| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Education
Education is the key to the future of any prosperous and civilised society. It helps to determine how well the economy performs in the long run. It also helps to determine the sort of citizens that we have and the sort of society that we have. The Government are committed to raising standards in education.
As a result of last year's Budget, £878 million extra was provided for schools this year. We are giving schools priority again in this Budget. Planned expenditure on schools will rise by another £830 million next year. A large proportion of that money--£633 million, an increase of 3.6 per cent.--will be channelled through the local authorities. I see the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) shaking his head. Perhaps the money did not reach his schools; I am not as familiar with Sheffield as he is.
Judging by last year's experience, some local authorities are reluctant to pass on the increases in their standard spending assessment to their schools, preferring to spend the money on other areas. It is no good local authorities campaigning for more spending on education in the autumn and then spending their money on other things in the spring. Parents will want to make sure that their local authorities spend money on the things that they want for their children: good teachers and better equipped schools. I hope that the hon. Member for Brightside makes the same efforts to ensure that Sheffield passes the money on, if it did not last year.
A good school has a value far beyond its buildings; but the quality of school buildings in which our children are taught is still very important. We have a long way to go
26 Nov 1996 : Column 159
By setting high standards for schools and increasing choice for parents, this Government are delivering better trained and better qualified young people. Almost one in three young people now goes on to university, compared with one in eight in 1979. And our universities and colleges maintain some of the highest standards in the world despite the pressure on their unit costs that this unprecedented explosion of opportunity for young people has produced.
But I recognise this pressure--I have heard about these pressures--and I also realise that our universities and colleges make an important contribution to the economy.
My Budget therefore includes £280 million to boost further and higher education over the next two years. This includes an extra £20 million next year for science equipment. We want to ensure that the British science research base remains the best in the world, which it certainly is at the moment.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced in September, the Government are planning a substantial sale of student loans debt. It makes no sense for the Government to keep a huge portfolio of loans on their books when the private sector could manage it more effectively and is better placed to cope with the risk. I emphasise that the sale will have no effect on the terms on which students can get loans.
The substantial reduction in the figures for education that Members will find published in the new spending plans is more than accounted for by the sale of this debt. As I have just described, we will actually spend more on the things that really matter--educating our children and young people.
This Government believe that effective law and order are an essential part of making Britain a nation at ease with itself. A good quality police service and an effective system of criminal justice are very high on the list of this Government's priorities.
When it comes to spending on law and order this Government have a record as long as your arm. [Interruption.] Spending more money on a much better police service and a much better criminal justice system--I plead guilty as charged, if that is indeed the charge against the Government. Spending on law and order has already doubled in real terms since 1979.
Provision for combating crime--police and prisons--will now rise by another £450 million next year. Our plans provide for 2,000 more police constables by the end of next year. We are well on course to meet the Prime Minister's pledge for 5,000 more constables.
Our British national health service, with treatment free at the point of delivery, is the envy of the world. It is the best system of health care that I have ever encountered. In every modern civilised society the demand for better health care, for new techniques to save lives and improve
26 Nov 1996 : Column 160
That is why the Prime Minister has pledged on our behalf more resources for the national health service in real terms every year, throughout the next Parliament--a pledge which, to my continual mystification, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has not yet brought himself to match.
We are also spending that money better. We have reformed the NHS so it is much better managed and much more efficient. It is no good opposing these improvements, because when waste is reduced, more can be directed to higher quality patient care. This means that patients get more treatment and care out of every extra pound that we spend.
For next year, we will increase current spending on patient services in the NHS by £1.6 billion, or 2.9 per cent. in real terms. The real increase in current spending for hospitals next year over and above inflation will be 3 per cent.
On top of this, private finance initiative investment will play an increasingly important role in providing new health care facilities. The PFI contract for the Norfolk and Norwich hospital scheme, worth close to £200 million, was signed yesterday, and others will follow. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health for not signing it tomorrow, but I do not think that he had the Budget in mind. There are many in the pipeline--[Hon. Members: "Oh."] He had the people of Norfolk and Norwich in mind and the efficacy and investment in our national health service. PFI investment in the NHS will reach some £900 million over the next three years on top of the increased public spending I am announcing. I think that the Labour party has at last belatedly become converted to that source of investment in our great national health service.
The NHS will continue to grow and continue to improve. We are totally committed to the national health service as a public service providing high quality up-to-date treatment, free at the point of delivery.
By our decisions on public spending, we prove that the NHS remains at the top of the Government's priorities. The NHS has been safe in our hands, it is safe in our hands and it will always be safe in our hands.
This year's spending round was as tight as any that I can remember--I keep describing it as eye-wateringly tight--but we never lost sight of our objective, which is to sustain and improve the key public services that the British public care about: education, combating crime and our national health service. In part we have achieved that by increasing efficiency within the priority services, but inevitably we have also had to find savings in other programmes. [Hon. Members: "Whisky."] You will find out in a minute.
Falling unemployment and lower inflation has helped to reduce the social security and employment programmes. We are also continuing to transfer activities to the private sector where this is more efficient as it is for student loans. We have refocused the housing
26 Nov 1996 : Column 161
People pay their taxes in order to get good quality public services, not to accumulate state-owned buildings. This simple truth has led to the development of the private finance initiative.
The PFI helps to square the circle of sound public finances and growing demand for better and more modern public services by tapping the expertise and the resources of the private sector.
A year ago we had agreed £1.5 billion worth of deals--now we have agreed £7 billion, and we are on course to double that by March 1999. Time and again the taxpayer is getting better value for money, through new road schemes, new prison services, and information technology projects. And reforms to local government rules are bringing the PFI into new areas, notably schools.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |