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10.28 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Gillian Shephard): I ask the House to reject the motion. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) for turning up this evening. It is good that his team is accompanying him too. Last time, they felt so strongly about the issue that they did not turn up at all.
I should like to make three main points about the regulations: first, the need for them; secondly, the consultation process applied to them; and, thirdly, what we propose to do between now and 1 September, when the new regulations are intended to come into effect. I shall also deal with the criticisms conveyed by Opposition Members both to Madam Speaker--about the laying of the regulations--and in the Standing Committee considering the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill.
I shall start, if I may, at the beginning. The holder of my office is required by section 10 of the Education Act 1944 to make regulations prescribing the standards to which the premises of maintained schools shall conform. Because the education system evolves and changes--unlike the views of Opposition Members--over the years, it has proved necessary every decade or so to review the regulations. Alongside them, it has been the practice for there to be non-statutory professional advice and guidance from architects and building branch professionals in my Department. That, too, has been regularly revised as educational practice has developed.
The regulations will supersede and revoke the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981 with effect from 1 September. There are a number of detailed technical changes, but the essential point is that the regulations continue to cover structural requirements, and health, safety and welfare matters--including washrooms and sanitary facilities, boarding accommodation and playing fields. The new regulations will no longer include prescriptive minimum areas for teaching accommodation and recreation areas.
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North):
I refer the right hon. Lady to a new nursery school in my constituency that was built to the then current regulations. The teachers had to make the strongest possible protest about the fact that even those regulations were inadequate. There were too many children in the classroom, and the
Mrs. Shephard:
The hon. Lady makes my point for me--she seems to be arguing for deregulation, which is what we are providing for.
New non-statutory guidance documents will be provided on both teaching accommodation and school grounds. There will also be non-statutory guidance on boarding accommodation. All three documents are placed in the Library of the House.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster(Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) has said, it is obviously difficult for a single set of regulations to apply detailed area standards sensibly to every kind of school on every kind of site. I am thinking in particular of schools on restricted sites where there is no prospect of expansion, and of schools that are difficult to remodel or adapt. Those schools are often in solidly built Victorian and Edwardian buildings. Many are on inner-city sites, but some are in the green belt or in remote villages. The buildings themselves are often in good condition, but the playground might be too small or the rooms may be inconveniently sized. Many of the schools are Church schools; many are very popular.
Ms Margaret Hodge (Barking):
Does the Secretary of State believe that space standards have anything to do with the quality of the education offered to our children?
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
It is the teaching that matters.
Mrs. Shephard:
As my hon. Friend says--she is always right on these matters--it is the quality of teaching that counts, a point repeatedly made by the chief inspector of schools.
There were other reasons why a review of the 1981 regulations was needed. In those regulations, space per pupil reduces on a stepped scale relating to the actual number of pupils. That means, for instance, that a primary school with 301 pupils needs about 40 sq m less teaching area, according to the regulations, than one with300 pupils. And a primary school with 181 pupils needs 10 sq m less than one with 180.
Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)
rose--
Mrs. Shephard:
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but it may be the last intervention I shall take.
Mr. Spearing:
The Secretary of State mentioned the alleged difficulty of calculating minimum appropriate areas for schools of different types. In view of the Government's emphasis on the need for more nursery education, why are they taking away the standards specifically laid down for nursery schools, both indoors and outdoors, which have been a feature of that form of education almost since its inception?
Mrs. Shephard:
That is not the case. I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman, who I know produced a learned work on those matters in 1965, which I have read with some interest. He will know that nursery classes in maintained
By contrast, minimum recreation areas are broadly in proportion to the pupil numbers. That is another anomaly. If a school had a temporary increase in pupil numbers and had to put up a mobile classroom in the playground, it might risk breaching the regulation on recreation areas. The school might have to come to the holder of my office for a special exemption, but that would be an example of over-prescription leading to undue bureaucracy. Those examples illustrate the anomalies that can arise from over-regulation.
There is a transitional waiver for part of the 1981 regulations for buildings already existing in 1981. That expires on 1 September and has given some useful flexibility. But it would be absurd to perpetuate a system that depended on transitional arrangements. It would be quite wrong to put good schools and sensible LEAs and governors in a position in which they could be held to account for a breach of what had become unrealistic requirements.
Mr. Alan Howarth (Stratford-on-Avon):
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mrs. Shephard:
I will give way, for the last time.
Mr. Howarth:
Has the Secretary of State considered the representations on recreation space put to her by the Learning Through Landscapes Trust, the foundation of which I supported when I was a Minister? The deregulation measure will allow recreational space around existing school buildings to be built on and, in the case of new schools, the space will not have to be provided in the first instance. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge the importance--for the education and development of children--of available space for play and social interaction, for environmental education through gardens and wildlife habitats and for artistic displays and activities?
