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7.3 pm
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): I am pleased to have an opportunity to say a few words on an important subject that is of great interest to many of my constituents. First, however, I should like to congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), and the Minister for School Standards on their appointments. I have already congratulated the Secretary of State on his appointment. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment has a deep, professional and long-standing interest in education, and Opposition Members will certainly examine constructively and with interest the Government's proposals to improve standards in schools.
Conservative Members will, of course, part company with the Minister on the Bill. It will undoubtedly give her pleasure, because she has long been opposed to the assisted places scheme, and its introduction today must be why she and the Minister for School Standards have looked so happy. There is, however, another side to the Bill's introduction, and it must cause some concern and disappointment to those two Ministers, because I know, from my experience of serving in Committee with the
Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, that she is a great supporter of consultation, parliamentary scrutiny and debate.
The Minister undoubtedly will remember that the Minister for School Standards, she and I served on the Committee stage of the Education Act 1993, and she will also remember the length of that Committee's sittings. She will remember how that Bill was introduced six months after the election of the previous Government, and after publication of a White Paper and a two-month consultation period. She will also remember just how anguished she and the Minister for School Standards were over a sittings motion on that Committee's sittings.
Today, however, we are debating the first measure introduced by Education Ministers, and it will be rushed through the House in less than a week. If the Minister for School Standards were a Back Bencher and free to think and speak about the matter, what would he think? I remember his eloquent words in a debate on the passage of the Education Act 1993. After the previous Government had published a White Paper, conducted two months of consultation and scheduled many hours of Committee work on the Bill, he said:
I should like to take issue with the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge), who was being rather generous and gracious when she tried to suggest that the Bill is a new Labour proposal. It is very much old Labour, and old Labour has been very much in evidence in today's debate. In 1980, the former hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook was the Labour education spokesman. At that time, he could have been considered as mild new Labour; now, however, he is decidedly old Labour. In 1980, he said:
If any further proof is necessary that the Bill is an expression of old Labour's instinct against the assisted places scheme, the Liberal Democrats' opposition to the previous Government's policy over the past 18 years provides it. The Bill is an old Labour measure, and today some of the familiar old Labour arguments vilifying the assisted places scheme have again been trotted out.
We have heard from the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) and from other Labour Members that the scheme favours the privileged few over the many. We have also heard various sociological analyses of whether assisted students are middle class or working class, and questions have been asked about their parents' marital status. The fact is that the common denominator of people whose children are in the assisted places scheme is that they
all belong to low-income families. Without some help, families at the top end of the income scale--those receiving a combined income of £25,000--would struggle to put a child through an independent school, and those at the bottom of the scale--those with a combined income of less than £10,000; and 40 per cent. of children on the assisted places scheme come from such families--would struggle even more.
The common denominator of those families is that they have a low income, and no Labour Member should be under any illusions about it. We have heard all their sociological analyses and all the talk from the Secretary of State about working-class and middle-class families, but the families benefiting from the scheme are on low incomes, and their opportunities will be taken away. The Government must accept that fact.
It is also not true that the assisted places scheme is somehow a subsidy to private education. Some time ago, the Minister for School Standards produced an analysis of the situation at 10 schools--one of which, Haberdashers' Aske's school, is in my constituency--which, he said, showed that those schools were receiving a huge subsidy from the taxpayer. Had he done a little more research, he would have found it a strange form of subsidy because, in the case of Haberdashers' Aske's, the places occupied by children on the assisted places scheme could be filled many times over by the children of parents wealthy enough to pay the full fees.
The fact is that schools such as Haberdashers' Aske's and schools under the old direct grant system like taking children on the assisted places scheme because they welcome the social mix that it creates within their schools and feel that it enables them to adhere to their historic ethos.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Estelle Morris):
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I have a different view of what constitutes a low income, but will he confirm that 1,000 pupils on the assisted places scheme come from families with an income in excess of £24,000 and, indeed, that a third of the pupils on the scheme have always been in the private sector--in other words, their parents were able to pay for them in the private sector before they took up an assisted places scheme? How does the hon. Gentleman square that with his notion that all the children involved come from families with low incomes who could not afford private school places?
Mr. Clappison:
Neither the hon. Lady nor I know how the circumstances of those families might have changed. The fact is that all are subject to a means test. It would be very difficult for them, even those with incomes of £24,000 or £25,000, to put their children through the scheme. Such incomes may seem large to some people, but the scale of fees in the independent sector is such that it would still be difficult for children of such families to take up an assisted place without some help.
The hon. Lady will know that families make a substantial contribution. No one could describe a family with a combined income of less than £10,000 as well off, no matter what part of the country that family lives in. Certainly in my constituency, an income of less than £10,000 is considered small.
A link has now been made between class sizes and the ending of the assisted places scheme. We should not be under any illusion--it has always been the aim of Labour
to do away with the scheme, but that link has now been made. It is perhaps a happy marriage of old Labour prejudices and new Labour aspirations.
There are some interesting questions to be asked about class sizes. Whatever the hon. Member for Barking says about other measures to improve standards, which we would welcome if they were constructive, the Labour party has isolated the issue of class sizes and exalted it above everything else. It has presented it as an article of faith--[Interruption.] Labour Members should read their party's manifesto, which makes it clear that one of Labour's key commitments is to reduce class sizes.
I do not want to get too involved in the controversy of whether class sizes are the key ingredient, but I note with interest that Mr. Woodhead, who has now been appointed as joint head of the Government's task force on standards, examined the issue and that an analysis by Ofsted concluded that there was
Ms Hodge:
If the hon. Gentleman is going to quote Mr. Woodhead, he should do so accurately. I, too, quoted Mr. Woodhead. He said that class size did not make a great deal of difference for older pupils but that it did make a difference in the early years.
"The haste now being shown in the sittings motion points to a Government who are scared of debate and will not argue the issues, and who seek instead to rush the proposals through. That cannot be in the interests of the country or our children."--[Official Report, 17 November 1992; Vol. 214, c. 14.]
I know that such a stern and unbending devotee of parliamentary scrutiny as the Minister for School Standards must secretly and privately be feeling some anguish at the way in which the Bill is being rushed through the House.
"all the assistance schemes basically help children who would have gone there anyway but who nevertheless, because of the schemes, receive added assistance from the State."--[Official Report, 16 May 1979; Vol. 967, c. 237.]
In 1980, there was no question but that Labour was old Labour.
"no clear link between the size of a class and the quality of teaching and learning within it"--
[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Barking might pooh-pooh that. I do not know whether she was one of the many Labour Members who called for Mr. Woodhead's resignation, but I remind her that he is now head of the Government's task force.
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