House of Commons
Wednesday 14 February 1996
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Education (Lancashire)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Robin Squire.]
9.34 am
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd (Morecambe and Lunesdale): One thing that all Lancashire Conservative Members and county councillors are determined upon is to do everything in their power to help to raise the educational standard of the children of their constituents and that is why I am so pleased to see many of my colleagues here today. I look forward to contributions, if there is time, by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble(Mr. Atkins), and by my hon. Friends the Members for Wyre (Mr. Mans), for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson), for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) and for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) is, of course, performing his ministerial duties at the Treasury and is unable to attend. However, he knows my views on education in Lancashire and I know that he accepts the broad thrust of what I am about to say.
I am especially pleased to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), who will reply to the debate. He has been immensely helpful both to Lancashire Conservative Members and to Lancashire Conservative county councillors in all our endeavours to press the county to recognise the supreme importance of education. I know that what he says will be read with particular care by all our constituents who have children or grandchildren at school.
Over recent years, successive Conservative Governments have introduced some important policies on education. I mention in particular the introduction of parent governors and teacher governors, the local management of schools initiative, which has enabled schools rather than counties to make many decisions about their future, the national curriculum and the league tables. I am pleased by the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment that she will publish primary school performance tables from next spring. The Government have also given the important freedom to schools to go grant-maintained, about which I shall say a little more later.
Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre):
My hon. Friend has mentioned a number of excellent initiatives introduced by the Government. Does he agree that all those initiatives were opposed by the Labour party and, more specifically, by Labour-controlled Lancashire county council, which is depicted as saying no to education at every turn?
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
I agree with my hon. Friend. The other aspect with which I shall deal is that the council says no to funds that the Government have made available to supplement the money that it has to spend on education.
All the changes have given immense opportunities to schools to improve their standards and they have been of immense help. However, there is one point that is often not properly understood by the public. Education policy overall is a matter for the Government, but the amount that is spent by any county council on the schools under its control is a matter entirely for that county council. It is the council's decision; it is not a matter for Government.
The Government, of course, make generous provision to Lancashire county council from central taxation to add to what the council raises from the council tax and the local business rate. However, it is the county's decision whether it spends the extra money provided by the Government on education or on something else.
Mr. Mans:
That might be a wrong decision.
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
Yes, indeed.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, despite what he is saying, capping has implications for the county council? It has to work within that level.
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
My real point--the hon. Gentleman will be able to comment on my speech in his contribution--is to ask whether the £26.6 million extra provided by the Government will be spent by the county on education in the coming financial year. Will all that--
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
It is interesting to hear, that because we have not heard it from the council. Two things cause prime concern to Conservative Members--I have just touched on one. The first is when the county fails to pass on all the increase that the Government have found for education to the most important of its services. The second is when the county fails to manage its bureaucracy properly and, compared with the number of teachers working in schools, keeps too many officials in county hall pushing paper.
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Blackpool, South):
Does my hon. Friend agree that parents in Lancashire, especially of children of nursery age, will be appalled to know that Lancashire county council did not become one of the pilot local education authorities to take advantage of the Government's expansion of nursery education?
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
My hon. Friend has made a valid point. I must add that, in their work, he and Conservative county councillors in Lancashire make it a priority to point out to the county, which as we know is Labour-controlled, precisely what is going on.
Mr. Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire):
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman so soon, and I thank him for giving way. Does he recognise--in relation to the intervention from a sedentary position by thehon. Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans)--that spending on
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
I will comment later on what the hon. Gentleman has said.
The county's management of its funds for education over the years is a story of gross, in some cases outrageous, financial mismanagement. In 1994-95, it cut the schools budget by £5.1 million. As we know, last year the Government were able to increase their allocation to the county for education by only a modest amount--it was a tight settlement. Notwithstanding that, it was an increase, yet the county cut the schools budget by£19.2 million. It cut savagely what went to schools because it was not prepared to cut its education bureaucracy at county hall. Schools therefore suffered at the expense of officials in administration.
I find that remarkable, especially as, at this time, the Opposition are talking so much about the cost of administration in the national health service. For example, on 1 February at Prime Minister's questions, the Leader of the Opposition challenged the cost of administration in the health service and only yesterday those comments were repeated by the hon. Member for Peckham(Ms Harman) in the debate on morale in the health service. Of course it should be remembered that she chose the services of a school that had opted out of a Labour council's control and was in a Tory borough outside the Labour-controlled borough where she lived. What are parents in Lancashire to make of it when they see what their Labour council does to them?
One must ask--this is where I come to the intervention of the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) who will perhaps comment on this--why it is that, despite the removal three years ago of colleges of further education from the county's control, the number of staff at county hall, which was already high then, has continued to increase.
Last year, parents and teachers were understandably concerned about the cuts that schools had to make.My hon. Friends, Conservative county councillors and I visited Ministers with responsibility for education, including my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State,to make our concerns known. We lobbied hard. We also lobbied Treasury Ministers, because ultimately that is the point at which we must put on pressure.
Last autumn, there was a clear expectation that this year the Government would attach a higher priority to educational assistance to the county than they had been able to do in earlier years, yet, on 28 September,a disgraceful thing happened. Mr. Collier, the then chief education officer, wrote to all head teachers suggesting that the county might have to cut the schools budget by 8 per cent. We did not know what the Government settlement was to be then, but, in September, the county said that it might have to cut the budget by8 per cent.
Mr. Collier has now retired. He was acting clearly on the political instructions of his Labour masters at county hall. It was an irresponsible thing to do. The letter generated fear, anger and frustration in everyone who read it.
Mr. Hawkins:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the political master on whose instructions Mr. Collier acted was the chairman of the local education authority, Labour Councillor Stan Wright, who sits for a ward in Blackpool, who has, during his leadership of education in Lancashire, been guilty of the most appalling irresponsibility, and who has continually tried to scare parents of Lancashire children?
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
Following what my hon. Friend says, I hope that all Lancashire parents will write to county councillor Wright. What was said in September was uncalled for as, in December, the Government announced that they would increase the county's allocation towards education costs by £26.6 million or5.5 per cent. I hope that all parents will write to him insisting that that increase from the Government goes directly into education.
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