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Mr. Spearing: The phrase "light touch" will be greeted with amusement by teachers in schools of pupils older than nursery age.
Has my hon. Friend also heard that it is possible that Ofsted, in the form of the chief inspector, who plays an important role in that matter, may sub-contract that inspecting role to organisations that at the moment are nothing to do with Ofsted. I do not know whether the Minister can confirm that when he replies; perhaps my hon. Friend can. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is not merely a light touch, but a palsied touch?
Ms Hodge:
I agree entirely with the sentiments underlying that question. My guess is that, were the present Government to continue to be in office when that expansion--so-called introduction--of nursery vouchers takes place, the settings would not be inspected, in the way that many primary schools are currently not inspected because there is a huge shortage of appropriately qualified and appropriately registered inspectors to carry out the task.
I am scandalised that the proposals before the House are all that the Government are prepared to do for the young children of today, who will become the adults of tomorrow. I cannot believe that anyone would consider that to be the best way to invest in our future and our children's future.
If children develop as much and as quickly in their early years as research suggests, we cannot treat those years in the dilettante fashion that these proposals do. We need to fulfil the promise given by both political parties, far too many decades ago, that every child whose parents so wish should be entitled to free, high quality nursery education. That should be the case, not only for four-year-olds, but for three-year-olds. I welcome the statement by my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside that Labour will set targets so that we achieve that aim.
We must go further. Two and a half hours a day for four-year-olds represents only about 1 per cent. of a child's early life. If so much development occurs so early, we cannot continue to ignore what happens to young children during the rest of their day. We cannot presume, as the Government do, that the early years of a child's life are solely a private concern of parents, with the community intervening only at points of crisis when, for example, children are at risk of abuse.
Things have changed since people first had the idea of nursery education. Any Government who are committed to the future, as Labour is, would adapt their programmes to meet the circumstances of the future. I am afraid that the proposals in the Bill--the proposals of a tired Tory Government, bereft of ideas and devoid of a clear vision--cannot do it.
In the world of today and the world of tomorrow, life for the young child has changed. Mothers work because they want and need to do so. They work when their children are younger. Nearly half the mothers with children under the age of five work, and that figure is set to rise to seven out of 10 mothers by the turn of the century. Matters are made more difficult because more and more parents can no longer rely on their families to help with child care. About one in two families seek formal child care arrangements when the parents work. They must find childminders or go for more flexible nursery provision.
With growing insecurity on the streets, fewer and fewer children can go to school alone. When we were young, probably about 80 per cent. of us in the Chamber went to school alone. Today, only 9 per cent. of children are allowed to do so. In that context, two and a half hours' nursery education a day is no longer appropriate for many families. For children who would most benefit from a good quality nursery experience, it is probably the least appropriate. All too often, a mother on shift work cannot choose her hours of employment to fit in with traditional nursery hours. If Conservative Members really have the interests of children and their parents at heart, they would think afresh, as we are doing. We must build on understanding of the importance of quality nursery education and integrate it in a real and practical way with child care and play, so that young children get the best start in life.
A child's learning does not miraculously start at three or four years of age but at birth. A family's needs do not suddenly change when a child is three or four but when a child is born. A responsible Government would respond to real needs by building services that are education-focused and child-centred, but which recognise the changed world in which we live. That is the vision and strategy for the future. An ill-conceived, ill-thought-out voucher scheme is not even a strategy for today, let alone one for the future. Thank goodness that the scheme is never likely to be implemented before the country rids itself of this failed Government, and that we shall have £185 million to spend more sensibly on expanding nursery education.
In the last couple of weeks, we have heard much about the stakeholder society--to which Conservative Members in particular have made several references. In that policy area, the importance of the concept is clear and the difference between Labour and the Government is distinct. We all have a stake in our children in their early years--3.8 million children are under five, and what
happens to them matters to us all. We all have a stake in their future. Children obviously need the best possible start if they are to develop their potential. Their stake in nursery education is their future. Their parents obviously want the best for their children and clearly have responsibilities to them. Ensuring that we build the skills needed for the future gives employers a stake in pre-school education. People who work in pre-school education have a stake, with rights to proper training and conditions, and an obligation to provide a quality experience for the children. Local authorities also have a stake, with a right to plan for their localities and an obligation to ensure quality education.
The stakeholder society requires high-quality nursery education and care, which is why Labour's approach and policies would be fundamentally different from those incorporated in the Bill. Labour would go for quality and standards--no light-touch inspections for us and no uniform £1,100 per child, which ignores the real cost of quality education and the extra expense of children with special needs--as the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) pointed out. Labour would go for value for money. We would not waste investment on yet another unaccountable quango and yet more pieces of paper and bureaucracy. Labour would go for equity as between individuals and areas. Under Labour, there would be no absurd punishing of authorities such as Solihull for investing a lot of money in nursery education, nor the rewarding of authorities such as Bromley that have an abysmal record of failing to spend their allocated budgets on nursery provision. There would be no subsidies for the well-to-do mum who is already paying for a full-time nursery place, while the needs of lone parents for two and a half hours' provision a day are not met.
Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West):
I shall confine my comments to the parts of the Bill, principally clause 6, that concern grant-maintained schools, and I shall explain the circumstances surrounding particular effects in my constituency.
I start by referring briefly to some background items. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Islamia primary school in the London borough of Brent made two applications to form part of the state education system, but both were rejected. In deciding to reject the second application, the Department for Education made it clear in a letter to the school's governors dated 18 August 1993 that the Secretary of State accepted
in the new state school. The application was rejected on the ground of surplus places in existing schools within a two-mile radius which parents did not particularly want. To sugar the pill, the letter concluded that the Secretary of State's
In the light of subsequent events, one must ask whether the Government were serious in making that pledge at the time.
On 9 August 1994, the Government issued a weighty document entitled "Guidance to promoters on establishing new self-governing (grant-maintained) schools under Section 49 of the Education Act 1993". It gave detailed guidance to people who proposed to promote new, self-governing grant-maintained schools. Despite the issue of that document, it is interesting to note how many of the applications made as a result of it have been successful.
So far, a number of applications have not stayed the course. A Jewish school in Leeds withdrew its application. Two schools in the Wirral, which were quite close to the state system as ex-direct-grant Catholic schools, made applications that may have been approved. A school in Borehamwood is still under consideration, and a school in my constituency, called Oak Hill, made an application, about which I shall talk in slightly more detail later. That is the second piece of background information. The system was designed to encourage applications, but so far it has been remarkably unsuccessful.
In an Adjournment debate on 19 December 1994, which I felt obliged to introduce to discuss what was going wrong in state secondary education in schools in Bristol, North-West and what could be done about it, I referred to what was generally then perceived as a failure on the part of the state education system--at secondary level in my constituency--to provide what the rest of the county of Avon, which is now mercifully coming to the end of its days, would regard as an acceptable level of attainment at GCSE and A-level. I pointed out that what the county would regard as an acceptable level of attainment would not be acceptable in most of the rest of the country. I also pointed out that what distinguished the county's approach to education was a rabid opposition to grant-maintained status. I believe that that is still true today.
I then discussed the achievements of the state secondary schools in my constituency during the previous years. I pointed out that, with the honourable exception of one voluntary-aided, broadly Catholic school, every single school in my constituency had not managed to achieve results that reached even the low average attained by the county as a whole, let alone the average attained in the country.
"that there was clear evidence of denominational need . . . that only qualified teachers would be employed . . . the National Curriculum would be followed; and that the governors would seek to ensure equal opportunities for boys and girls"
22 Jan 1996 : Column 76
"drive to reduce surplus school capacity, including through the new statutory provision in the Education Act 1993, should open up opportunities for new schools to enter the system, whether as voluntary aided schools maintained by LEAs or as new self-governing (grant-maintained) schools".
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