HC Deb 18 December 1970 vol 808 cc1773-88

2.15 p.m.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer (Lewisham, West)

I rise to speak about the problem of secondary schools in the Lewisham area, not just because it is the narrow issue of what happens in one of London's boroughs but because it illustrates a number of the problems which areas like mine suffer because of the geographical arrangements of educational authorities and the way in which transport difficulties are exacerbating the problems which face those authorities.

The general situation in Lewisham is simple. West Lewisham lies to the southern end of the borough, right at the edge of the Inner London Education Authority area. Therefore, it finds that it is bounded on the southern side by the London Borough of Bromley. Its school provision is made entirely by the Inner London Education Authority, and it is one of those areas of London which, contrary to the norm, is increasing in the demand for secondary education all the time. There are only three divisions of London where this can be said, and they all lie along the southern boundary of the Inner London Education Authority. Therefore, any shortage of schools is exacerbated by the fact that it cannot be taken up south of the area, because that area is controlled by the London Borough of Bromley; and on either side the two boroughs concerned, the London Borough of Southwark and the London Borough of Greenwich, have their problems, too. Therefore, our position is especially difficult.

Lewisham is an area whose needs are growing very fast. Already, over the last few years, 2,000 new primary school places have been provided. It might, therefore, surprise the House to hear that there has been no similar provision for secondary school places. This would, therefore, automatically suggest that perhaps we would be short of places. Moreover, because of these arrangements for children being placed in this area, I had information on ten cases of children who were out of school for many weeks at the beginning of this term because there was no place for them. If I, as the Member of Parliament, had ten cases, I am sure that there were a number of other children who did not come to my attention. Although I am unable to obtain from anybody the exact figures, I have good reason to believe that there were some 30 children out of school at the beginning of this term because there were no places for them. So bad was the situation that, after many months of saying that there was no problem, the local education committee had to use an amenity room in one of the schools, which most needed amenity rooms, in order to find places for these children.

It may be asked why this matter should be raised in the House. The reason is that the local education authority always falls back on the argument that the reason it cannot provide sufficient educational places in this area is that the Ministry makes its allocation on need grounds over the whole of London south of the river. If that is so—and it appears sometimes to be so—one ought to examine the basis upon which this kind of decision is made.

Lewisham, for example, is a long way from North Bermondsey, and yet the only vacant school places in south London which are applicable are in North Bermondsey. The journey to North Bermondsey means that a child from my constituency must travel about 18 miles a day for secondary education. That is a long distance, and it is made worse by the transport problems in South London, which are enormous, Children could make such a journey only if they were to change their bus or train two or three times.

Once again, we revert to the argument that children do not in fact have to make such a journey. It is suggested that they have only to be "rippled out" from the school to which they wanted to go. This is a phrase which worried me when I heard it.

The plan is that if a child lives to the south of the borough, he must go to a school to the north of his home. A child who lives south of Forest Hill will go to Forest Hill School. But no child living on the north side of Forest Hill will go to that school unless he lives almost in the school playground. Children living north of Forest Hill have to go to the Manwood School, but no child living north of that school is allowed to go there. Instead, he goes to the Samuel Pepys School. The idea is that every child has to do a small journey, but that no one has to do a large journey.

Like all theories, in practice it is a very different matter. What happens is that a child expresses the wish to go, say, to Forest Hill School, and probably his primary school headmistress agrees since she knows that a number of boys living in the same road went there the year before. She agrees to his putting down his name for Forest Hill. However, because of the increasing pressure upon that school, he is told that there is no place for him or for any other child living in the same road. He fails to get into the school of his choice. He then finds that all other schools within reasonable distance are also full, and he is offered a place at a school many miles away from where he lives.

A number of cases of this kind have been brought to my attention. One concerns a boy who lives in the middle of my constituency within half a mile of one school and a mile of another. He was offered a place at a school which is nine miles away, that being the only one which seemed suitable for him.

The school population in this part of London has exploded as a result of private and public house building. The education authority has been either unwilling or unable to provide secondary education for these children. The reason given always is that there are school places and that they lie within the designated area. But, of course, that covers a very large area since what the education authority means is that there are school places in North Bermondsey.

