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Roger Casale (Wimbledon) (Lab): I welcome the Minister's remarks and his invitation to rise to the London challenge. Some people visiting my Wimbledon constituency today may believe that the only person facing a serious challenge is a certain tennis player called Tim Henman. However, not just Tim Henman, but every single child in our schools is important.
I hope that the people entering my constituency this week will take the opportunity to look around it. If they did, they would see a great deal of energy, adrenalin and excitement being expended in a range of activities in our primary schools. They would see the Priory Church of England school, which recently was awarded a gold arts mark for promoting arts activities for young children. A silver award was won by Merton Park school. They would see, as I have seen, citizenship classes taking place in primary schools to further citizenship education for young children. That is happening in Wimbledon Park school, Wimbledon Chase school, Dundonald primary school and many others. They would see AFC Wimbledon, the football club owned and managed by the fans, helping to promote sporting activities in schools such as Poplar first school, Joseph Hood primary and Hillcross primary.
Many activities are taking place that are enriching the curriculum and promoting a more rounded education. They are all taking place in an environment in which school buildings have been rebuilt, the infrastructure has been refurbished, class sizes reduced and much more care and attention have been given to the needs and aspirations of individual pupils. All that is a direct result of seven years of Labour Government providing the necessary investment and reforms—and long may that continue. I hope that all those who come to Wimbledon
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this week to see the tennis will see the improvements that I am describing in my constituency's schools and will also understand that the Labour Government are responsible for them.
The London challenge, as I understand it, is an invitation to take all that on to the next stage. Many hon. Members have been able to point to success and achievement in their constituencies and we celebrate the contribution of parents, children, teachers, governors and the local education authorities. The challenge now is to ensure that that achievement, that success and those new opportunities are available to all children from every community in London.
We need to tackle the barriers that are holding back certain parts of our community, not least the ethnic minorities. We know that Asian children, of which there are many in my constituency's schools, are performing well and above average, not least thanks to the great value that the Asian community itself places on education, parental assistance and back-up at school. Sadly, though, we know that in other areas, not least in respect of the Afro-Caribbean community, those rates of achievement have not yet been attained.
One of the most exciting aspects of the London challenge is that we learn to look at London as a whole. There has been a tendency to think of my borough of Merton, for example, as being a relatively affluent outer London suburb. Of course some parts of my constituency are affluent. Those looking down on St. Mary's church on people eating strawberries and cream at Wimbledon tennis and seeing the green around the area could not fail to think that it is affluent. However, one needs only to visit different parts of the borough to see some of the most deprived wards in London. The formula by which money is distributed in London, and the way in which we look at educational challenges from a strategic point of view, does not always properly reflect the special needs of pockets of deprivation within certain areas of London in the best possible way. I hope that the London challenge will give a new strategic focus to the Merton challenge—the challenge that my borough of Merton faces as we work to take forward improvements in our schools. It is the key to ensuring the life chances of the next generation of people in our communities, but it is also a very important political challenge. That is because there is a relationship between the decisions that Government take about funding and the reform of public services, for instance, and the results that are achieved.
In my constituency, many people voted Labour for the first time in 1997. They told me then, and afterwards, that they did so because they wanted improvements in our primary and secondary schools, and in the whole range of educational services. There are independent private schools in my constituency, and people continue to send their children to them. In my experience, they do so not for some sort of snob value, but because they feel that that is the only way to get the best possible education for their children. Our aim in government in the longer term must be to make sure that the best education is provided in state schools. That is why we must invest and make sure that we do not settle for average or second best. We must keep going, with new challenges being set year after year and Government after Government. It does not matter too much to me what the challenges are called, but we must keep finding
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a peg and a focus for the investment of more money. We must renew our determination to improve education standards, so that people want to send their children to state schools because they are the best.
We need to make a concerted effort, and there is no room for complacency, despite the many achievements that have been seen already. We can start by looking at the schools where there have been great successes and drawing lessons from them. I was pleased to be able to attend a special evening in honour of the outgoing head teacher of Wimbledon college, a voluntary-aided Catholic school for boys in my constituency. Father Michael Holman is retiring after 10 years of service, and the evening was truly inspirational. It showed how one man, through the care and attention that he devoted to each boy in the school, was able to achieve so much in such a short time. However, Father Holman openly acknowledged that those 10 years had included periods of both Conservative and Labour Governments. He knew that, under a Conservative Government, he did not have the resources that he needed to underpin the changes and improvements that he was making to the school. That has not been the case under a Labour Government.
