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10.19 am
Mr. Robert G. Hughes (Harrow, West): I apologise for the fact that I shall not be able to stay for the winding-up speeches. I am serving on not one Committee but two, at 10.30 am. I shall have to read the golden words of my hon. Friend the Minister in Hansard. I shall try to be brief, as many other hon. Members wish to speak.
Further education is very important to my constituents, as it is the only source of sixth-form education in Harrow. Harrow has three tertiary colleges and a sixth-form college, which is part of the FE sector.
I want to draw attention to the problems of St. Dominic's sixth-form college in Harrow-on-the-Hill, a remarkable college with a fine reputation. I am not exaggerating when I say that an enormous number of parents, whether they are Catholic or not--whether, indeed, they are Christian or not--want to send their children to St. Dominic's because they want them to receive sixth-form education rather than the education provided by the tertiary colleges in the rest of Harrow. St. Dominic's is very popular, and so it should be, given the quality of its teaching and pastoral care and the results that it achieves.
The college is uniquely placed. Being in Harrow-on-the-Hill, it is at the junction of the boroughs of Harrow, Ealing and Brent, and therefore draws people from quite a wide area. It is on a restricted site and needs to expand, but it is difficult for it to extend its existing buildings and increase student numbers, because local residents are worried about what that would mean in traffic terms, and about the domination of the expanded buildings. All that is understandable. The college had the option of buying an adjacent building on the main road, which would have enabled it to expand while taking traffic away from residential areas but, regrettably, that is no longer possible.
Along with the principal of St. Dominic's, Mr. John Lipscomb, I have corresponded with my hon. Friend the Minister, and we are grateful for the careful and concerned way in which he has examined the problems of the college. I feel, however, that there is a flaw in the legislation that established the otherwise tremendously successful FE sector.
When St. Dominic's and one or two other voluntary-aided colleges--of which there are a relatively small number--sought to expand, they were unable to borrow money on the strength of their existing buildings
because it was not entirely clear who owned them. St. Dominic's did not own its buildings, they had never been owned by the local authority, and it turned out that the Catholic Education Service did not own them either. Getting together the money for expansion proved to be a real problem.
The Further Education Funding Council, at least in the London region, was not as helpful as it might have been. I think that it could have sorted the matter out, but suggesting that, if the present site is too restricted, the college should find another site makes no sense in north-west London. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) laughs, but he knows how restricted space is in east London, and the situation is just as bad in north-west London. It simply was not possible to find another suitable site.
Catholic sixth-form education is highly prized in my constituency, and in surrounding constituencies. The present site is terrific for St. Dominic's, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look re-examine the legislation and the activities of the Further Education Funding Council in order to ensure that that college, and the small number of other voluntary-aided colleges elsewhere in the country, can continue to be successful. Catholic sixth-form education would be gravely missed by many people.
One of the reasons Labour will lose the next general election is that Labour Members always describe any set of problems--and of course there are problems, some of which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice)--as a crisis. They hope that, by doing so, they will gain some kudos among those who care about these matters, including those in the FE sector. They hope that people will say, "Whatever the present Government may be doing, at least we could rely on the Labour party."
It is not surprising that the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) got so ratty when I merely asked him how much money an incoming Labour Government would give the FE sector. That is the point: as the hon. Gentleman was saying that more money was needed, mine was not an unreasonable question--or, as he put it, a stupid question. It was all laid out by the FE sector in its submission to the public expenditure survey in April 1996. It stated how much money it wanted. The question is simple: how much would an incoming Labour Government provide?
I think that the answer is this: either a Labour Government would provide money, which would mean that, once again, Labour was being financially imprudent and its much-vaunted views on taxation would be proved to be so much moonshine; or it would not provide the money, in which case the rest of the speech of the hon. Member for Hyndburn goes down the drain. If Labour is not going to provide that extra money, there is plainly no point in the hon. Gentleman's making the complaints that he has made.
The further education sector is tremendously successful. Hon. Members scoffed at my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) when she spoke of the number of people in further education. I am getting nasty looks from the Whip, so I shall be as brief as I can be--rather briefer than one or two Opposition Members.
As I was saying, Opposition Members scoffed at my hon. Friend, and said that she must have obtained her figures from a Conservative central office brief. I do not
know whether that is true, but the figures are confirmed in the submission from the further education colleges. Whether it was a central office brief or not, my hon. Friend was right, and those who scoffed were plainly wrong.
We are talking about a £3 billion operation which is highly successful, and has expanded tremendously since it was freed from the shackles of local government. All that we hear from Opposition Members are complaints. Of course there will be problems: that is inevitable when we are making massive changes in the sector, and trying to adapt it not just to increased pupil numbers but to a changing society and a new role. The Government are coping with those problems, however, and only this Government will keep those colleges free.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn made one prophetic observation. He spoke of the democratisation of the FE sector. That can mean only one thing. A Labour Government would return the colleges to the shackles of local authorities; they would bring in the councillors and the bureaucracy, exclude the business men and take the colleges out of the real world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam pointed out, the Labour party must deal with one point before the election. If it has the opportunity to impose a teenage tax, it knows, we know and our constituents know that many people will not be able to go to further education colleges.
Mr. Chris Davies (Littleborough and Saddleworth):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) on securing this debate.
The Government's ability to shoot themselves in the foot really does beggar belief. They have a success story for which they should be able to claim some credit. In practice, however, in the past few weeks alone they seem to have managed to alienate the principals of almost every further education college in the country. There was the announcement from the Further Education Funding Council, following receipt of communication from the Department for Education and Employment, that, from the beginning of 1997, funding for demand-led student enrolments was to be withdrawn just over a third of the way through the academic year. Just a couple of weeks later, that decision was turned around and the cut will not be made; the pain is simply being transferred to next year.
Colleges were left uncertain, and, naturally, all the people involved in their administration now feel mistrustful. They feel that the Government have not only broken their trust with them but proved themselves to be incompetent. In many ways that is a shame, because the Government's record is good. Even the hon. Member for Hyndburn said that the number of students at further education colleges had increased by 100 per cent. since 1990.
Although credit should be given where it is due, the Labour party has nothing to offer on this subject. As the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) said, the Labour party is pledging nothing for increased funding. Labour Members bleat about the crisis in further
education. They wear their bleeding hearts and shed their crocodile tears, but Labour is not promising any additional finance to support further education in years to come.
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