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Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does my hon. Friend agree that the uneven distribution of the assisted places, in addition to the possible problems of population expansion in certain areas, will put severe strain on LEAs? Hampshire, for example, has 1,500 children on the assisted places scheme.
Mr. Lidington: My hon. Friend makes a very telling point. It is true that areas such as Hampshire and south Hertfordshire--my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) referred to the latter--and, I suspect, Cheshire on the fringes of the Greater Manchester conurbation, are likely to experience severe problems in providing educational accommodation for pupils displaced from the assisted places scheme.
We know from studies undertaken by the Institute of Public Finance that the savings claimed by the Government are pretty bogus. Indeed, even Ministers are now very half-hearted in their defence of the arithmetic that they put to the electorate in recent weeks. However,
I shall focus on the likely capital cost of the abolition of the assisted places scheme--a matter that is very pertinent to the amendments that call for a delay in the implementation of the proposals.
The Institute of Public Finance has estimated that cost as approximately £100 million. Of course, we have no idea how the capital cost would be spread among the various local education authorities, and one compelling reason for urging delay is to give the Government time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead said, to consult local education authorities so that the apportionment of the capital costs can be properly calculated.
We all know from our constituency experience that when a local education authority talks about the need to provide extra school places, it is not simply a matter of passing a resolution in the education committee. The LEA has to seek borrowing approval from the Department for Education and Employment, and that can take quite a long time. It also needs to seek planning permission from the appropriate planning authority.
Mr. Boswell:
Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that a number of legal procedures must be gone through, which in my experience in the Department are often very protracted? I am thinking of, for example, the setting of the maximum admission number. Such matters have to be properly sorted out.
Mr. Lidington:
That is another extremely valid point, which again shows how ill prepared Ministers have been in trying to rush the scheme so precipitately.
Before my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) intervened, I was talking about the need to seek planning permission. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and I know of schools in our county that are located in the middle of the green belt. The planning authorities are very cautious about allowing the construction of extra school buildings because they wish to keep those areas as green as possible. Other schools in my constituency are heavily oversubscribed but are in urban areas where it would be difficult to find extra land on which to put new classrooms or laboratories without severely reducing the space available for playing fields or for other activities integral to the life of the schools.
Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey):
My hon. Friend and other colleagues have referred to the final report of the Institute of Public Finance on the cost of reducing class sizes, but no one has yet got down to the specific net cost of doing so, taking into account the capital and revenue cost. We have to add the two together and consider the net cost over time and the on-going cost thereafter. It is significant that in the first five years of the proposals being in operation, the average net cost, taking into account all the savings resulting from the abolition of the assisted places scheme, is on average £45 million a year and thereafter £16 million a year ad infinitum. That is something that the Government have not taken into account but which they should.
Mr. Lidington:
I am sure that my hon. Friend is correct when he says that the Government have not taken that into account. Another reason for urging delay is to allow Ministers time to take advice and consult their colleagues
Mr. Colvin:
I should perhaps have mentioned in my previous intervention that the data on which the figures are based come from the Department for Education and Employment, although the report was commissioned by independent schools. The figures have not been conjured up out of the air to support a particular case; they are the Government's own figures.
Mr. Lidington:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That suggests that perhaps Ministers were not ignorant after all of the consequences of rushing the proposal but that they are rather shy of explaining in detail to the House how they propose to deal with the consequences of their policy.
I referred earlier to the delays caused to local authorities' providing extra classrooms by the need to seek planning permission. Of course, that is only the first hurdle. Applications may go to appeal, which leads to further delay. LEAs then have to seek tenders and appoint contractors; only then would building begin. I suspect that there would be at least a couple of years between a local authority realising that the abolition of the assisted places scheme required it to provide additional classrooms in particular schools and that LEA being in a position to bring those classrooms on stream to accommodate the additional pupils. That is yet another reason for the Government to reflect and take advantage of the delay that the amendment would allow them.
The Bill's impact would not be restricted to LEAs. Another important reason for allowing a period for thought is, as one or two of my hon. Friends have suggested, to allow schools that at present participate in the assisted places scheme to launch appeals to raise money for bursaries to enable the academically gifted children who can currently take advantage of the scheme to continue to benefit from the education in those schools.
