House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Jul 1993

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has been established over the years, in which we have sought to do a number of things. Perhaps the most important has been to try to improve the presentation of the figures so that they can be more readily understood by more people.

As we discovered in our recent deliberations with the officials of the DFE, there is considerable difficulty in finding one's way through the tables of figures and the statistics which make up the running of a very intricate and complicated Department. I believe that my colleagues would wish me to pay tribute to the Department for the fact that improvements have been made in the presentation of the information. However, to use a term that we all know well, there is still room for improvement, and we hope to see continuing improvement in the future.

I want to draw attention to three points which arise from our report and which I believe are worthy of attention.

The first relates to plans. Although the total of local authority expenditure, nearly half of which goes on education, is now planned and controlled by the Government, the Department publishes no plans for spending by local authorities. We have recommended that the least that should happen is the breaking down of the total into sub-blocks--under- fives, primary, secondary, post-16, and other--and that we should be able to look at the outturn and spending for the coming year, which should be presented in terms of these blocks. We also stress the point of accountability. This was a matter that exercised the Committee quite considerably. It is vital for people at every level, whether they be school governors, parents, local councillors, Members of Parliament or whatever, to be able to identify quite clearly who is responsible for the various elements of expenditure within our education system.

Questions have been presented to successive Secretaries of State on this subject which have left the Committee still unwilling to accept that this vacuum of accountability should be allowed to continue. The Committee is saying that there should be greater accountability and that efforts should be made to find out exactly who is responsible for what.

As a former local authority man, I can understand the difficulties as regards what comes from the centre and is hypothecated by statute, or whatever, and what is delegated to the rim, as it were, in terms of the local authority, and now, with the changed legislation, is delegated to yet another rim, the schools. I know that my hon. Friends who have been members of local authorities will share my view that there is a vacuum. We all know that it is exploited by hon. Members on both sides of the House, as they can point the finger at someone else.

In the crucial area of education spending, it is important that we should have direct accountability and the ability to ask those who make the decisions and are responsible for them some questions about the whys and wherefores. I hope that the Department will examine that issue so that we can anticipate some improvements next year. The Committee experienced some difficulties with the statistics in the report and we have considerable sympathy with the Department. The collation of the returns from local authorities is quite unacceptably bad. The fact that, some eight months after the turn of the financial year, we have fewer than 50 per cent. of the returns is not acceptable by any standards. If Parliament--and that means the

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Select Committee--is to scrutinise the figures in any sensible way, we must improve the way in which the information is collected. That would allow us to look more critically at the outturn of education spending and examine accountability in a more sensible and meaningful way.

Another point in our report concerns the amount of capital expenditure on grant-maintained schools. We been placed on capital expenditure for grant- maintained schools, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said clearly that it was a matter of policy. Although I accept that there are other means available to local authorities, such as the use of capital receipts being transferred from one area of expenditure to another, the constraints under which the vast majority of local authorities operate are such that, in reality, that option is seldom possible or available to them. We are concerned about the disparity of funding as the gap is shown to widen over the next few years. That is unsupportable, given the state of repair of many of our schools--an issue which the Select Committee has considered for many years and which must be addressed. The principle of grant-maintained schools is very much part of the Government's policy, but in order to have fairness we should ensure that state schools--the local education authority maintained schools--are at least given the same opportunities.

I ask my right hon. Friend to look critically at whether the expectation that the money will be there is to be realised. There was a distinct feeling among members of the Committee that the belief that that would happen was a triumph of hope over expectation. I shall now make one of two wider remarks. I recognise that we are short of time and other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate. The debate is essentially about the estimates, and we spend vast sums of money on education. Therefore, any comments which affect education and the way in which money is spent must be valid. In recent months, we have seen problems right across the educational spectrum ; problems arising from the main principles of the Government's legislation, the national curriculum and the issues that flow from it. I have said on many occasions and reiterate tonight that those principles are absolutely right. However, I find it inconceivable that, so many years after I believed the debate about the principles of a national curriculum, the principles of rigour, the principles of testing and assessment to be over, that debate still continues.

I believe that there is evidence of widespread support in schools for the principle of the national curriculum and that the excitement about the entitlement of every child in the country to a certain basic level of education can be taken as read.

Few people who work in education and in schools would dispute the need for rigour in the system and some means of testing and assessing. Those words assume different meanings for different people. Perhaps we all go back to our own childhood too often and try to relate to a world which, if it ever existed, is more in people's imagination than in reality.

