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Mrs. Browning: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will ensure that his officials send me a copy of that document. As shadow spokesperson and as a representative of a rural community, I shall wish to participate in the consultation exercise.
We do not have the details of many proposals in the Government's White Paper. As with the previous matter, I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will ensure that full details are provided in good time. As I have said, the devil is in the detail.
The Opposition welcome parts of the White Paper, but many questions remain unanswered. For example, I do not believe that there is no cost attached to the White Paper. However, the document does not mention how the costings for its proposals will be accommodated. Will there be additional new money? Will it come from the additional funding announced by the Chancellor or will LEAs have to find it from existing resources?
As to the literacy and numeracy strategy, the White Paper mentions that consultants must be in place by April next year, and that LEAs will be charged with finding the resources needed to put those consultants in place. That funding must come from this year's budget. We want to know how the Minister has costed the
proposals and from which budgets the funding will come. How much do the Government estimate spending on training in order to prepare primary school teachers for the introduction of the literacy and numeracy strategy? How much do the Government envisage spending on the standards and effectiveness unit? How many extra staff must the Department employ in order to accommodate the unit's workload?
Have the Government considered the likely cost implications for LEAs of preparing education development plans, monitoring schools and scrutinising schools' annual plans? Will that not fuel LEA demands for more cash from central Government? How much will it cost to set up and manage an education action zone? The Government propose establishing specialist status schools in those zones. We must know the cost implications of that measure. Who will finance the general teaching council?
The White Paper refers also to independent schools offering children extensive facilities in sport, music and other arts. I am sure that the Minister is aware of newspaper comments yesterday regarding the likely role of the independent sector. It was suggested that if independent schools did not co-operate, their charitable status could be affected. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head: I seek his assurances on that point. Although I do not object to an independent school assisting with provision, I think that the hon. Gentleman should seek legal advice about penalties regarding that school's charitable status. I am not a lawyer, but I imagine that he may be on rather uncertain legal ground. Will he clarify his plans in that regard?
Mr. Don Foster (Bath):
I listened to the speech by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) with a mixture of incredulity and admiration. I was particularly incredulous about her numerous criticisms of the White Paper's centralising tendencies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) pointed out, the previous Government had a penchant for centralisation. However, my hon. Friend did not refer to the Education Reform Act 1988, which contained no fewer than 500 additional powers for the Secretary of State. If ever there were centralising tendencies, they were demonstrated by the previous Government. I do not believe that such tendencies are displayed in this White Paper.
I was also incredulous that although the hon. Lady attended the Convention of Local Education Authorities conference yesterday and listened to my speech, she was not visible to me. I share some of her concerns about the White Paper, but I adopt a different attitude to the paper overall. I am concerned about the devil in the detail--as the hon. Lady put it--but the Liberal Democrats support the broad thrust of the paper and I shall raise my concerns in that context. I got the impression from the hon. Lady's speech that she does not share my attitude.
I must admit also to a degree of admiration for the hon. Lady. She came up with one or two of the best one-liners that we have heard for some time during an education debate in this place. I share her view that the education budget announced by the Chancellor--which the education spokesmen have tried to defend--is an attempted loaves and fishes act which will not work. The hon. Lady referred also to the satanic nature of the White Paper. I commend her on her one-liners, if not on the broad thrust of her opposition to the White Paper.
Broadly speaking, my party welcomes the White Paper. We welcome particularly its frequent references to re-establishing partnership and its move away from the sterile debate about structures towards a debate about school improvements and children's needs. Many White Paper proposals enjoy our full support--for example, from the establishment of the general teaching council to the probationary year for new teachers, from the inclusion of citizenship and parenting in the curriculum to developing work-related training in schools, from baseline assessment to changes in the school leaving date.
The Minister will accept that in areas where there is general support between us there are still a number of details to be worked out. He referred to a technical consultation paper on class size reductions. We welcome the fact that those details will be consulted on, but it would be helpful if the Minister agreed to publish a list of the intended consultations, with a timetable.
Mr. Byers:
I can give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that we shall publish a list identifying the measures in the White Paper that will be subject to their own consultation documents, and we shall provide a timetable to state when those consultation documents will be published.
Mr. Foster:
I am most grateful for that assurance. I am sure that the House will receive the documents with interest when they are circulated.
I wish to raise some points about the White Paper. Perhaps the Minister or his colleagues will respond to them. If they are not able to answer all of them now, perhaps they will write to me with their responses.
