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7.53 pm
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) remarked that Cambridgeshire has always been a low-spending authority. It suffered many years of Conservative control, so even Government Members would have difficulty arguing that Cambridgeshire has not been low spending, and that is confirmed by the Audit Commission's report. Of the shire counties, Cambridgeshire is fourth from the bottom in spending on each primary school pupil, 14th from the bottom in spending on secondary school pupils and bottom in spending on the over-16s.
All that is despite the fact that Cambridgeshire has consistently spent 6 per cent. more on education than the Government have allocated in the standard spending assessment. The county's planned budget this year reduces that figure to only 4 per cent. more than the SSA. The people of Cambridgeshire are in no doubt that, if the order is approved, that will result in appalling consequences for the county's education and social services.
The Secretary of State's accusation that Cambridgeshire is not passing on the increase to its schools was perpetrated in a letter of complaint from the right hon. Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney) to the secretary of the National Union of Teachers in Cambridgeshire. The Government say that the county should spend £237 million on education, but it plans to spend £247 million. It is true that £5 million has been reserved. If that hold-back continues, at least 80 teaching posts already identified by schools throughout the county will be lost--on top of the 100 teaching posts that were lost following last year's disastrous cuts.
The Government say that Cambridgeshire should spend £77 million on central services, but the county is planning to spend £84 million. The Government say that the county
should spend £13 million on the fire service, and it is planning to spend more than £14 million. To do so, Cambridgeshire has had to reduce spending on other services by 18 per cent. The county shares the Government's priorities for services and has made sure that money is spent on education, social services and the fire service--not on other services, as it has been accused of doing.
The Government claim that they have given Cambridgeshire £11 million extra this year. In the words of Lord Justice Scott, that is "sophistry". The Government have increased by £11 million not the county's grant, but the standing spending assessment. As the House knows, that is a different matter.
Cambridgeshire was already spending more than the SSA on education, to cope with what the Secretary of State for Education described as a tough settlement last year. The county followed the Government's advice and took £10 million out of its reserves, to lessen the pain of the £17 million cuts imposed. The district auditor has described Cambridgeshire's reserves, which represent only six days' spending, as extremely low. That situation could be repeated this year.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) in his place on the Government Front Bench because he has tried to be helpful. When asked on Radio Cambridgeshire today about the county council's problems, he claimed that it was a profligate authority losing £4 million a year on its school meals service. The £4 million excess of expenditure over income is due to the cost of providing free school meals.
Mr. Paice:
It is still too much.
Mrs. Campbell:
I suppose that the hon. Gentleman realises that the county council has a statutory duty to supply free school meals to children in need. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that Cambridgeshire should break the law?
The hon. Gentleman has also complained about the high cost of school meals, but that is because Cambridgeshire not only recoups the cost from children who can pay but provides an element of the overheads. That is why the county cannot cut its school meals service without losing money.
Why is Cambridgeshire struggling to pay for services that everyone else expects of right? In April 1995, the hon. Member for South-West Cambridgeshire (SirA. Grant) and I went to see the Minister to ask for a fairer deal for funding for Cambridgeshire. The area cost adjustment, which the county does not receive, would have given Cambridgeshire an additional £15 million last year. I know that the hon. Member for South-West Cambridgeshire was quite optimistic after that meeting. He remarked to the Cambridge Evening News that he could see light at the end of the tunnel. The Cambridge Evening News is not a paper to sound a note of false optimism, and the editor remarked that it was too early to start celebrating the fact that the Government were finally beginning to see sense.
I am afraid that the news in October dashed our hopes. The Department of the Environment announced an independent review into the area cost adjustment
system--a review that would not report until June this year. Promises that Cambridgeshire's situation could be improved were broken, too late for this financial year.
The Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration (Mr. David Curry):
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady as I know that her time is limited, but I want to set the record straight.
I said last year that we were looking to see whether there was an approach to labour costs that was more robust than the area cost adjustment. We were looking particularly at travel-to-work areas. I made it clear, as I have always done, that if that turned out to be a better formula, it would be adopted, but that if it did not, it would not be.
I said the same about the present review. At no stage did I say that we would change the system irrespective of whether the methodology was improved. As the hon. Lady will know, the attempt to make the travel-to-work area methodology work was not successful; I was not prepared to adopt a system that I thought was intellectually flawed. That is why we moved to examining a different formulation. I should be grateful if she reported the facts accurately and did not interpret them in a way that is not true.
Mrs. Campbell:
I am grateful for that explanation. The hon. Member for South-West Cambridgeshire and I came away last April with an optimistic view. We certainly understood that something better would be implemented by this time this year--and that was the county's impression too.
When the settlement was announced this year, Ministers and Conservative Members wrote to schools saying that education spending had been increased. That showed a blatant disregard for the truth. I wrote to the right hon. Member for Peterborough to complain about the inaccuracies in the letter that he had sent to schools. He did not bother to answer my allegations; he simply accused me of having an unsavoury reputation for interfering in other people's constituencies. If interfering in other people's constituencies is necessary to bring the truth home to the people of Cambridgeshire, I am prepared to do it any time.
Whom are the Government trying to punish? Are they trying to punish the county council because it is the wrong political colour; or have they decided to punish the people of Cambridgeshire for voting the Conservatives out of office in 1993? Are they so worried about their chances in Cambridge, Peterborough and Fenland in the general election that they decided to cut Cambridgeshire's budget so as to blame the county council? It is not councillors who will suffer: it is the people of Cambridgeshire. Old people in need of care will be subjected to soaring charges, children with special needs will be unable to receive the help that they should have, and children will study in overcrowded classes. There will be fewer curriculum choices, teachers will be overstressed and school governors will face impossible decisions.
Even Peterborough city council recognised this when, at its meeting in January, it noted with concern the county's SSA and capping limit, which limits its discretionary scope. The city council said:
The schools have identified 80 redundancies. That has produced outbursts of protest from schools all over the county. I have with me letters from almost all of them protesting about the cuts that they are being forced to make. A head teacher of a school in Huntingdon, the Prime Minister's constituency, was quoted in the Cambridge Evening News as saying:
"This council fully supports Cambridgeshire county council in its bid to seek a higher spending limit and to protect as far as possible service standards for priority services, in particular schools, social and fire services."
22 May 1996 : Column 363
That was not said by a left-wing council. At the time, the city council was a hung body. That statement, moreover, had the full support of Conservative councillors. Peterborough city council also expressed its heartfelt support for the councillors on Cambridgeshire county council, which was not a Labour council in January. It is now, and one can see why.
"We are not very far from meltdown. We are getting to the point where there is extreme anxiety whether we can actually keep children in school full time."
Schools are beginning to realise what a disastrous effect the £5.3 million that has been kept back from the schools budget will have on service provision in Cambridgeshire.
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