The investment made by the Government has been important, but I also want to highlight the leadership shown by Father Holman as head teacher. During his incumbency, the number of students at the school has doubled, and there have been dramatic improvements in standards. Also, the facilities for all-round education—including for music, sport and the arts—have been expanded. We should acknowledge, of course, that there has been help from the Catholic Church, but that has been underpinned by the Government's commitment to education. That must continue.
Many other schools in my constituency have achieved dramatic improvements. Ricards Lodge girls school has achieved beacon status, Rutlish school is improving strongly and both it and Raynes Park high school are applying for specialist school status. In addition, the Ursuline convent high school had outstanding results in the most recent school year.
I want to pay tribute to all the head teachers of those schools, and to their governors and staff, for the results that have been achieved. Although those results have been underpinned by the substantial new investment that the Government have put in, they have been achieved at a time of great transition and change in Merton.
In contrast to other boroughs in the London area, in the past few years Merton has undergone a once-in-a-generation upheaval in the organisation of its school system. We used to have a three-tier system, made up of first, middle and high schools, but now we have primary and secondary schools, with the age of transfer at 11.
In 1998, the Merton local education authority finally decided to enter into the period of transition, and we are still feeling the effects. The final modifications and improvements to school buildings and infrastructure are still being made, and the new secondary school buildings will not be handed over until 6 August.
I shall devote my remaining remarks to the lessons that can be drawn from Merton's experience of providing new school buildings and taking forward the
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transition by means of the private finance initiative process. There is much discussion about how best to lever-in new resources and invest in new school infrastructure, but Merton has hard-won experience of having done that the PFI way. I want to share some of that experience with the House, and I hope that the Minister will respond—either when he winds up the debate or at a later meeting—to some of the concerns that have arisen about how the PFI scheme was put together.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and I sent a letter to head teachers and chairs of governors of all the secondary schools in Merton, and their responses provided much information for us about the PFI process—how it came about, how it has worked in practice, and how it looks for the future. The Catholic schools were not part of the PFI project but they also responded, and their experience means that, in a sense, we have a useful controlled experiment. If similar infrastructure renewal schemes are proposed in other parts of the country, Merton's experience offers important lessons.
My letter received very detailed responses. I shall not go into them now but, if I may, I shall forward them to my hon. Friend the Minister for his comments. I stress that although I say that lessons can be drawn from the Merton experience, I do not mean that I—or anyone who responded to the survey—think that the PFI is either good or bad in itself, from a philosophical or ideological point of view. My aim was to determine how it has worked out in Merton in practice. We have discussed PFI-funded public projects in the past, and all hon. Members who have an open mind can see the potential benefits. However, what are the real benefits of the initiative for an organisational change on the scale that we have experienced in Merton?
The benefits have included the radical redevelopments that I have described. We have upgraded a school infrastructure that in some cases was 40 or 50 years out of date, and we have prepared it for the 21st century. The sums of money involved have been extraordinarily large, and have included amounts of public money that have risen throughout the life of the contract. However, one head teacher—Ian Newman of Raynes Park high school—told me this morning that he considers it hard to avoid the impression that it might have been possible to do better with the amount of money that was involved.
One particular concern is the total cost of servicing the capital expenditure on the PFI project. It is now taking up 11 per cent. of delegated budgets from schools, whereas before only 8 per cent. of budgets was spent on maintenance. A further 3 per cent. of the schools budget is paid by the LEA. All that money comes out of the overall pot available to the LEA to fund improvements and changes in our schools. Another concern that has been put to me is that when the various funding streams are consolidated, will the proportion of 11 per cent. remain the same or will it fall? If it remains the same, the actual amount schools pay from their budgets will increase. Those moneys are badly needed in schools, but they would go to finance the PFI contract.
