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Valerie Davey (Bristol, West): After the theory and rhetoric of Conservative Members, I, like the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway), would like to focus on local schools to demonstrate that life in the education world has certainly changed since 1997.
During the last year of Tory Government, £4.4 million subsidised private schools in Bristol every year. At the same time, the local authority was seeking to make cuts of £6 million. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) seemed to want justice and fair funding for pupils at different schools. I can assure him that the assisted places scheme paid out two or three times as much per pupil as the local educational authority funding in the same city. That was certainly not fair or just.
The money went to the few, not the many, and our use of that money as the core of funding to ensure that every young person starts school in a smaller class is clearly demonstrable as fairer. Every child deserves a fair start, and in Bristol, numbers in early years classes are falling and the quality of education is therefore improving.
I assure the House that the two remaining grammar schools in Bristol will open as comprehensives this September. Why? It is because none of the parents, staff or governors at the schools objected to that change. The previous Secretary of State had turned down the proposal, but it is what the communities wanted, and I was therefore delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was able to sign those orders, and the two schools will go forward with a completely different character.
Cotham grammar school is to become Cotham school, with a special status for performing arts. To get that status, the school has collaborated with the feeder schools, the Old Vic theatre school, the BBC, and other secondary schools in the city, and all of them will benefit. The school will no longer be exclusive; it will be wide-ranging and collaborative. The other school, which is largely multicultural and very lively, is looking with other schools to form an education action zone in the centre of Bristol. That is a progressive development for those former grammar schools, and it is to the advantage of many more young people than simply those within the walls of the schools in question.
The literacy hour was pioneered by primary schools in Bristol, and as a result they have seen standards rise well above the national average. Other schools are now pioneering the numeracy hour, and we are beginning to see the same effect.
Sure start, with the early years excellence centre, is also coming to Bristol. The city has a long tradition of early years education, going back to the period after the war when the first nursery nurses college was set up in Bristol, and to have the new centre bringing together social services and education provision is particularly significant. That is happening in a deprived area, and the centre is a flagship for such work. We are seeking to bid for a second centre, with a great deal of encouragement from the Department for Education and Employment. Provision for the early years work in Bristol was made by previous Labour-controlled authorities, despite the cut in funding, because they recognised its importance and value.
On the subject of LEA funding, Bristol is anticipating freezing the rise for the third year running, but all the funding given by the Government for education has been
spent on education. In the coming year, it looks as though we shall delegate to schools £174 per pupil more than the national average. That can be done, and it is being done by a Labour-controlled authority.
In Tory-controlled North Somerset, where there is to be a 4.5 per cent. council tax rise, there will be a significant cut in education funding, so that money will not be funded through to the schools. That causes concern, because the local authority has taken part in one of the education action zones and received extra funding for that. One must question whether it has taken funding from one hand of the Government and is refusing to spend money from the other.
Bristol's LEA is doing a good job, although there is much more to do. In further education, where the need of so many young people to have a second chance has been demonstrated, the City of Bristol college has set up a drop-in centre in the centre of the city. People can drop in from 7 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night to use various types of information technology. The centre caters for a range of people, from those who are picking up a mouse for the first time to those who want to use digital technology to do degree work or to use video conferencing linked with the university of the West of England. That resource is a fine example of what can be done with collaboration.
Before the end of the year, we hope that there will be new buildings for the college in the city centre, near the harbourside, the reference library, the new millennium science projects and the new millennium natural history centre. I assure the House that the college will be a centre of excellence not only for Bristol but for the surrounding area.
I must mention also the three universities that serve the community. All are beginning, perhaps a little more slowly than I would like, to consider the ways in which universities can, as they do in America, demonstrably support secondary education, not only so that more sixth formers will go to university, but so that youngsters of 13 and 14 get a flavour, through the summer schools that we have been pioneering, of what it would be like to go to university. University staff experience the excitement of eager 13 and 14-year-olds, whose imaginations they can capture. All that excellent work is under way.
There has been a transformation since 1997, but--I must add a "but"--we have still not yet achieved all that we would like to achieve at secondary level and in inner city schools. We have taken positive steps, but all city schools have to be challenged and supported.
The IT provision that many schools now have is exciting, and we have done excellent work through special schools, such as the one in my constituency that I have mentioned. However, I want there to be a special school for languages in Bristol, and I want to encourage primary schools to specialise. I have heard of primary schools in which bilingual children are encouraged to develop their special language skills. At that age, youngsters have a flair for language; rather than waiting to enter secondary school and reach the age of 14, 15 or 16 before taking on a second or a third language, they can benefit from the superb practice of some of our city primary schools. When some mentors came to one of my local schools to offer help with reading in English, I told them--fairly tactfully,
but fairly bluntly--that the children at the school could already read in English, Punjabi, Arabic and Swahili. We have an opportunity to encourage the work that such schools are doing and to make people see that children being bilingual at primary school should be celebrated, not regarded as a problem--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but there is a 10-minute limit on speeches.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West):
I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak in such an excellent debate, kicked off so splendidly by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). I do not have time to go through the 15 failures of the Government's education policy that she listed so eloquently, but I should like to comment on certain issues.
University students have been let down. The Government always promised that they would increase funding per capita, but they have instead cut it. To add insult to injury, not only are they reducing funding per capita for students, but they are taking £1,000 a year off students in the form of tuition fees. Students are paying more, but getting less. That the Government are pocketing the tuition fee money and not guaranteeing that it will go directly to the university concerned is a great shame and it will damage the progress that universities should be making at this time. The Government are considering the possibility of uncapping tuition fees, so people might have to pay £10,000 or £15,000 a year to attend a British university. If the Government do that, will they guarantee that that money will go to the universities at which the students study?
The House will be disappointed if I do not refer to the selective education system in the borough of Trafford, as it is affected by the current grammar school ballot. I see that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) looks forward to my remarks. Had he addressed this issue, I would have intervened to ask him to explain why his robust opposition to the grammar school system is not shared by Liberal Democrats in my constituency, who put a leaflet through my door saying that grammar schools are excellent schools that should be left alone to prosper, without interference from the Government's rigged ballot system that is threatening them all. Liberal Democrat policy can be one thing in one place, and another somewhere else, just as the Government say one thing and do another.
The record of the education system in Trafford is one of almost unparalleled success in a mixed local authority area, ranging from affluent communities to fairly poor ones. Through grammar schools, secondary schools and high schools, our education system delivers excellent opportunities and excellent results for children whatever their social background. That all that is threatened by the Government's actions is a great tragedy. I am pleased to echo my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who spoke so cogently about the terrible assault that the Labour Government have launched on the opportunities of ordinary children who do not have money to pay for their education.
7.1 pm
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