Mrs. Shephard:
Learning Through Landscapes has made a valuable contribution to the draft guidance documents that have been placed in the Library. The hon. Gentleman will be able to see that if he examines those documents. The trust has been in to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment.
The Opposition apparently wish to retain the regulations on teaching areas, but they would be in a dilemma. What would they do about schools on restricted sites? Would they close the school? Would they restrict admission? Would they place compulsory purchase orders on adjacent buildings? How much would they spend? Have they made a spending pledge? Would they come to the holder of my office to seek an exemption each time? Do they want to force a choice on LEAs and governors? Do they want a system that relies on waivers for schools built before 1981? In other words, this is a classic case in which regulations are no longer necessary. I am not arguing that they were necessarily wrong in the past, perhaps as recently as 1981, but that was 15 years ago. And there is more to it than that.
It is not disputed on either side of the House that the revolution--that is not too strong a word--in the management of schools over the past decade has been
outstandingly successful. We have given more responsibility to parents and governors than ever before. We know from our experience of local management of schools that we need have no hesitation in leaving important and detailed decisions to them. If the governors can take decisions about admissions and staffing--and they can--surely they can be trusted to take decisions about the size of teaching accommodation, recreation areas and storage space. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
Order. I do not expect seated interventions from hon. Members in any part of the House, least of all from those on the Front Bench.
Mrs. Shephard:
I cannot believe that the Opposition are really saying that LEAs and school governors cannot be relied on to act responsibly. If they are, the argument seems to sit very oddly with their desire to give powers to LEAs at the expense of parents, Churches and governors in other areas of policy.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) announced in 1990 that we would be reviewing the 1981 regulations. The review was part of the day-to-day work of the Department. It was not an external, public review and it was never intended to be so, but we did listen to the comments made. We have not been able to take them all on board.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), announced the Government's conclusions to the House on 14 July last year. A draft of the proposed new regulations and a covering circular were issued for further consultation last August. Some 1,600 schools and organisations were consulted, including all the local education authorities. Only 119 responses were received in England and Wales. It was a very low response rate--only 7 per cent. of the schools and organisations that were consulted. That level of response does not suggest that we are facing the end of civilised education as we know it.
On 10 January the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham(Mrs. Gillan), announced the Government's decisions in the light of the consultation. She said that the Government expected to lay the regulations in February.
On 30 January, in the Standing Committee that considered the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill, Opposition Members argued that there was a link between the Bill and the regulations and that it would be essential to see the regulations before the Committee had completed its consideration of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State therefore undertook to ensure that the regulations were tabled as soon as reasonably possible. They were the subject of expedited printing and were laid on 22 February in an amended proof copy.
The form of the draft, which included manuscript additions, has been criticised by Opposition Members and by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. I take the opportunity to apologise to the House if, in our eagerness to comply with the wishes of the Standing Committee, we cut a corner that we should not have done. It was done with the best of intentions. It is a pity that it was not accepted by Opposition Members in that spirit. The consultation has been full and open and we have
worked hard to lay the regulations quickly. We have extended the time of their coming into effect from March to September.
What do we intend to do between now and when the regulations come into force on 1 September? As is the usual practice, we propose to issue a circular to explain the regulations in layman's terms. A draft of that circular was issued with the draft regulations in August. We shall issue the final version of the circular in the spring or early summer.
At the same time, non-statutory guidance will be issued on teaching accommodation, school grounds and boarding accommodation. Drafts of the guidance documents are in the Library. We hope to publish a final version of them in the summer.
There was quite a lot of comment about the regulations during consideration of the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill. It was suggested that they would lead to overcrowding in individual schools, as there would no longer be a statutory minimum teaching area per pupil. I should remind Opposition Members that the standard admission numbers for schools will not be changed by the regulations. Decisions on how many pupils to admit will still be for the individual admission authorities to take, whether local education authorities or governing bodies.
It has been suggested that the new regulations will lead to an increase in class size. That is not so. It is a long time since the Government prescribed limits on class sizes. Opposition Members will be interested to hear that it was a Labour Secretary of State, Mr. Edward Short, as he then was, who abolished the regulations on class sizes in 1969. The 1981 regulations certainly do not limit class sizes. The minimum areas relate to the total size of the accommodation, not to individual classes.
The final argument advanced by Opposition Members--it is one of the silliest--is that LEAs and governors will not know how much teaching space they should be allocating for a given number of pupils. It is as if local education officers and education committees will suddenly be at the mercy of their finance committees, which will be interested only in cutting costs.
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