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Mr. Blunkett: I reciprocate the hon. Gentleman's words of kindness and, in answer to a number of questions from him I should like to suggest that, in the spirit of wishing to fulfil our agenda, the hon. Gentleman should come and have a cup of tea with me in the next few days so that we may share our views--
Mr. Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood): Call me David?
Mr. Blunkett: Yes, he can call me David.
One way we can stop the common cold from spreading--it is something about which I have a particular obsession--is not to sneeze over each other. In the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman delivered his words, I can say that we need a common cause and a consensus for raising standards and increasing our achievements. I shall work with all those who are prepared to do so.
Mr. Foster:
I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for his offer of tea. I apologise to him publicly--I have already done so privately--for the large number of occasions on which I sat next to him during the election campaign, streaming with cold while he became extremely frightened that I would pass it on to him.
I shall accept the Secretary of State's offer to join him and his ministerial team for tea. I hope that he will extend his invitation, not only to me but to the whole of my education team, which has now been significantly enlarged. However, I should tell the Secretary of State, in a genuine spirit of co-operation, that although I shall be delighted to have many cups of tea with him in private, it is important that the public debate continues, so I shall continue to challenge him in public. I must say--in a gentle way, because we are all being kind to him--that I was disappointed that he followed the precedent of his predecessor as Secretary of State and, at very short notice, pulled out of a public debate with me on education on television yesterday. I hope that we can have private as well as public debates in future.
There is, as the new Secretary of State said, much common agreement between his party and mine. For example, we entirely agree on the urgent need to reduce class sizes and we support his pledge and commitment to reduce class sizes for children aged five, six and seven. We would wish him to go further and make that commitment for all primary school children, from the age of five all the way through to 11. We have made it clear how we believe that can be funded. The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), who is no longer in his place, was right to draw attention to his concerns, which I share, that the current proposal for funding the class size reduction--the phasing out of the assisted places scheme--might prove inadequate and that the sums might not add up.
The Secretary of State will not agree with me on that point, but even if he does not acknowledge my concerns, he should pay attention to his hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), who is now Under-Secretary of State for Wales. He, too, appears to be somewhat concerned about the funding of that commitment. On 7 April, during the election campaign, he was quoted in The Western Mail talking about the class size commitment. He said:
Although we do not disagree with the proposal that some lottery money should be used for education, we worry that that might be the thin end of the wedge. We all recall that, under the Conservatives, schools became increasingly reliant on supermarket sales promotion gimmicks. It would be a sorry day if, in future, schools had to rely on the uncertain profits of gambling. When we talk of high-quality education for all, we do not want to rely on the lottery slogan "It could be you"--the slogan for every child must be "It will be you". A wiser Britain must not be a lottery. It must be a certainty.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
Before my hon. Friend leaves what was obviously the end of a purple passage in his speech, I wish to put a question to him as the chair of the governors of a local primary school. Does he agree that the justification for funding classes of fewer than 30 for all primary school children is that there is no logic in having classes of fewer than 30 up to the age of seven and then suddenly having far less teacher attention per pupil, with no less likelihood of disruption, no less importance or difficulty in the exams and testing and no lesser mix of languages? The logic must be that pupils aged seven to 11 should receive the same level of attention as those aged less than seven.
Mr. Foster:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, if one can have only one part of the package, it would be far better to have it in the earlier years; but, as my hon. Friend says, it would be better to go the whole hog and ensure that all primary school classes contain no more than 30 pupils.
We share with the new Government a commitment to home-school partnerships. However, I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), who is now in his place and whom I congratulate on his appointment, will bear in mind our real concern that if we introduce--as seems to be proposed--a requirement for parents to sign a home-school contract before their child has even entered school, that is like asking parties to come together and sign a pre-nuptial agreement before they have even met. It is the policies, the procedure and the working together between parents and school that are critical, not the signing of a contract. Surely such a contract cannot be signed before there has been an opportunity for both sides to work together.
We share with the new Government a passionate belief in the importance of getting young unemployed people off benefits and into work. For a long time, we too have advocated a benefits transfer scheme. However, we would
urge the Government to bear it in mind that it is vital that each part of the proposed package contains a training element. Training will be vital.
We cannot possibly support the proposed means of funding that programme--the proposed windfall tax. We believe that tax to be retrospective and unfair and one that will hit customers and consumers. It is certainly legally ambiguous and, as has already been pointed out today, it is a short-term tax and there is no Government commitment to long-term funding of these various schemes.
We will go even further than that. The one thing that we shall oppose even more vigorously is any element of compulsion within the Government's proposals. Not every job is suitable for everyone. I was told recently that the youth training service had required a colour-blind person to go on an electrician training course. I certainly hope that that person is not responsible for the wiring in my house. It would not be appropriate to compel Swampy to work as a road builder. We agree with the Churches, which said recently of a compulsory scheme that it
If I have sounded somewhat critical of some of the proposed new measures, that is because, although we share many of the Government's aspirations, we believe that--at least in some respects--there are more effective means of achieving them. I should say that I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday because of an incident that occurred after the Queen had made the Gracious Speech. I travelled in a lift with the relatives of a new Labour Member of Parliament and, as we exited the lift, one of those relatives sidled up to me and said--out of earshot of the new Member of Parliament--"You're Don Foster, aren't you?" I admitted that I was and he asked, "Why don't you come and join the Labour party?" I asked why I should, to which he answered, "If you became one of us, you would ensure that we took on board your much more sensible education policies."
"Some, if not all, of the money to fund this will come from the assisted places scheme and we will also be talking to Labour's education team in England if extra resources are needed."
He, at least, is not entirely convinced about the proposed method of funding.
"would be seen as a scheme to teach the unemployed a lesson, rather than as a means of giving them real assistance. In effect the work is made compulsory for most of the unemployed and that of itself could transform it into a form of servitude."
Of course the social security budget must come down, but we will not achieve that by punishing the unemployed for the mistakes of Governments, past and present. We need a social security policy that makes it easier to get off benefits, not one like the present system, which traps people on benefits and ensures that they are worse off in work than out of it. Increased support for child care will certainly help; so, too, will a minimum wage--but only if it is set at a realistic level, with an element of flexibility and, we would argue, the possibility of regional variations.
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