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Mr. Squire: I have given way a lot, and I am anxious to make progress.
It is only because the Government have introduced measures aimed at raising standards in schools that we are now able to have an informed debate. We will no doubt hear shortly from the hon. Member for Walton that new Labour has discovered a new-found enthusiasm for raising standards in schools, but what new Labour says now is unbelievable. Their words today are worlds apart from how old Labour has voted consistently over the past decade, and what new Labour says today is totally divorced from what new Labour is doing in town halls up and down the country.
Dr. Robert Spink (Castle Point)
rose--
Mr. Squire:
I am reaching my concluding comments, but I shall give way for the last time to my hon. Friend.
Dr. Spink:
My hon. Friend mentioned consistency. Does he think that we should have a new subject called consistency on the national curriculum, and that we should send the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) back to school?
Mr. Squire:
If the subject on the curriculum were consistency, many Opposition Members would struggle at key stage 1.
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Labour's record has been one of opposition to each and every measure to raise standards. I find it hard to take seriously a claim that Labour now has a programme of its own to bring higher standards in our schools.
Mr. Squire:
I will not give way, because I am finishing my speech.
The Opposition do not seem to understand, let alone accept, that their friends and fellow socialists control the worst-performing local authorities. For instance, the Labour party runs nine of the 10 local education authorities with the worst GCSE results. I do not say that to score points, but to point out that, if the Labour party had discovered some miraculous elixir of school improvement, we would surely have seen a significant improvement in results in those areas.
We have not, and we are entitled to have grave doubts. Indeed, Councillor Graham Lane, the most senior Labour education councillor, speaks only of accelerating a programme to bring grant-maintained schools under LEA control and abolish grammar schools. So much for Labour's commitment to excellence.
Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton):
I assumed that we were here this morning to provide a platform for the morality statement from the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, but the Secretary of State made something of a faux pas earlier in the week. As a result, the launch of yet another policy initiative has been scuppered.
I closed my eyes for a time during the Minister's speech, not simply because of his delivery, but because I wanted to imagine the context in which he was speaking. For a flashing moment, I thought it was the chair of education for Birmingham city council, because, almost word for word, line for line and policy for policy, the Minister had taken all his thoughts from that most excellent of authorities. Incidentally, that is the authority whose chief education officer was described as a madman by a former Secretary of State, who paid the penalty in the courts.
Mr. Don Foster:
As a "nutter".
Mr. Kilfoyle:
Yes, that was the exact word--he was called a nutter. Yet that is the man who has been at the forefront of carving out the very policies that the Government now seek to plagiarise from a Labour authority and the Labour party.
The context in which the Minister put his opening remarks about standards simply amazed me. I should like to take the Minister on a short trip around the educational world as everybody else sees it, at least those who do not wear the rose-coloured glasses that seem to be de rigueur
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Let us talk about all our schools, including nursery schools. The Minister and I recently sat on opposite sides on the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill. The pilot schemes have become phase 1, but there has been a massive shortfall of places in those schemes. More than a quarter of four-year-olds in pilot areas failed to get a nursery place through the scheme.
Those are not my figures: they come from leaked memoranda, from the Conservative-controlled authorities in London, that have come into the hands of the Labour party and, as the Minister knows, have been well publicised. The Government have been economical with the truth. They have provided the figures for the number of vouchers issued, but not the number of vouchers redeemed, and that figure tells us how many children have secured a place.
I shall give the Minister some figures. In Westminster, only 58 per cent. of eligible four-year-olds got places. In Kensington and Chelsea, the figure was only 59 per cent., and in Wandsworth, 20 per cent. did not get a place. Instead, £1 million has been wasted on advertising, to add to the £20 million that will be wasted on bureaucracy if the Government have their way on the scheme.
Mr. Robin Squire:
The hon. Gentleman could scarcely be more wrong. All four phase 1 authorities say that the scheme is going well administratively. All of them have got back as much or more money than they anticipated. Norfolk have opened 26 new nurseries, and more than a quarter of all pre-school groups have expanded their sessions. Furthermore, I repeat, for something like the 10th or 12th time, that £20 million will not be spent on bureaucracy, but £5 million will be spent on the administration of the scheme and £15 million on inspecting, for the first time, every provider.
Mr. Kilfoyle:
I take issue with the Minister; I will send him copies of the internal memoranda and let him make up his mind on that basis, not on the party political pap which he seems to be fed by his colleagues in those authorities.
What the Labour party will do could not be more different. We will guarantee to provide a place for every three and four-year-old. The Minister mentioned targets earlier, but we will establish targets to provide for three-year-olds as well as four-year-olds through local co-operation between education authorities, the voluntary sector and the private sector in true partnership.
Mr. Harry Greenway:
What does that mean?
Mr. Kilfoyle:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs some remedial English lessons. It means precisely what I said: it is a voluntary partnership between all sectors.
I can give the hon. Gentleman an example. The Pre-School Learning Alliance has identified 200 black holes where there is no provision. If the potential provider in one of those areas were a private provider, we would work in partnership to ensure that places were available. Such partnerships will be needs-led, but the biggest need is to provide of the places.
Mr. Greenway:
This may be another example of the Labour party saying one thing and doing another. On
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Mr. Kilfoyle:
We are debating national policy, not local delivery under a Conservative Government who are not interested in assisting local education authorities to provide nursery places. We will provide a balance, and will support nursery education. We will offer an integrated programme of early-years provision.
We will also encourage partnership on parenting with community health service workers, which is the practice in Birmingham. When the Minister goes on about good practice, I get a sense of deja vu: I have seen this case argued in many Labour party documents. Labour Members would not disagree with much of what the Minister said. However, Government practice is at odds with the practice of those who are doing excellent work around the country.
Mr. Don Foster:
The hon. Gentleman was unfortunately unable to attend the recent meeting of the Select Committee on Education and Employment, when we took evidence from the Pre-School Learning Alliance. He rightly talks about the importance of partnership as distinct from the competitive approach developed by the Conservative party. Is he aware that the Pre-School Learning Alliance told the Select Committee that a number of its member schools had had to close because of the introduction of the voucher scheme? It also made it very clear that the competition element of the voucher scheme was damaging.
Mr. Kilfoyle:
The hon. Gentleman touches on the core of what divides the House: whether education is a co-operative exercise or a competitive one. I accept that, internally, it is competitive in many respects, but the logical conclusion to draw from the fact that nursery schools have to compete against one another is that there will be losers as well as winners. Some of those losers will be the playgroups that come under the aegis of the Pre-School Learning Alliance.
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