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Education (School Premises)
10.16 pm
Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside): I beg to move,
- That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1996 (S.I., 1996, No. 360), dated 22nd February 1996, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd February, be annulled.
In moving the annulment of the order, I feel a little like the groom who had a second chance after the bride turned up early at the church and he missed the service. We are having a second bite of the cherry tonight. [Interruption.] I think that Conservative Members are making assertions about the bride, so perhaps I should protect her from Norman Blackwell and the policy unit at No. 10. [Interruption.]
Mr. Blunkett:
Thank you, Madam Speaker, it was a little like an east end pantomime for a moment.
However, there is nothing pantomime about the orders. There is nothing clever about a Government who, having agonised for almost six years, have now decided to deregulate the space available in our classrooms and the area available for leisure and recreation. There is nothing clever about a Government who think that the operation of the free market involves removing the basic safeguards that have existed since they introduced them in 1981 in order to protect our children and our schools.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blunkett:
Yes, I will--I always enjoy such occasions.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
The orders are very important to village schools, as some--although they are excellent schools--would not be able to meet the new standards. Many village schools would have to close and no one wants to see that happen.
Mr. Blunkett:
I have heard many interventions from the hon. Lady in my time in this place, but that is one of the most stupid. Tonight we are debating the deregulating of regulations that the Government introduced in 1981 in order to protect schools. I can do no better than quote the following:
I did not say that. Nor was it said by small schools in Lancashire. It was said by Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector of schools, in his 1996 annual report. He continued:
Obviously, if the schools do not have the space available, there are two answers. The Government can either provide the resources to ensure that they have the space and the safeguards, or they can deregulate and pretend that the problem does not exist.
The issue raised by the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) was raised starkly by the then Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), in a letter to the right hon. Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt) on 26 April 1993, when he stated:
that is, the review that has now been concluded--
That is the absolute essence of why we are debating the regulations tonight. We are debating them because the Government are not prepared to make the capital available--at least in the maintained sector--to ensure that there is adequate space available for children.
The same Secretary of State wrote to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) on 10 June 1993 as follows:
Apparently it is defensible tonight.
The Government are deregulating the one but not the other purely on the premise that the Prime Minister stumbled into making a speech in which he promised to protect playing fields--5,000 of which have already been sold off--and was therefore concerned that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment did not directly contradict him. She does her best inadvertently to contradict him every time he stumbles into other mistakes. On this occasion, it was an attempt to ensure that the policy unit and speeches that were written for the Prime Minister were not directly overturned in the regulations. Although a substantial amount has already been sold off, playing field space is not to be deregulated, but space in the classroom and playing space is.
Changing facilities are also to be deregulated so that children up to the age of 11 will no longer have segregated changing areas and will have to use classrooms. Presumably boys and girls will change in different classrooms to ensure that there is no embarrassment.
There are no safeguards in terms of health and safety because health and safety regulations and fire regulations apply to teachers, but not to pupils. The Government are prepared to put others at risk to ensure that they are not embarrassed by a set of regulations which they tolerated for nine years before they initiated the review.
Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West):
Why does the hon. Gentleman assume that local authorities--the vast majority of which are controlled by his party--are incapable of judging what is the right amount of space? They are building the schools; they should design something that they consider appropriate. Why does the hon. Gentleman want to return to those post-war days
Mr. Blunkett:
I thought that the hon. Gentleman knew something about education and the way in which design specifications and the regulations go hand in hand. The answer is very simple. If local authorities do not have minimum space design regulations on which capital allocations can be made, planning consents are given and the Department is permitted to intervene. One cannot blame the local authority if it ends up squeezing space to build or extend a school under DEE regulations for capital, supplementary or original approval when the local authority does not have access to the capital on the markets.
Tomorrow, the House will consider the remaining stages of regulations that will allow grant-maintained schools, but not maintained schools, to borrow against certain assets. We will debate again tomorrow the facilities and provisions for redeeming nursery vouchers in the pilot and substantive schemes, which will not be subject to any regulations concerning the space that must be made available for the small children in question. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) and his party are prepared to tolerate small children having totally inadequate facilities and accommodation, so that the Government can deregulate and put to one side the sensible provision that is already available.
On 15 February, the Under-Secretary of State replied to my question about what had happened to the review.
Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley):
Which Under-Secretary?
Mr. Blunkett:
What does the hon. Gentleman mean, "Which Parliamentary Under-Secretary?" I refer to the Under-Secretary of State who answered my question on 15 February--who, as the hon. Gentleman ought to know, is seated opposite me and is responsible for answering such questions. We do not want silly interventions from hon. Members. The hon. Gentleman may have had a good dinner, but some of us had to forgo dinner to be able to debate the issue properly.
On 15 February, the Under-Secretary of State answered my question by suggesting that, in the review, a large number of local authorities were prepared to accept the deregulation being debated tonight. I wrote to those local authorities, and every one of them--whether Hounslow, Lancashire, Oxfordshire or Bedfordshire--answered that they had written to the Department saying that they were against the deregulation proposals. The material placed in the Library as late as this afternoon shows that out of the consultation exercise that the Minister of State had not been prepared to reveal on 19 July 1995, one local authority--Wandsworth--and one school out of all those that responded were in favour of deregulation, while one Church body submitted a query. Of all the parties that responded to the consultation that was set in motion on 14 July 1995, only three said that, one way or another, they were prepared to accept deregulation.
"It is clear that, despite efforts to deal with more serious problems, a significant number of schools have problems with their buildings. At least one primary school in seven and one secondary school in five suffers from some shortfall in accommodation, such as cramped classroom spaces, poor or non-existent facilities for art, design and technology or science, or a limited playground area",
"Teachers who lack proper resources or who work in poor buildings experience problems which at best frustrate and at worst defeat their best efforts to do a decent job."
18 Mar 1996 : Column 125
"The main purpose of the review"--
"was to decide how to resolve the increasing difficulty of having minimum standards for which costs of compliance were well beyond any realistic prospect for the capital expenditure which is likely to be made available."
"In the interests of overall Government policy, we are proposing deregulation not only in area accommodation for school land, but also in the more central and sensitive area of teaching space standards. I do not think it would be defensible for us to deregulate the one and not the other."
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