I begin with early years education. The House will be well aware of my party's absolute commitment to ensuring high-quality early years education in this country. We would have gone further than the Government to ensure that it is available for three as well as four-year-olds as quickly as possible. I hope that we shall hear the Minister's views about the likely timetable for the provision of early years education for three and four-year-olds.
There is no clear statement in the White Paper about the Government's attitude to the provision of early years education through early entry into reception classes. It is my party's view that, generally, high quality is not easily provided through early entry into reception classes, which often do not deliver an appropriate curriculum. They certainly do not have the same staffing ratios, and they often do not have the facilities that we believe are necessary. I shall be grateful if the Minister will tell us the Government's view on that, and whether, in receiving various plans from local education authorities, they will ensure that the delivery mechanism is not predominantly through that route.
I should also be grateful to hear from the Minister whether the Government intend to announce the minimum space standards for early years education. Given the
Labour party's opposition--when it was in opposition--to the Conservative Government's abolition of minimum space standards, the House will be interested to know whether the Government intend to re-establish at all stages minimum space standards.
The Minister has, in a number of debates over the years that I have shared with him, made clear his view that early years education has an important additional function: the early identification of children with special education needs. Yet there is no reference in the White Paper to how that might be done. The House will be interested to know whether there are plans to issue guidance to those involved in early years education.
The shadow Minister raised her concerns about class size reductions. I share her view that the money to be released from the abolition of the assisted places scheme will be insufficient to deliver the Government's promise. I am encouraged to that view still further, I fear, by the Minister's answers to some of her questions. If the Government do not even know how they are to deliver that commitment, particularly in relation to the problems in rural areas, I find it very difficult to understand how they can be so categorical in their assurances that the money will be sufficient. I am pleased to hear that the Minister is taking on board the concerns that many people have, particularly about the problems in rural areas. What will happen when the 31st child in a particular age group arrives at a local village school and the nearest alternative is 10 miles away? That is the type of question that I hope the technical paper to which the Minister referred will address.
There are further concerns in relation to the commitment to reduce class sizes that were not touched on by the shadow Minister. The commitment is to reduce the class size for five, six and seven-year-olds, but the Minister will be well aware that, in many parts of the country there will be classes that contain four and five-year-olds. The House will wish to know whether the commitment will extend to reducing the class size for mixed-age classes which contain four and five-year-olds.
The Minister has my party's full support for the desire to lever up standards. We particularly welcomed the fact that he said that standards have to be levered up not just in schools that are known to be failing but in all schools, including those that are currently doing well. There is no doubt whatever that we must at all costs avoid complacency in our education system. It is vitally important that all of us--that is, Members of Parliament, the Department, Ofsted, school governors, head teachers, teachers, members of the local community, local education authorities, their officials, their elected members, and many more--work together, in partnership, to ensure that standards are raised everywhere.
To that end, my Liberal Democrat colleagues have no fear about proposals for every stage of that process to be monitored and inspected. It is very instructive for me to look at what some of my Liberal Democrat colleagues in local government have been doing to lever up standards for people in various situations. I was interested to read recently of an inspection of Cornwall local education authority, which submitted itself to be one of the trial
inspections under the proposals for inspection by Ofsted. The report said:
I am delighted that even in very new local education authorities where Liberal Democrats have influence or control we are taking the issue of raising standards very seriously. Bournemouth borough council came into existence only from 1 April this year, but it has already set up plans for early learning centres. It plans to develop parenting skills, to set up learning centres for children already in schools, to establish an education directorate on lifelong learning, and to establish a training and support strategy for school improvements. I am sure that the Minister will welcome each and every one of those initiatives.
I also congratulate the local education authorities under Liberal Democrat influence that have been in operation for some time. Of those, I pick, for no particular reason, the London borough of Richmond on Thames. I am sure that the whole House will be delighted to know that when Richmond's chief education officer retired and the borough sought a replacement, the authority went out of its way to make clear in the advertisement how important standards were to it.
It is worth reflecting on what the advertisement said, because that picks up the Minister's point about partnership:
The Government are keen to raise standards and intend to set tough targets both for LEAs and for schools. However, I have one big disappointment about the way in which the White Paper refers to targets. It appears constantly to assume the continued use of the existing SATs.
SATs are not an appropriate basis for the setting of targets; they are crude and simplistic. The debacle that has taken place over the marking of the English SATs this year illustrates the fact that they should not form the sole basis of a set of targets. I hope that we shall have assurances in due course about a detailed review of SATs. Certainly, I hope that targets will not be based on SATs alone.
