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8.32 pm
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill): I am glad that the Home Secretary has returned to the Chamber, because I want to address some comments and questions to him about his statement yesterday. In that statement, he said that the entire Asylum and Immigration Bill should be non-controversial because it was solely about ensuring that genuine asylum seekers were assisted in their aim and helped to reach and stay in this country and that bogus asylum seekers would be deterred.
If that is the case, I wonder how seriously he has considered the proposals recently published by the Law Society. I shall not take up the House's time by examining them in detail, but it seems that there are many in that document, although it runs to only two pages, which would probably win the support of the whole House. They are non-controversial proposals for people who genuinely hope to help real asylum seekers. I wonder whether the Home Secretary has any plans to integrate any of them in the Bill.
A particular proposal that appeals to me is that the Government should consider measures such as the Australian model of licensing immigration advisers, to curb the problem of bogus and unscrupulous advisers who are preying on genuine asylum seekers. They state that that problem is widespread.
I also heard the Secretary of State say that the reason why the Prime Minister had rejected Labour's proposal that a Special Standing Committee be set up was that Special Standing Committees were for non-controversial Bills. That seems to contradict the Secretary of State's claim to the effect that the Immigration and Asylum Bill was a non-controversial Bill. He said specifically that the Special Standing Committee procedure was for Bills that were largely non-controversial. I see him shaking his head, but that appeared in Hansard only yesterday.
Mr. Howard:
The answer is perfectly simple. The Bill ought to be non-controversial, but the shadow Home Secretary has made it clear that it will be controversial. He has twice gone on record saying that he will oppose the Bill.
Mrs. Fyfe:
That is an interesting answer. The most recent occasion on which the House used the Special Standing Committee procedure was for legislation that I do not expect the Home Secretary to have known much about--the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Many of the proposals in that Bill were accepted by all parties, but there was genuine controversy and divisions on matters of principle in the Chamber and in Committee. The Home Secretary is making a distinction without a difference. Both sides are claiming that they want to deter bogus asylum seekers and help the real ones, but there will be divisions on specific issues. Precisely the same happened with the 1995 Act.
The real reason why the Government do not want a Special Standing Committee is not the bogus reason that they are offering, but that such a Committee is allowed to hear witnesses. If the Committee heard independent, well-informed, knowledgeable witnesses from
organisations involved in immigration and asylum affairs, what the Government were doing would be clearly revealed.
The letter sent by the Home Secretary to hon. Members on 20 November begins:
The British embassy there was telling her that it could not supply a visa to the sick woman and her daughter, and that she would have to apply for a visa either to Amman in Jordan, Karachi in Pakistan, Istanbul in Turkey or Nicosia in Cyprus. When I protested that it was unreasonable for a sick woman to have to travel such distances when there was an embassy in Teheran, the embassy would not listen at first. However, I give those people the credit for listening eventually when I, the Red Cross and the United Nations appealed. The embassy eventually acceded to the woman's request, and she is now safely in this country.
Is that the Home Secretary's idea of helping people with a genuine case for seeking asylum? I certainly hope that he will tidy up the current procedures, as it was unacceptable to put that sick woman through such a trauma to get into this country. I must say that other cases have gone more smoothly, but it is cases such as that which I have outlined that give the lie to claims that we are going out of our way to help genuine asylum seekers.
In the few moments that I have left, I shall deal with the nursery voucher scheme. I have recently spoken to people involved in private sector nursery education in and around Glasgow. They tell me that they are unhappy with the voucher scheme because it does nothing to provide them with the capital required to set up a new nursery, especially in the highlands and islands and other rural areas. In other words, parents could have a voucher but have nowhere to spend it.
I also listened carefully to what was said about the cash being provided for the voucher scheme. A few months ago, the Scottish Office said that special needs would be considered because it was more expensive to provide pre-fives education for children with special needs. Yet yesterday and today I have not heard a further commitment to provide the cash for such provision. The money provided will obviously not be enough. Indeed, private sector providers themselves are worried that children with special needs could be pushed out and will not have access to pre-fives education unless the voucher scheme takes account of the extra cash needed to cater for their requirements.
I should also point out that the claim is being made that all the changes are in response to parents' wishes. Again, I cannot expect Conservative Members present to know about the matter. Someone from the Scottish Office should be on the Front Bench when we are discussing those matters.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire):
I want to concentrate on education, but seeing my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary in his place, I cannot resist thanking him for his initiative on the provision of closed circuit television in Lichfield. We are to have a
£250,000 system thanks to the remarks that he made--and the initiatives that he subsequently took--in the Queen's Speech, albeit last year.
I welcome the education initiatives announced in the Gracious Speech. In particular, I welcome the expansion of nursery education for four-year-olds. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) said, it will have tremendous importance in rural areas, not only in his constituency, but also in Staffordshire.
