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Mr. Blunkett: The problem with that is that if the Government really want to achieve their stated goals they will take up the offer made by my party and the local authority associations and allow the development of nursery education plans at local level. In that way all sectors--voluntary, private and statutory--could join to build on what is already in place. Instead of a piece of paper we should then have not just the £165 million that has already been committed but the £20 million earmarked for administration and bureaucracy, with which to provide the extra places to enable us to meet our goal.
Mr. Squire: What about inspections?
Mr. Blunkett: If the Minister is so concerned--we are, because he is way behind with primary inspections
already--let us join together to find a way of developing the current system at local level and expanding it. The Government's problem has to do with bureaucracy, the difficulties of inspection, insisting on paying those already buying privately, and the possible entry into the system of fly-by-nights who want to gain the voucher income. These factors combine to make it less likely that the proposal will succeed.
If the Government are so concerned about the failure to develop the system and recruit inspectors, why not abandon this scheme until they are in a position to implement it in a way they think fit? Why rush ahead with a pilot project that turns out not to be a pilot? Instead, it is just phase 1 of a scheme that the Government are already engaged in implementing.
Mr. Walden:
One small point: the hon. Gentleman inadvertently misquoted me earlier. I was complaining about the fact that the Government are going to hand out millions of pounds to people who can already afford to pay for private education. The hon. Gentleman said that I was complaining about the administrative costs of the system.
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman--and with some sympathy. As he knows, I am something of a critic of Government education policy and of this policy in particular. I get the impression, however, that the hon. Gentleman does not realise the gravity of his party's situation or the impact of the action by the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) on the country. Does not he understand that it goes to the core of the whole discussion about education in Britain, namely, selection? His position, I am sorry to say, and that of his Front Bench is morally and intellectually contemptible.
Mr. Blunkett:
I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction, while agreeing entirely with his point about the deadweight costs. In response to his second point, I refer him to the words of the Secretary of State, who said that she wanted uniformity of quality in nursery education. I believe her--but it is what I want for all children in all schools at whatever stage.
The Government could not have found a more convoluted way of trying to deliver nursery provision to four-year-olds. They are taking £548 million away from authorities that are already making provision, on the basis of that provision for four-year-olds, and are distributing it away from those authorities that have provision and are already making it and giving it to those authorities that do not have provision and are not making it. They are offering people not a place, but a piece of paper promising that they can have a place in an area that does not have a place. They then call it a choice when they do not even have a place for them, let alone a choice between providers. The slogan is simple--no place, no choice; no place, no nursery provision.
Of course, it is not a matter of choice. There is already choice in those authorities, like Solihull, that are already providing. The only people anywhere near being able to provide choice and diversity are those already providing places for three and four-year-olds. What will happen to them? Money will be taken away from them so that it can be recycled through an administrative nightmare--and that is what it is. Large sums of public money will be spent by a private company on recycling literally tens of millions of bits of paper.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South(Mr. Spearing) rightly said that vouchers will be provided on a termly basis, to be redeemed on a weekly basis, with five different voucher segments, able to be delivered to different providers if necessary on a daily basis for a part-time place. Who invented that? Who could have dreamt up anything so bizarre as a system that results in spending public money on recycling bits of paper?
Children want nursery places; they want investment in facilities to provide nursery places; they want trained and qualified staff to support them in those places. Properly provided nursery education, integrated with care and available where and when parents need it, is the first and essential foundation for a decent education system for all our children and equality for all our children.
Mr. Kenneth Baker (Mole Valley):
This debate could not have come at a more difficult and embarrassing time for the Labour party. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who tried to fashion a sensible and coherent education policy for his party. Much of that policy has been based on the abandonment of previous opposition to the core reforms that I was privileged to introduce in 1987-88. At that time, thehon. Gentleman's predecessors opposed national curriculum tests, league tables, grant-maintained schools, delegated budgets and city technology colleges. Now, in effect, the Labour party has accepted most of those reforms, but with some significant changes in detail.I recognise that that acceptance is due to the hon. Gentleman's influence.
Today, the hon. Gentleman was forced to engage in linguistic distortions to try to reconcile his views and those of the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman). It did not work. His rhetoric was divorced from the reality of performance. If it is right for the son of the Leader of the Opposition to go to a grant-maintained school--I do not object to such choice: it is a good school, one of the best in London; indeed, I know its headmaster--it must also be right to make that choice available to the wide range of parents throughout the country. If it is right for the son of the hon. Member for Peckham to go to a grammar school--a very good grammar school indeed--it must also be right to make that choice available to all parents and that it should be exercised. That is the dilemma that faces the hon. Member for Brightside and his party.
I ask my hon. Friends not to be too hard on thehon. Member for Peckham--
Mr. Michael Brown:
Absolutely not.
Mr. Baker:
The hon. Member for Peckham has not been embarrassed by scruple, hindered by consistency or
Mr. Brown:
My right hon. Friend possibly got the wrong idea from my earlier intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). I want to make it absolutely clear that I make no criticism of the action of the hon. Member for Peckham. Myhon. Friends should welcome what she has done. What concerns me is that she may well vote against the Bill tonight. If she votes against the Bill and opposes choice in education for everybody else, we must be concerned that her actions do not express her views.
Mr. Baker:
It behoves everyone in public life to match personal behaviour with political commitment. If thehon. Member for Peckham fails to do that, she will have to answer to her constituents, to her conscience and, presumably, to her shadow Cabinet colleagues.
When I read about the hon. Lady in the newspapers over the weekend, I recalled something that George Orwell wrote in an essay in 1945--that the trouble with all socialists is their inability to tell the truth about the immediate future. I cannot help but feel that that is the dilemma facing the Labour Front Bench today. The Bill is about parental choice. The Labour party has accepted many of the reforms that I introduced seven or eight years ago, but--this is the sticking point--it does not believe in parental choice.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster):
As the Leader of the Opposition has opted for a grant-maintained school for his son, and as his colleague the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) has done the same for hers, why was there such a virulent and intimidatory campaign in the constituency of the Leader of the Opposition by Labour workers trying to stop Hurworth comprehensive school becoming grant maintained?
Mr. Baker:
Again, that goes to the central dilemma facing the Labour party, which it cannot resolve. Myhon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) described the attitude of the hon. Member for Brightside as not being morally defensible. I agree. I do not believe that the stance taken by the Labour party on this matter is morally defensible. It must decide between giving choice to parents and not giving choice to parents. What we mean by choice is a choice between the local comprehensive school, the local grant-maintained school, the grammar school, the church school, the single-sex school and the city technology college.
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