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Virginia Bottomley (South-West Surrey) (Con): May I strongly endorse and add to what the hon. Gentleman is saying? Godalming and Farnham sixth-form colleges are spectacularly good, and they have long complained on precisely this point. When he makes representations to the Chancellor, will he please add my name to his and mention Godalming and Farnham sixth-form colleges?

Mr. Hopkins: I thank the right hon. Lady for a very   helpful intervention. We can all appreciate sixth-form colleges. One of the problems occurred when sixth-form colleges were lumped together with further education colleges—those are fine institutions and I   support them too—by Kenneth Baker, who was the Secretary of State, I think. He was not quite aware of what a sixth-form college was.

Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that Conservative legislation brought about the anomaly? That said, does he agree that, eight years later, it should have been sorted out?

Mr. Hopkins: I do not know whether it would be wise to change the status of sixth-form colleges now, but there was a misunderstanding by Ministers when sixth-form colleges were pushed together with FE   colleges. Ministers were not quite sure what sixth -form colleges were. Nor are they quite sure of that
 
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now, because there are so few sixth-form colleges and not every Member of Parliament has one in his area or knows quite what they do. All I can say is that if Members are interested in visiting Luton sixth-form college, they can do so at any time. The hon. Gentleman is right that sixth-form colleges have not been given the attention and support they deserve.

I come to some good news, which is what the Government have done for primary education. That is where we have had our problems. For years, our party argued endlessly about secondary education and ignored primary, relatively speaking, yet it is in primary where basic reading and mathematical skills are learned. It is those schools that were failing: children were getting to secondary school and finding that they could not do mathematics and had poor literacy. They would fail from there onwards.

The Government have made tremendous advances, however, in promoting primary education, particularly at nursery, infant and pre-school levels, the benefits of which we will see in future. We have a problem with that cohort of children and young people still going through education, who are possibly in their late teens, who suffered the worst of the starved education system 10 to 12 years ago. They missed out on what young children are getting now, and it is a shame that they cannot go back and take advantage of what is happening now. When that cohort has gone through—we will do our best to make sure that they get the adult education or whatever training that they need later—and the new cohort goes through the 14 to 19 system, we will see dramatic improvements, some of which are already taking place. In my constituency, four schools have been in special measures, and all four have been taken out of   special measures, with new head teachers and tremendous resources put in. We have seen some stunning improvements, and I am delighted that they are now doing well.

The big social divider in Britain has been education. Even in this place, one can see divisions of which we are all conscious, and that is much more the case in the street and in our towns and cities. Compared with many other developed countries, we have deep social divisions, which are essentially educational and cultural in a broad sense. We have tried institutional fixes to overcome those problems with education, and those have not worked. We are now starting to challenge where the problem lies.

I used to teach A-levels in a further education college, and I remember middle-class students coming to do A-levels, and working-class students coming to do day release. The social division was so great that, even in a further education college, they sat on different sides of the refectory, regarding each other with suspicion and hostility. We used to do experiments by putting those people together in liberal studies classes, and the tensions and frictions were extraordinary. That was 30 years ago, and I hope that things have got better since, but we have a deeply divided society, which is reflected more in attitudes and education than in any other way. Even people who become comfortably off in material terms sometimes have the sense of not having achieved because of their educational level.

David Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that given the statistics showing that 7 per cent. of young people
 
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are educated in so-called independent schools, and a similar number in state grammar schools, we cannot really be considered a successful, socially reforming Government in a third term until those figures start to decrease?

Mr. Hopkins: Indeed. I would look forward to a more homogenous education system in this country, in which young people from whatever social background met each other and were educated together, and in which divisions were not reinforced by going to separate institutions, some of which were private and fee-paying. One of my current concerns is that we are seeing a banding out of society even within the state sector, which is worrying. I have made that point many times previously in the House.

We must try to promote a much more equal society, which is much more together and in which we see ourselves as citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. We have not been through the kind of process through which many other societies have been. We have preserved the social divisions of the past. If I   want to do anything in politics, I want to challenge and break down those divisions and make our society much more equal and together.

7.54 pm

Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con): I agree with the last part of the hon. Gentleman's speech, and enjoyed and was educated by a good part of the rest of it. The key point is the importance of primary and some middle school education. We have not got transfer to   secondary schools right, and a lot of children go backwards in their first two or three terms at secondary school. May I make a plea to teachers that they try to ensure that a child entering secondary school has a more stable environment, rather than changing classroom and teacher virtually every 55 minutes? If one can embed a child in a new school, the chance of that child blossoming and continuing the kind of progress that they were making in senior years at middle or primary school will increase.

