HC Deb 09 November 1964 vol 701 cc795-806

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

10.18 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins (Cornwall, North)

May I first convey my congratulations to the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) on his appointment, and also say how glad I am to have the opportunity of raising this matter on the Adjournment.

I fully realise that the Tresmeer primary school closed some time ago, but its closure is a symptom of the difficulties that occur in rural areas. There has been difficulty for some time about the closure of schools, and particularly primary schools, in sparsely-populated areas such as Cornwall. Over past years the local education authority in Cornwall has done remarkably well. It has done away with all-age schools, and there are no primary schools in Cornwall that has any pupil beyond the age of the 11-plus.

Nevertheless, there is a difficulty at the moment in that the local education authority has recently decided to cut down the number of primary schools which exist in the County of Cornwall. This is happening not only in Cornwall but throughout the rest of rural England. When these closures take place, plans have to be drawn up to take account of what is in the best interests of the children educationally, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the wishes of the parents and the difficulties which the closure of the school in the heart of a rural area causes—and not only to that rural community. We must remember that the school, with the church and the chapel, are the centre of the rural life of that community. These are factors which have to be weighed up.

I am sure that hon. Members have read the papers about the school in Tresmeer which is being closed. This has a long history, and much correspondence has taken place about it. May I briefly recap? This is a school in a very remote country area with a very scattered and small agricultural population. The catchment area for the school extends for several miles. The local education authority proposed the closure last year in accordance with the plan which it had drawn up for the development of education within the County of Cornwall. This plan was to concentrate the number of primary schools and to do away with several of them in order to ease the position in respect of staffing by teachers. It was also hoped to save money and, I must add, it had the purpose of giving the children a better education. The authority believed that the larger the primary school, the more streams there were in it, the better the education which was afforded to the child. This may be right, and I do not quarrel with the general principle which the local education authority of Cornwall has been following in that purely educational field.

But there are other factors which have to be taken into account, and one of them is the Education Act, 1944, which says, quite rightly, that the wishes of the parents must be taken into account when matters of this importance are considered—such matters as the closing of a school, which deprives the children of an area of the opportunity to go to that school. The wishes and views of the parents must be taken fully into account.

Another factor which has to be taken into account when the county council draws up these plans is the distance which children have to travel once the closure has taken place—the distance from their homes to the new school to which it is proposed that they should go. The authority must also consider the time these very small children are away from home. They may have to leave home early in the morning and they may not get back home until night. This time must not be excessive.

Let us take those two points in relation to this school at Tresmeer. I am sure that the hon. Member realises that regulations exist concerning the distance which a child has to walk before transport is made available. Up to a certain age he is expected to walk two miles and beyond that, from the age of 11, it is three miles before he gets public transport provided at the expense of the local authority to take him to school.

In many cases that is all right, but in Cornwall, and particularly in this area—and in other parts of my constituency— parents object to small children between the ages of five and eleven having to walk one-and-a-half, one-and-three-quarters and sometimes two to three miles, which is the distance entailed in going from their homes to the schools, because roads in this part of the world are small and narrow and often are side lanes. We have a heavy tourist industry—we are glad to have it—which causes added hazards and complications to children in these areas. I am certain that this applies not only to my constituency but to many other similar places in the south-west of England and probably elsewhere.

Parents also object in this instance to the length of time that the children have to be away from home. I do not think it right that very small children between the ages of five and seven, and even children up to eleven, should have to leave home as early as 8.5 a.m. or 8.10 a.m. and should not get back home until 4.45 p.m. Yet this can happen, and indeed does happen in this case. Some of these children leave home extremely early in the morning and have to walk perhaps half-a-mile or a mile before they are picked up by transport.

It is right that I should point out that in this instance the local education authority made an appalling mess over the problem of transport. Not only was the ground, so to speak, inadequately prepared before the closure of this school took place, but misleading information on which proper transport plans could be worked out was made available and to my knowledge the plans had to be changed two or three times.

