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Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): I strongly support the amendment. I make the same declaration as my hon. Friends. My principle concern is that assisted places are of great benefit to many of my constituents. I probably have as many, if not more, children who have taken up assisted places in my constituency than in any other constituency--400 from low-income families. My constituents would want me to support the amendment because the longer that the scheme remains in place, the longer such opportunities are available for future generations of parents and children. The benefits are real.
There is no deficiency in any way in the maintained sector in my constituency. We have secondary schools that perform with considerable distinction and have been given national recognition for what they have achieved. They offer a high quality of education and do well by any objective measure of performance.
The schools to which the assisted places children go are of national, if not international, importance, and offer an extremely high quality of academic education. Most of the
assisted places in my constituency are at the Haberdashers' Aske's school, which has 230 assisted places out of a total of 1,300 places at the school. I know that this is of interest to the Minister because he once did some analysis of the assisted places scheme, and he included Haberdashers' Aske's in a list of schools that he said were receiving a subsidy from the assisted places scheme.
Mr. Lidington:
I am sure that my hon. Friend will not mind me reminding him that when the direct grant was withdrawn from Haberdashers' Aske's and other schools by a previous Labour Government, the school had no trouble recruiting more than enough pupils to fill every place available several times over. The big difference was that those places could, in those new circumstances, be made available only to children of well-to-do parents. If the school, as well as the parents, were opposed to those changes--
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. That intervention is far too long. Also, the amendment is about the date of operation, not the qualities of a school or what children it is prepared to take in. We must talk about the date of operation.
Mr. Clappison:
In spite of the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) may have been slightly out of order, he is a great advertisement for that school.
My point is that, the longer the scheme remains in operation, the longer the opportunities will be available for children in my constituency. I am trying to counter the argument that has been advanced by the Government many times, which is that perfectly good opportunities are available at other schools. I will not go into further detail about schools in my constituency except to say that Haberdashers' Aske's school for girls--I do not wish to be sexist--offers an equally high quality of education and is equally highly oversubscribed. There are other very good schools such as St. Margaret's in Bushey and Aldenham school.
Labour Members will be interested to know that, not far from my constituency, there are other independent schools offering a high-quality of education such as St. Alban's high school for girls and Haileybury school. Labour Members will be interested to know that, until recently, Haileybury was the only public school to have educated a Labour Prime Minister. I am not sure that that Prime Minister, Earl Attlee, would have been in favour of the proposal. My understanding is that the founding fathers of the Labour party and the early Labour Ministers and Prime Ministers were in favour of throwing open the doors of great institutions and providing opportunities for members of the lower-income classes.
The Government's justification for phasing out the assisted places scheme within this time scale is that they want the money to reduce the class sizes of five, six and
seven-year-olds. I do not want to go into the argument about the validity of the assumption about class sizes, but the Minister's interpretation of the Ofsted report in his reply on Second Reading was interesting. He said that the Ofsted inspector had conducted an analysis of class sizes and was in favour of smaller classes. The Minister gave that as the principal justification for the Bill, but it is based upon an ambitious interpretation of the report. I note that the press release for the Ofsted report states:
I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to say a little about the financial justification for the early phasing out. We are told that, the sooner the assisted places scheme is phased out, the sooner the Government can spend the money on reducing class sizes. I remind the Minister of the promise made by Labour in its manifesto. It is the basis on which the Government have put the Bill before the House and the basis on which the Labour party went to the country. It says:
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire):
Will my hon Friend reflect on the fact that a delay of three years in the implementation of the Bill would give the Government an opportunity to plan public expenditure properly beyond the ambit of the present planning timetable?
Mr. Clappison:
That is an important point, and many of my constituents would agree with it.
I want the Minister to tell us whether he still maintains that the savings from the assisted places scheme will be sufficient in themselves to pay for the reduction in class
sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. He seemed to be tip-toeing away from that proposition in his reply to the debate on Second Reading. I should like him to address that question specifically and say whether, in his view, the savings will be sufficient.
We have been told by the Government that they estimate that £100 million will be saved by 2000 by phasing out the assisted places scheme. That is the justification for the early phasing out. We have yet to know from the Government what will be the cost of reducing class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. I asked the Government that in a written question and, in view of what was said earlier, I feel quite honoured because I have had an answer. However, I was told that the Government do not have a clue what the cost will be, so I was not much better informed.
Mr. Boswell:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have been silent on any mechanism by which they can enforce the reduction of class sizes because there is no such mechanism in the local government finance settlement?
The First Deputy Chairman:
Order. We must keep to the terms of the amendment. Class size reductions and other matters are for other amendments. We must keep to the date of operation. If hon. Members are exhausting the argument, the thing to do is to dispose of this amendment and move on to something else.
Mr. Clappison:
I am bound by your ruling, Mr. Martin, but I would like the Government to deal with the question of the early phasing out and what resources it will make available. I ask the Minister that specific question, because my constituents will be interested in his answer. They have been told that they will have to sacrifice the assisted places that offer them so many opportunities, so that reductions in class sizes can be made in the manner described by the Government.
"Ofsted finds no clear link between class size and lesson quality."
If the Minister examines carefully the conclusions of that report, particularly paragraphs 90 and 91, he will find that it states:
"The main finding of the Report, that reductions in class size do not necessarily lead to better teaching and higher standards, suggests, however, that schools should not automatically seek to use new resources to reduce class size."
The report recognises that, where the resources are used to reduce class sizes, it is most appropriate to do that for children of earlier ages, but it does not come to the conclusion that that is necessarily the most effective way to spend the money. In fact, it seems to point in the opposite direction and suggest that it is more important to look at other things such as teacher quality and performance.
"We will reduce class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds to 30 or under, by phasing out the assisted places scheme, the cost of which is set to rise to £180 million per year."
In other words, the Labour party was putting this forward as a straightforward reallocation of resources which would be sufficient to pay for reducing class sizes. Anybody who read that might have taken a different view if they had been told at the same time, "By the way, we do not think that enough money will be raised by phasing out the assisted places scheme, and we will have to reallocate money from other things as well." The Minister will be well aware that the Government have pledged to stay within education spending targets for his Department so that any other money being used to reduce class sizes would have to come from somewhere else such as secondary or higher education. The Minister is trapped within that straitjacket. That puts a different complexion on the Government's promise.
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