HC Deb 12 November 1959 vol 613 cc573-4
30. Mr. Sydney Irving

asked the Minister of Education if he will make a statement on the progress being made to implement the proposals in the White Paper, Secondary Education for All.

Mr. K. Thompson

My right hon. Friend has already approved school-building programmes for the two years 1960–61 and 1961–62, so that local authorities may plan ahead. The programmes provide for work to start on about 1,300 projects. More than half of these are for the reorganisation of all-age schools and improvements. Plans for adding 16,000 places to the training colleges are already in train and my right hon. Friend is reviewing the various means by which the number of teachers might be further increased.

Mr. Irving

Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that it is already absolutely clear that the proper development of secondary education cannot be achieved within the financial provisions of the White Paper? Is he aware that many local education authorities are very greatly disturbed by the savage cuts that his Department has made in their proposals for school building for secondary education in the next two years? Is he also aware that the Kent Education Committee envisages, after calculation, that the proper improvement of their secondary education will take, not five years as set out in the White Paper, but thirty years? In view of the urgent necessity to improve secondary education, will the Government review the White Paper and its proposals?

Mr. Thompson

What has emerged is that the White Paper proposals are fundamentally sound, and that we are quite right to proceed with them as fast as we can. But we cannot do everything at once. We must use our resources to the best possible effect.

Mr. M. Stewart

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, whether the proposals are sound or not, they cannot be put into operation unless the local authorities have sufficient money, and that the money provided for them for the first two years in general grant has already been shown to be insufficient because the assumptions in the general grant Order as to what would happen to the salaries of teachers have already been falsified? What does he intend to do about that?

Mr. Thompson

Nevertheless, the proposals in the White Paper for the first two of the five years are basically sound, and we propose to continue with them.