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The head teachers who have written to me also said that the administrative savings that they thought would accrue to their schools as a result of outsourcing the management of their facilities have not yet materialised. On the contrary, several frustrations have occurred in the building and design phase and with the running of the facilities. That has resulted in increased administration costs in terms of the time that teachers and head teachers have had to spend writing to the facilities management company—in this case, Atkins— to try to resolve the problems.
The point has also been made that the PFI partners lack a community vision. For example, small changes could have been made to a sports hall that would have allowed wider community use of the facility, but they were not allowed by the PFI partner. Ricards school, which had another new sporting facility built, was forced into having girl-only changing rooms, which again means that it will not be available for wider community use. While we appreciate the extra investment and improvements, we are concerned about how they are financed and the way in which contracts have been put together. Those factors need to be examined, so that if the exercise is repeated elsewhere, the same problems do not recur.
I have described the problems of the management of the PFI contract, and I am grateful to Ricards school, Rutlish school and all the schools who responded to my inquiry. The problems were compounded by the age of transfer changes and perhaps one of the key lessons to be learned is not to attempt a huge PFI project—I do not know whether any others are planned in London to improve school infrastructure—at the same time as undertaking a large reorganisation project, as has happened in Merton. Despite those concerns, we are now on the other side of the changes. The buildings are in place and we are starting to see the desired improvements, including better results at key stage 3 last year. The borough is now working strongly with Kingston LEA within the context of the London challenge, and has hosted the key stage 2–3 transition collaborative working group for several London boroughs. I believe that we can overcome the difficulties and see further improvements in the future.
The latest census figures demonstrate that my constituency has one of the highest birth rates in the country. I declare an interest as I have two young daughters, so my wife and I are partially to blame. Alongside the increase in the number of children in the borough, we need an increase in the provision of primary school places. Several hon. Members have referred to similar problems, but it is especially acute in my constituency—and has been so for several years, as my hon. Friend the Minister is aware.
Such difficulties can be exacerbated by building developments. New houses are built to encourage families to move into the area, but corresponding provision—such as primary school places—is not made. We have had acute shortages of places in Pelham primary school for exactly that reason. Hollymount primary school has suffered similar problems as a neighbouring site was sold off by the council to fund school expansion in other parts of the borough. The numbers were wrong, and the council had to strip primary school classes out of a different area and continued to face pressure on places at Hollymount.
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As we work to improve education provision and standards, and to encourage people back into the state school sector by giving them more confidence in it, we need to take a long-sighted view of where and how expansion can take place. In particular, we must have more joined-up thinking by local authorities and in London as a whole to ensure that services—especially school provision—expand in line with new housing developments. I am sure that other hon. Members can point to examples where that unfortunately has not been the case.
As my constituency rises to the challenge that my hon. Friend has set forth, I can point to several exciting and positive developments. We are just leaving a difficult period of transition that was made more difficult by the way in which it was funded, including the way in which the PFI was put together. However, it was the only option on offer at the time. We are pleased to have the new investment, but we had no choice about how it would be funded. The way in which it has worked out has created some unforeseen difficulties and it remains to be seen whether they can be ironed out. It has also created extra costs that exacerbate the perennial problems of outer-London boroughs, such as the funding of teachers' salaries. As my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, we pay inner-London weighting to teachers in Merton, but no account is taken of that in the funding formula. All those cost issues will worsen with the passage of time.
My hon. Friend the Minister is familiar with many of those issues because we have corresponded and had several meetings about them. The problems are difficult to resolve, and many need London-wide solutions. We need a strategy for and a focus on London as a whole, not individual campaigns for each area. The schools in my constituency continue to face very real problems, including funding problems, some of which are getting worse.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look carefully at the experience of PFI in Merton and some of the lessons that can be learned from our experience. I hope that he will also look again at the overall London formula in the light of the representations that have been made to see what can be done to improve the situation not only in Merton but across London.
I finish on my first point: the exciting achievements and gains that we have already seen in our schools and rightly celebrate will not be sustained, or made for everybody in our community, unless we find new ways to tackle the problems that still exist and unless we convince everyone that we have the right focus to provide the best education for children throughout the capital, from Merton to north London and from east to west.
2.50 pm
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