As the Minister says, if we are to raise standards we need to focus on some of the key issues such as literacy and numeracy. However, I must tell him that, just as we would not plan the pedestrianisation of a city centre without first working out where the traffic is to go instead, it is difficult to tell teachers, "You must spend more time on this in the classroom," if we do not first work with them to slim down the national curriculum and find the additional space needed to deliver what we ask.
Of course, the Minister is right to say that we must examine areas of particular deprivation, areas with educational difficulties and other problems, and provide support for them. In that sense, the Government's proposals for education action zones may be an appropriate way forward. However, the assumption in the White Paper is that the zones will be set up only in inner cities. There are many rural communities with equal deprivation and equal need for such support.
Even if the Minister goes ahead with that form of support, he will still have to deal with the problems that used to exist with, for example, social priority allowances. Schools immediately outside the boundary of the designated area did not get the allowance, and felt deprived.
Even if the Government deal with that question, the House will still want assurances from the Minister that the money for education action zones will be new money, not top-sliced away from already deprived local education authorities that will not benefit from the zones.
We certainly agree with the Government, and with what is in the White Paper, about the need to involve parents. Indeed, the White Paper goes further and mentions the involvement of grandparents where possible. We also support proposals such as the establishment of family literary centres.
My party fully accepts the need to come to grips with the issue of parental responsibility, and to develop working relationships between schools and parents. We fully support the idea of working together to develop a home-school parental partnership agreement.
However, in opposition the Labour party proposed that when schools had established those agreements they would require parents to sign the contract before a child was allowed to enter the school. The White Paper is silent on that issue. I hope that the Minister will assure us that the new Government do not intend to carry that idea forward. It would add a wholly unacceptable dimension to admissions procedures--rather like asking a couple to sign a pre-nuptial agreement before they have even met.
Much is said about the raising of standards and partnership, and one of the ways in which we can ensure that that will happen is by making data freely available to all the partners. I therefore specifically ask the Minister to ensure that all the data held by Ofsted is made public, so that everyone has access to it and can use it in the development of plans. The information will, of course, help to check whether the chief inspector's sums add up, but there are also far more important reasons for wanting it to be made public.
The Minister will tell local education authorities, as he said today, that they are to play a key role to levering up standards in schools. I fully support him in his desire to reinvent and reinvigorate local education authorities, and to give them a key role in levering up standards, but, rightly, not the role of controlling schools. But that is an additional task. It is therefore vital that we ensure that LEAs, as well as schools, are given the funds that they require to do the job that they have been given.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough rightly pointed out that local education authority advisory services have been decimated, and the few remaining staff spend much of their time bidding for Ofsted inspections, with little or no time to help their local schools.
If LEAs are to do the task that the Minister has rightly set them, they, too, must be funded to do it. So I hope that we shall no longer have sterile debates about what the ratio of delegation between schools and LEAs is to be--whether it is 85:15, 90:10 or even, as the Secretary of State once suggested, 95:5.
In reviewing standard spending assessments and the local management of schools procedures, we should identify what the key roles of schools and LEAs are, and work out what they need to carry them out. Then there should be 100 per cent. funding and 100 per cent. funding, not an arbitrary split of some undefined central pot. I hope that that will be borne in mind when the Secretary of State considers the SSA and LMS proposals.
I have two or three more points to raise quickly with the Minister. I welcome the proposal in the White Paper to reduce red tape and bureaucracy. However, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the shadow Minister, pointed out that the White Paper itself contains several measures that will add burdens to the work of individual schools and local education authorities.
I therefore hope that, in reviewing the impact of the proposals, the Minister will have particular regard to the many two and three-teacher schools with teaching heads. If the issue is not properly considered, the burden for them could be intolerable.
"Most of the schools visited in the review are improving their standards and quality--some from a very high base. In most of these the LEA contribution has been influential and sometimes it has been critical."
Certainly Cornwall LEA has no fear of inspections to see what it is doing to raise standards.
"Richmond upon Thames has a national reputation for the delivery of high quality educational services. This is the direct result of a commitment to planning and developing services by working in close partnership with headteachers, parents and governors. In this sense it is the product of a meeting of minds.
I am sure that the whole House, including the Minister, will welcome the form of words used in that advertisement.
As the Council's lead officer on all educational matters, you will be responsible for shaping future policy development and ensuring high standards are maintained throughout the borough."
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