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Deficiencies have occurred in the detail and the implementation. I have said that putting legislation on the statute book is to some extent the easier part of the exercise. What is vital is how that change is managed and implemented. We have seen some polarisation in the implementation of the reforms which can be described only as unfortunate.

It cannot work without partnership--the partnership that we all recognise to be vital between school and home and the equally essential partnership that I believe also to be vital between the Government and schools and those who work in education. We have to do everything in our power to ensure that the polarisation that has taken place is reversed and we must bring people together to talk about the implementation.

A great deal is said about the Dearing review, which I believe is broadly welcomed. We await with great interest Sir Ron Dearing's recommendations. I believe that he is taking evidence from anyone who cares to give it, as well as seeking advice from various groups. At this stage, I have no reservations about the opportunities for people to contribute to that review.

Sir Ron Dearing has shown himself to be a man of independent thought, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked him to address four specific questions. I hope that the Dearing review presents more than just an opportunity to look at how the system is working ; it should give everyone an opportunity to take one step backwards from the current confrontation.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will acknowledge that, while there is clearly a short-term problem that has to be examined by Sir Ron Dearing, there are other problems which perhaps need medium and longer term solutions. If Sir Ron Dearing does the first part of his job as well as I hope he will--indeed, he must if we are to make progress in this debate-- there will be other matters he can address also by continuing the vital consultation processes.

As far as the reforms are concerned, we should see a continuous process of fine tuning and improvement. Above all else, the acid test has to be practicality. Will it work and, if it works, will it deliver what we want?

The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten) : I am listening with care to my hon. Friend's remarks. He will be aware that, as chairman of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Sir Ron Dearing will, for the term of his office, have a continuing role in reviewing precisely the subjects to which my hon. Friend refers.

Sir Malcolm Thornton : I am aware of that, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for confirming the point. Seeing Sir Ron as an independent figure--as a bridge over which people can walk to transfer views from one side to the other--is critical. It is also important for my right hon. Friend to realise that if Sir Ron is to do his job, he must continue to show, as he has shown so far, his independence. It is always open to Government to accept or reject advice. While that is right, so long as we can be sure that the advice is objective--I have in the past said that I have not always been sure that it has been objective--at least we shall know that the people concerned, about whom I have spoken, have had an opportunity to contribute.

If we are really serious about having a mass, high level system of education, we must recognise that the changes implemented over the years have been vital. But I make no

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apology for reiterating my earlier point : that that cannot be achieved without co-operation. Secretaries of State have the right--I defend my right hon. Friend's right in the matter, just as I defended the right of a predecessor of his, Baroness Williams of Crosby--to put forward policies, and we and others have the right to challenge them. But once those policies have been put forward and the principles decided, it behoves everyone to try to make them work.

The Secretary of State must lead from the front in that exercise. He knows better than anyone that the polarisation that has existed for some time must be undone. We trust the Dearing review will produce sensible proposals. I hope that everybody--including people in the trade unions who have perhaps used the present situation to exaggerate matters and undermine some of the basic principles to which I referred, about which I thought there had been agreement years ago but which have been dragged back into the arena--is serious about wanting to achieve what we all wish to achieve. If so, we must take a step backwards so that we may take several steps forward to meet each other.

Too many people are adopting preconceived ideas about the reforms which most people agree are absolutely necessary. Teachers, Ministers, trade unionists and everybody else accept that only one group of people matters-- not teachers or Ministers, but the children in our schools for whom the education system exists. If we can remember that, we shall make progress, and in doing so we shall achieve what everybody, inside and outside education, wants--a systematic and controlled improvement in an education system that must serve Britain into the middle of the next century.

7.53 pm

Mr. David Jamieson (Plymouth, Devonport) : The debate is helping to highlight the difference of view across the Floor of the House. Education is described in the document in the language of management, finance, systems and constant tinkering. In contrast, my hon. Friend and I see education not just as a means of enhancing individuals' life changes but as an investment for society at large.

That is why we would have liked to see in the document a reference to spending on nursery education, because that would be giving the best possible start to all children. We want children to be taught by the best and most highly qualified teachers. We reject totally the notion of a mum's army. We want high-quality teachers and high-quality teaching, and we want people with the qualifications to bring that about.

