§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. M. Hamilton.]
§ 4.3 p.m.
§ Mr. Charles Curran (Uxbridge)I rise in order to ask about the facilities being provided for further education throughout West Middlesex. This is a matter which concerns my constituency, but it also concerns just as much and just as urgently a great many constituencies around mine. In this area with a population of several hundreds of thousands, the educational facilities have not got a great deal to do with the administrative frontiers. There is a great deal of criss-crossing. People travel both to school and to work over a good many boundaries, and therefore when I ask questions, as I propose to do, about the educational facilities in one part of the area, I recognise that the answers to them will be of interest in other areas as well.
West Middlesex, which extends roughly from Acton to the border with Buckinghamshire, is intensely interested in education, and in particular, I think, it is becoming more and more interested in technical education. There are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that it is an area with a great deal of industry in it. Another reason is that it contains a very large number of people who have themselves come up the educational escalator. They are eager to see that the facilities from which they have benefited shall be extended for their children. I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that the demand in West Middlesex for better educational facilities is a very real one.
It is a demand which—I think I can say this—crosses all the party frontiers. It is something in which the whole population is interested. I think that the whole population will want to know what sort of information the Parliamentary Secretary can give in reply to the questions which I am going to put to him.
I am not going to retread the well-trodden arguments for extending technical education. I think we can take all that as said. I know, and I 1834 think that everybody else interested in the matter knows, that ever since the White Paper of 1956 the Government have been systematically extending the facilities for technical education.
The question I ask first is: how are we getting on with this in West Middlesex? It is quite clear, and it is common ground, I think, that we need two things in West Middlesex. We need more accommodation in the existing technical colleges; and secondly, we need more technical colleges. I want to take each of those points separately.
What is being done to extend the available places in the technical colleges of West Middlesex now? Let me start with Southall Technical College. I know it is not in my own constituency, but, as I have said, there is a very great deal of criss-cross traffic. The facilities provided at Southall Technical College are of interest not only to the people who live in Southall, but also to people who live within travelling distance of it.
As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, this matter has been raised with him several times. It was raised early this year by Hayes and Southall Trades Council. I passed on a letter to my hon. Friend and put some questions to him about what exactly was going to be done. This illustrates my point that this is not a party matter. Hayes and Southall Trades Council is demanding better Technical educational facilities. For myself, although I do not suppose that the members of that council agree with my political outlook, I welcome any pressure which anybody cares to exert to extend and improve educational facilities. The more pressure groups there are in education the better. The bigger and the busier and the more bellicose they are, the better, too. So I welcome the support of the trades council, or of anybody else, in reinforcing the demand for extending education.
When this question about Southall Technical College was raised early this year, the Ministry made a very interesting and, I think, very reassuring reply.
Let me say at this point before I go any further that I am not criticising the Ministry. I am not asserting that it has fallen down on its job. I recognise that it is as concerned as anybody else, 1835 and also that it has exerted itself to meet this demand. I am not getting up in order to lambast it, but in order to find out some facts. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to supply them.
When this question about Southall was raised earlier in the year, the Ministry said that it recognised the need for expanding the College and hoped to increase the workshop capacity there. I agree. So it should. I should now like to know what has been done. That was several months ago. What are the facts now? How far has this extension taken place? How many extra places have been provided?
The Ministry also talked about providing what is described as mobile accommodation. I presume this means something in the nature of pre-fabricated or temporary buildings, which can be moved to another area if the demand for teaching in that area increases. I should like my hon. Friend to clarify that phrase.
Secondly, the Ministry suggested that in addition it would seek to expand the facilities at other technical colleges in West Middlesex. I should like to have some information about that. What sort of extension is going on? What is the programme? What is the progress? What has been done? How many additional places have been provided? How many will be available when the academic year starts in the autumn?
Thirdly, the Ministry suggested that it would seek not only to expand the colleges but also to set up something like a clearing house so that people who applied for a place at one college and were told that there was not one could be directed to another. This is a very valuable and useful idea. What has been done about it? Has this clearing house been set up? If it has, what is the address? I should like to see it publicised. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give us some information about that. I hope further that he will be able to deal, not in general terms but in some detail, with the nature of the expansion now taking place in West Middlesex. Where exactly is it happening? I am interested in Southall. I am equally interested in Ealing, Wembley, Acton, Brentford and Harrow. 1836 They all matter not only to the neighbourhood concerned but to all the people throughout the region.
In addition to expanding existing technical colleges the Ministry has agreed to create a new one. I naturally have a particular interest in this, since it is to be in my own constituency—the Uxbridge Technical College. Again I should like some factual information. When will the job of building this place actually begin? Can the Parliamentary Secretary give a date? Can my hon. Friend tell us when the building will start, when he expects it to finish, when he expects the college to open and how many places it will have when it opens? We need factual detailed information, as precisely as my hon. Friend can give it.