I am glad that there has been a focus on education, but some of my remarks will not relate to that. I want to start with one or two technical details.

First, on page 279 of the Red Book, on the definitions used in total managed expenditure, why is there a reference to the national lottery? It states:

"National lottery expenditures relate to the distribution of the money received from the National Lottery for good causes."

I thought that when the lottery was created, it was decided with bipartisan agreement that lottery money would not be taken from good causes and brought under central Government control. Although the current Government have made some changes, they ought to reverse that, and I look forward to a Chancellor saying that the good causes money will not come under Government control, that it will go back to the distribution boards, and that the Government will be left out of it. I pay tribute to the lottery lady, my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley), for her part in trying to ensure
 
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that that did not happen under the previous Government, and I hope that it will not happen under the next one.

The Treasury team has plenty of good economists and people who can draw graphs, as we see in the Red Book. Why do we not have in the Red Book what we have in the Library guide to economic indicators—graphs showing unemployment in 1992–93, with productivity and investment also charted? Were the Government willing to be fair with taxpayer's money and fair with electors, they would put in their publications the kind of graphs that people could show to a friend and say, "You tell us when this Chancellor came into office, if everything good has come from him." In fact, were we to show most of these graphs, without the dates on them, to an interested person, and were we to ask them to put in the dates on which they thought the present Chancellor had come into No. 11 Downing street—or half of it, given that the other half was taken by the Prime Minister—they would get the timings wrong. We have heard about the 18 quarters of improvement under the previous Conservative Government, and I have every reason to believe that as the Government changes at the next election, I hope—I will work for that—we will see the same kind of improvement, give or take the economic shocks that come.

There has been some talk about the teaching of economics. We have heard from two of the best teachers of economics, and as probably one of the worst students of economics, I ought to acknowledge that my supervisor, Professor Sir James Mirlees, was awarded the Nobel prize, along with William Vickrey, who sadly died before he could collect the prize. William Vickrey had the rather good idea that in an auction the person who wins should pay the price put forward by the under-bidder. In terms of politics, that is indicated in the current Government saying that they would adopt the   Conservative plans for public spending for the first two years, which is one of the foundations of the relative economic prosperity.

However, I want to condemn the current Government, and perhaps the Chancellor, for allowing the apparent house price asset inflation, which might have been one of the causes of the economy growing slightly faster than people expected. It is an economic, financial and inter-generational disaster. That raising the stamp duty threshold to £120,000 gives virtually no benefit to people in many constituencies around the country demonstrates some of the impact of that inflation, of which I do not approve.

I want to comment on the National Audit Office. First, I want to praise the clear writing of its publication, "Audit of Assumptions for Budget 2005", which has a conclusion and recommendation, a useful annexe 1, with details of the unemployment assumptions, showing how the Treasury depends on outside forecasters, and   another page and a bit on the audit of assumptions. But why does a booklet costing £3.75—10 sides at 37.5p   each—use 10 sides when it only needed three and a half? The first side shows the picture of the old British Overseas Airways Corporation headquarters, which is where the National Audit Office is. We do not need that. The second tells us what the National Audit Office does. The third is a repeat of the front page without the picture. The fourth tells us that it has been prepared for the House of Commons. Then we have the three and a
 
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half sides that matter. The last side tells us that it was printed by the Stationery Office, the previous side tells us who was responsible for the layout and production and that it is printed on 50 per cent. recycled fibre, the side before that that it is printed in the UK, and the side   before that is blank. May I ask Ministers to have a quiet word with those in the National Audit Office, and ask them to audit the way in which they prepare that publication? I think that £1.30, rather than £3.75, would have been quite sufficient.

The Government are interested in education. This morning the Secretary of State was scheduled to speak at the launch of the TUC's academy. I was there at the time when she was supposed to be there, but I had to return for a meeting at the House of Commons. I   assume that she arrived virtually on time, and made a good speech. I do support public and Government interest in what trade unions and others do for education.

In that context, let me say that I wish the Government would review the decision by, I think, the Department for Education and Skills to cut the £52,000 grant to the Woodcraft Folk to nil. The Woodcraft Folk employ five   people and provide activity for 9,000 young people. The Woodcraft Folk were started by the socialists. The Woodcraft Folk appear to have made the mistake of being against the Iraq war. If the Government are penalising them for being a peace movement when their activity for children is just as good as that of the Boys'   Brigade, the Scouts, the Guides, the Sea Cadets, the music groups and the sports groups, I ask the Government to reverse their decision and allow the   Woodcraft Folk to have the £52,000—which, I think, amounts to about 20 per cent. of their income.

