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Mr. Alan Campbell (Tynemouth): To clarify that survey for the information of the House, did it say that more jobs were created last year than were lost?
Mr. Green: I would be pleased to read out a lot more from The Times Educational Supplement if the hon. Gentleman likes. Its headline is: "Staff cuts running into thousands", and it gives what it calls the "critical numbers", stating that 2,729 teachers and 1,152 support staff have not been replaced because of lack of funding. [Interruption.] The Minister for School Standards urges me to carry on. I need no urging. The TES goes on to say that there have been 730 teacher and 301 support staff redundancies; that there are 1,881 unfilled teacher posts; and that, of teachers appointed, 4,246—16.6 per cent.—were judged unsatisfactory by heads.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. David Miliband): I am pleased that I, too, brought that copy of The Times Educational Supplement with me. Is it not the case that it reports that 3,548 additional new teachers are being hired, which is a net increase of 89 on the numbers that the hon. Gentleman quoted?
Mr. Green: The Minister also knows that the increase in the school population means that approximately 1,000 teachers are needed to keep pupil-teacher ratios steady and that the Government have failed to do that. Perhaps he will turn to the inside pages of The Times Educational Supplement, which paint an even bleaker picture. [Interruption.] The job adverts appear in a separate supplement because teacher retention is so difficult under the Government.
The head of the Royal Grammar school in High Wycombe has pledged £15,000 of his salary to ease his school's budget problems. The school caretaker is offering £5 a month. In East Anglia, one comprehensive school is considering charging for textbooks. One school in London—the London Oratory, which, I dare say, is familiar to senior members of the Government—is asking parents for an increase of £5 in the monthly £30 contribution that they already make. The school made it clear that the call for extra money is a direct result of the funding cuts for many schools in southern England that the Government announced early this year. The Oratory started term last week with fewer teachers.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard (South-West Norfolk): Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Green: Of course I shall give way to my right hon. Friend, who is a distinguished former Secretary of State.
Mrs. Shephard: Labour Members, notably Ministers, display some reluctance to accept the facts that my hon. Friend is presenting to the House. Here is a fact: at the Old Buckenham high school in my constituency, more children are on the roll this term than last term and there are two fewer teachers. Is that factual enough for Ministers? It is an example of what is happening
throughout my constituency: more children and fewer teachers. Moreover, any sicknesses in the school mean that classes will have to double to 60 pupils. Is not that a marvellous achievement by the Government?
Mr. Green: My right hon. Friend is right that Ministers appear peculiarly reluctant to accept the facts that everyone else acknowledges to constitute an accurate description of life in our schools today. Their immediate reaction to the Secondary Heads Association survey was simply to rubbish it. It was followed by a survey of local education authorities in The Guardian that showed similar results. Ministers must stop pretending that the rest of the world is out of step.
In 55 local authorities, more than 1,000 full-time teaching posts have been lost through redundancies and schools opting not to replace teachers who leave for other reasons. If that pattern were repeated in all local education authorities, approximately 2,500 teaching posts would be lost. We have a consistent set of numbers, which everyone, except the Government, recognises.
In the Minister's authority, 17 teaching posts have been lost. The LEA told The Guardian:
- "Schools have set budgets by using their high levels of carry-forward balances."
Not only teachers but support staff are suffering. According to The Times Educational Supplement, on top of the 301 support staff who have been made redundant, 1,152 support staff have not been replaced because of lack of funding. There are also problems with cuts in the capital budget that the Government have forced on schools. One can only spend one's capital once.
What do Ministers say to Roland Waller, the head of Morley High in Leeds, who said:
- "We have protected staffing by cutting repairs and maintenance to the bone this year. Upgrades to classroom furniture will be virtually zero and our rolling programme of redecoration and refurnishing has been curtailed."
- "It is increasingly difficult to persuade young teachers to take on the responsibility of middle management roles, which is very worrying given that most in leadership positions are within 10 years of retiring."
