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Village Schools

10. Mr. Tyler: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what educational criteria she uses to assess the case for the retention of small village schools. [7060]

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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Cheryl Gillan): The closures of county and voluntary schools are considered on their own merits.

Mr. Tyler: The guidance that the Minister can give to local education authorities of all political colours will be very helpful and I hope that it will be spelt out in detail. May I ask her more specifically for advice on the plight facing Blisland school in my constituency, where the roll fell to such a level that it was no longer educationally or economically viable and the LEA, with the concurrence and support of the Secretary of State, decided that the school should be closed? What advice can the hon. Lady give in the present circumstances, where the school roll is increasing again and the local authority, with cross-party agreement, has decided to review the situation? Will the Secretary of State be prepared to review the closure and retrieve Blisland school? What educational and economic criteria will she need to be persuaded of to establish its future?

Mrs. Gillan: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am well aware of the situation concerning Blisland school. The Liberal Democrat-controlled council published the proposal to close it as recently as March this year. Her Majesty's inspectorate visited the school, where there were nine pupils and one teacher. We received no representations from the hon. Gentleman about the school. He is now telling me that the Liberal Democrats have changed their minds, which does not surprise me and I am sure does not surprise anybody else. Now that the decision has been taken to close the school, and since the LEA made such a good case for doing so originally, I must advise him that it will be necessary for that local authority to publish fresh proposals to make a case for keeping the school open.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: No doubt my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that those of my village schools that have been assessed in the recent inspection round have had exceptionally good results, co-operate with one another to provide a much broader curriculum and are in every way admirable.

Mrs. Gillan: As usual, I agree with my hon. Friend, who is obviously making a very strong point in favour of good rural schools. Good rural schools are supported by the Government.

School Class Sizes

11. Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps she plans to take to reduce class sizes in primary schools. [7061]

Mrs. Gillian Shephard: Decisions about class sizes are a matter for local education authorities and schools.

Mr. Williams: Do the Government now accept what 90 per cent. of parents considered to be self-evident: with a given teacher in a given classroom, the quality of learning and the amount of individual attention given to children's reading, writing and arithmetic are greater in class sizes of 30 rather than 35?

Mrs. Shephard: The hon. Gentleman should refer to the report produced by the Office for Standards in

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Education specifically on class sizes. He will find that the chief inspector stated that there was no simple link between class size and quality of teaching and learning. If the hon. Gentleman remains as unconvinced as he looks, he should ponder on the fact that in Hackney, long under Labour control, standards at the Hackney Downs school were so deplorable that the school had to be closed, yet it had only eight pupils to every teacher.

Mrs. Peacock: What positive steps is my right hon. Friend taking to encourage all local education authorities to pass 95 per cent. of the budget to schools so that schools can make decisions on class sizes, which is what they really want to do?

Mrs. Shephard: I should hope that such a policy would be so self-evidently sensible to all properly run LEAs that there would be no need for me to encourage them further.

Mr. Kilfoyle: Has the Secretary of State seen the recently published Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report which illustrates how our international competitors have had a substantial improvement in pupil-teacher ratios, leading to reductions in class sizes? The report also notes that, under three successive Tory Governments, the reverse process has occurred in the United Kingdom, leading to increased class sizes. Given that the Government have appropriated huge parts of Labour party policy in their current Education Bill and given that Her Majesty's chief inspector has admitted the link between smaller class sizes and improved performance at key stage 1, will the Secretary of State now join the Labour party in giving a commitment that, at key stage 1, there will be no class of more than 30?

Mrs. Shephard: Perhaps I may remind the hon. Gentleman that his party's class-envious plans to destroy the assisted places scheme--and, with it, opportunities for able children from less well-off families--to reduce class size would yield one extra teacher for every nine schools. I wonder how he would divide them up.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that, although class sizes clearly have a part to play in the attraction of a school, it is the structure and ethos of the school and the quality of teaching that are far more important to parents. Does she accept that, in many rural schools, it is the quality and ethos of the school and the teaching that are important, and that those are the schools that are attractive to parents and to which they want their children to go?

Mrs. Shephard: Parents are well aware of which schools are popular and successful and willingly choose larger classes if they think those schools will do best for their children.

School Security

12. Mr. Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what additional financial

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assistance is being proposed for local education authorities and schools to tackle the problems of school security. [7062]

Mr. Robin Squire: An extra £66 million is being made available for security measures at LEA-maintained and grant-maintained schools over the next three years.

Mr. Turner: I thank the Minister for the answer, but the question is whether that is enough. The Minister will be aware that, following the horrific machete attack at St. Luke's school in my constituency, my local LEA has been actively encouraging schools to draw up school security programmes. To date, the total amount of money that has been identified is in the region of £1 million. The amount of money coming to Wolverhampton as a result of the Government's additional programme is approximately £100,000. It can be clearly seen that that is a tiny amount and just a drop in the ocean.

Madam Speaker: Order. That was another non-question. Perhaps the Minister might try to answer the non-question.

Mr. Squire: I will do my best, Madam Speaker.

We will announce shortly the individual LEA allocations, but even if--for the sake of discussion--I ran with the figure of £100,000 that the hon. Gentleman produced, over three years that would mean some £225,000 from Government, in addition, and I stress that, to the money already being spent on security by schools and LEAs. I do not believe that the country would consider £66 million to be as insignificant a sum as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Standard Spending Assessments

13. Sir Colin Shepherd: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what representations she has received in respect of the method by which the education standard spending assessment is derived. [7063]

Mr. Robin Squire: My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations offering a range of views on possible adjustments to the SSA methodology.

Sir Colin Shepherd: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to sparsity, which is an important matter in my part of the world? Does he agree that, in a sparsely populated area, it is necessary for a local education authority to maintain a larger number of smaller schools than would be needed in a more densely populated urban area? Small, rural schools cannot achieve the same economies of scale as larger schools. In my county, we have to maintain 5.15 schools per 10,000 of the population, compared to a shire average of 4.86 per 10,000. In my part of the world, it is felt that the sparsity factor is not adequately recognised when the overall figures are considered. Will my hon. Friend ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to go back to the Department of the Environment and the local government associations and review the sparsity factor to ensure that it reflects what is necessary?

Mr. Squire: As my hon. Friend is aware, I recently met representatives of a group of local authorities, including his. We discussed the sparsity factor and related issues.

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My hon. Friend is also aware that the sparsity allowance compensates authorities for the additional costs of providing small schools and for extra transport costs in sparsely populated areas. The review recently undertaken did not put forward any robust evidence for increasing the sparsity factor. However, we shall continue to keep the issue under close review.

Mr. Pike: How many local education authorities, if they limited their spending to standard spending assessment levels, would have to reduce their expenditure from what they are spending this year?

Mr. Squire: I obviously cannot answer that now. If the hon. Gentleman tables that question as a written question, I shall provide the answer.

The principle has long existed that local authorities are free to spend more or less than individual SSAs on services. I am pleased that many of them spend more than their SSA on education, but that remains their decision, for which they are accountable to their electors.

Mr. Viggers: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the increase in education provision in Hampshire is fully consistent with the increase in inflation and with the priority that we give to education? It is misleading for Hampshire county council to stir up a writing campaign of complaint against the provision.

Mr. Squire: I can certainly confirm to my hon. Friend that the national increase in SSAs of 3.4 per cent.-- 3.6 per cent. overall in education services to local authorities--is comfortably ahead of the rate of inflation and of the projected growth in pupil numbers.

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