We contrast that with the spectre of the profession now, laden with bureaucracy. I shall concentrate my remarks on the need for the accountability of funds in the system of schooling. After all, we are told in the document that next year nearly £17 billion of taxpayers' money will be spent on the education system. We want that money to be clearly accountable to the taxpayer in the proper manner. Even the document says that local authorities should be accountable to their electorates. We do not disagree with that.

We believe that if a local education authority can be voted in to do a job, people locally should also have the power to vote an LEA out, if that is what they want. To have effective accountability of the substantial sums of

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taxpayers' money about which we are speaking, it must be as near to the people as possible, and particularly near those who pay the taxes and receive the services. It is unquestionable that over the years LEAs have served us well, but unfortunately they are now being blamed for many of the supposed ills of the education system.

The Government have created a need for change in the funding arrangements, with policies for opting out, by creating grant-maintained schools. I shall not tonight argue the principle of GM schools, although we have not seen the predicted avalanche. The policy is now progressing at a snail's pace, despite the cajoling that has occurred and the bribes that have been given.

To fund the GM schools we need a funding agency, which is yet another quango to be added to the long list of quangos. In recent years, the Conservatives have found a new enthusiasm for quangos that was not shared by former Governments. For example, Baroness Thatcher, when Prime Minister, said in answer to a parliamentary question in 1980 :

"We shall hope to make more progress in the future by reducing further the number of quangos".--[ Official Report, 4 December 1980 ; Vol. 995, c. 424.]

A few months later, the same Prime Minister, when again asked about quangos, said :

"We were able to announce yesterday a further reduction of 140 or so in the quangos. That is very good news".--[ Official Report, 19 May 1981 ; Vol. 4, c. 151.]

Yet today, in the post-Thatcher renaissance era of Conservatism, the greatest growth industry in Britain is quangos. Who are the unelected, independent-minded people who are free from party politics and who sit on quangos?

Mr. Don Foster (Bath) : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, according to latest estimates, quangos are now assumed to be responsible for one fifth of all public expenditure?

Mr. Jamieson : I was aware of that and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing it out. This week, a question was tabled asking about the representatives on the Further Education Funding Council and about their political affiliations. I gather that two members of that body, a Mr. Bennett and a Mr. Fallon, were both Tory Members until 1992. Mr. Bennett is described by Roth in Parliamentary Profiles as a

"hard-Right Thatcherite educator".

When the Tories fail at the ballot box in local elections, they then denigrate and undermine the work of councils. To regain local control, they dispose of the democratic institutions and replace them with quangos run by Tory placemen--in this case, failed Tory politicians. It is the new philosophy. If the Tories cannot gain the confidence of the people, they go through the back door and exercise control through quangos. Those quangos, freed from democratically accountable, meddling councillors, develop rather as the Welsh Development Agency has done.

Of course, I hope that organisations will not develop that way because a report from the Public Accounts Committee published today claims that the WDA is run like a private fiefdom. Is that what we are to expect of the funding agency, which is charged with spending £17 billion of taxpayers' money? Will it be run as a private fiefdom for the benefit of those who serve on it, paying consultancy fees for a study into the possibility of privatising itself, with massive golden handshakes to its former members?

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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Eric Forth) : Do I assume that, because the hon. Gentleman says that the funding agency is responsible for a £17 billion spend, he anticipates that all schools will shortly vote to become grant-maintained?

Mr. Jamieson : That is the Minister's aspiration, not mine. Whether the figure is £1 billion or £17 billion, that is the hon. Gentleman's aspiration, not Labour's aspiration. We do not want any grant- maintained schools. Instead of a funding agency, we want councils to run their own systems, accounting for their own money, in the extremely good and democratic way that they have done that for many years.

In Committee on the Education Bill, it became clear that the funding agency would meet in private. The public, whether they be parents, governors or other interested parties, cannot attend its meetings. It will be unsullied by public scrutiny, faithfully performing the will of its political masters in Sanctuary house. How appropriately named is that building.

Much of the new legislation during recent years has resulted in a massive growth of bureaucracy, both in the classroom and in other aspects of school life. I have been a supporter of local management of schools for many years. Long before the Government introduced that, I felt that it would be a good system for running schools. It is a way of making better-quality decisions in schools, and where the system is running successfully that is happening.

Local autonomy is very valuable, but we must accept that it does not necessarily lead to a reduction in bureaucracy and overall administration. The theory is that local management of schools moves administration from local education authorities to the schools ; the myth is that the overall amount of bureaucracy and administration is therefore reduced. The sacrifice is in the economies of scale that cannot be achieved.

