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8.3 pm
Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney): As the newly elected Member for Waveney, I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech on a subject that is dear to my heart and to follow the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), in whose county I have taught for the past 11 years.
Waveney is distinguished by being the most easterly constituency in the United Kingdom and I have the honour of being the second Labour Member to be elected in the history of the constituency, which was formerly known as Lowestoft. Edward Evans was the first Labour Member, and he served from 1945 to 1959. He is still fondly remembered as a kind, caring and dedicated Member of Parliament.
Following my success on 1 May, I was delighted to receive a letter of congratulation and support from the chairman of Adnams, the fine Suffolk brewers and wine merchants, especially as he reminded me that his grandfather, Pierce Loftus, was the Member of Parliament for Lowestoft between 1934 and 1945, although he was a Conservative.
Probably the most famous Member to represent Waveney is the present Lord Prior, who is held in the highest regard even among many Labour voters. I pay tribute also to my predecessor, David Porter, who was a diligent constituency Member. He was proud to represent the area in which he was born and grew up and, as hon. Members will know, he spoke out regularly for the fishing industry. We have lived near each other for 10 years--I as his councillor and he as my Member of Parliament. It is a tribute to him that, despite being adversaries for so long, it was easy to maintain a courteous and dignified relationship, which extended to a reasonably civilised election campaign.
Waveney--when one finds out where it is--contains the main town of Lowestoft, which is immediately associated with fishing, but there is so much more to our area. Indeed, we want to correct the image of a declining fishing industry. Lowestoft is Britain's most easterly point. That is not as widely known as it should be, and the local district council, which I have had the privilege of leading for the past six years, has been making efforts to try to emulate Land's End in both visitor numbers and the economic benefits that such visitors will bring.
Lowestoft has the best beach in England. That is official, because it won the competition organised by the English tourist board in 1991--the fact that the competition has not been held since is fortuitous for our town. We also have the beautiful Oulton broad, which is part of the Broads national park.
Industry is important too. Our geographical position marks Lowestoft as Britain's most easterly port, pointing straight at Europe, with the opportunities that that could bring us. It is also home to the southern fields headquarters of Shell. Bird's Eye and Sanyo are also located in the town.
Beccles is in the constituency. It is a Suffolk market town of real character, with historic buildings and a riverside quay on the Waveney, which gives the
constituency its name. Recently, Beccles had new fame, being the home town of the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell). The people of Beccles were full of congratulations for his victory.
Bungay is another historic market town with a castle. Two or three weeks ago, it celebrated the election of its first mayor. It is also home to the printing press that printed the Prime Minister's book, last year.
Overall, Waveney has a most pleasant environment, hence the recent marketing slogan for industry, "Room to breathe". The people of Waveney are as loyal and hard-working as one will find anywhere, yet, unfortunately, they suffer the blight of high and sustained unemployment. Waveney is often called the black spot of East Anglia. Unemployment has been double the regional average for 15 years. The people there are fed up. They ask, "Why us?"
Once Waveney was a thriving area, with shipbuilding, fishing, engineering and canning. Many hon. Members will remember that Waveney was the trademark on the Co-op cans that they bought some years ago. Those industries have gone, but they have not been replaced because of the absence of modern transport links to a remote and peripheral location. The roads to Lowestoft are poor and the railways are worse. Lowestoft is cursed by a lift-up bridge on the trunk road in the middle of the town, which is raised more than 13 times each day, bringing commercial activity to a standstill--I believe, a unique situation in the country.
The people in Waveney feel neglected and left behind by the failure of Government to modernise transport in our corner of the country. They will be looking to the new Government to rectify that. I intend to pursue the cause vigorously in the House.
The youngsters in Waveney are not badly educated. Despite enforced cuts, Suffolk county council has done its best to maintain funding above the standard spending assessment level. Parents and pupils generally respect schools and teachers, who in turn are proud of their achievements. But there is also a feeling that education in my constituency could be much better, and my constituents welcome the Government's crusade to raise standards. They are enormously relieved that a stable comprehensive system, brought in by a Conservative county council many years ago, will not be disrupted by the introduction of grammar schools and the extension of education vouchers beyond the nursery phase.
I have just entered Parliament after 25 years as a teacher in secondary and high schools. I know from my experience that when pupils enter secondary education at 11 or 12 with unsolved literacy or numeracy problems--when they have fallen behind--it is usually too late to remedy the situation. Sadly, experience shows that the likelihood of them catching up is not good. It is all too often a tragic story of continued weakness, low achievement and, sometimes, a failure to gain any qualifications--in short, it is a waste of human potential.
The Government are therefore right to concentrate on the early years. The Bill's targeting of resources on the early years in order to reduce class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds puts the money where it will be of most benefit. It will also complement the provision of more nursery places, using the money that was wasted on voucher bureaucracy.
Class size does count--my experience tells me that, all teachers know it and more and more parents know it. As parents spend more time helping in schools, they see for themselves that class size is important. Pupils also know that class size matters. When a youngster remarks on a day when many children are off school with 'flu, "It's nice in here today, sir," he is making a statement on class size. Large numbers in class mean that space can run out and discipline and safety standards can deteriorate.
Some people try to deny that class size makes a difference, but those same people defend small classes in the schools to which pupils are sent under the assisted places scheme. As we have heard, some hon. Members mourn the demise of the assisted places scheme, but even they know that resources are finite and we have to make the best use of them. It is sensible and fair to spend resources on the many, not the few. That policy also meets the needs of the nation at the end of the century. Our nation no longer needs simply an educated elite, with many less well-educated manual workers, as happened in the 1950s. Times have changed.
When I consider my education, I realise that I had an assisted place, although it was not called that. I attended a direct grant school and was referred to as someone from a less advantaged background. My father's only connection with the school was that he did some of the signwriting on the honours boards. I know that I had a good education at that school, and I have analysed what made it good. Was it the teachers? I have seen many teachers over 25 years, and when I consider my teachers I realise that some were good, some were ordinary and some were not very good at all. Was it the facilities? There were excellent sports facilities, but facilities in the classroom were not special. Was it the books? No. There were plenty of dog-eared books with broken spines. What made my--assisted place--education good was the fact that the class sizes were small.
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset):
I am grateful to be called to make my maiden speech. I shall begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard)--he has the great advantage over me of having overcome the hurdle of the maiden speech. I hope that at the end of my speech I shall have done as well as he did, although I do not have the advantage of his many years as a teacher.
I was, however, for some years involved in the former Department of Education and Science as a special adviser; I played a part in the creation of the assisted places scheme, which the present Government are undoing. Despite that, I had not intended to make my maiden speech, or to intervene, in the current demolition job on
the assisted places scheme. As someone who has been involved in and concerned with education for many years, I thought that it was an open question. I did not know whether the good done by reducing class sizes, which I believe is a matter of importance, would outweigh the advantages of the assisted places scheme. For reasons that I hope to explain, having listened to the debates during the Bill's Committee stage, I have become persuaded that it is imperative for the country to realise what is happening.
I shall begin with some uncontroversial remarks, as I believe that that is traditional with maiden speeches. The part of the country that I am lucky enough to represent--West Dorset--is, without question and notwithstanding many comments to the contrary in other maiden speeches that I have heard in the past few weeks, the loveliest part of the loveliest county in England. The grandeur of the coast from Abbotsbury to Lyme Regis is unsurpassed, as is the beauty of the hills that stretch from Dorchester in the south to Sherborne in the north.
West Dorset is a part of England that is old England--where tradition is appropriately mingled with enterprise and where children attend fine schools, both maintained and independent. The vast majority of those children grow into responsible citizens who make a contribution to the community. It is a part of England where the voluntary sector flourishes. I speak not only of charities and other activities often referred to under that heading, but of the vast multitude of cultural, sporting and other activities in which people participate on a voluntary basis. They participate in those activities because they know each other, care about each other and like to act together. It is a part of England where there is, in the proper sense, a community--something which, I fear and regret, is missing from many other parts of the country.
I shall make another uncontroversial remark: West Dorset, beautiful, prosperous and pleasant as it is, has had the luck to be represented for the past 23 years by an outstanding constituency Member of Parliament, Sir James Spicer. Jim Spicer was held in high esteem on both sides of the House, not least because of his robust defence of democracy in the Westminster Foundation and elsewhere and for the contribution that he made to the physical well-being of Members of Parliament through his immense contribution to the gymnastics performed in the House of Commons gym.
It was not in the House that Jim was, above all, prized--it has been an extraordinary undertaking for me to replace him as Member of Parliament for West Dorset, where he was held not just in esteem, but in tremendous affection. It was extraordinary to find, throughout the length and breadth of the constituency, that many people who voted for parties other than the Conservative party believed that Jim was an unparalleled constituency Member of Parliament. I repeatedly came across people to whom he had given help, tirelessly and effectively. It is therefore with some humility that I inherit his seat.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I had not intended to participate in the debate. I understood the motive behind the abolition of the assisted places scheme to be the recouping of money to be used to reduce class sizes. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) tabled two new clauses that were rejected by the ministerial team. We were told that where additional money was available--for example, from a charity--Ministers did not intend to allow a local
authority that wished to send a child to an independent school to benefit from a unit of standard spending assessment. When the Minister of State said that, I wondered whether the House or indeed the Minister and his officials realised how devastating a hole it blew in the argument about recouping money.
A child who is currently benefiting from an assisted place and who moves into the maintained sector on the abolition of that place will cost roughly the standard spending assessment. If the local authority is not allowed to spend that money because the child still attends an independent school, albeit supported by an outside source with an amount equal to the difference between the maintained sector cost and the independent school cost, it cannot be the Bill's intention to recoup money. There must be another motive.
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