It is a pity that the original correct information was not available and that the necessary trouble or care was not taken to go into the details of such things as where the children lived and which schools their parents preferred them to attend when it was found that the school had to be closed. Why were all the difficulties concerning the transport facilities not gone into beforehand, particularly on this question of very small children having to leave early in the morning to attend school and arrive home late in the evening?

It was found after the initial list of the proposed transport arrangements was published—I have the complete list with me but I will not weary the House with its details—that many of the children had moved, some even a year before, were now living in different parts of the area and that this would necessitate them having to travel perhaps three miles to school. It was only reasonable, therefore, that many parents should prefer their children to go to a different school.

It should be realised that the transport available consisted of one motor car—and then the gentleman driving it was liable to sickness, so that even the transport provided was unrealistic through no fault on the part of the driver.

These are some of the difficulties which have arisen in this case and which have caused considerable bitterness between parents and the local education authority. The Minister must be aware that the local parents went on strike for a considerable time and refused to send their children to any school. They demanded that the existing school be repaired and re-opened—the figure of £1,500 has been mentioned for repairs— and new teachers installed. The parents and I felt that their children had had a raw deal from the local education authority, which, they claimed, had not studied the problems properly and had not put forward a possible alternative plan for transporting their children to school.

As well as complaining that the authority's plan was bad for their children, the parents objected to the length of time it would take children to arrive home after school and how early they would have to leave to get to school in the morning. I am glad to say that the parents' strike has now been resolved and the information I was given yesterday, when in my constituency, was that all the children are now attending school.

Problems still exist over the transportation of the children. The parents, through their association, are extremely anxious that adequate transport arrangements be provided and that the present arrangements be reviewed at the earliest possible opportunity. They are still anxious about children who come within the two to three mile limit and who must walk to school along the lanes I have described.

Leaving aside the question of the Minister's ability to revoke the decision to close this school, how far does he think a child should be expected to walk to school, how early in the morning a child should be expected to leave home and how late it should be expected to arrive home at night? Will he, as a father, tell me what answers he would give to these questions when considering the schooling of a child aged, say, five or six?

I appreciate that certain savings are to be achieved by closures such as this. It is obvious that by not carrying out the repairs necessary to reopen this school—and £1,500 has been mentioned—there are obvious savings, along with the authority not having to pay the two teachers, who have been either dismissed or absorbed elsewhere. An additional amount is needed for transport. In Cornwall the bill for transport of children is something like £203,000—a fairly large sum. Transport arrangements are woefully inadequate, not only for Tresmeer, but elsewhere. A great deal more will have to be spent.

There has been a proposal that Lewannick Primary School should also be closed. The hon. Gentleman's predecessor refused to close it. Will the present Parliamentary Secretary say if it is to be closed? The Rural District Council of Launceston wrote to the Ministry of Education on, I think 14th October, requesting that a public inquiry should be held into some of the points I have enumerated—the difficulties and anxieties felt by parents and the local education authority expressed constantly over the months. It has not received an answer and has had no indication of what the Minister thinks about this matter. I hope that he will look into it. If the Parliamentary Secretary finds it possible this evening, I hope he will say if the Minister is prepared to hold an inquiry.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice)

On consideration of Tresmeer?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins

Purely on Tresmeer. The rural district council wrote either on the day before or on the day of the election. The purpose was that the new Minister, whoever he might be, should realise the disquiet felt by the council and the fact that it desired a public inquiry into the facts because it thought that there had been grave mismanagement and that there were disquieting features, I ask the hon. Gentleman to give his views and whether he will accede to the request of the council, and also say why the Ministry has not sent a reply.

I ask for an assurance that during the time he holds office the principles behind the 1944 Education Act about consultation with parent-teacher associations and the wishes of parents will be adhered to even if by doing so some saving of money is not effected—even if it might cost more. Will the hon. Gentleman review the question of the distances which children have to travel and bear in mind the point about the dangers on country roads particularly where there are many tourists, and look into the point about time taken in travel?

I should like an assurance that there will be no imposition by himself or his right hon. Friend of any doctrinaire pattern of education on the primary school structure, particularly in rural areas. It is vital that the interests and views of the local people and of local education authorities who know the difficulties in these cases better than the Ministry should be taken into account.

