| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.34 pm
Mr. Iain Mills (Meriden): I am concerned about aspects of the education Bill, and I may not have time to refer to other topics that have been mentioned in the debate.
Grant-maintained schools are good, provided we follow through what the Secretary of State for Education and Employment said to me earlier and on other occasions about parental choice. There is a balloting procedure for that. I am not against the parts of the Bill that will allow grant-maintained schools to borrow money, but to consider going further--the Church schools in my constituency are concerned that we are considering doing that--and forcing parents and others to move to grant-maintained status would be a denial of their freedom of choice.
We have gone far enough with grant-maintained or grant-aided schools. The local management system has been brilliant. In Solihull, of which I represent half, while the urban half is represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), it has worked extremely well. To force schools into grant-maintained status would be wrong. I have one grant-maintained school in my constituency. Every other major school has held a ballot and has decided not to go grant-maintained. How can I justify to my constituents any measure that would force them to move further in that direction?
I hope that there will be a definitive answer about Church schools, because my constituency contains several Church of England and Catholic schools, which provide excellent education. Metaphorically speaking, there are queues for places outside some of them. It is difficult to see why any demand management or market management should require any change in status for schools that are doing extremely well and are working hard, not only to be efficient but to develop sources of income apart from the LEA. They are doing that very well. I always present the prizes at the raffles. Perhaps raffles do not raise that much money, but they show the ability and willingness of the schools to raise money for themselves.
In the context of market demand, I should now like to deal with nursery education in Solihull. The Secretary of State agreed with me when I said in an intervention that Solihull provides excellent nursery education. She has seen it for herself, and I assure her that what she saw is an example of the nursery education that is provided throughout Solihull. I have had many letters and petitions, and I have been overwhelmed by the number of chairmen of governors, governors and parents who have come to my advice bureaux over the past couple of months. Other people with burning questions and problems have almost had to wait while I dealt with those delegations.
Bluntly, they were all concerned about why we should have a socialist, bureaucratic, central system of nursery vouchers dictated by the state, when individual local education authorities already have a good system. Why should a Conservative Government force a system upon LEAs? Why can there not be an opt-out, a "those who are not doing the right job" type of system?
Ministers shake their heads in disagreement. I shall read out a few concerns that are being expressed by my local education authority, which is one of the few Conservative-controlled authorities in the west Midlands.
We are not talking about a Labour authority, just to please my colleagues on the Opposition Benches. These are Conservatives, and I share their views and have been convinced. Their concern is that an increasing number of parents are being affected by the funding method, as it is
I hope that the Minister will take the trouble to respond to that. I repeat: the deduction of the under-five SSA and the methodology mean the current providers of education for four-year-olds lose resources. The letter continues:
We have run a computer programme that shows that about 42 local education authorities and boroughs have a similar problem. I have talked to Ministers. I have two letters from the Under-Secretary of State for Schools. I have spoken to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, who tells me I am wrong. My own people, including the chairman of the education committee, who is here today, have told me that they are not wrong. Yet again, Solihull is suffering.
There is an additional problem. Earlier this year, I questioned the Secretary of State for the Environment about the settlement of council tax SSAs. He admitted that the calculation of SSAs on education for Solihull was unfair, so I reiterate that it is a blunt tool to use a national scheme on a local education authority that is providing good education.
Why are a Conservative Government forcing an excellent Conservative-controlled local authority, which is doing a good job, which parents, teachers and governors want, to accept such a scheme? I cannot support the education legislation. I will do everything possible to oppose it, both in the House and outside. [Hon Members:
"Hear, hear."] I can see that colleagues like that thought.
Unless there is real explanation and some form of dispensation for councils such as Solihull, I cannot accept--unless the Government give me a complete answer--that such a scheme should apply, even if they say, as the Under-Secretary of State for Schools said to me earlier today, that it depends on one parent opting out of a four-year-old scheme and on all the arguments that I have in great detail on paper. Why on earth have we introduced a scheme that affects councils that are already doing a good job? Why not leave them to continue to do the job that they have been doing?
Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills)-- not in a political sense, I hasten to add, but in the sense that he has at least listened to his constituents and to his local authority. I agree with his comments about the Child Support Agency, which is a nightmare for many hon. Members. Many surgeries are full of cases where, clearly, the amounts charged are excessive and exorbitant. When one tries to engage in correspondence with the CSA, one is lucky if one receives a reply. If one does receive one, it misses the point. The agency is obstructive and rude, and does not manage in the interests of the children involved.
Often, there are children in the second marriage too, and the CSA forgets all about those. Of course it is not meant to take the new wife's income into account, but it does. Every rule we create in this House gets broken. Many Conservative Members would agree that the time has come for the whole system to be overhauled. It is a classic example of legislating in haste and repenting at length. Many people suffer as a result of our mistakes in the House, and I blame myself among everyone else when I say that.
I hope that the example of the hon. Member for Meriden will be taken on board by the Home Secretary when he deals with the various Bills in the Queen's Speech. I intend briefly to deal with them. Disclosure is of considerable importance. I declare an interest at this stage as a practising barrister who has both prosecuted and defended, and therefore it is a subject that is well known to me.
The problem with disclosure is that, sadly, there has been a wish to hide and to secrete away matters that could be of great value sometimes even to the prosecution, if they landed in the hands of the prosecuting lawyers, as well as often to the defence. Whether one is prosecuting or defending, there is nothing worse than having a long and detailed trial that collapses because something is suddenly disclosed. In such cases, there is such a great waste of money. When the legislation is introduced on this subject, I hope that we will consider it with great care.
The Court of Appeal rulings in ward and others were a guideline to the direction in which we should go, but they were not the definitive answer. I do not want a paper chase developing, with masses of unnecessary paper being copied. There are ways of dealing sensibly with this matter.
I hope that the House will take time--I make no criticism of any person when I say this--to debate the matters that arose in the Ordtech case and that will arise again in the Scott inquiry. Men went on trial--I do not know who is to blame, or point the finger on anyone at this stage--when documents that could clear them were clearly hidden for reasons of one sort or another.
I do not lay any blame, because one wonders what the prosecuting counsel and the judge were doing in the Ordtech trial, whether the judge ever saw the documentation, or whether prosecution counsel ever realised its value. Those matters need to be considered. We will have the matter of public interest immunity before the House when Lord justice Scott reports eventually.
I am extremely worried about the way in which the asylum and immigration legislation has been reported today. Not a single hon. Member wants the illegal immigrant, the guy who breaks the rules, to get in--I do
not think anyone wants that. That is not and should not be a party political matter, but we must always remember that, from time to time, there are places where events occur, regimes come into power, decisions are made, and people are persecuted because of their ethnic origin, their colour or their creed.
"principally by a deduction of existing Under 5's SSA using a methodology whereby only the current providers of education for 4 year olds"--
including Solihull--
"lose resources."
"in Solihull, the deduction rate proportionally far exceeds the amount of SSA allocated for the Service. The effect of the methodology is that current low providers of Under 5's education actually retain their SSA, whilst their area receives a second injection of Under 5's funding, because the parents in their area also receive the £1,100 vouchers. Many LEAs retain 50-76% of Under 5's SSA while Solihull loses 90%."
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |