HC Deb 26 May 1966 vol 729 cc702-4
17. Mr. Winnick

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many local education authorities have informed him that they do not intend to accept the proposals of Circular 10/65 on the organisation of secondary education.

Mr. Crosland

Two, Sir: Bournemouth and Westmorland.

Mr. Winnick

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a great deal of concern among parents in areas where the local education authorities have rejected the principle of the circular and that there is the feeling, justified or otherwise, that certain local education authorities have rejected the principle because of political spite against the Government?

Mr. Crosland

I am aware of the strong feelings among parents in these areas, but what is significant is the tiny number of local education authorities which have declined to send in plans. The vast majority of the 162 authorities in England and Wales are actively engaged in preparing plans for comprehensive reorganisation.

Sir E. Boyle

Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to give sympathetic consideration to all replies from local education authorities embodying proposals that are genuinely designed to extend secondary opportunity in accordance with the needs of their areas?

Mr. Crosland

I shall give most sympathetic attention to any plan which comes to me and seems to be within the principle of Circular 10/65.

18. Mrs. Renée Short

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has for increasing the capital allocation to local education authorities developing secondary education on a comprehensive line.

Mr. Crosland

None for a special capital allocation. But the very large building programmes already allocated to meet the demands of a growing school population, new housing and the raising of the school leaving age will of course indirectly assist the needs of secondary reorganisation.

Mrs. Short

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that a great many local education authorities looking forward to this educational advance are finding considerable difficulty because of the legacy they inherited from the period when the party opposite was in power, such as continual cuts in the school building programme and the large numbers of small secondary schools built? In reorganising the school programme, they are finding great difficulty in bringing these small secondary schools up to the level of viable comprehensive education. Is my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Lady must learn to make her supplementary questions concise. There is enough to answer.

Mr. Crosland

Whether it is concise or not, Mr. Speaker, I agree with the substance of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. The huge legacy of small and old secondary buildings makes reorganisation harder than it would otherwise have been. That is why local education authorities are bound to use a good deal of ingenuity in fitting reorganisation into this pattern of building, but I make it clear again that if we were to make a special capital allocation for going comprehensive, this could only be at the expense of replacing or improving slum primary schools, and that I am not prepared to accept.

Sir E. Boyle

The right hon. Gentleman has made it clear—and we welcome his statement—that he will give primary school improvements priority over proposals for comprehensive development when there is adequate secondary accommodation available. But can he tell the House how much has been approved by the Government for school improvements over and above the £250 million that we approved for this purpose during the 1959-64 Parliament?

Mr. Crosland

Apart from providing new schools for additional numbers of children, the primary school buildings must have priority. I have also made it clear—and here the right hon. Gentleman did not agree during the election—that any new secondary school built must be consistent with possible comprehensive reorganisation schemes.