HC Deb 14 May 1964 vol 695 cc588-9
24. Mr. Grimond

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether the costing of new school buildings is being calculated now on the basis of a school-leaving age of 16 years in 1970.

Mr. Hogg

The school buildings needed to cater for the additional pupils who will be in school as a result of raising the school leaving age are not included in the two-and-a-half year programmes for 1965–68. These programmes include, as have those for earlier years, the secondary places needed to provide for pupils who stay on voluntarily beyond the age of fifteen.

Mr Grimond

Would not the Secretary of State think it wise to include provision for the extra pupils in the school-building programme, as, when the school-leaving age is raised, presumably those schools will have to be used by them?

Mr. Hogg

There is something in what the right hon. Gentleman says, but he should also bear in mind two facts. First, the physical confirmation of, say, a four-class entry school for a five-year course is not different from a five-class entry school for a four-year course and that these things are rather well left to the local authorities whose policies about school organization at the secondary stage are in a rather fluid state. Secondly, I am told that to start to predict now what would be needed to deal with the extra pupils in September, 1971, would be a little premature.

15. Mr. Gresham Cooke

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, in view of the fact that the school-building programme is continuing for some time at a cost of over £75 million a year, what steps are being taken to ensure that the design of schools is kept up to date in the light of modern technology, particularly with regard to insulation against heat and noise; and whether it is intended to continue indefinitely with current school designs involving a large area of glass in the walls.

Mr. Hogg

The Department's development group continues to be concerned with all aspects of modern building technology, and a building productivity group has recently been set up in the Department. I would refer my hon. Friend to the Answer given on 26th March to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) regarding the use of glass in schools. My Department has also been connected with the study of sound insulation of schools near London Airport.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

While I hope that the Building Productivity Group will seriously look at the question, may I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to point out to it that in modern schools with very large areas of glass, in sunny times like the present the children are cooking with the heat and venetian blinds have to be fitted, and that in winter there is an excessive use of fuel to keep them warm? Would he consider instructing local authorities that the windows ought to be smaller and that we ought to use modern techniques to build schools in a reasonable way?

Mr. Hogg

Many of these aspects of the matter are already known to the Productivity Group. Fashions in school building change and I think that there is a slight trend away from the use of glass which was so popular a year or two ago.