HC Deb 30 November 1960 vol 631 cc546-56

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

11.0 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman (Falmouth and Camborne)

Within the time available for this short debate it is not possible to review the Cornish school-building programme over a long period or in detail. I will mention the drastic economies demanded by the then Minister of Education in 1952. In July, 1956, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education wrote to me explaining why a cut in Cornwall's programme for 1956–57 was necessary. HANSARD of 2nd July, 1957, records my Questions and the then Parliamentary Secretary's Answers about severe cuts in the Cornish programmes for 1960–61 and 1961–62. On 27th October, 1960, I questioned the Minister on a cut in the 1962–63 programme from £840,000 to £130,000. Since then a deputation has met officers at the Ministry and got little except a dose of soothing syrup, as did a similar deputation a few years ago.

A development programme was prepared for providing schools and education fit for the children of the heroes of the First World War. In those forty years since then, progress has been halted so often by Tory Governments that even the most optimistic educationists have become disillusioned, and too often the staff have become cynical—and who can blame them?

There have been three clearly defined phases of school-building activity in Cornwall in the past century—one in the 1870s. following the Education Act, 1870, a truly magnificent effort for that day and age; the second, from 1907 to 1914, when a chain of maintained grammar schools was built throughout the county, as well as some primary schools; and the third in the last decade, when fourteen secondary schools, some primary schools and the Cornwall Technical College have been built. Two world wars stopped all building, and there was mass unemployment in the county between the wars. This in part accounts for the few schools built then. The whole of my constituency is a B.O.T.A.C. area even now.

There are fifty-one maintained secondary schools in Cornwall. Three were built by the school boards almost ninety years ago; two more former board schools are over eighty years old; three were built during the last decade of the nineteenth century; eighteen were built between 1900 and 1914, ten between the two world wars and fifteen in the last twelve years. Thus, more than half were built before the First World War began, nearly half-a-century ago. This is the measure of the problem of old and inadequate school buildings. At the present rate of progress in school building permitted by the Ministry, it will take twenty-five years to fulfil the development plan for secondary schools alone.

I should like to turn to the two grammar schools at Falmouth, in my constituency, because they illustrate the county problem quite well. That for girls was built in 1908 and that for boys in 1912. In my view, both schools are so woefully inadequate in accommodation as to make a mockery of the term "grammar school education." That such conditions exist in Britain today is a disgrace to a modern democratic society

I could easily spend the whole of my time in this debate on the deficiencies of one school. There are 340 girls in the County High School, including a sixth form of fifty-seven girls. There is no physics laboratory, and there are only eight ordinary form rooms. The ancient Army but of 1914–18 war vintage is still used. No rooms are available for sixth form division lessons. These fifty-seven girls must be taught in a small open space at the head of the main staircase, in a cloak room and in the servery. The girls' cloak rooms are so tiny that two girls have to share a single peg. There is one small cloak roam for the headmistress, thirteen mistresses and six masters. The assembly hall will accommodate only two-thirds of the school and must also be used for physical education, two sittings of dinner, choir practice, violin lessons, and so forth.

In the grammar school for boys there are between 400 and 500 boys, of whom over a hundred are in the sixth form. The school was built before the First World War to accommodate 150 boys. Half a century later, with over three times that number of pupils, the original main building provides the bulk of the accommodation. Some additions have been provided since 1957 but these are mainly laboratories. Even so, two more are needed. The assembly hall, which is in the original building, will seat 120 boys but there are nearly four times that number to be accommodated.

What a farce it all is. On wet days, when games must be cancelled because of gales and heavy rain, the headmaster and his staff are at their wits' end to know how to provide for boys whose rooms are being occupied by others. I will let the Parliamentary Secretary have letters from the head teachers outlining these acute problems so that he can study them carefully. They will reveal appalling deficiencies of accommodation. A new mixed grammar school in Falmouth is an absolute necessity.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins (Cornwall, North)

The hon. Gentleman will, no doubt, agree that Falmouth is not the only place where new schools are required in Cornwall. He will be aware that one is required in Newquay and another in Launceston, for example?

