 10 per cent. entry point, share a duty to secure sufficient places in the area for pupils with statements ; the LEA will continue to be responsible for pupils with statements, whereas the funding agency may become responsible for pupils with special educational needs without statements.

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That is totally confusing, and I fear that it will endanger the links that have been carefully made between mainstream, special schools, and their support services.

The future of the integration of disabled and handicapped children in mainstream schools will be at risk unless a duty is placed on grant- maintained schools to admit any disabled or handicapped child, rather than the duty being placed only on the grant-maintained schools specified in the statement. The quality of education provided for such children will be seriously endangered unless we legislate for more than what I see as a quota system.

The proposals could also result in LEA schools having to provide for all special educational needs, with grant-maintained schools becoming even more elitist than already planned. The 1981 and 1988 Acts were never resourced adequately, and there is already a huge commitment of resources for LEA schools. We do not want or need elitist grammar schools ; we need schools which provide for a cross-section of the school population, giving all children the best possible quality of education. Such schools must be adequately resourced.

While our European neighbours develop an education policy according to national interest, out Government pursue a policy of dichotomy, division and disregard. The Bill is irrelevant to the real needs of education. Not even passing lip service is paid to increased investment and better facilities. Parents care whether a school has sufficient books and equipment, enough teachers and adequate buildings ; the Government's only investment, however, is in the establishment of a mechanism to dismantle local control.

My principal demand is for minimum standards of resourcing for education, with particular regard to staffing levels linked to class sizes and curricular needs, to nursery provision, to books and equipment and to in- service training for teachers. It is clear that the education service is drastically underfunded. A significant and immediate injection of funds is essential ; in turn, a high-quality education service will rely on well- motivated, properly qualified and trained teachers, with the time and resources to fulfil their professional role.

Quality teaching goes hand in hand with an increase in the recruitment of teachers, and with their retention in the profession. The Bill makes very few references to teachers, and gives no hope for the opening of a serious dialogue with the profession the search for an improvement in schools. It says nothing about the central role that the teaching profession must play in any scheme to improve the quality of education. That may not come as a surprise, but it represents a fundamental flaw in the Bill.

The Bill will reduce the influence of the LEA as an employer by increasing grant-maintained status and delegation under local management of schools. Teachers will thus become more vulnerable. The removal of surplus places will lead to the displacement of teachers ; unless the Bill is changed drastically, the redeployment of teachers--already extremely limited--will become a virtual impossibility. The LEAs' ability to redeploy teachers will be seriously diminished. Grant-maintained schools would be unlikely to accept redeployees, and the funding authority is not likely to take responsibility for managing a redeployment programme and encouraging grant- maintained schools to employ redeployees. Schools which

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remain under LEA control will face surplus place reductions themselves, and are unlikely to be in a position to accept redeployees.

A quality public education service is the foundation of a civilised and economically successful society. The success or failure of the public education service rests essentially on both the level of resourcing and the efforts and contribution of the teaching profession. Without the necessary investment in education--including its teachers' salaries and conditions of service--its full potential cannot and will not be achieved, and the nation's children and the nation as a whole will suffer from all the adverse consequences. 6.15 pm

Mr. James Pawsey (Rugby and Kenilworth) : If the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) thinks that grant-maintained schools are such a flop, why did he devote about 75 per cent. of his speech to attacking them? If they are a flop, why is the hon. Gentleman so worried about the future of LEAs? I suggest that he is confused. I found the speech of the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) particularly disappointing. It was totally negative. After 55 minutes of it--and an intervention from one of my hon. Friends--the House is still unclear about the Opposition's official policy. Are they going to repeal legislation relating to grant- maintained schools, or are they not? Are they going to take grant- maintained schools back into LEA control, or are they not? If the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) wishes to intervene, I shall willingly give way to him.

Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend) : I shall have something to say tomorrow.

Mr. Pawsey : I hope that the House heard that. The hon. Gentleman wishes to remain silent, and Conservative Members find that silence eloquent.

I welcome the Bill, which maintains the thrust and momentum of both the 1986 and the 1988 Acts. It is the third in a trinity of Bills designed to improve the quality and standard of state education, from which the majority of our children benefit. One aim of the Bill is to develop the grant-maintained school. There is no doubt that, following our general election victory in April, grant-maintained status is here to stay and will increasingly become the norm, especially in the secondary sector.

Speaking at the Council of Local Education Authorities in Liverpool earlier this year, my noble Friend Lady Blatch said :

"Local education authorities can no longer be guaranteed a monopoly in providing education services."

Those who hear in those words the death knell of the LEA may be somewhat premature, but there can be little doubt that they sound a clear warning note about its continued existence, at least in its present form. A wind of change is blowing through the state education system, and LEAs will undoubtedly feel the draught.

The role of the LEA will unquestionably diminsh as the number of grant- maintained schools increases. It should be remembered, however, that the LEA exists not for the benefit of the well-meaning people who serve on it, but for the benefit of children and their education. If that education can be improved by a vehicle other than an LEA, we should not hesitate to adopt such a vehicle. No one system enjoys a monopoly of virtue ; there is clearly merit in increasing the amount of choice and diversity, and

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that applies to school administration just as much as to the schools themselves. It is likely that a residual role will remain for LEAs, but it clearly will not be as all-encompassing as it is now. I readily acknowledge the work of those who serve on LEAs, both elected members and officials. We live in a time of change, however, and the education system cannot be immune to that change. It does not operate in a time warp. Clearly, it must respond to the greater parental expectations that exist as a result of the 1986 and 1988 Acts.

Local education authorities, established almost 100 years ago by Act of Parliament, are not the only vehicles that can deliver good education to the nation's children. I am convinced that there are alternatives. The grant-maintained school is one. In the past, it has always been accepted that the Government must accept responsibility for what goes on in the nation's schools, even though the Government do not administer them. When I look at our education system, I am reminded that although the Government are responsible for what goes on in the nation's schools, they do not have power over how money is spent in those schools. They may will the means, but local government, through the local education authorities, decides how those means will be spent.

It is sometimes argued that the resources made available by central Government are inadequate, but that is not borne out by the facts. In response to a recent parliamentary question that I tabled, it emerged that the United Kingdom spends a higher percentage of its gross domestic product on education than either Germany or Japan. That is underlined by the fact that the pupil-teacher ratio in this country is now 17.5 : 1. Only seven years ago, it was 18.5 : 1. There has been a steady improvement in the pupil-teacher ratio throughout the lifetime of this Government.

The increase in resources is also borne out by teachers' pay. According to a recent answer to another parliamentary question that I tabled, the average teacher's pay on 1 April 1992 was £20,630, an increase of some 273 per cent., in cash terms, since 1979--or a real-terms increase of 46 per cent. Despite the ill-informed comments of some Opposition Members, it is clear that this Government have consistently increased funds for education since 1979.

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