I know from my experience and my conversations with the head teachers of some of the schools that they are, in the main, wholly committed to allowing greater access to the sort of education that they can provide at their independent schools to pupils from a wide variety of backgrounds. It is a matter of great regret that the Government, rather than seeking a new dialogue with the independent sector and rather than trying to find ways in which to enhance that partnership and create more places in independent schools for pupils from relatively poor families, should instead try to knock down the ladder and deny those opportunities. That strikes me as dogma triumphing over education common sense.
The third reason for delay is to allow pupils, parents and schools to know in detail what the Government propose for them in the immediate future. Later tonight I am sure that we will have the opportunity during our debates on clause 3 to discuss the arrangements for the regulations that the Government propose. The amendments to those proposed regulations are relevant. As the Bill is presented to us, Parliament is being asked to approve the abolition of the assisted places scheme and to give the Government an enabling power to introduce transitional regulations to deal with pupils who currently benefit from assisted places without Parliament having sight of those regulations, even in draft form.
I recall attending various Standing Committees in the previous Parliament where Labour Member after Labour Member rose in his place to say that it was disgraceful that there should be any thought of giving a Minister the power to act through secondary legislation without that legislation being available, at least in draft form, for the Standing Committee to examine and debate. I hope that the Government will be prepared, even now, to accept the opportunity for reflection that the amendments provide and to introduce draft regulations so that Parliament can consider them alongside the Bill. That strikes me as being only fair to the schools, parents and pupils.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West):
Conservative Members have advanced many compelling arguments as to why there should be a delay in implementation. The most compelling arguments, and those to which I should like to return, relate to the simple human consequences of the Bill. There is a mismatch in what the Government are setting out and there is something missing from the logic of their proposals. They say that they wish to remove the assisted places scheme and, instead, reduce class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds, but there is no correlation between the benefits that may be achieved by the one action and the damage done by the other.
I am concerned that, by removing assisted places for children, whatever their age and whatever their stage in the educational process, the Government are taking something away and not replacing it. I speak as someone who is fortunate enough to represent a constituency with good schools. Pupils from my constituency who go to independent schools on assisted places--mostly in Manchester--do so, unless they have specific religious or other reasons, mainly through choice rather than necessity. If those places did not exist, and provided there was an increase in the number of places available at the schools in my constituency, those pupils would not lose out too much, but that, of itself, raises a major concern.
Many of the excellent schools in my constituency--the grammar schools and the high schools, many of which are grant-maintained--have asked for funding to increase their size so that they can take more pupils. They are already bursting at the seams and the proposal to remove assisted places will result in increased demand for places at them. What is proposed will not provide any further capital funding for the expansion of those schools or necessarily provide more places in terms of teaching capacity in secondary schools. There is a mismatch within the proposals, and we need more time for consideration.
I am thinking particularly of pupils who do not live in my constituency. We are on the fringes of Manchester. There are good schools in the borough of Trafford, which have been maintained and nurtured over the years by what has generally been, and will soon be again, a good local education authority; but what about children across the city of Manchester who currently have little recourse to good education beyond the assisted places scheme?
There are 300 pupils on assisted places at Manchester grammar school and 242 at William Hulme's grammar school. What is to be done to provide new educational opportunities for the individual children who will lose the opportunities they currently enjoy? When we consider the state of affairs in many areas of Manchester it becomes plain that local schools are not good enough to provide genuine opportunities and alternatives. I should like to hear some guarantees on that issue.
Another argument for delay that has been advanced concerns the importance of allowing schools such as Manchester grammar, which is trying hard to raise funds to provide bursaries for pupils who are currently on assisted places, to find alternative funding to ensure that the education of those pupils is not interrupted, and to continue the centuries-old tradition of providing free education for pupils from poorer backgrounds.
The position of pupils who are currently on assisted places in independent schools is crucial. I should like to bring the argument down to an individual level. What about those children? We have heard grand, seductive statements about reducing class sizes, but that will occur only after a period of years. The reduction will depend on capital expenditure, and the Government have not stated clearly where that money will come from. Even when class sizes are reduced, that move will affect only a small part of the school population. That fact will not provide comfort to families in my constituency or across the city of Manchester who currently benefit from the assisted places scheme.
5.45 pm
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