Mr. Hayman

I prefer to make my own speech. I have already referred to the fact that under this Government the development plan for replacing the defective secondary schools in Cornwall will take twenty-five years. I have made the point about the other schools. I understand that Newquay is to get a new school in three or four years' time.

As I was saying, a new mixed grammar school in Falmouth is an absolute necessity. It was included in the 1962–63 building programme by the local education authority, but was struck out by the Minister. The people of Falmouth have a right to demand that it be restored, and I hope the Minister will do that.

The new county secondary school at Trescobeas was built in 1957 to accommodate 600 boys and girls. There are now over 800. Obviously, such overcrowding prevents real secondary education. Here, too, the timetable problems are terrific. When the new grammar school is built the building now used for boys will be available to relieve some of the overcrowding at Trescobeas. The Minister should bear in mind that when the old American hutted building is vacated and its scholars go to the new county secondary school at Penryn, the site must go back to the borough council and the buildings will then be removed. I am glad to hear that after pressure a new primary school has been sanctioned for Falmouth. The present accommodation is poor indeed. One school has been housed entirely in the Sunday school of the Baptist church since its own school building was destroyed by a bomb during the last war.

Summing up this part of my speech, I would say that the case for a new grammar school in Falmouth is overwhelming. I have already said that these two schools are but examples of many. The grammar schools at Redruth and at Camborne are as bad. These, too, are in my constituency. One gleam of brightness in the dismal story is the Cornwall Technical College in Camborne-Redruth. I am grateful to the local education authority and to successive Ministers, including my late right hon. Friend George Tomlinson, for their help. Since 1957, an engineering block has been built at a cost of £202,000 and a women's and catering block at a cost of £110,000 has been sanctioned.

There are, however, serious problems at Falmouth and at St. Austell. At Falmouth, we have the largest tanker port in the United Kingdom. Around St. Austell, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson), is the vastly important china clay industry. Surely, these require technical facilities and the best that are possible. Both the Falmouth Technical College and the St. Austell Technical Institute should expand considerably and quickly. They could then relieve the Cornwall Technical College of younger students, who now travel long distances there from these towns.

I ask the Minister to study the long and detailed letter on this subject which was sent to him in March, 1960, by the secretary for education for Cornwall. At Falmouth, the technical college has been built around what I have heard described as the "ancient monument" block. I know it well. I emphasise the paramount necessity for adequate technical facilities for industrial belts like Falmouth and St. Austell and I beg the Minister to remember the long distances that, inevitably, many Cornish students must travel to get the right technical education.

Consider the building programmes. These figures which I shall now quote, which relate to secondary and primary schools, tell their own story. The year 1958–59, £366,000 reduced from £470,000 as a result of an economy circular from the Minister; 1959–60, £337,000; 1960–61, £421,000; 1961–62, £367,000; 1962–63, £125,000; 1963–64, £161,000; and 1964–65, so far approved, £221,000.

The Parliamentary Secretary was kind enough to tell me a few days ago that the sum for 1963–64 would include the Constantine county primary school. I can inform him that in a development programme for Cornwall, approved in 1936, this school was given priority above all other primary schools in Cornwall. I certainly hope that it will come about soon, because economy could be achieved through the closing of the Ponjeravah school in the same village.

Surely, severe cuts are quite inappropriate. They completely disrupt building programmes which have been carefully prepared and make a mockery of planning. What has Cornwall done to be treated like this? According to an Answer given by the Minister in the House not long ago, Staffordshire is getting a disproportionately large amount of the money available for school building compared with Cornwall—four or five times as much proportionately—and it seems to me that Cornwall is entitled to a fair deal in this respect.

In the White Paper, Secondary Education for All—A New Drive, published about two years ago, paragraph 22 refers to a continuous building programme for primary and secondary schools, covering the five years from 1960–61 to 1964–65 but I would ask how can Cornwall possibly call the programme which it has "a new drive"? I call it a halting and crippled programme. There is nothing of drive about it. Its progress is like that of an injured kangaroo, jumping forward in fits and starts; and the Minister is responsible

Paragraph 26 states that The Government believe that a big advance towards real secondary education for all can be made within a five-year programme". The fact is that two years have passed since that was published, and I am told that the first year in which any unsatisfactory secondary school buildings can be replaced in Cornwall is 1961–62. To complete the job, for secondary schools only, at the rate of the Government's progress schedule, will take twenty-five years.