I have two detailed questions to ask. One, which affects a member of my extended family, relates to funding for low-budget films. It is understandable that the Government may want to cut some tax credits applying to high-budget films. I believe that they have extended the low-budget film tax concession for a year. Will they make plain—this is not a request from my relation; it is a point that interests me—whether that extension to, I think, March 2006 is designed to apply to films completed and delivered to the distributors by then, to films in the process of being edited, or to films whose funding has been committed by the sponsors?

My second point also involves a member of my family. It concerns the change in the stamp duty concession for non-commercial buildings in deprived areas. Let us suppose—again, this is not a request; I am merely interested—that I had agreed to buy a property for a mixture of commercial and residential use. Let us suppose that I had signed the contract but had not completed. Would the building become liable to the new rate of stamp duty, or would the concession introduced a couple of years ago still apply? I do not expect Ministers necessarily to respond to my questions tonight—a letter will do—but they are detailed questions which I think deserve an answer.

Having criticised the National Audit Office earlier, I   now want to criticise the Government Chief Whip. During the Chancellor's Budget speech the Chief Whip,   and for that matter the Prime Minister, listened with some attention—indeed, I would go so far as to say that they tried to assume expressions of admiration—but as soon as my right hon. and learned Friend the
 
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Leader of the Opposition began to speak, the Chief Whip embarked on a running commentary and the Chancellor and the Prime Minister started talking to each other. Perhaps they have not done much talking to each other for the past year, and this was their first opportunity to be side by side, but I disapprove—and so will the public—of the sight of two leading members of   the Government deliberately, discourteously and continuously holding a conversation when they ought to be listening to a response from the Leader of the Opposition. I hope that, if the Chief Whip accepts my criticism, she will tell her senior colleagues to improve their behaviour when they are in opposition, and also tell them that they do not deserve to hold their current titles if they behave in such a way on the Floor of the House of Commons during a major set-piece debate.

Let me now deal with some of the details of the Chancellor's speech. A number of Members have referred to the free local bus travel for retired people. The documents produced by the Treasury at the time of the Budget made no distinction, in terms of time, between the £200 for retired households on council tax and the free bus travel, but we now know that the council tax concession is for a year. Will Ministers tell us why none of the three or four references to that concession includes that information? Did they decide to make the concession apply for only one year after the papers had been published, or did they deliberately arrange it so that people would mislead themselves when they heard what the Chancellor had to say and read the newspapers?

Can we assume that the bus travel concession will last for rather longer than a year? May we also know—others have asked this as well—why the Chancellor did not say that it related to off-peak travel? An awful lot of pensioners will find themselves in what is called the "twirly group". The bus driver, or conductor, tells them "You're too early." That certainly happens in London. I do not complain about it myself. I might be affected by it on occasion, but I walk to work. Nevertheless, I   believe that Ministers should make plain in documentation what they are actually saying. They are clever enough to do that—or at least their advisers are   clever enough to ask "Minister, do you really mean this to be off-peak only? If you do, why not say so?"

Will all people over 60 be able to travel free on all local transport, or will they be able to do so only on transport in their own areas? I am not arguing either case; I merely ask the Government to make plain which will apply. I   feel that when several million people are likely to be affected, documentation should make such things clear so that the next day, when they are reported in the newspapers, people know where they stand—or where they will sit, if there is room on the bus.

Then there is local government finance. There are two ways in which people are being helped with council tax. One is the provision of emergency money for local authorities to ensure that council tax rises in this election year—assuming that there will be an election this year—are kept relatively low, not more than two or three times the inflation rate. The other is the provision of an extra £200 for pensioner households—which, as has been said, is not nearly as good a concession as what the Conservatives will offer at the election for the future. Incidentally, that is one of the few political promises made that involve no losers: either people are not affected, or they gain. It is a clever bit of public funding.
 
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What we have not had from the Government is any indication that they will provide a buoyant source of revenue for local authorities—district, borough, unitary and county councils. I would say to my party's Front Benchers that when we are in government, the first thing we should do is try to arrange all-party talks and discussions with the Association of Local Authorities to   work out how the Chancellor can say to local government, "We will make sure that you have a share of some of the rising revenues, and will not have to depend on Government or parliamentary decisions affecting revenue support grant."

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