I turn now to another project of equal importance to the technical colleges. As we all know, it has been decided to turn the Brunel College at Acton into a college of advanced technology and to move it to Cowley, near Uxbridge. The projected opening date is 1964–65. In view of the great and growing demand for further technical facilties in West Middlesex, can my hon. Friend look again at the plans for the Brunel College? Is it practicable to bring the date of opening nearer than 1964–65? Is it practicable to review the plan so as to see whether more places can be provided than wore originally projected?
At this point, I should like to ask my hon. Friend about the number of teachers for technical colleges in Middlesex. How many does he have and how many does he want? Can he give us any figures about recruitment or wastage? I do not imagine that he can answer these questions off the cuff in detail, but I should like an indication of the general picture.
Next, I should like to know something about the Ministry's thinking on the general question of technical education. By developing the technical colleges we provide facilities for apprentices to take part-time courses and thereby become craftsmen. There is, however, an idea held by same people, I find—I do not suggest that it is accurate or justified—that the Ministry is rather more enthusiastic about developing higher education. I am not pontificating about this: I have no credentials for doing that. It 1837 may be that the Ministry takes the view that with the advance of technology, we need to put more emphasis upon the training of people for science and engineering degrees than on the training of craftsmen and technicians.
I should like to know the Ministry's thinking about this. How does my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary see the picture? Where does the Ministry consider that the pressure for expansion should be intensified? At what point on the educational spectrum does it want to see the most rapid and most immediate expansion? Would my hon. Friend say that it is not the shortage of craftsmen that matters so much as the shortage of people with science and engineering degrees?
Finally, I want my hon. Friend to give us some sort of picture of the state of affairs that will exist in the autumn. As he will remember, the Hayes Trades Council asserted that last September a good many boys were unable to get further education places in Middlesex, and that in Hayes and Southall the difficulty of finding places for all the people who wanted them was very great.
Does my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary accept that assertion? Is it the case that last autumn it was not easy or practicable to provide technical college places for all the people who wanted them? What will be the position in the coming autumn? We are now in June. The question whether the facilities that we are now in process of providing will be enough to cope with the emerging demand is immediate. Can my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary give us any information about what he expects the state of affairs to be this autumn?
Let me remind my hon. Friend that in the 1955–56 White Paper, which was the starting point for this process, it was said that technical education must be brought within the reach of all. How far are those words coming true in Middlesex? Is it true in Middlesex now that technical education has been brought within the reach of all? Is my hon. Friend able to assure us that when the academic year starts in September, there will be technical college places in Middlesex for all who want them and who are fitted to have them?
1838 This question is of the greatest interest to a great many parents and apprentices. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give detailed, factual assurances. If he can, they will be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of people throughout West Middlesex.
§ 4.22 p.m.
§ Mr. Arthur Skeffington (Hayes and Harlington)Obviously, this is a matter which affects my constituency. Like the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), I was approached by the Hayes and Southall Trades Council about what is said to have happened last September, and I have been in touch with various authorities.
My information is that about 700 students failed to get enrolment at Southall Technical College and that altogether, in Middlesex, according to figures quoted at the Guildhall in April, 1,760 students failed to be enrolled. That is a substantial number. If it is true, it is lamentable. Everybody admits the shortage of skilled craftsmen, technicians and apprentices. The area in question is heavily industrialised. That such a state of affairs has come about fills everyone with the gravest apprehension.
I wonder whether part of the explanation is not due to the fact that the proposed expenditure of £5 million on technical education under the five-year development plan 1958–59 to 1962–63 was cut to £1,300,000. Part of the approval was earmarked, I gather, for the Brunel Technical College, which has not yet been able to be started. The effective approvals come to only £704,000 and, as far as I know, the only work which has been started in the programme 1958–62 is the Ealing Technical College.
No doubt the Parliamentary Secretary can give more encouraging news, but I rise to support the hon. Member because there is considerable apprehension about the position.
§ 4.24 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson)I am glad to have this opportunity, however attenuated, of speaking on the most important subject which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran). First, I wish to take an opportunity to correct some misapprehensions from which some altogether unhelpful deductions are sometimes drawn. My hon. 1839 Friend has been tremendously active in this matter, as we both know from the great exchange of correspondence which we have had and the number of times which we have talked about it, and I hope that as I go along I shall be able to catch up with most of the questions which he has addressed to me.
I am sure that all hon. Members and most people outside will be much encouraged by the fact that we are facing this enormous demand for more provision of facilities of this kind. This is precisely the kind of public climate which we want. We want people to be inspired to come forward and to seek the very kind of facility which we are discussing. I hope that the House regards what has happened in West Middlesex and elsewhere as encouraging rather than frightening.
It is not only in West Middlesex or in Middlesex County that this is happening. It is happening almost everywhere in the country, and we are doing our best to stimulate it to happen still more. This is precisely what we want. We recently issued a book, Forward from School, which sets out the links which there are, and the links which there might be, in the best of all worlds, between the secondary school and the technical education system to which we hope an increasing proportion of our young people will go. What is happening is that all over the country, as these new technical colleges and schools have been developed, and as the courses have expanded, so their attractions have become more apparent to parents and young people alike, and a great growth in the demand has come to face us at this time.
