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Dr. Hampson indicated dissent.
Mr. Foster: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to explain how a policy that has led to only one twenty-fourth of all schools choosing to opt out since it was introduced in 1988 can be described as a success, the House would be interested. The Government's flagship policy has sunk--it has failed. It is slightly bizarre that the Prime Minister, of all people, has spent so much time addressing the issue of grant-maintained status. I do not understand why he would wish to draw attention to the least succesful of all the Government's education policies. It was the Prime Minister, to be fair, and not the Secretary of State, who made clear that he intended to make yet another attempt to try to induce more schools to choose the opt-out route.
I suppose that we should be grateful that at least one of the two suggestions the Prime Minister put forward--the proposal for a fast track to grant-maintained status for church schools--has been dropped. The only success of that proposal was that it successfully united both Catholics and Protestants against it.
The Bill contains proposals that relate to the ability of grant-maintained schools to borrow money using the school's assets as collateral, and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) eloquently outlined some of the flaws in that proposal. It is interesting to note that the Bill contains measures about which many head teachers of grant-maintained schools have expressed
concern. They realise that borrowing money is very easy--it is paying it back that is difficult. They are very concerned--as are, I suspect, many Opposition Members--at the possibility of a mortgage company repossessing a state school for the first time in this country.
There is no doubt that the Bill confirms the advantage of grant-maintained schools over LEA schools. Perhaps equally of concern is the fact that the Bill alters the current position, whereby in certain circumstances where the assets of a grant-maintained school are considered to be surplus to requirements, some of the money gained from the sale of those assets can be returned to the LEA, or the premises themselves can be made available to the LEA. That is likely to change if those surplus assets are now to be tied up and used as collateral against any loan that has been made.
Dr. Hampson:
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point--if he is right. But as I understand it, schools cannot borrow or grant security on anything like the scale that the hon. Gentleman is talking about without the Secretary of State's approval--including a Labour or even a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State. There are safeguards in the Bill. If local authorities can borrow against assets such as parking metres and get away with it, surely a lot of money can be raised against a school's assets.
Mr. Foster:
The hon. Gentleman fails to acknowledge my point. The premises or assets against which money can be borrowed are those deemed to be non-core assets. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are limits to the amount that can be borrowed, and the figure of 5 per cent. is included in the proposals. Nevertheless, schools will no longer be able to pass back those surplus assets to the LEA, or sell them to enable some of the benefits from such a sale to be passed back to the LEA as currently takes place.
Mr. Foster:
I am sure that the House would like the Minister to state whether I am incorrect.
Mr. Squire:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I do not want to spend too much time at the Dispatch Box intervening. I ask the hon. Gentleman to think in wider terms than merely the assets pledged. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the private finance initiative, and there are a whole range of other options available. We are saying that grant-maintained schools have demonstrated that they can run themselves, and this is simply another area in which they can do so.
Mr. Foster:
I suspect that the House would not wish to be detained by a detailed debate between the Minister and me on this issue, and it is a matter that we can pick up in Committee. I hope that the Minister accepts that the package of proposals on grant-maintained schools in the Bill tilts the playing field in favour of such schools. Certainly no Opposition Member is comfortable with any set of proposals that advantage grant-maintained schools to the detriment of local education authority schools.
Sir Jim Spicer:
I am in a rather difficult position at the moment, because I have had a passionate plea from
Mr. Foster:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to recommend that he accepts that request to support the PFI scheme. I hope that the Government will make better use of the PFI than they have done in a number of projects. I wish, for example, that they had taken my advice and used the PFI with regard to a Ministry of Defence building in my constituency. If they had done so, they could have saved £40 million of taxpayers' money.
The hon. Gentleman reminds the House of the considerable difficulty that many LEAs are having with capital expenditure, and he may be interested to know that 22.4 per cent. of the bids for capital assistance made to the Government were accepted this year. Many schools are in very serious difficulty because of their buildings, not least in the hon. Gentleman's LEA area.
I wish to deal with the more substantial--but, I believe, equally deficient--part of the Bill in respect of nursery education.
The right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) is not in his place, but I supported at least one part of his contribution to the debate, which was his impassioned and well-placed plea for increased provision for those children who have been identified as having special educational needs. I hope that the Minister will deal with that in his reply.