The very success of the Cornwall rural reorganisation policy since 1952 has made the problem of secondary school buildings more acute. I hope that the drive of the local education authority will be matched by the drive of the Minister. The Minister has said that in the country as a whole today, one child in three attends a new school. He has often said that, but in Cornwall the ration is less than one in five. Why should my native county be treated so badly? My speech may seem like a dirge creating a mood of despair and despondency, but it is a catalogue of facts and must be regarded as such; and I stress the word "facts".

The position I have described is grim. It is a grave indictment of Government policy, and only the Minister can provide the remedy, which is more money—considerably more money for school building in Cornwall every year for the next ten years. I beg him to provide it before it is too late. May I plead with the Parliamentary Secretary to do me the honour of reading and re-reading this speech in HANSARD? I can promise him that it will lessen the number of Parliamentary Questions he will get in the days to come.

Mr. Douglas Marshall (Bodmin)

I do not want to interrupt between the hon. Gentleman the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) and the Parliamentary Secretary's reply, but I should not like this opportunity to pass without some hon. Member from this side of the House paying a tribute of respect to the late Mr. George Tomlinson. I am very glad that he has been mentioned.

11.18 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins (Cornwall, North)

I find myself to a large extent in agreement with what has been said by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman), and I hope that he will not forget that in Cornwall we have had a great loss in having our programme for the future cut. We have had to reorganise our schools rather than rebuild them and replace them, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will answer this debate in as conciliatory a fashion as he can. We are suffering from being unable to replace schools which are undoubtedly not fit for the purpose of teaching our children.

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson (Truro)

I also do not want to delay the Parliamentary Secretary, but it should be pointed out that Cornwall differs, not only in the racial origins of its people, but also in the long industrial tradition it has. It has a tradition much older than that of Yorkshire or Lancashire. There are families in Cornwall which for hundreds of years have produced miners and engineers who have gone all over the world. It is important that these people should have the best possible technical education, and they cannot get that unless it is started in the primary schools and carried right up through the secondary and grammar schools.

11.20 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson)

First of all, it will be the wish of the House that I should say what pleasure it gives us to see the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) sitting on the Opposition Front Bench for this debate. I welcome him on my own behalf, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, and on behalf of all those "shadow" Ministers of Education on the Labour benches. We watch with fascination this education procession along the Opposition Front Bench.

I have not very long in which to reply to the very detailed argument put by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Cam-borne (Mr. Hayman). There is no doubt that the change in the tempo of school building in the county, which is reflected in the size of the building programme allowed for 1962–63, caused a great disappointment in Cornwall, particularly among the enthusiastic educationists with whom the county is fortunately blessed.

It is not, however, some wicked diversion by my right hon. Friend or anyone in the Department. These things are not done on a haphazard or "catch-as-catch-can" basis, in order to deprive a progressive and active local authority of the fruits of its efforts and ingenuity. Far from it.

For a variety of reasons—some of the credit for which must go to my Department—Cornwall has pressed on with the re-organisation of its schools. This has involved a great deal of new building and extensions to existing school buildings. Because of the help the county was given in the early stages of that programme in accomplishing this process, help which, of necessity, was given simply because there was so much re-organising to be done, Cornwall found itself in front of the great majority of English counties bearing in mind the three priorities commended in the White Paper.

The order of these priorities was, firstly, the re-organisation of schools into junior and secondary schools; secondly, the provision of new schools where these were needed to accommodate new school populations; and thirdly, the provision of replacements and improvements for secondary schools already existing.

There is no dispute that the grammar schools and secondary schools, to which references have been made, need in most cases to be either replaced or improved. But it would be wrong for the Department at this stage in this five-year programme to depart from what is an essential order of priorities.