The situation has been bad for several years, and we have drawn attention to it. But so bad was it this year that we took the trouble to see what the figures would be for next year and the year after. We found that what was disastrous this year will be even worse next year, and the figures for 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975 show a considerable increase in the secondary school population of my constituency and the surrounding area.

What made a disastrous situation culpable was that we discovered that, far from improving the situation, the education committee had made decisions which will make the situation worse. The area is well served by direct grant and independent schools. Last year, 60 children from my constituency and probably another 60 from the area round about went to independent and direct-grant schools. This year, not one child will go to an independent or direct-grant school because the right to grant has been removed. A number of parents sent their children to independent and direct-grant schools and paid their fees, but the cases to which I refer concern children who were helped by the local authority. However, the local authority has decided that in future it will not contribute towards the education of children in independent and direct-grant schools.

On the surface, this suggests that we shall need another 60 places. However, the parents of some may be able to pay, so it may mean only 40 places for my constituency and perhaps a similar number for the area round about—perhaps 80 places in all. The answer of the education authority is that these places will still be available since the direct-grant schools have a statutory obligation to provide certain free places, paid for by the direct grant. But this is satisfactory only if the places are not taken up by other authorities which are prepared to pay grants towards the children's education.

The London Borough of Bromley has already said that it intends to take advantage of the opportunities that it now has to move into the places in independent and direct-grant schools in the area which have been vacated by the Inner London Education Authority. As a result, children from my constituency will compete for secondary school places with even more children—and many brighter children already suffer in the area which I represent.

Socially the situation is becoming serious. Like most of the borough, West Lewisham is an area into which people have moved from the inner ring of London. They are people who have been brought up in the crowded streets of Bermondsey and want to bring up their children in less crowded conditions. They buy the relatively reasonably-priced properties in the area which I represent. They move there because they want their children to go to schools in the area. It is these very parents who are told that they can have places for their children only in the area from which they have moved—and they moved because they want their children brought up in a less deprived and less crowded environment.

Not only have we found that the demand for places next year will be greater and will go on increasing; we have also found that 60 children who would have been educated outside the State system last year will not have that advantage this year. In addition, we discover that the latest plan of the education committee is to cut even further the provision of new schools in the area.

I do not want to enter into a discussion of the relative merits of the various plans. The facts are that until recently the local education authority was sticking by a plan which had been passed by the previous Conservative authority, which had been prepared by the previous Labour authority, which had been passed by a Labour Minister, and which was to come into operation in 1972. The education authority has made certain alterations. However, this is not the occasion on which to discuss whether they are reasonable. For my constituency, they mean that the proposed and promised secondary girls' school, which was to have been the first new provision in secondary education for the area and was to have been a seven-form entry school, is now to be a nine-form entry mixed school, five for boys and four for girls, which will make up some of the provision which will not now be provided in the Colfe Grammar School in the next door borough.

We are happy to have further provision for boys in the area, but it is difficult to understand the reasoning behind starting a mixed school so near to a boys' school which has already great difficulty in coping with its recruitment problem although, like all other schools, it will continue to be over-full. The Manwood School is achieving an enormous amount, under great difficulties, mainly because of the personalities of the headmaster and his staff.

All this has resulted in no increase in the number of school places. It means that there will be fewer school places within reasonable reach of my constituency.

In the area, we fought very hard for a proper provision of primary school places. The fact is that we got 2,000 extra primary school places for this small area of London. Having got them, we imagined, perhaps mistakenly, that school places having been provided for primary school children, we must then be concerned to provide the secondary places that inevitably they will need. Such provision ought to be in some reasonable relationship with the vicinity of their homes.

This is not happening. It is not reasonable to ask children—often the neediest children whose parents are most concerned, children who have made a first choice of a popular school and therefore often fail to get in—to travel up to 16 and 18 miles a day, just because that is the system which we use.

I therefore ask the Minister whether he will look, first, at the criteria for need. Is it reasonable to take arbitrarily the geographical area of the Inner London Education Authority, so unsatisfactory an area that it is not used for any other part of our local government, as the area over which the need places must be spread and then say, arbitrarily, that we shall take the area south of the river, so that places like West Lewisham, right on the edge of the authority's area, are asked to take up places so far away?