I should have liked to see some reform of university entrance qualifications. In the three and a half years that I have been in the House, I have argued in favour of the Scottish system of highers--like the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe), I should have liked to see a Scottish Minister on the Front Bench--or any other broad curriculum that does not require students hoping for an academic career at university to be forced to start specialising in just a few subjects at the age of 15 or 16. That is one of the reasons why we have so many innumerate civil servants and so many inarticulate scientists.
Someone may well ask why I might be interested in education and concentrate on it this evening. Before going up to university, I took a year out and taught physics and chemistry to 11 and 13-year-olds. Having then spent some seven years at university--not constantly retaking the same examination--I later formed a company that employed many arts and science graduates in the United Kingdom and in the United States. So for those reasons, I have a deep interest in education.
I recognise the need for reform, so I welcome the announcement in the Queen's Speech concerning grant-maintained schools. There can be little doubt that the 1,000 or so schools that enjoy grant-maintained status have benefited by the change in their status. Direct and indirect pressure from local education authorities, such as that exercised by the Labour-controlled Staffordshire county council, and a very real fear of the unknown, have deterred many schools from opting to become grant-maintained.
The present system of funding education via local authorities is becoming unsustainable in most parts of the country. In Staffordshire, schools are strapped for cash. That is partly a result of the application of the area cost adjustment, which unfairly favours the south-east, and is also a direct consequence of funding education through county councils.
How can the area cost adjustment be fair when a typical primary school of 300 children in Hertfordshire will receive
£61,500 more than a similar Staffordshire school, and while
a typical secondary school of 900 students in Staffordshire will receive in excess of £250,000 less than a Surrey school? There are no surcharges for employing teachers in Surrey or Hertfordshire. While Labour-controlled Staffordshire blames the Government for a shortfall in funding, the Government rightly blame Staffordshire for hoarding huge amounts of unused financial reserves-- some of the largest of any county in the country.
For the sake of our nation's children and our nation's future, we need to rethink education funding as a matter of priority. We need to introduce greater transparency. The political buck-passing between local and national Government must stop. That can be done only by funding schools centrally and directly from the Department for Education and Employment.
By suggesting the central funding of schools, I am not advocating central control of schools. On the contrary, I want to see far greater local control than at present, by stripping away all the local government powers over education and empowering schools themselves through their head teachers and governors.
Education reforms over the past few years, so bitterly opposed by the Labour party, and now so accepted by teachers and parents alike, such as local management of schools, the introduction of the national curriculum, regular testing by the Office of Standards in Education and the publication of league tables, soon to include value-added data, mean that Britain is ready for central funding.
That does not mean that the grant-maintenance model as it stands at present is suitable were all schools to be funded centrally. Having spoken to many teachers, head teachers and parents, I believe that several questions arise. I should like to suggest a possible solution.
Schools have genuine fears about going it alone and their fears fall under two main headings: operational and financial. Operationally, they ask who will provide advice and support services to schools if local education authorities are abolished. What will happen if a teacher or even a head teacher is taken ill and a supply teacher is needed urgently? Who will act as arbiters when complaints are made against head teachers or school governors? Who will deal with applications for discretionary grants?
Financially, other questions arise. Who will decide how money is disbursed within a county or region? What happens in a financial emergency if the boiler needs replacing or the roof springs a major leak? One answer might be the provision of two parallel tiers assisting at county or regional level. The first tier, whose main concern would be the application of central funds among schools, could be a college of head teachers and chairmen of governors.
That college would not be a regulator, but could have discretion over, say, 5 per cent. of funding, with the remaining 95 per cent. being awarded to schools according to a per capita formula based on a three-year rolling average of student numbers to even out financial peaks and troughs, which are the constant bane on the lives of head teachers and governors.
That college of head teachers and chairmen of governors would be able to make key decisions on the special financial needs of individual schools in their area.
Who better can there be to decide local priorities? Both schools and the college should also have access to capital funding on the financial markets.
But what about the provision of operational services?
Many of those can be provided by groups of local professionals--probably many of them now working directly for LEAs--offering their services directly to schools once the LEAs become redundant. The success of Ofsted, despite all the fears expressed at the time, provides a useful model for that.
In outlining one possible solution, I do not prescribe the course of action that the Department should take. I merely call on the Secretary of State to use her not inconsiderable talent in resolving those issues. In the coming months, there needs to be greater debate on the methodology of the funding of schools. If the political hallmark of the 1980s was privatisation and industrial relations reform, the theme for the 1990s must be local empowerment. We have already seen that model operate with the formation of local hospital trusts.
"We have a proud tradition of giving refuge to those fleeing persecution."
It is true that this country has a long history in that respect, but I draw attention to a recent case in my constituency involving an Iraqi Kurd who had managed to obtain asylum in this country. He came to me about the problem with his mother, who had also fled from Iraq to Iran.
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