Page 14 of the recent Audit Commission report states :

"A number of schools increased administrators' hours quite sharply as they took over their budgets."

Local management of schools has caused more duplication and administration. That is inevitable. In many cases, it is due to inexperience, so I accept that over the years there may be an improvement. The system was introduced too hurriedly, and there was too little training. Where is the evidence that the increase in administration in schools is matched by a reduction in the LEAs? In so many areas of policy, we are sailing into uncharted waters and are unclear about where responsibilities lie. We had an example of that at a meeting of the Education Select Committee only a few weeks ago. Senior officials from the Department for Education were asked a simple question : what was the difference between an authority in which 74 per cent. of schools had opted out and an authority in which 76 per cent. of schools had opted out ? The answer was :

"I think it might be wise if we offered a note on that question we are at the edge of our expertise here, I think."

[Interruption.] The Minister laughs. If he does not think that he is at the edge of his expertise, I hope that he will instruct some of his civil servants so that they can understand how the system will work.

It was made clear at that Select Committee meeting that even his senior civil servants did not know how the system would work. I look forward to the Minister giving us the answer that his senior civil servants could not. If senior officials from the Department for Education do not

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understand how the system will work, how can we expect local education authorities, governors, head teachers and parents to understand?

At that same meeting, it also became clear that the financing of the bureaucracy and administration of the funding agency would come out of the aggregate school budget, not out of that part designated for grant- maintained schools. Therefore, it will be a burden on all schools, both LEA and grant-maintained.

If the Government get their wish--which I doubt they will--pursue their policies and more schools become grant maintained, I fear that much of the £17 billion funding intended to be spent on our education system next year will fall into the hands of an unaccountable body. The education system needs clear, unequivocal lines of

responsibility. With the way that things are going, we will not achieve that.

8.7 pm

Sir Paul Beresford (Croydon, Central) : Our debate began on the right lines by looking at accountability. The different notions of accountability are interesting. For many of us who are parents of school- age children in London, especially in inner London, some of the points made tonight about accountability will cause a wry smile. As many people are aware, until recently education in inner London was under the control of the Labour-controlled Inner London education authority.

That notorious authority had the biggest expenditure in the country per child, per teacher, per school, per anything we can imagine. Coupled with that, it consistently had one of the worst results in the country for GCSE and A-levels. Year in, year out, it had the highest expenditure and the second or third worst results in the country. Many of us saw that as a case of Labour local government playing progressive education with our children's future and using other people's money to do it. There was little or no real accountability.

Spread across inner London were neighbourhood mixed-ability comprehensives, the best of which were bad and the worst indescribable. There was no diversity and no choice. We had to take our children to the neighbourhood school whether or not we liked it. There was no competition between schools or within schools. To hear an ILEA primary school teacher complaining that even on sports day no child was allowed to come first in the egg-and-spoon race was a classic example of ILEA's attitude.

To cover those appalling results, ILEA decided to massage them and to introduce "disadvantage factors", to push that high-spending authority a little higher up the league. That meant nothing to the parents, when they thought about it--and even less to potential employers, who want to know about a youth's educational achievements, not about his or her environmental disadvantages.

Until ILEA disappeared, there was no real feel about individual schools, no results, and no choice except to opt out completely. That happened in one instance. In division 10, around 46 per cent. of secondary school children who should have been in those schools opted out. Twice the national average attended independent schools. They stayed away in droves. Many others stayed away by truancy.

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Many outer-London areas--including my own of Croydon, which borders Lambeth--viewed accountability differently. They introduced variety with Church, comprehensive and independent schools and, recently, two city technology colleges. They pioneered standardised testing years ago and published results. That helps with accountability to parents, who can then choose the school that they wish. It involved not only accountability but limited competition, which tended to force up standards.

The demand for nursery education was also recognised and the number of places in Croydon is increasing from 600 to 1,800 next year. We anticipate that demand will be completely met very shortly. That will be done without any bleating for extra Government money.

With the division of ILEA, different boroughs took different approaches. Lambeth and Southwark continued as before--using ILEA methods, achieving ILEA results, and incurring massive expenditure. Division 10, however, took a hint from Croydon and introduced variety and choice, published results and created competition. There is no geographical tie, but a range of comprehensive, Church and magnet schools, independent schools with assisted places, and CTCs. In that way, in just three years the 46 per cent. opt-out rate has fallen to 27 per cent., not including the CTCs ; truancy is down ; and every three or four-year-old child in division 10, in Wandsworth, is offered free nursery education. The budget has been cut by £20 million in real terms, to produce a better service. Schools are competing and results are improving.

In just three years, the number of children with no GCSE passes has fallen to one in 10, from one in five at the tail end of ILEA. The number of children gaining one or more GCSE passes at grade A to C has increased from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. and the number achieving five GCSE passes at grade A to C has risen from 17 per cent. under ILEA to 27 per cent. Those results are not good, but they are a lot better than under Labour- controlled ILEA's unaccountable approach.

The United Kingdom is already spending more per pupil than Germany or Japan, but to produce poorer results. It is a question not of how much is spent but of the way in which it is spent, and of the abuse that we see in Labour-controlled inner London. The answer must be to take a leaf out of a book of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson) and go for accountability.

There needs to be more variety and choice and schools must be encouraged to become grant-maintained. If they do, and we can move expenditure in such a way that those schools have revenue for capital plus revenue, they will be able to reverse the situation. I hope that there will be an opportunity soon to do that in such a way that we will be funding children, not schools, and that schools will be answerable to parents and children. We would then have real accountability.

8.14 pm

Mr. Don Foster (Bath) : I congratulate the Chairman and members of the Select Committee on their excellent report, which primarily concerns state funding. The House may be interested to know that a predecessor of mine as Member of Parliament for Bath, Mr. A. J. Roebuck, was the first Member of Parliament to suggest, in 1884, state

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funding of education. It took him 18 months to persuade the House to agree, but it did so eventually, and provided a sum of money somewhat smaller than that spent on maintaining the royal carriages. I suppose one could argue that from small acorns great oak trees grow. However, if Mr. Roebuck were able to return to the House today, I suspect that he would be very disappointed in state education. The great oak tree is beginning to lose a number of its branches through neglect and the increasing onslaught of Conservative policies. The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir P. Beresford) hit the nail on the head when he spoke about competition. Many Opposition Members fear that Conservative preoccupation with competition is creating much of the strife within the education service and believe that the co-operation and partnership that has been such an important feature since the Education Act 1944 must be re- established.

The strife is such that many people wonder why the Secretary of State for Education kept his job in the mini-reshuffle while the Chancellor of the Exchequer lost his. Bearing in mind the fact that I defeated Mr. Christopher Patten in the general election, I explain it by paraphrasing Oscar Wilde's Lady Bracknell--to lose one Patten may be unfortunate, but to lose two looks like carelessness-- [Interruption.] I am glad that Conservative Members liked that. The Chairman of the Select Committee touched on another matter of concern to many of us--the need for much clearer information on which to base such debates. I am sure that that view is held by right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House. It is possible to interpret the report's figures in many different ways. They have been used by Conservative Members to argue that expenditure per pupil has increased since 1979 by more than 40 per cent. Equally, the same figures can be interpreted--taking into account not ordinary levels of inflation but educational levels--as meaning that expenditure has increased by only 21 per cent.

Furthermore, if one accepts that most costs are fixed or fairly fixed and do not vary significantly with a decline in pupil numbers, one can claim that, although expenditure per pupil has increased, additional expenditure since 1979 is, in real terms, only 2 per cent. higher. A more detailed inspection of those figures shows that the real-terms expenditure per pupil on secondary education has declined by 2 per cent. If we look at the funding in respect of further or higher education students, we can demonstrate a decline of 22 per cent. per student over that period.

I am making the point not in order to start a debate between both sides of the House as to who is right and who is wrong, but merely to agree with the Chairman of the Select Committee that it is important to provide accurate statistics, and accurate interpretations of those statistics, with which we can all agree.

Dr. Robert Spink (Castle Point) : While the hon. Gentleman is talking about statistics, will he acknowledge not only that spending per pupil has risen by 45 per cent. since 1979, but that books and equipment are very important? Spending on books and equipment since 1979 has risen by 31 per cent. Both are real-terms increases and should be welcomed.

Mr. Foster : The hon. Gentleman has made my point for me. It is possible for all of us to select from the mass of

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statistics in the way that he has. However, he has not contradicted the figures that I quoted--for example, that there has been a decline of some 22 per cent. in the expenditure on higher or further education students. We could spend a lifetime bandying statistics across the Chamber, but that would be of no great benefit to anyone. What is more important is that we look at some of the specific areas of spending highlighted by the report. Much play is made in the report about expenditure on grant-maintained schools, one of the major planks of Government education policy. Very clearly stated in the report is the disparity between capital expenditure on grant-maintained schools and that on local education

authority-maintained schools.