The crisis throws into severe doubt the success of the Government's workload agreement with teachers, which is supposed to be their big reforming idea of this Parliament. It will work only if there are enough teachers and teaching assistants to make it work. I was therefore fascinated by the Government's amendment, which mentions 25,000 extra teachers. Ministers like to talk about such figures. We have heard some of that from those on the Government Benches already this afternoon.
Let us look at the facts as they have been revealed today by the Department itself. The number of full-time, regular, qualified teachers has fallen by 1,400 over the past 12 months. These are not my figures: they are the Department's figures, published today. The number of overseas and unqualified teachers has quadrupled since this Government came to power. Without raiding countries that need their own teachers and using unqualified teachers, the Government would not be able to staff our schools, even before the work load agreement comes into effect.
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford): The hon. Gentleman referred to robbing other countries that need their teachers. Which countries is he referring to?
Mr. Green: Jamaica, in particular. The Jamaican Government have protested to our Government that our country is enticing away too many of Jamaica's teachers to work in our country. The hon. Gentleman is a decent man: I am sure that he worries about relatively poor countries, and that he does not want this country to be scouring the world for teachers from poorer countries that need their own teachers in their own country.
Of course, school funding will be affected. West Berkshire council has calculated that the agreement will cost it an extra £2 million this year, with another £1.7 million in September 2005. I believe that it is a Liberal Democrat council, and it states that the cost of the work load agreement reform will be £78.20 per pupil in primary schools, and £100.93 in secondary schools.
The evidence of the Department's permanent secretary has made it clear that one of the main reasons behind this problem is that the funding system is far too complicated. In his exchange with the Education and Skills Committee, he was asked for his definition of the formula spending share and, with commendable honesty, he answered:
- "I am not sure I know".
Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East): Does my hon. Friend agree that that is one of the reasons why the Government find it so difficult to understand exactly how serious the problem is: for the first time in my 39 years in this House, the Secretary of State was unwilling to meet Members of Parliament and representatives of local schools to explain the seriousness of the situation? The junior Minister was going to meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) today but that meeting was put off because of the debate. We are now told that it will be yet another two months before we even meet him. Would it not be infinitely better if the Secretary of State would meet Members of Parliament—as all Secretaries of State have always done in my experience?
Mr. Green: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. It is a shame if the Secretary of State will not meet him. I am sure that when he does reorganise his meeting—with whichever Minister—it will be extremely fruitful.
Before the recent crisis, I do not think that anyone inside or outside this House thought that the current system was simple enough to understand or, more to the point, fair enough to deal justly with the different needs of different areas of the country.
What is needed to remove this unnecessary confusion is a far simpler method of funding our schools in a manner that will give each school greater autonomy and remove many of the complications that exist in the current system. The Government have not yet made it clear whether they intend to cut out local education authorities altogether from their new system—which I assume they will announce in the next few weeks.
Whatever the Government do needs greater predictability and simplicity to remove the need for central Government to set minimum levels of delegation and to ring-fence budgets. That would mean that many of the problems that we have seen this year would have less chance of recurring in the future. Crucially, it would also mean that heads and governors could choose their own priorities, and not simply reflect what Ministers want. It would also allow parents to compare funding levels in different areas, force Governments to defend the weighting applied to different factors, and allow good local authorities to use savings from administration for improved services by spending the money where it matters—in our schools.
Just 15 months on from the announcement of the comprehensive spending review, which was supposed to solve the financial problems in our schools, Ministers are presiding over cuts, redundancies, deficits, short-term sticking-plaster solutions and rising anger from teachers and parents alike. It is a terrible indictment of ministerial incompetence that they did not see this crisis coming, spent months trying to find a scapegoat instead of a solution and are still floundering around hoping that they have not stored up further problems for years to come. They stand condemned in schools up and down this country. I commend our motion to the House.
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