I am concerned about the question of deaf children and the education they get, especially in the South-West. All deaf children are at the moment educated in secondary schools there—there is no special school catering for them. I should like an assurance that the hon. Gentleman will look into this question and do what he can to get some facilities for totally deaf children not only at the primary but at the secondary school stage. Great strides have been made in facilities for educationally subnormal children in Cornwall, but there are not similar facilities for the deaf. I plead that there should be a special school in the South-West to cater for them.

I know that the hon. Gentleman has the interests of children at heart. It is particularly important that primary school children should have the best possible treatment. But I beg the hon. Gentleman to remember that there are special problems in rural areas. It is no good doing paper planning and saying that one school here and one school there is the correct answer. The hon. Gentleman must look at the actual problems of the districts. He must bear in mind that he has a responsibility for keeping the rural community going. It may be that educationally it is best to have two primary schools 20 miles apart in a large rural area but frequently this causes great hardship, not only to the children, but to the community in general. I hope that during his tenure of office the hon. Gentleman will take particular notice of the points which I have raised and will give the assurances for which I have asked.

10.36 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) for the way in which he has put his points tonight. I will try to give some of the assurances for which he has asked, although he piled up an awful lot of requests towards the end of his speech, particularly on the point about deaf children, which was a little outside his main theme. I will look carefully into that matter and if the hon. Member would like to write to me about the situation in Cornwall in more detail I will look into it.

I should like to leave that problem and proceed to the main one which the hon. Member raised, which was the policy on the closure of rural schools, and deal with it, as he did, by speaking first of the general problem and the lines on which I believe it should be dealt with and then saying something about the school which the hon. Member had in mind. As the hon. Member says, this is an important problem in rural areas. Since the war there has been a trend for the smaller schools in rural areas to close, particularly one-form schools, and to some extent two-form schools like the one at Tresmeer.

I have been given figures which show that during 1963 there were altogether 200 closures of primary schools throughout the country, of which 133 were in rural areas. This shows the scope of the problem. Virtually every county L.E.A. has in its education plan provision for the closure of some rural schools. When they do this they advance four main arguments, on which they have to convince us in the Department, before closures of this kind are approved.

By far the most important are the educational arguments. If 20 or 25 children of all ages from 5 to 11 are being educated by one teacher in a one-form school, there are in the nature of things certain educational disadvantages in that system. This has been true for some years. It will become even more true as new techniques become available in primary teaching. At the moment we are going through an exciting period of development in primary teaching. All kinds of things are happening, including the teaching of languages, and there is a great danger of a gap between the standards of primary education in towns and those in the countryside.

The second consideration is the question of buildings. A large number of village schools are very old, and very often it is not realistic to plan for the replacement of a village school by a new school when it might be more sensible and rational to have one which covers more than one village. Combined with that are considerations of finance and the fact that very often by rationalisation of the pattern of rural schools there are considerable savings in salaries, heating, upkeep and so on.

The fourth reason is the question of the supply of teachers. As the hon. Member knows, we have seen an overall shortage of teachers which is particularly severe in rural areas where it is difficult to recruit good people to new posts when teachers reach retirement. This is a factor which often leads local education authorities to consider closures.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins

Does not the difficulty arise because of the quota of teachers in Cornwall?

Mr. Prentice

I shall look at that, but it is a fact that in these cases it is often very difficult or impossible to replace the retiring school teacher.

I was giving the general background in Cornwall and elsewhere and the considerations which led Cornwall, along with other authorities, to suggest a number of closures in recent years. Against that are set arguments of the kind which the hon. Gentleman gave, which I need not repeat as he put them very clearly to the House.

Under the previous Government, the then Joint Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Gentleman is aware that the decision to which he is objecting was made by his hon. Friend at that time—gave these questions what seems to me to have been the kind of balanced consideration which was needed as between the reasons for closing schools and the reasons for keeping them open. After all, I have no bias in favour of defending the previous Government's decisions—rather the reverse in many instances—but, having studied the files very carefully, I feel that they applied their mind properly to the balance of argument in these cases.