We are doing a great deal to meet the demand. I very much doubt whether society will ever achieve the stage at which it is doing everything which everybody wants it to do. All we can do is our best, and that we are doing. I suppose that the basic question which my hon. Friend addressed to me is whether the Ministry as a Ministry is seeking to concentrate on the production of graduate engineers to the neglect of craftsmen and trained apprentices. We recognise, of course, that we must play our part in the production of a proper number of trained graduate engineers to provide the leadership in our workshops and research organisations throughout 1840 industry. But they will not be very much use unless they are standing upon a very firm base of craftsmen and technicians below, and our object is to get the whole pyramid properly balanced, resting upon a very wide base of craftsmen and technicians and leading to what we hope will be a balanced proportion of graduate enginers and scientists at their proper level.
I have no doubt that the argument will change from time to time as to how the emphasis should be laid, first at this point and then at another, but we must go on trying as best we can to get the balance right as things change from time to time. Out of the technical college building programme for 1963–64, totalling £16.8 million, about £12 million is allocated for 'the local and area colleges, which concentrate mainly on craft and technician work. I should have thought, at first sight, that that balance is about right.
We have a part to play, which is important now and which is increasing in importance, in seeing that the apprentice training of the country is not only right in quantity, which perhaps does not concern my Department quite as much as some people think it ought, but also right in quality, and here we believe that we can help to raise the quality of apprentice training which is going on in the country by providing the full-time integrated apprenticeship courses which are being developed in various parts of the country, and, secondly, by supporting, as we do, group apprenticeship schemes and so on, with the backing of courses in the technical colleges. Thus, we are concerned, and I hope properly demonstrating our concern, for the quality of the apprentices who are turned out at the end of their courses.
My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge demonstrated that the position in West Middlesex is causing some alarm, and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) showed that, not unnaturally, it was subject to a certain amount of confusion. I have no idea of the figures which have been exchanged in the area or the Guildhall. I have heard all sorts of figures, ranging from the 1,700 which he mentioned to considerably over 2,000. So far as we can find out from the authority and those concerned with the colleges, the 1841 number of students who did not get places last September, but who wanted them and who were qualified for them was about 200. That is the figure given to us by the authorities.
It is very sad that there should be even 200 who could not get the kind of further training which they wanted, and I am not minimising the seriousness of it, but let us get it in proportion. I imagine that the difference arises from the fact that everybody collects the statistic representing the young man who did not get what he wanted and will add that to the common pool, without realising that he may have been disappointed at a number of points and that if they are all added together they give a grossly unreal figure.
This leads me to the clearing-house project to which my hon. Friend referred. If we could have a scientifically designed clearing-house system into which every application could be slotted and from which everyone was directed towards the course that he wanted, everything would be crystal clear to everyone who wanted to know the position at any time. But it would be a very complicated piece of machinery. The authority therefore has in mind not so much a clearing house as a clearing system, whereby every young applicant will apply for the course that he wants and which he thinks is appropriate to his needs, at the college of his choice. If he is admitted he presents no problem to himself or to anyone else. It is when he cannot be admitted that he becomes a problem.
I understand that the Middlesex education authority proposes in these oases that the application forms put in by the young men or women shall be directed by the college to the Middlesex education authority offices, which, operating its own machinery and knowing where there will be a suitable vacancy for that young man, will direct his application to the college where a vacancy exists. The applicant himself need do no more than make his first application to the college of his choice for the course of his choice. If he is in, there is no problem, and if he is too late he will be directed by this system to a place where there is a suitable 1842 course for him. It is not so much a system of allocation as a system of diversion to places where students can be admitted.
I have no time to go into details about additional places proposed to be provided under the arrangements for next September. Nobody can tell precisely what the demand will be. All that the authority can do—and here I must pay tribute to an authority which has been more diligent, enterprising and ambitious than any that I have come across in facing a situation of this kind—is to expand its facilities and increase the pace at which provision is being made, in the hope that when the time comes it will be enough to meet the estimated need.
In Southall Technical College it is proposed that there shall be 60 additional places this September. Those 60 places will be multiplied by five for day release students, so that there should be room for 300 more students in that college this September than last. At Alperton, not very far away, it is expected that there will be another 100 places which, multiplied by five, means 500 places for day release students. It should be possible, in those two places alone, to accommodate another 800 day release students this corning September than was possible last September.
For Middlesex as a whole it is expected that about 2,000 extra places will be available as a result of the measures the authority is taking—which I have in great detail but which would take me too long to read and would bore the House. It means accommodation for between 8,000 and 10,000 extra day release students above those accommodated last September. In the case of Uxbridge Technical College, we approved a tender on 10th May at a total cost of £298,692. The work can start at any time—
§ The Question having been proposed after Four o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at twenty-six minutes to Five o'clock.