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Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed): Before the Minister leaves local management of schools, which Liberal Democrats pioneered in some regions and which I strongly support, I hope that he will recognise that the picture he has painted would simply not be recognised by many school governors. In my county of Northumberland, they talk about mass resignation, not because they do not like the freedom to choose where the school's money goes, but because they cannot make the budget work on the figures available to them. The job of being a school governor has become burdensome because it is a job of managing cuts.
Mr. Squire: I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the role and work of governors throughout the UK. All hon. Members on both sides of the House would do that, but, as it happens, today, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) and I met a deputation of head teachers from the right hon. Gentleman's local education authority. I listened patiently to what they said, but in the end I had to say that I still could not understand how an above average SSA increase for next year in their LEA--from memory, it is some 4.2 per cent.--was translated into a projected 2 per cent. cut in school budgets. However, I suggested that some of the answer lay in county hall. Most right hon. and hon. Members would be pleased to receive a 4.2 per cent. increase.
Mr. Don Foster: I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but this is important. Does he not understand that the SSA increases, however large they might be, are not related to the amount of money that is provided by the Government? The Chancellor's Red Book for the last Budget makes it clear that the amount in real terms made available to local government this year is exactly the same as the amount in the forthcoming year. There is no real-terms increase in the money. In effect, the Government can say to LEAs, "Spend as much as you like," but if the Government do not give them the resources, and if they then put a capping limit on LEAs as well, the LEAs simply cannot do it. The Minister surely understands that.
Mr. Squire: The hon. Gentleman must recognise that the extra millions and millions of pounds that I am describing and that go into SSAs--not just education SSAs--are being met by taxpayers. He also knows--I am happy to have a separate seminar on local government finance, but possibly on another occasion, lest I incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker--that the freedom that local authorities rightly enjoy to determine how they use that money and at what level they spend, allows them either to continue to give priority to education or, in a few cases, not to do so.
We have also introduced greater parental choice, so that parents have a better say on which school they want their child to go to. Under LMS, popular schools attract more money as they become more popular. That is the market mechanism which, on other occasions, the hon. Member for Bath has accused us of being obsessed with, but I am not shamed by that accusation. Why be ashamed of the
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I have mentioned the assisted places scheme and I do not intend to return to the subject in detail, beyond confirming that, last summer, assisted pupils recorded pass rates of nearly 97 per cent. at GCSE grades A* to C. Independent research shows that assisted pupils do better than those of similar ability in maintained schools. They take more A and AS-levels and achieve better grades. That is another example of our wise investment in education.
The next step on from LMS is allowing schools that choose it to opt for grant-maintained status. That means additional freedom to run themselves, to own their buildings, to control their admissions and to manage the whole of their budget--not just the proportion that the LEA delegates to its own schools. With this margin of flexibility--money for the school to spend itself rather than for the LEA to spend on its behalf--GM schools do wonders. The key point is that, when schools are given responsibility for their own destiny, their energy and imagination are released. They start to look afresh at what they do with their resources--money, staff, buildings--and they target their resources where they will have most effect.
The system works. GM schools get results--look at the performance tables. Look at any list of top schools. Listen to what the schools say themselves. They say that they have been able to put more money into staff, buildings and books since going GM. They say that staff morale has improved and applications per place have gone up. Their truancy levels are half the national average.
The GM route taps schools' energy and imagination to make our investment in education work harder. So too does the private finance initiative. On top of the £700 million that we have allocated from public funds for capital projects in 1997-98, schools and LEAs can now use the expertise, efficiency and investment strength of the private sector. This Government have given them both the freedom to do so and direct help--more than £50 million of additional revenue support.
This represents more wise investment in education--the money to do the job, and the freedom to do it efficiently. It has been a real success: in Dorset, where the LEA is using the PFI to replace Colfox school; in Manchester, where Temple primary school is to be rebuilt using the PFI; in Norfolk and Shropshire, where LEAs are considering how the PFI can help them increase the number of nursery units; and in Lewisham and Ealing, where the PFI is being used to improve catering facilities. Many other LEAs and schools are working with the private sector on PFI projects. They mean more wise investment, and real benefits for schools.
Over the next three years, we will be investing some £435 million more in nursery education. Through the introduction of nursery education vouchers, parents will gain the opportunity better to choose the right pre-school education for their child. The inspection regime will guarantee that, in the public or the private sector, children
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Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
Will my hon. Friend confirm that, in the past two years, Government spending on schools has increased by £1.8 billion, which represents 1p in terms of income tax? Have we not therefore already achieved what the Liberal Democrats are calling for?
Mr. Squire:
My hon. Friend is spot on. We intend to continue that record during the next Parliament, when we are returned at the forthcoming election.
Finally, the Education Bill currently before Parliament and the other measures outlined in our White Paper build on the success of LMS and the GM programme by offering schools even greater freedom.
Of course, success is also a question of school effectiveness. That is why we have introduced a system of rigorous inspection. As the House is well aware, Her Majesty's chief inspector published his annual report yesterday. I very much welcome the report. It contains much that schools can be proud of--especially the 167 schools that are commended as excellent. Teaching is satisfactory or better in the majority of lessons, and the proportion of poor-quality lessons has declined.
It was not as large an improvement as I would have liked, and more remains to be done: on literacy and numeracy; on improving the quality of the minority of lessons which are not satisfactory; and in information technology. Overall, the report is good news, and if the Labour party were in power we would still have only 100 inspections a year--rather less than the 12,000 that have now been carried out.
Throughout its programme of reform, the Government's strategy has been to concentrate on the outputs--higher standards, better qualifications. I should like, for instance, to take this opportunity to welcome the splendid news that Phoenix high school in Hammersmith and Fulham has today joined the number of failing schools that have been turned around and are now certified as delivering a good education. I pay tribute to the LEA, which has supported the school, to the Office for Standards in Education for its regular and thorough monitoring, and above all to the school--the head teacher, governors, staff, parents and pupils who have worked so hard to achieve this improvement.
By concentrating on the essentials, we are sticking to the big issues, not on arbitrary limits to class size, meaningless minimums for homework or even parental ballots on school uniform. If that latest wheeze from the Labour party truly meant that it was listening to parents' views, Labour would drop its proposals to destroy GM schools, where parents--having voted for freedom from their LEA--would find that freedom lost without any question of a second ballot: "So parents, you can have the consolation of a vote on school uniform if you like--but we're taking back your school." By contrast, our strategy has worked. The facts clearly demonstrate that standards have been rising. That is corroborated by HMCI.
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