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Schools (Rochdale)
11. Ms Lynne: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the estimated backlog of repairs facing primary and secondary schools within the Rochdale education authority. [25089]
Mrs. Gillan: It is for local education authorities and school governors to assess the need for repair work in respect of school premises that they own and maintain.
Ms Lynne: Is the Minister aware that, since the Labour party lost control of Rochdale borough council in 1992, the new administration has made education a top priority? I thank the Government for including St. Patrick's school in the new start programme. Will the Minister confirm that either she or the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), will visit Rochdale schools to see the backlog of repairs for themselves?
Mrs. Gillan: I can see that this is my day for receiving invitations, and I shall be delighted to consider an invitation from the hon. Lady. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment has heard his invitation and will consider it. Like the hon. Lady, I was delighted that the Labour party lost control of Rochdale and I am delighted that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have put education at the top of their agenda.
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind remarks about St. Patrick's, which is a voluntary-aided school and which will be transferring to a new site with a new building. The total cost of the project will be in excess of £1.1 million. The start of this major improvement was facilitated by a grant of £175,000 this year. I wish the school well with these major improvements.
Grant-maintained Schools
12. Mr. Nigel Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many grant-maintained schools there are in the north-west of England. [25090]
Mr. Robin Squire: There are 96 grant-maintained schools in the north-west of England.
Mr. Evans: As my hon. Friend will know, four of those grant-maintained schools are within the Ribble valley. They are excellent schools--and that does not detract
from the excellent dedication provided by other schools. Surely the important thing is that it was the choice of the parents as to whether they should be grant-maintained schools.
Will my hon. Friend give a commitment that he will continue to prioritise parental choice in this regard and that he will not allow dogma to get in the way of denying parents the final choice about whether schools should be grant-maintained, irrespective of whether they happen to come from Peckham, Sedgefield or any other part of the United Kingdom?
Mr. Squire:
I willingly give my hon. Friend that assurance. As he knows, since the start of this year alone, another five schools have gone GM in his region. I also give him an assurance that, in the White Paper to be published in June, we shall specifically consider ways to allow GM schools better to develop and take advantage of that state of self-governance.
13. Mr. Steen:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what was the cost compliance assessment of the Activity Centres (Young Persons' Safety) Act 1995. [25091]
Mr. Paice:
The most recent cost-benefit assessment by the Health and Safety Executive suggests that the costs to industry will be less than £9 million at present values, spread over 10 years. A copy is in the Library.
Mr. Steen:
Is the Minister aware that no one has lost a life in any of the activities that will be regulated under the Act except in the Lyme bay disaster, and that the Health and Safety Executive provides licences only for nuclear reactors, for ammunition dumps and for removal of asbestos? Now we are adding a licence for fell walking and archery. Is that not a priceless example of the Government over-regulating, and should not the Government refer the matter to the Deregulation Committee?
Mr. Paice:
While I respect my hon. Friend's diligence in pursuing the object of deregulation, which we all share, a balance must be struck between the needs to protect children and to deregulate. Although, as he rightly says, there have been only those four tragic deaths, I hope that we do not have to wait for deaths before we legislate. Perhaps my hon. Friend should be aware that the final report of the Health and Safety Executive into the safety of outdoor activity centres reports that there were 175 reportable--that is, relatively serious--accidents in the two years before the visit. That demonstrates the need for some protection, which we have provided.
Mr. Miller:
I am grateful to the Minister for being so positive in the face of his hon. Friend's outrageous question. He mentioned accidents. That £9 million will go a long way towards reducing the incidence of some accidents that do take place in activity centres. Will he join me in congratulating the HSE, and others involved in drafting the final regulations, on including areas that were not included in the original considerations of the Bill, such as some of the places--such as mountainsides--where outdoor activities take place that are dangerous by their nature?
Mr. Paice:
The Government set out to achieve a balance between protection and avoiding over-burdensome regulation. As the hon. Gentleman says, consultation took place; the 96-page document that my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) mentioned was a consultation document. Its aim was to achieve that balance between the two objectives. We ended up with only 11 pages of regulations as a result. As the hon. Gentleman says, in certain areas we did increase the number of activities that were covered; in other areas, we chose the deregulatory route. It was a genuine consultation, and I believe that we have struck a balance.
14. Mr. French:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what proposals she has to improve job training for those with special needs. [25092]
Mr. Paice:
The Government continue to provide a wide range of job training for people with special needs. They will benefit from proposals for national traineeships and new entry arrangements for young people--and from the pre-vocational and basic skills pilots in the training for work programme.
Mr. French:
Will my hon. Friend accept an invitation to visit Bridge Training in Gloucester? Is he aware that, if he does so, he will find an organisation deeply dedicated to the training of special needs, with experience and understanding developed over many years, which is increasingly asked to enter into contracts that do not fully meet the requirements of special needs applicants--that is, contracts that do not take account of the fact that special needs requirements take longer to fulfil and people with special needs take longer to reach a position from which they can enter employment than others? While I recognise that the training budget is adequate overall, will my hon. Friend try to ensure that organisations such as Bridge are not put in the position of having either to cut their training programme or to operate at a loss?
Mr. Paice:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for ensuring that I was not left out of the battery of invitations that have been issued around the House this afternoon. I shall of course consider his kind offer.
I am sure that the House is aware that training contracts are a matter for individual training and enterprise councils to negotiate with training providers. As a result of the lessons that we have learnt, we have provided much greater flexibility for TECs in contracts covering special needs. We have increased the weighting in terms of payments for trainees with special needs in order to try to recognise that there are clear cost differences when dealing with special needs trainees and those who do not have such needs.
Mr. Alan Howarth:
Does the Minister acknowledge that training opportunities designed specifically for deaf people have been cut drastically? While we wish the greatest number of people to enjoy training opportunities in mainstream provision, a significant number of deaf people are unable to do so. What more will the Minister do for them?
Mr. Paice:
I have received no representations on the specific issue of deaf people. I am aware that there are special requirements for people with a number of different disabilities and special needs and that we must be precise about our language. That is why we have made further changes to our programmes, including ring-fencing a 3.31 pm
Mr. Alan Howarth (Stratford-on-Avon): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Earlier this afternoon during questions to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson)--entirely inadvertently, I am sure--suggested to the House that the Employment Policy Institute had pronounced against the minimum wage. I assure you, Madam Speaker, and the House that the Employment Policy Institute is scrupulously impartial in political terms. It publishes papers setting forth a variety of arguments in the general debate about employment issues. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong to claim that the Employment Policy Institute has come out on his side of the argument. I speak as a trustee of the institute, as is the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman).
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