Perhaps I can illustrate the point by dealing with what happened in Cornwall in the last 12 months. In all, there have been seven cases which have come to us from Cornwall, including the specific ones to which I shall refer in a moment. In four cases, the Joint Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway), who was responsible for most of these decisions at the time, agreed with the county council, in two he rejected its proposals, and in the seventh the decision was not made and will fall to be made in due course.

In the case of the Cury Church of England school the Cornwall authority's proposals were rejected. In the case of the Bara Head county primary school they were approved. In the case of the Withiel county primary school they were approved. In the case of the Trevethan infants school at Falmouth they were approved. In the case of the Lewannick county primary school the county's proposals were rejected by a decision at national level. In the case of the Chyvelah county primary school the decision still has to be made.

As regards the Tresmeer school, the Cornwall County Council was advancing two main reasons for its decision. First, there was the condition of the premises. The hon. Gentleman probably knows that these were very bad. I have a report which says that the inside walls were damp, the ceiling timbers were rotten, the slate roof of the school was in a dangerous state, there was no electricity in the school and heating by paraffin stoves was unsatisfactory. The two classrooms were sub-standard in size, 396 and 270 sq. ft. respectively. The authority estimated that it would have to spend at least £1,500 on the building straight away if it were to continue in use, and even then it would still be unsatisfactory. That was the authority's main reason for putting forward the closure proposal.

Its second reason was that closure would release two teachers for service elsewhere and, in the prevailing teacher shortage, this was an important consideration. A further point in addition to those two main points was that the authority would save financially in salaries and other costs £1,870 a year over and above the expense on the building to which I have referred.

Against that, the Department received some very weighty objections from 14 local government electors in the village, from the National Union of Agricultural Workers in the area and from the Launceston Rural District Council. I need not go over that ground again since it has been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

It is clear that the decision in this case was very difficult. There were considerable arguments on both sides. My predecessor was influenced above all by the state of the buildings and by the fact that closure would lead to the saving of two teachers. The two school buildings at Warbstow and Egloskerry to which it was proposed to transfer the children were in a better condition, and if one of the three had to close, it was sensible that in the situation it should be the one at Tresmeer.

In the event, the decision of my predecessor was made in March of this year. There has been a lot of unrest since then and, as the hon. Member said, there was a strike of parents at the beginning of this term until the third week in October. But I understand that all the children are now attending school, 25 having gone to Egloskerry, 12 to Warbstow, 4 to Tregadillet and 6 are in schools in Launceston.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of transport for the children. I have a report which suggests that things are not quite as bad as he suggested. He suggested that some were leaving home at 8.5 in the morning and not getting back until ten minutes to five. I am told that the majority leave at 8.40 and return at 3.40 or 350. The school day at Warbstow has been put forward a quarter of an hour, 9.15 instead of nine o'clock, to meet the problem. Most children are away from home at 8.55 to go to Warbstow and return between four o'clock and 4.15. A few using public service vehicles by arrangement start out at 8.35 and do not arrive home until 4.25, which is a long day for small children. I hope that the authority will look at the problems. I hope that what has been said by the hon. Gentleman will be brought to its attention. I will remind it of them and hope that it can make improvements.

I will look into the request for a public inquiry and write to the hon. Gentleman about it. I cannot, I am afraid, deal with that in detail at the moment.

I can only say in conclusion that I am advised that in so many of these cases when there is bitterness and resentment at the beginning of new arrangements, fairly quickly the children settle down in their new schools and the parents accept and even welcome the new arrangements and become attached to the new schools. It happens over and over again, and I hope it will happen in the Tresmeer case and that the bitterness to which the hon. Gentleman referred will soon disappear.

I will consider everything that the hon. Gentleman has said and any other points that he likes to write to me about, and I shall be prepared to write to the authority about them. But he has recognised that as the decision has been made it would be wrong, even if it were possible, to reverse it, and wrong in the interests of the children, which is what really matters in all cases of this kind.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.