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Miss Kirkbride: That has nothing to do with it.
Mr. Wicks: It has a lot to do with it. In 1997, we had to look at the situation confronting us. We weighed the options very carefully. We found that, after 18 years--not least because of Mrs. Thatcher's decimation of the state earnings-related pension scheme--
Mr. Wicks: If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the attack on SERPS has nothing to do with the issue, he shows that he is approaching the social security question with a certain illiteracy.
Our judgment is that we should concentrate resources on the poorest elderly people. We are doing that in the ways that I have described. We are communicating as effectively as we can and in imaginative ways that ensure that those who are entitled to income support in old age receive it.
Although the basic priorities for our social policy are a strong economy and good jobs, much of the ability of our citizens, whatever their age, to get such jobs will depend on education, training and skills. Although that has always been so in many respects, the challenges posed by globalisation and the impact of new technologies mean that those of us who are interested in social security in the broadest sense must turn our attention to education, training and skills. That is why we have a true commitment to the notion of lifelong learning and are spending more on education.
Over this Parliament, education spending will increase by more than 16 per cent. in real terms. This year alone, following the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget of a further £1 billion for education, spending on it will rise by more than 8 per cent. in real terms--the highest annual increase for more than 20 years. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West speaks as if we were not spending more on education or, for that matter, on health. The very reverse is the case.
Mr. Willis: The Minister is very selective in his statistics. Unit funding for students in further and higher education has gone down each year under this Government and is scheduled to go down right through to 2001-02.
Mr. Wicks: Unit funding for university education declined dramatically under the Conservative Government. We have rectified that because we will have no trade-off between quantity, with the increasing number of people in higher education, and quality. The hon. Gentleman is committed to further education, as I am, and knows that spending on it is at record levels. At long last we have a Government taking further education seriously, as it deserves.
Lifelong learning has to start with the early years. Some of the best preparation for our people will take place at a tender age. That is why our national child care strategy--with the development of nursery education, guaranteeing places for all four-year-olds, and the innovative sure start programme, tackling a range of issues, involving parents, and considering health, education and the family as a whole--is so important.
It is also why, despite some opposition from some forces of conservatism, our national literacy and numeracy strategy has played such an important role in our education system. Some thought that it was not necessary, but we believe that it was absolutely right and proper that the three Rs should be emphasised in our primary schools. The results show a great improvement.
In the Budget, all schools--primary and secondary--received a major boost. There is now an average extra direct grant of £40,000 for secondary schools and £9,000 for primary schools. That goes directly to the school, and that is how money should be spent.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine): Going back to nursery education, does the
Minister recognise the concern highlighted in a report by, I think, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology that, although it is important for young children to have access to nursery education and to an educational environment and support, we should be careful about how early we start to force literacy and numeracy on them? An important part of the first stages of educational experience is developing social skills and a sense of ease at being in the educational environment. Evidence from Europe suggests that the literacy programme can start slightly later and the children will all be at the right level later on.
Mr. Wicks: Yes, that is why we have been very careful to develop a programme that prepares the child for the literacy and numeracy strategy at primary school. The Government recognise the need to get the balance right, but there can be no excuse at all for allowing some children to reach the age of 11 without basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. None of us want that for our children and none of us should want it for any child.
The learning and skills councils for which we are currently legislating are another important part of our education strategy. They replace the training and enterprise councils and the funding councils and will have charge nationally and locally of all post-16 education and training, bringing into one funding scheme about £6 billion to benefit about 6 million learners and responding to the demands of the economy and the needs of companies and individuals. It is a revolution and it shows our commitment to the skills agenda.
University education was a focus of the opening speech of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West. Higher education has to be paid for. More and more of our children now have the opportunity to go to university. The proportion is now a third and rising, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set a target of 50 per cent.
As the Dearing report recognised, universities were seriously underfunded, with a drop of 36 per cent. in unit funding between 1989 and 1997, and a further cut planned for the next two years. We had to address those facts, and we did so through our policies on tuition fees and loans. However, we have always ensured that students from less-well-off families do not have to pay fees. Already more than 40 per cent. of students are exempt from making any contribution, and that proportion will go up to 50 per cent. from next year because we are raising the contribution threshold. I repeat that poor students do not pay fees. We believe that the loans system is fair, in terms of the balance between the student, his or her family and the taxpayer. We have recently introduced a package of measures to support mature students, who can have some especial difficulties in accessing education.
Recently, the Sutton Trust published a report that touches on some recent controversy. It included data on access to universities and showed that we must do more to ensure that all of our talented young people, whatever their background, get the chances they deserve in higher education. It surely is not satisfactory that only 13 per cent. of young people from lower socio-economic groups enter our top 13 universities, despite making up 50 per cent. of the school population. I heard nothing in the speech by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West that would rectify that problem. We are determined to rectify it.
Nor can it be right that at the beginning of the 21st century, not the 20th, someone from a private school is nearly 30 times more likely to get into higher education than someone from a disadvantaged background.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent): Has the Minister anything to tell the House about the relationship between, for example, young people's willingness to live away from home and access to higher education? Precedents in a community also have a tremendous influence on that access.
Mr. Wicks: I certainly recognise that in order to understand the data that I have cited, a variety of causes will be significant, and they may vary from one community to another. A range of matters needs to be addressed, including the aspirations of our children from poor areas, particularly when no one in the family or local community has been to university, and the schools' aspirations for their most able children. Also, there are of course implications for the universities, as has been highlighted recently.
Mr. Bercow: Although the Minister is right to want to increase the proportion of state school pupils who go into higher education, does he agree with the Secretary of State for Health, who has made it clear that he intends to relax the access criteria to medical schools specifically in order to enable more state school products to go to them?
Mr. Wicks: Products are young men and women, and our position is that every young man and woman of high ability should have an equal and fair chance to enter our universities and medical schools. That is why the debate now needs to move on to the positive measures that can be taken. We have already provided £10 million for opportunity bursaries of up to £1,000 from the autumn of 2001, aimed at young students from disadvantaged backgrounds. That will operate initially as a pilot scheme in excellence in cities areas, building on the schemes already in place in higher education institutions. We are also funding summer schools, special provision for gifted and talented pupils in inner cities, and other measures to link state schools with colleges and universities.
Much can be done and many of our universities are doing much at the moment. We want to encourage that development. It is important that the row over the issue now moves on to a positive agenda for action for the benefit of the most able boys and girls, whether from the state or private sector, whether rich or poor. That should now be the agenda.
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