A number of right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned the importance of high-quality early-years education--I think that all hon. Members agree that it is crucial and accept that it brings social, educational and economic benefits not only for the individual but for the nation. We must ask ourselves whether the proposals in the Bill provide the most effective means for expanding provision of high-quality early-years education, and the subsidiary question: could the proposals in any way harm the expansion of such provision?
Mr. Spearing:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the use of the words "early-years education" is correct in so far as it covers a range of options? Does he also agree that, desirable though it is to have an expansion in the number of good playgroups, it would be wrong if the expansion meant either the diminution or elimination of nursery education, as statutorily defined? We need the expansion of both.
Mr. Foster:
I entirely accept the points made by the hon. Gentleman, which probably have unanimous support across the Chamber.
Mr. Spearing:
Not from Conservative Members.
Mr. Foster:
I think that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber want diverse provision to be expanded, taking into account statutory provision, as well as that from the voluntary and the private sectors.
The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) may be as confused as I am in trying to understand why, for example, the Office for Standards in Education is redefining the title of inspectors who deal in the sphere previously termed "early-years education"--the designated title is redefined as "pre-school education".I am concerned about that.
I question whether that type of provision will help to expand the nature of provision. I do not believe that it will. That view is supported by many organisations with expertise in early-years education. The majority of people who work in that sphere are extremely concerned about the proposals--they oppose them, believing that they may even harm some of the existing provision.
It is interesting to note that, in an intervention, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), chided Opposition Members and said that Conservative Members "listen to consultation". On this issue, there is no evidence that that is what they do. They do not even listen to a number of their own Members. For example, thehon. Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, said:
The Conservative Education Association said in a statement earlier this month:
It then expressed a number of concerns about the scheme. There is therefore considerable concern even from Members of the Conservative party.
The majority of local education authorities--including some Conservative-controlled authorities--have made their position clear by refusing to participate in the trials of the proposals contained in the Bill. Only four have been willing to get involved, yet the Government are going to rush ahead and introduce the Bill before the trials are even under way, let alone give us time to evaluate the outcome of the trials. So much for consultation.
The scheme in the proposed legislation brings with it a cumbersome, unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy. It will do nothing to expand provision for three-year-olds and could harm the provision that already exists. The scheme could, without the expense of further bureaucracy, be amenable to fraud and abuse. It prevents, through the market-driven approach that underpins it, any notion of strategic planning, and it could prevent effective co-operation and partnership between the providers.
The scheme reduces the possibility of developing links between education provision and care provision, as envisaged in the Children Act 1989, and could indeed damage some of the co-operation that already exists. Further, given that the likely voucher redemption value is the figure that has been quoted, the proposals will not ensure that new provision is made where none exists. The funds will simply not be available to meet existing running costs and ensure that money is made available for the training of new teachers and the building and equipping of new classrooms and schools.
Too much stress has been placed on the issue of choice. As the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden said in her contribution, in the majority of circumstances parents have no choice about where to send their children to school and in many cases the nursery voucher scheme will mean that they will get a voucher but will have nowhere to redeem it. The scheme is, after all, a big con trick.
The House should beware any legislation with so many blanks left in it--blanks that are expected to be filled in at the whim of the Secretary of State. Many of us highly value the briefs that the staff in the Library prepare for us. It is instructive to look, for example, at page 22 of the brief on the Bill, which says:
It continues:
It says:
It goes on:
It says:
"would it not perhaps be better to think of widening existing provision than to bring in a new scheme against the background of limited money?"--[Official Report, 21 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 487.]
"we did not feel that a voucher scheme was the most efficient way of expanding pre-school provision".
"Clause 1 empowers the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the making of grants in respect of nursery education."
"As the Bill stands it does not lay down the form in which the arrangements will be made. It does not state that the arrangements will be made by Order."
"Clause 2 authorises the arrangements under clause 1 to include the provision for grant-making and related functions to be delegated, wholly or partly, without prejudice to the Secretary of State's powers."
"The clause does not specify to whom delegated powers may be given."
"Clause 3 provides for the Secretary of State to impose requirements on an authority or other persons in receipt of grants in respect of nursery education. The requirements are not specified and may be imposed on, or at any time after, the making of any grant, and may at any time be varied, waived or removed".
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