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10.28 am

Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley): I shall start by lobbying my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire). An excellent school in Huddersfield in my constituency, the Salendine Nook high school, has applied for technology college status. Sadly, its application in the previous bidding round was unsuccessful, but I hope that it will be successful this time. It has made one or two changes to the bid and has improved it. I ask my hon. Friend to examine that bid closely, or, if it is not his responsibility, to ensure that his ministerial colleague does so.

Since the Conservatives came to power in 1979, we have had the massive task of driving up educational standards in this country. We started by extending parental choice. We believed that that would be sufficient to drive up standards, but we underestimated the task.

The Labour party has controlled many local education authorities, and it is fair to say that, the worse the educational problems in an LEA, the longer Labour has been in control. Progressive educationists have been in charge of teacher training colleges and the teacher training agenda for very many years; they were also entrenched in local education authorities.

In the 1960s and 1970s, drab uniformity was introduced into the system, with the blanket introduction of comprehensive schools. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) said, many excellent grammar schools and direct grant schools were destroyed. Those responsible should be ashamed.

Progressive educationists, supported by Labour politicians, have said that streaming and setting in schools are wrong. New, and often dubious, teaching methods have been introduced. In history teaching nowadays, there appears to be less emphasis on the teaching of facts and more emphasis on pupils knowing about the social experiences of people who were living at that time.

Local education authorities have undermined the authority of teachers and head teachers by meddling in the ways in which schools can impose discipline. I draw the attention of the House to a matter that was brought to my attention by a Conservative colleague in the city of Sheffield. I am pleased to see a Sheffield Member, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), in his place.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who speaks for the Labour party on education, says that he wants improved standards and more discipline in schools; yet, in 1981, under his leadership, Sheffield City council prohibited schools from insisting on school uniforms, despite massive parental and pupil opposition.

My hon. Friend the Minister might be interested to know that the hon. Member for Brightside wrote in the Sheffield Star on 6 October 1981 in support of the

"decision to remove the compulsion of wearing specific items of school uniform"

on the grounds of the

"freedom of the individual"

being

"a matter for city-wide concern".

At the Sheffield City council meeting on 7 October 1981, a Conservative amendment proposing that the decision on school uniforms be left to schools was voted down by the Labour group.

27 Nov 1996 : Column 264

There we have it. It was the Labour party, and the hon. Member for Brightside, who ensured that schools in Sheffield were unable to insist on school uniforms.

The Education Reform Act of 1988 should have been the Education Reform Act of 1980. It is a shame that we waited so long. Of course, the Conservative Government had other priorities at that time. We underestimated the challenges that confronted us, but the 1988 Act was a key piece of legislation, which changed the country's education agenda. We introduced the national curriculum, local management of schools and grant-maintained schools. We gave parents more control.

Since then, we have introduced national tests and league tables. Every initiative that the Conservative Government have introduced to drive up standards was fiercely opposed by the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats. I was fascinated to hear the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Davies) support the Government's approach to tests. I am encouraged by that; it is a shame that we did not have his support when we introduced those changes.

In the time left, I shall discuss an issue that has been of special interest and concern to many of my constituents--class sizes. Last Friday night in my constituency, I attended a meeting of parents and teachers who were concerned about funding in education generally and class sizes in particular.

Class sizes are important, if only because parents believe they are. If parents believe that they are important, we must try to keep class sizes down as much as we can. I do not want classes to exceed 30 pupils. The Government and local authorities should do everything possible to reduce classes.

We would be deluding ourselves if we were to say that class sizes were the only thing that counted in education; of course they are not. We only have to consider the Ridings school, were class sizes were small yet standards of education, as we all know, were pretty appalling. Schools take the final decisions as to how the funds available to them are to be spent, but it is important that central Government make enough money available to local authorities and schools to ensure that they keep class sizes down.

Since the Conservatives came to power in 1979, educational spending has increased by 50 per cent. in real terms, but I welcome the fact that the Chancellor, in his Budget statement yesterday, announced an additional £830 million for schools. That is extremely important. I have pushed for that in my meetings with the Chancellor and in a recent meeting with the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. I have argued that we must make more money available for schools. I am pleased, therefore, that the Chancellor made that announcement yesterday.

As the Chancellor said, it is crucial that local education authorities pass on to schools the money that has been made available. That is the big challenge, and it has not always happened.

I draw the attention of the House to a recent document produced by the Centre for Policy Studies, which examined the method of allocating resources to schools. Of the national schools budget, £12 billion goes to schools, but about £4 billion goes to local education authorities. That means that LEAs deduct 26 per cent. of school spending in England. The method by which money

27 Nov 1996 : Column 265

is sent to individual schools is confusing, so LEAs are able to get away with saying that they pass on 90 per cent. of funding. That is not the case.

In my area, Kirklees borough council claims to delegate 89 per cent. of its budget to individual schools. The true figure is 74 per cent. Kirklees LEA holds back 26 per cent. of funding for schools. Those figures appear in the CPS document, but, interestingly, they are also contained, albeit rather hidden away, in Kirklees council's own document, "Education Budget Matters", recently published for the benefit of local educationists, schools and so on.

Page 33 of the document reveals that, of the generous schools budget of £141 million, only £106 million is passed on to individual schools. There remains tremendous scope, therefore, for Kirklees council to pass on more money to individual schools. On page 39 of the document, we read that Kirklees passes on much less per pupil to individual schools than the average of metropolitan district councils throughout the country. Kirklees ranks 21st out of 26 for delegating funds to individual schools.

The final fact from the document that I wish to draw to the attention of the House relates to pupil-teacher ratios. It is fair to say that there has been a slight increase in those ratios across the country. However, the increase in Kirklees has been more than twice that in other local education authorities--a factor of 1.8 pupils in Kirklees against a figure of 0.7 across the country. That suggests that Kirklees, my local Labour-run council, is holding back too much money. It is spending too much on central services and administration. My message for the House and for my local education authority is that more of the money made available by the Government to Kirklees must be passed on to individual schools.

10.40 am

Ms Estelle Morris (Birmingham, Yardley): I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) on giving the House another opportunity to discuss standards in education. Some of us have already been through this debate fairly recently, but it is an important matter, and we always welcome the opportunity to discuss it.

Having chosen a good topic for debate, the hon. Gentleman risked ruining it by falling into the trap that too many Conservative Members fall into, wanting to persuade everyone that excellence exists only in grant-maintained schools. I agree with the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) that we must seize the opportunity to get together to raise standards in education and try to move forward.

There are some very good grant-maintained schools that have improved their standards. There are also an awful lot of good comprehensive schools that have improved theirs. There are good selective schools, technology schools and city technology colleges that have improved their standards. We do no one any favours by trying to score points and pretending that excellence exists only in the types of school to which we are ideologically committed. People know that that is not true. I welcome and praise excellence wherever it exists. Thankfully, it exists in a lot of schools up and down the country.

I am pleased to welcome the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) on board with his acknowledgement that class size is important and can make a difference.

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On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), who is the Whip and cannot participate in the debate, I should like to clarify the fact that the 1981 decision in Sheffield was only that schools should not be able to exclude students for not wearing uniform. The hon. Member for Colne Valley may disagree with that decision, but it was legitimate for Sheffield to decide that a child's education should not be interrupted, even temporarily, because of an issue such as uniform.

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