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Nursery Vouchers
15. Mr. Touhig: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how much she plans to spend on publicity relating to the national implementation of the nursery voucher scheme. [2085]
Mr. Robin Squire: The estimated budget for publicity about the nursery education voucher scheme in England, up to its initial implementation, is £1,900,000--or 0.25 per cent. of total estimated expenditure on the scheme. The publicity will include essential information for more than 650,000 parents and some 40,000 providers of nursery education.
Mr. Touhig: That is in addition to the £1.1 million spent on promoting the pilot scheme. Does the Minister agree that Britain's four-year-olds are more deserving of taxpayers' revenue than the advertising industry? If he does, how does he justify spending £3 million on advertising the nursery voucher scheme when that amount could provide an extra 2,500 nursery places?
Mr. Squire: The hon. Gentleman has obviously been asleep. Next year, a total of £750 million will be spent on nursery places, of which £165 million will be new money and go only into pre-school provision. To ensure that parents and, indeed, providers are able to take full advantage of the scheme, it is essential--indeed, it would be a dereliction of duty by the Government if we did not ensure it--that, as in phase 1, parents are able to see the expansion of places and the enhancement of opportunity.
Mr. Hawkins: Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way in which to publicise the great success of the nursery voucher scheme would be to ask the parents of children who have benefited from the vouchers in the pilot areas, such as Norfolk and various London boroughs, to publicise it? Will he join me in inviting the Labour party to condemn the schools in Labour and Liberal Democrat-controlled LEAs that have tried to blackmail parents by telling them that they can send their children
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to the popular state schools only if they attend the authorities' nurseries, thus destroying the choice that many parents want to exercise through nursery vouchers as between state and private sector nurseries? Are not we about choice and diversity and the Opposition, as always, about trying to force parents down the state road only?
Mr. Squire: My hon. Friend is right in both his main points. One of many interesting statistics that were published today is the independent survey of parental opinion which shows that vouchers are popular with parents in phase 1. I have no doubt that they will be popular in phase 2. On his second point, the concern that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have about the possibility of LEAs or individual schools acting in the way he described has led to our writing a letter to every LEA reminding them that simply cramming more four-year-olds into overcrowded reception classes will not necessarily be the best way forward, and encouraging them to draw on the examples of authorities such as Shropshire, Norfolk and York, which have already recognised the advantages of partnership.
Mr. Blunkett: Was it not this Government who removed the minimum space requirements--a policy that has allegedly led to the cramming of children into reception classes? Is it not a fact that no one has ever had to advertise nursery places, only nursery vouchers? The use of £900,000 of public money on television and radio advertising out of the £3 million total budget is nothing short of a scandalous and blatant political exercise to try to win votes.
Mr. Squire: I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong on every material particular. He is certainly wrong to suggest that the advertisements are in some way party political. [Interruption.] If those hon. Members who disagree had seen the advertisements, they would know that they are as party political as the weather forecast, but slightly more interesting.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) for his campaign attacking nursery vouchers. I am enormously relieved that he is giving us so much extra free publicity, reminding parents across the country what they will lose if Labour gets in at the next election.
Assisted Places Scheme
16. Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many places at private schools are being financed by the assisted places scheme in the 1996-97 academic year. [2086]
Mrs. Gillan: There are 37,816 assisted places available at 355 schools in England.
Mr. Williams: There are 7 million children in schools in England and Wales. The assisted places scheme benefits only a tiny minority--less than 1 per cent. How can it be right to take resources away from the many to benefit just a few? How does that square with the Prime Minister's avowed intention of creating a classless society and opportunity for all?
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Mrs. Gillan: I cannot believe that the Labour Members are still peddling their opposition to the assisted places scheme. It is extremely good value for money, as I have said many times from the Dispatch Box. The average cost of an assisted place is somewhat higher than, but of the same order as, an average maintained pupil place. The difference is not excessive. An assisted place, the average cost of which is £3,700, is better value than the cost of maintained places in authorities such as Hackney and Lambeth.
Mr. Fabricant: Is not it true that 70 per cent. of those going into secondary education with the assisted places scheme come from maintained primary schools? It is simple arithmetic that, if they were not going to private schools with the assisted places scheme, their education would have to be funded by local education authorities. Is it not about time that the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) put his short trousers back on, went back to school and learnt some basic arithmetic?
Mrs. Gillan: We want to spare you the sight of the hon. Member for Carmarthen in short trousers, Madam Speaker. My hon. Friend is right. Nearly 70 per cent. of pupils on the assisted places scheme come from maintained primary schools.
The most important fact about the scheme is that 40 per cent. of the assisted pupils come from families with a total annual income lower than £9,874. Some 80 per cent. come from families with an income lower than the national average. Labour Members want to take away that opportunity for children from poor families. They should be ashamed of continuing to peddle their disgraceful policy.
17. Mr. Pearson:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many children from Dudley metropolitan borough are currently being educated at schools through the assisted places scheme. [2087]
Mrs. Gillan:
Information about the local education authority area from which assisted pupils originate is not collected centrally.
Mr. Pearson:
Is it not unjust and unfair that the Government are prepared to shell out millions of pounds to provide elitist private education to a handful of children in Dudley when 4,500 five, six and seven-year-olds in the borough's cash-strapped schools are suffering in class sizes of 30 or more? Does not new Labour's pledge to cut class sizes for youngsters show which party really cares about educational opportunities for all?
Mrs. Gillan:
The hon. Gentleman had better check up. This is not new Labour, but old Labour. This is the politics of envy. This is the Labour party that says to poor families, "Your children are not going to be allowed to have the chance that our children have had or we have had." The hon. Gentleman should look closely at the assisted places scheme, at the value for money it offers and at the results achieved by the pupils. He should recognise that it is about time the education policies of the Opposition parties started to level up rather than down.
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Nursery Vouchers
18. Mr. William O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will visit Normanton to discuss nursery vouchers with (a) parents, (b) governors and (c) teachers. [2088]
Mr. Robin Squire: No, but my right hon. Friend and her Ministers have discussed the benefits of the nursery education voucher scheme at a number of events up and down the country.
Mr. O'Brien: That reply is obviously disappointing because parents, governors and teachers at St. John's school, and at other schools in my constituency such as Wrenthorpe and Outwood, would like the opportunity to tell the Secretary of State that they want the Government to provide more nursery places rather than spend £3 million on publicity. Parents want nursery places rather than vouchers and publicity on the issue.
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Parents would also like the opportunity to tell the Secretary of State that they support Wakefield local education authority's nursery provision for three-and-a-half-year-olds and that they want nursery facilities in the area to be extended. It is disappointing that we do not have the opportunity to tell the Secretary of State exactly what people require in the areas that I represent.
Mr. Squire:
The hon. Gentleman must have misheard or not heard when I said a moment ago that another £165 million will be spent--next year alone--on pre-school education. He quotes a tiny fraction of that money, which is essential expenditure on publicity, as the totality of new spend. I say to the hon. Gentleman and to other hon. Members from areas where there is currently high provision that, if the present quality of provision by local authority schools is as good as they say it is, parents will undoubtedly continue to use those facilities. If the provision is not as good as that, parents should have the choice to look elsewhere.
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