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Examination Results
11. Sir David Madel: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what conclusions she has drawn from the 1995 A-level and GCSE examination results; and if she will make a statement. [9425]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. James Paice): 1995 was another year of which teachers and candidates can be justly proud. The GCSE and GCE results in 1995 were among the best ever achieved.
Sir David Madel: Does my hon. Friend agree that A-level and GCSE results will continue to improve as long as schools maintain a vigorous policy of setting and streaming, subject by subject?
Mr. Paice: I certainly hope and believe that there will be a continued improvement, as there has been for many years, in the success rates at GCSE and A-level examinations. As for setting and streaming, obviously the
structure of their teaching mechanisms is a matter for teachers and governors to decide, but I suggest that any means of grouping pupils according to ability or aptitude that enables teachers to focus their efforts more effectively must lead to better results for everyone concerned.
Mr. Bryan Davies: Will the Minister confirm that, for the first time for very many years, the percentage of 16-year-olds staying on in full-time education has decreased this year? How on earth are we to attain the targets for achievement among 18-year-olds--the targets that the Government have set--if we are slipping back at this stage?
Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman clearly does not understand what targets are, because they do not specifically relate to school-achieved qualifications. For example, the target at ages 18 and 19 relates to qualifications equivalent to NVQ3, and those qualifications may be an NVQ gained partly at work or partly at college, or A-levels. There is a range of ways in which those qualifications may be achieved. To equate staying-on rates with the ability to meet our targets is a complete misunderstanding of what targets are all about.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend consider the examination results in those 11 schools--schools most of which I know well, and have known for 30 years--that are between the home of the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) and St. Olave's school in Orpington? Will he not find--I can assure him that he will--that more money is being spent on those schools now by the Government than was ever spent on them previously; that the Labour Inner London education authority and its predecessor, the London county council, for both of which organisations I have worked, also spent large sums on those schools; and that the present Lambeth and Southwark councils are also spending unprecedented sums on the schools?
It cannot be said that those schools are underfunded. It cannot be said that they do not have the opportunity to achieve properly. If local parents would send their children to those schools, as they expect other parents to do in other areas, the schools would have a better chance.
Mr. Paice:
My hon. Friend has studied the statistics in great depth and I would not dream of dissenting from them. As he reminded the House, secondary level education in Southwark is better funded than ever before by this Government and, more important, it is better funded than in many other local education authorities in the area. More money is spent per secondary pupil in Southwark than is spent in Barking, Brent, Bexley or, yes, Bromley. If we look further afield, we will see that Southwark spends £400 more per pupil than Bradford.
The important point is the way in which that money is used to maximum effect in the teaching of our young people. It is no coincidence that some of the authorities with the worse performance record are led by Labour, and have been for decades.
12. Mr. O'Hara:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what new measure the Government will be taking to extend parental choice in education. [9426]
Mrs. Gillan:
Parental choice is being extended in many ways: by increasing the number of assisted places available in independent schools, by the continued expansion of the grant-maintained sector, by city technology colleges, by enabling more schools to become specialist technology and language colleges and by giving more schools and local education authorities more flexibility over their admission arrangements.
Mr. O'Hara:
If the Government are so proud of the so-called parental choice that is offered in the state education system, why do so many Conservative Members commit their children to the private sector? Is it because they do not have the courage to commit their children to the lottery of choice and opportunity over which they preside in the state education system?
Mrs. Gillan:
I was pleased to see that the question was not withdrawn, unlike a question in the other place earlier this week. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong and I shall give him an example from the Government Front Bench. The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), has both his children in the comprehensive school system.
Mr. Pawsey:
What action does my hon. Friend intend to take to protect hon. Members who exercise their right to decide to which school they will send their children? In addition, will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Labour Members on the courage that they have displayed in opting for selection and in sending their children to grammar schools?
Mrs. Gillan:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that all hon. Members should be able to choose where they send their children, and several Labour Front Benchers have made an excellent choice of school for their children. However, we must remember that, under Opposition policy, they would not have that choice.
Mr. Blunkett:
Will the Minister confirm for the House and the country that last year the number of parents who failed to get their first preference for their children increased by more than 100 per cent, but, even so, more than four out of every five parents secured their first preference? Does that not compare very favourably with a selective system, which excluded four out of every five parents from their first preference? Is it not the comprehensive system, which allows parents to exercise their preference, that offers real choice and diversity in this country? It does not offer what the Secretary of State described earlier this afternoon as the "dead hand" of comprehensive education.
Mrs. Gillan:
The hon. Gentleman knows that it has never been possible to guarantee every parent a place for his or her child at a preferred school. Some schools have been oversubscribed for many years because they are so good and so popular. The hon. Gentleman should examine the dead hand of his policies. Labour would end grant-maintained status, abolish the option of self-government for schools, weaken the autonomy of Church schools and of their governors, abolish assisted places, and end selection. What choice would that give the parents of this country?
Unemployment
13. Sir Roger Moate: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the current figure for unemployment (a) in the United Kingdom and (b) in other European Union countries. [9427]
Mr. Forth: On the International Labour Organisation measure, unemployment in the UK in November 1995 was 8.1 per cent.--lower than in any other major European country and well below the European Union average of 10.6 per cent.
Sir Roger Moate: Those figures show again that Conservative policies are working in making Britain the enterprise centre of Europe and bringing unemployment down at a time when it is rising fast in Germany and France. Would not UK unemployment rocket even to the level in socialist Spain if Labour was ever in a position to sign up this country to the social chapter, impose a minimum wage and give in to every inflationary wage demand from its union paymasters?
Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People are becoming daily more aware of the comparison that can be made between this country's success in establishing an enterprise economy, attracting inward investment, encouraging entrepreneurship and new businesses and reducing the unemployment rate for 28 successive months, and the policies of our continental partners and competitors on the mainland--who are experiencing rising unemployment because they have shackled their economies with the social chapter, statutory minimum wage and all the other restrictions that Labour would seek to impose on our economy. That comparison is well understood by people throughout the country.
Mr. Pike: Will the Minister accept that it is not a good Government record to claim that they have reduced unemployment to the level that they have, when so many people in temporary or part-time jobs want full-time jobs? They are working in low-pay and, in many cases, poverty-pay jobs that are an absolute disgrace for Britain in 1996.
Mr. Forth: I regret that the hon. Gentleman did not seem to be in the Chamber for earlier questions. We have tried to get it across to Labour Members--unsuccessfully so far--that temporary work accounts for a much lower proportion of our work force than in most continental countries. The hon. Gentleman may regard temporary work as some sort of evil, but his party will create the conditions to increase temporary work rather than the other way around. As to the other factors that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, it should be understood by Labour Members that the vast majority of people who work part time do so from choice as a result of their individual circumstances. We encourage individual choice, but obviously Labour Members do not.
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