What the report did not make reference to--because the information did not come to light until recently, but was in respect of the years considered by the report--was the double funding of many grant-maintained schools. That meant that many grant-maintained schools were not only getting increased money because of the greater devolution by the LEA to individual schools, but already getting an increased element in their assisted maintenance grant.

Approximately 32 grant-maintained schools have received sums in excess of £100,000 per annum more than they would reasonably expect to receive because of that double funding. That, and double funding at lower levels, has meant that some 32 local education authorities have lost sums of money to those grant-maintained schools in excess of £250,000 each. In each of those local education authorities, there are many schools in desperate need of that money being spent on them and, more importantly, on their pupils.

Accountability has been mentioned. The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton), mentioned the difficulty of determining accountability for the different parts of the education budget. To be fair, the Department's response refers to its understanding of the Committee's frustration with the multi-layered nature of accountability.

I agree with the Committee that there is a need for a separate inquiry into the matter. It may surprise the Minister that I also agree with him about the need to devolve more and more responsibility to individual schools. However, I would go further and say "within a local democratically accountable strategic planning framework". But we agree that there is a need to devolve more and more power to given schools.

It is vital that we look carefully at the accountability of those responsible for making decisions within individual schools. I do not believe that that accountability can rely on governors' meetings--which can be, and often are, held in private--and on the annual governors' report that is very often presented to an empty school hall.

I hope that the Minister will say whether he would be willing to find ways of opening up the accountability of the governing body. Will he consider asking the Office of Standards in Education to look at the governors' annual reports in addition to their four-yearly inspections of the schools ?

There are many other matters that we could address in this debate, but I shall not because many other hon. Members wish to speak.

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It is not clear from the breakdown of the figures presented in the report precisely how the different tranches of money have been split up. We do not know what sums have been set aside for the implementation of the national curriculum in our schools. One thing is certain : a number of reports and studies have been und of what is currently available will be needed for the overcrowded and over- prescriptive national curriculum to be successfully followed in both primary and secondary schools.

Has the Minister studied the figure that Coopers and Lybrand has produced ? Does he agree with those figures ? If not, what alternative figures is he prepared to make available to us ? Reference has been made to the absence in the budget of any significant sums for infant and nursery education. Many hon. Members--particularly Opposition Members--are concerned that there seems to be no real willingness by the Government to provide the significant boost to high-quality early-years education that is desperately needed.

Many hon. Members and people outside will be aware of the recent studies that have demonstrated the benefits of nursery education, not only to the individual child but to the nation as a whole. Those studies have also demonstrated that there is a financial benefit to the nation. A recent study in the United States, which was carried out over a 30-year period, showed that, for every £1 invested in nursery education, the nation benefits to the tune of £7. It makes economic as well as educational sense to invest in infant and nursery education.

May of us are concerned that not enough funds are currently being made available for spending on special educational needs. I should be interested to know if the Department has carried out any detailed costings of the money that would be necessary to carry out the recommendation in the report "Within Reach", which the Minister so roundly welcomed when it was published.

Repair and maintenance is another important area that is seriously underfunded. Across schools, further education and higher education, it is now estimated that some £4 billion will need to be spent to bring our institutions into a reasonable state of repair. Let us consider areas in which money is wasted. They were referred to by the hon. Member for Croydon, Central. I ask the Minister to look again at the expenditure that the Department and the Government have wasted on the appallingly crude and inadequate standard attainment test. This year alone, some £35 million has been wasted. The years 1992-93 have not been a happy time for the education service and, sadly, the evidence suggests that better times are not around the corner.

8.29 pm

Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) : As a newly appointed member of the Select Committee, I am grateful for the opportunity to make a short contribution. I must declare that, as the husband of a primary school teacher, my household income is affected to some extent by the Government's expenditure plans.

In their document on spending plans, the Government have set their own test of the effectiveness of their expenditure programme. To use the jargon, they have said

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that they wish to be judged on outputs as much as on inputs. That is a healthy sign. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson) criticised what he called the language of finance, accountancy and efficiency. [Interruption.] He certainly talked about accountancy. I can answer that criticism by saying that good accountancy and good book-keeping are necessary to ensure that the large, but finite, sums of taxpayers' money spent on education are properly used to provide education of the highest standard for children in every part of the country.