There was an interesting moment when the hon. Member for Falmouth and Cam-borne was interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) to signify that all was not sweet harmony, even in Cornwall, on the question of whether priority should be given to Falmouth or to Newquay. It is in that atmosphere that we have to draw up a national programme.

Mr. Hayman

I did not disagree with the hon. Member for Cornwall, North.

Mr. Thompson

No. I did not suppose for a moment that the hon. Member did. This same situation applies on a national scale. Unless we stick firmly to our order of priorities, nothing good will come out of the programme for any of the authorities in the country. There are still authorities in England and Wales which have not yet completed their reorganisation programmes. That is the first priority.

So we must put the emphasis, where we can, on the building programmes of those authorities. That means that some authorities such as Cornwall, which had a very good start, must now wait while less fortunate ones get a chance to catch up. When that is done, we still have to say that wherever new populations are appearing—in the new towns or in new estates on the peripheries of old towns, and wherever people are attracted by great industrial activity—there we must provide new schools. Then we can turn our attention to the more urgent needs of the secondary and grammar schools which need modernising or replacing.

Now I come to the figures, which the hon. Member mentioned, for the years 1963–64 and 1964–65. It is essential to remember that this is a five-year programme and, with the best will in the world, the whole programme cannot be carried out in anything less than that time. The Cornwall authority sent a deputation to see officials of my Department and we were greatly impressed with the case which the members of the deputation made and with the moderation and good temper with which they stated it. There is no doubt that they are extremely anxious to get on with the next stage of improving the secondary school buildings in the county, and we very much hope to be able to help them.

There is no reason why they should regard the £130,000 allowed for 1962–63 as setting an immutable pattern for the remaining two years of the five-year programme. Neither should they regard the particular projects which have been accepted already for 1963–64, or 1964–65, as necessarily being all that the programmes for those years will include.

We are asking the authority to provide us with more information so that we can reach a firm decision on the next stage of development of the Falmouth school which the hon. Member mentioned. Since the girls' school is very much more in need of improvement than is the boys' school, it may prove wise in the light of advice to be given us to build the new accommodation in two instalments.

Mr. Hayman

I remind the hon. Gentleman that a new mixed grammar school is in the programme to replace both existing grammar schools.

Mr. Thompson

I know, but it may prove possible to do it only by two instalments. We want more up-to-date figures which will enable us to reach a firm decision, bearing in mind always that at no stage of this five-year programme, even when we approach the end of it, are we likely to be at all clear of the competition between priorities within that programme, both for Cornwall itself and for all the other 145 local education authorities throughout the country. It is always bound to be an extremely difficult job for my right hon. Friend to preside over discussions which result in the allocation of building programmes to various authorities.

The hon. Member made a passing reference, very properly, to the needs of technical and further education within the county. As he knows, there is a separate programme for further and technical education, apart from the building programmes for secondary and primary schools which we are now discussing. Here, again, there is no lack of pressure on my right hon. Friend to provide these facilities elsewhere in the country, and it is a question of assessing where the most urgent needs are and how far they can be met.

What is happening in the country, in Cornwall as elsewhere, is that we are now having to reinforce the success of the earlier education drive which began some years ago and which is now producing as its fruits an intensified demand for more and better education everywhere in the country. In a way, the hon. Member himself paid tribute to the success of this programme by pointing out that there are large sixth forms in the schools to which he was referring.

They are living mainly in extremely difficult conditions and they may be managing without all the tools of the trade. Indeed, it is true that they are. I pay tribute to the teachers and the staffs of the schools who are producing such strikingly good results in such difficult circumstances. This, as I have said, is because of the growth of interest in, and the growth of demand for, more and better education. I hope that this will continue and that there will not be any slackening of the pressure by local authorities to see that we provide the very best that our resources allow. I assure the hon. Member and my hon. Friends and all who are interested in and concerned about education in Cornwall that we shall go on doing the best we can to see that, within our resources, the finest possible standard of schools and accommodation and educational provision generally is maintained in that county.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Eleven o'clock.