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Mr. Don Foster (Bath): I think that the whole House, having heard the speech of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), will feel considerable sympathy for the Minister who, if he is to give the hon. Gentleman the assurances that he seeks, will have to pull off a number of tricks that he is not capable of.
I note the hon. Gentleman's opening premise. I hope that the opening premise of the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) was not that he is the only Conservative Member, or Conservative, who opposes certain aspects of the voucher scheme. If that was his premise, he is mistaken. Many Conservatives, both in Parliament and outside, strongly oppose the voucher scheme. They certainly oppose its rapid implementation without proper evaluation. Only this evening, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) passed to me a fax that he received from Gloucestershire county council. At its council meeting this evening, it passed a resolution stating:
Mr. Barry Field (Isle of Wight):
The hon. Gentleman says that his party favours the expansion of early-years education. Could he please tell me how he squares that with the policy of his party's councillors who want independence for the Isle of Wight because such a move
Mr. Foster:
The House has greatly enjoyed the hon. Gentleman's interventions this evening. Unfortunately, so many of my hon. Friends were giving me advice as to the variety of responses that I could give him that the full force of his arguments passed me by, but he will be aware of the fact that, whatever course the Isle of Wight takes, the Liberal Democrat party, wherever it may be, will have high-quality early-years education as a high priority. Whatever happens to his constituency, which will no doubt become a Liberal Democrat constituency, high-quality early-years education will be available for three and four-year-olds there.
I was trying to make the important point that I am in favour of the expansion of high-quality early-years education. It is important that that is done through a mixture of provision in the local education authority, voluntary and private sectors. My party's policy proposals have been fully costed. We have said what the cost will be and where the money will come from to pay for it.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
The hon. Gentleman is very proud of the fact that the Liberal Democrats have taken over in a number of county councils in the south-west. To my knowledge, not one additional nursery place has been found by the Liberal Democrat county council in Dorset or, I suspect, in any of the rest of the south-west.
Mr. Foster:
The hon. Gentleman is not going to get away with that sort of comment. He is well aware that 80 per cent. of the funding for local education authorities comes from central Government. It is the Government's failure to make available the money to allow authorities such as his to expand the provision of high-quality early-years education--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Can we get back to the Lords amendment?
Mr. Foster:
I should be delighted to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
We are in favour of high-quality early-years education, but opposed to the voucher scheme because we believe it to be highly bureaucratic and cumbersome. If it had been proposed by Brussels, I have no doubt that it would have caused Conservative Members to scream hell fire. It is a cumbersome scheme and a complete scam. In reality, it is a cash-for-votes bribe.
If the Government have their way tonight, and the amendment passed in another place is defeated here, vouchers will be delivered through letter boxes throughout the land just before a general election, yet after that election many people in many parts of the country will find that there is nowhere to cash them in. It is a pre-election bribe at least as staggering as tax cuts in the forthcoming Budget would be.
No doubt some right hon. and hon. Members will conclude that my opposition to the Government's proposal is purely to help ensure that the evil day of
nursery vouchers is at least postponed. Hon. Members who believe that are absolutely right. I believe that I am not alone. Today, my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) talked to a group of teachers from St. James's Church of England voluntary aided primary school in his constituency. They explained their opposition to the nursery voucher scheme.
Many other organisations are opposed to the scheme. Many of them believe that, if it is to go ahead, it should do so only after a thorough and proper evaluation. That will be difficult to achieve in a short time, given the Government's failure to get a large sample for any evaluation. Only four local education authorities have agreed to it.
There is a need for a proper evaluation--the Secretary of State agrees with that proposition. She will recall that, when the scheme was first announced in July 1995, the press pack that went out with it said:
There cannot be a thorough test unless it takes place over a reasonable period of time, which is what the Lords amendment proposes. It cannot be a thorough test if it is conducted in a short period of time and in a small area. It cannot be a thorough test when all the evidence to date suggests that the scheme is nowhere near as successful as the Government would have us believe.
The scheme cannot be successful when that evidence suggests that approximately 10 per cent. of people did not even collect their vouchers, despite all the publicity. It cannot be a success when there is no evidence that there has been any increase in choice. All the evidence shows that people made exactly the same decisions about where to send their children as they had made in previous years.
If this scheme is to go ahead, it deserves a thorough evaluation. That is what has been proposed in another place, and that is what the House should support. We should oppose the Government's attempt to railroad through in a scandalous manner a scheme that the country does not want, that has not been thoroughly evaluated and that will not work.
Mr. Tim Rathbone (Lewes):
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) let the cat out of the bag when he said that he was completely opposed to the voucher scheme, and everything that he said in support of Lords amendment No. 2 should be taken in that context. I believe that the House can discount all his arguments--every single one of them--for extending the phase 1 period and for the measurement of it.
It was a great pity that more education authorities did not apply for phase 1 of the scheme. The Liberal Democrat-controlled East Sussex education authority, for example, did not apply, and it is quite a high provider. It is not a very high provider, but it is quite a high provider. That authority showed a disinclination to improve on the performance that it has established over the years by ducking the possibility of applying for the scheme.
As you pointed out to the hon. Member for Bath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the speeches in this debate have gone fairly wide of the mark--the Lords amendment.
What the amendment is in fact saying is: do not judge on the basis of the knowledge to date, judge on the basis of the knowledge that could be accumulated in a 12-month period of the scheme's operation.
I do not believe that much more useful information can be gathered to make a more sophisticated evaluation or business application of phase 1 so that extension to phase 2 is made that much better. Therefore, I believe that the House should support the Government in overturning Lords amendment No. 2.
"That this Council welcomes the amendment to the Nursery Education and Grant Maintained Schools Bill passed with all-party support by the House of Lords on 17 June which requires an evaluation of the current pilot nursery vouchers scheme before the full scheme is started."
The hon. Member for Meriden may especially wish to know that none other than Mr. Richard Izett, leader of the council's Conservative group, was among the signatories to that resolution. I shall be relatively brief because my opposition, and that of my party, to the nursery voucher scheme is well known. It is equally well known, I hope, that we favour a significant expansion of high-quality early-years education for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want it for their children.
11.15 pm
"Phase 1 will ensure that we have the details of the policy right before implementing them across the country."
More recently, the Secretary of State promised in the Chamber--in column 32 of the Hansard of 22 January--that phase one would be "a thorough test".
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