In their document, the Government say that their paramount objective is to raise the standards of achievement across the curriculum. Over the past few years, that has meant a number of radical reforms, the most important of which was the introduction of the national curriculum and testing. They were enacted in the Education Reform Act 1988, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker). I shall come to that later. I welcome some of the other developments in the Government's policies. There is sufficient evidence, in terms of international comparisons of pupil achievement, to give everybody who is reasonably open minded cause for concern--I put it no stronger--about whether children in the United Kingdom could be achieving higher standards at school than they have on average in past decades. In a world economy that is becoming more competitive, Ministers are right to keep under permanent review the education system in this country and to be always vigilant and alert for new ways of ensuring that that system is better suited to the challenges that face our country. With that in mind, I welcome the Government's approach to teacher training which stresses school-based rather than college-based training. I welcome also the Government's insistence over the years on more information being made freely available to parents and the general public about the performance of schools. That involves HMI reports, school prospectuses and examination results. It is interesting that, on other occasions, Opposition Members are proud of their support for the principle of freedom of information, yet, whenever that principle has been tested in education policy, they have been, in their voices and votes, in favour of secrecy and against openness.

I have the honour to represent a constituency in Buckinghamshire. Since my election, I have made a point of visiting as many schools as possible within my constituency. It is a diverse area. I have visited nearly 40 schools. I have been to village schools with one teaching head and a part- time teacher, large primary schools in an urban environment with a large ethnic minority intake, and grammar schools and upper schools taking many hundreds of pupils from within and outside the county. I have found dedicated teachers who enjoy the confidence and support of their governors and of the parents of the children in their charge.

There might be cross-party agreement on the fact that one does not seek militants, revolutionaries or bolsheviks in Buckinghamshire. [Interruption.] I will disappoint the hon. Member for Devonport by saying that one had to search hard and long to find a notice from the National Union of Teachers in any of the common rooms that I visited.

From talking to the heads and staff in those schools, I found a yearning for a constructive partnership with the

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Government to ensure that the national curriculum and the system of testing work. That yearning has been coupled with a growing sense of frustration at the cumbersome and bureaucratic way in which the curriculum and, in particular, the system of testing have been implemented in practice.

I believe that my right hon. and hon. Friends are aware, from the representations that have been made to them, of the fact that those concerns are not confined to their political opponents. They are felt widely, not just among moderate and responsible members of the teaching profession, but amongst governors and parents who have been life-long supporters, and often members, of the Conservative party. It is important that, through the Dearing review and the Government's response to it, we get the balance right for next year.

The Government have a duty to insist that certain key skills--a core of basic knowledge--are taught consistently to a high standard in every school in the country. They have a duty to introduce a system of rigorous testing that ensures that measures of achievement can be made. I have found few teachers in Buckinghamshire who object to that as a matter of principle. However, that must be set alongside the fact that, in a thriving school, which attracts the loyalty and support of parents, and one in which the local community feel a sense of pride and identification--the Government wish to see that, and it is evident throughout my community--there must be room for the spontaneity of the enthusiastic teacher to explore other areas of learning that may not always require to be tested. Those two important principles must be balanced. I believe that the Dearing review and the Government's response to it will ensure that that balance is struck appropriately.

We need a diverse curriculum but it must not be so prescriptive as to turn into an education straitjacket. For example, even in Aylesbury there are first schools in which the teachers are struggling with children from family backgrounds of material poverty, where there may not be many books or where there may be instability. Those teachers have to work hard to teach the basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy which are essential if those children are to take advantage of the education opportunities available in the country later on.

I know that teachers in such schools will want to include elements of history, geography and other subjects in their teaching. However, they may fear that too prescriptive an approach to those other subjects might make it more difficult for them to give adequate attention to the basic tasks and set the children in those schools at a disadvantage compared with other schools in neighbouring districts where there is perhaps greater parental support for the traditional academic route.

There is an opportunity for my right hon. and hon. Friends in the next year to build upon the tremendous willingness that I find within the teaching profession and amongst governors and parents to forge a constructive partnership such as that mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton).

I find no wish to return to the old days of the secret garden when information was kept within the confines of the classroom but a ready acceptance of the duty that the schools and the teaching profession have to the wider community. There is also a belief that practical and sensible reforms of the national curriculum and testing are necessary to make the system work as the Government

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