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Angela Smith: The hon. Lady has been in frequent correspondence with me—we have quite become pen-pals on this and on a number of other issues. I know how painful the condition is, as my father went through a hip replacement operation just over a year ago. However, I cannot give the hon. Lady a precise waiting time. One of the things that we need to do is recruit additional consultants: work is ongoing to ensure that they are recruited, because the number of consultants has a major impact on waiting times.
I am glad that the hon. Lady talked about waiting times, because too often we talk about waiting lists. Patients are often not particularly interested in who is above them on the list; they just want to know how long they will have to wait. However, I take the point from the her question that patients would like to have some indication of how long they are likely to wait. I shall see whether we can do that and look at the ongoing work on opportunities for people to be admitted quickly to hospital—when there is a cancellation, for example.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) (UUP): I recall that, several years ago, I was told by a Minister of State at the Department of Health that when waiting lists at any particular hospital exceed a certain point, the Department's practice is to send in a team of people to trawl through the waiting list, and that when they do that they can invariably reduce the numbers on the waiting list and consequently increase the efficiency of the hospital. When I received that information, I checked and discovered that the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland did not have a similar practice. I wonder if it now has.
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Angela Smith: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that that exercise has been undertaken—it is called a validation process. Last year, the lists were examined to see whether they were accurate. They may not have been accurate for a number of reasons: people might have gone elsewhere for treatment, or might no longer have needed the treatment, or might have had the treatment privately. That contributed to some extent to the reduction in the waiting lists, but the crucial element is that we are treating more people year on year. None the less, validation of lists has been undertaken.
Serious and Organised Crime Agency
3. Lady Hermon (North Down) (UUP): To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what discussions he has had with the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in relation to the role and operation of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency in tackling serious and organised crime in Northern Ireland.[202228]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Ian Pearson): My officials have consulted with the PSNI in the development of the statutory framework for SOCA. Although the agency will have a UK-wide remit, the PSNI will continue to have lead responsibility for tackling organised crime in Northern Ireland. Arrangements are in place for further discussions between the PSNI and representatives of the agency to agree the relationship between SOCA and the PSNI.
Lady Hermon: I am grateful to the Minister for that lengthy response and appreciate the detail. However, I was concerned by the fact that we in Northern Ireland now have the PSNI, our own local Northern Ireland organised crime taskforce, and the Assets Recovery Agency. Will the Minister in his future discussions with the Chief Constable guarantee that SOCA—the new organisation—will have a structured relationship with all the other organisations already fighting organised crime in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Pearson: I can certainly give the hon. Lady the assurance that she seeks. Our intention is to agree a memorandum of understanding and a series of protocols between the PSNI and SOCA. We anticipate that a representative of the new agency will also join the Northern Ireland organised crime taskforce, which I chair and which, as the hon. Lady is aware, is an umbrella organisation committed to tackling organised crime in Northern Ireland.
Education Boards
4. Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down) (SDLP): If he will make a statement on the statutory obligations of education boards.[202229]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Barry Gardiner): Boards have statutory responsibility for the provision of primary and secondary education; educational services for children with special needs; library service; youth service; adult education; school meals; and services to education. Under legislation, boards are also required, to submit for departmental approval, resource allocation plans setting out the board's estimated use
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of resources annually. To avoid a breach of public expenditure rules, resources allocated may only be used in accordance with the approved spending plan.
Mr. McGrady: I thank the Minister for a comprehensive reply and for his clever anticipation of my supplementary question. He mentioned that part of the statutory duty of the education boards is to provide for children with special educational needs and for those who require transport to school. Does he agree that those two statutory functions are demand-led? He will be aware of the law case of Queensmead school v. Hillingdon council in 1997, which stated that the absence of resources does not justify a failure to meet the special needs of children. If resources are not available to the education boards at present, how can the Minister not provide additional funding to the boards to enable them to perform the statutory functions for which they are liable in civil law?
Mr. Gardiner: Let me make it absolutely clear that sufficient resources are being, and always have been, provided to the boards to enable them to perform their statutory functions. I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that the two services—special educational needs and transport—are demand-led. He will see from the changes made in the past four years, from the 2000 budget to the current budget, that 2,000 more children have had their needs identified and met—an increase of 25 per cent. Furthermore, in the past two years, there has been a £13.7 million increase in funding to the boards for special educational needs, and the draft budget—obviously it needs to be confirmed—shows that £21.8 million will be going into special educational needs in the coming budgetary period. I am absolutely confident that sufficient resources will be made available to the boards to fulfil their statutory obligations in that respect.
Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): Is it not time that the Government made the provision of integrated education a statutory obligation? Integrated education—it should really be called non-denominational education—is one of the most important elements in normalising the Northern Ireland community. Will the Minister comment on the Government's plans to ensure that everyone who wants to send their child to an integrated school is able to do so, given that it is the most over-subscribed element of the Northern Ireland education system?
Mr. Gardiner: The Government have an obligation to encourage and facilitate integrated education in Northern Ireland and that is exactly what we do. I sometimes think that the hon. Gentleman would like us to have an obligation to promote integrated education. We do not have such an obligation and it is not right that we should. What we need to do is to give primacy to parental choice: it is for parents to decide what sort of educational provision they want for their children, and it is for us then to seek to provide that facility for children after parents have made their choice.
Mr. Iain Luke (Dundee, East) (Lab): On that point, given the nature of the debate we will have later in this sitting, I ask the Minister whether there is an obligation on school boards in Northern Ireland to
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promote community understanding and awareness as a means of securing racial harmony rather than racial harassment? If not, will he consider including that in future legislation relating to school boards?
Mr. Gardiner: Those elements are already part of the curriculum being offered—increasingly so under the new curriculum framework that I have accepted. It is part of education so that children understand and learn to respect the differences between the communities as they should. That is very much part of the curriculum and I pay tribute to the teachers who are driving that message home, often in very difficult circumstances.
Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim) (UUP): A large number of rural schools in Northern Ireland are threatened as a result of the cash crisis that faces the education and library boards. Northern Ireland schools are an integral part of the education system and the rural way of life, and their success easily matches the excellence and productivity of their urban counterparts. I accept that there is an obligation on area boards to live within their finances, but does the Minister accept any responsibility for his part in causing the financial crisis that boards are facing? He is presenting them with a mission impossible that will result in essential services having to be withdrawn and damage the successful education service that has been developed.
Mr. Gardiner: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's premise. In the past four years, funding has risen by 43 per cent. while there has been a 3.3 per cent. decline in the pupil population. He rightly highlights a real problem for rural communities in Northern Ireland, but that problem has not come about because of underfunding, as he suggested; it has come about because of declining rolls. In 2010, there will be 12,000 fewer pupils in our schools. Small communities in isolated areas often find that the overheads make running a school for so few pupils not cost effective. We have inserted into the common funding formula rural schools criteria, which will address some of the problems faced by rural communities in sustaining small schools. The same applies to schools for a small, isolated community of one denomination which needs to maintain a school in a larger community.
I accept that small schools face particular pressures in conditions of declining rolls, but I cannot accept that those problems are caused by general underfunding of schools. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the profile and per pupil funding from 2000 to the end of the budgetary period, he will see that per pupil funding will increase by 76 per cent. I am sure that as a businessman he would agree that a 76 per cent. rise in funding per capita at a time when inflation is at 2 per cent. is a pretty good deal.
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