We shall always have troubles with the division between different education authorities. There will always be people who live on the boundary who will have difficulty. But this has not happened in this area before. However, we are now surrounded by authorities and other boroughs which are themselves faced with the problem of enormously over-full classes and schools. In the past we have been lucky. The London Borough of Bromley has taken a number of our children who would not otherwise have found places. But this will not go on next year or the year after, because the London Borough of Bromley is now facing growing problems of school placement.

Let us consider the situation as it arises on the doorstep of the Forest Hill School, the most popular school in my constituency. Within 100 yards of this school a family with a very bright child moved in. That child has had to be taken out of the State education system and sent to a private preparatory school because no suitable place in the entire area could be found which his parents considered within reasonable travelling distance. By "reasonable travelling distance" I mean any distance which meant he had to travel less than 14 miles. This is a serious matter. If we are to provide decent education in London we must not allow that to happen in future.

What can be done immediately is clear. First, the Ministry can discuss whether it can change its policy on need places. This will be a long-term matter because no new building which would take place could solve the immediate problems. Cannot this policy be changed and cannot we take into account, as we ought, the relative difficulty which people have of getting from place to place, because one can travel longer distances easier in some parts of London than other parts, and if one tries to cross London horizontally there is special difficulty?

Secondly, as much pressure as possible of a non-political and non-partisan kind ought to be put upon the Inner London Education Authority to rescind, at least for those areas where the school provision problem is as great as I have posed, the regulations which stop children going to independent and direct-grant schools with a local authority grant. Naturally, I have political reasons for thinking that it was a mistake to spoil the bridge which we were beginning to build between the independent and the State sector. But, leaving that aside, I say that it is not sensible, in an area where many children are out of school for long periods while some hole somewhere is found for them, to add to that number 60 more children who could properly be accommodated in independent and direct grant schools.

Thirdly, pressure should be brought upon the education committee to look again at its plans, as presented to the Minister. I know that the Minister has recently had alterations made in those plans for this area. I hope that when the Minister discusses those plans with the Inner London Education Authority she will look at a number of things.

First, provision within reasonable travelling distance for this area. Secondly, the proposal that we should build not two schools side by side, a boys' and a girls' school, providing for the needs of the area, but a mixed school, three forms of which will replace the forms which are to be disused in the King Alfred School, with one additional form for girls, and five forms for boys. These will go nowhere near to solving the problem of the area, but they will create a new problem of organisation in the sense that were this school to be run together with the Roger Manwood School, it would be a school on three sites divided by about one and a half miles from one site at one end to another at the other end, with one building in between. If it were not to be run with the Roger Manwood School, it would mean that that school would again find itself at the bottom of the list for rebuilding.

There is a plan, which seems to be right, to build two new schools on the Manwood Road site—a girls' school, as envisaged and agreed for 1972, and a boys' school, for which need can be made out as long as people do not expect children to travel to North Bermondsey.

It is not as if we do not appreciate that there are problems in the rest of the country or, indeed, in the rest of London. But we believe that, because in general in London the number of secondary school places required is declining, it is difficult for the Government or for the local authority to come to terms with the special position of the peripheral areas of the Inner London Education Authority where considerable local authority and private building is going on.

We were promised a number of emergency measures. I am extremely sad to discover today that the major proposal has now been denied us. So bad was the feeling in the area about the problems that 1,000 parents signed a petition for a new school within a very short time. So, with a lady constituent, who was not a party worker or concerned with the Conservative Party but who had raised the petition, and with the representative on the education committee of the Lewis-ham Borough Council, I went in deputation to the leader of the Inner London Education Authority. At that deputation only two months ago I was promised that there would be in Lewisham a new hutted school as an addition to one of the local secondary schools. This morning I telephoned one of the other people who attended that deputation to check that that was the promise which had been made. Yet last night, on the board, I had a letter from the deputy leader of the Inner London Education Authority saying: There have never been any plans for a new hutted school in West Lewisham. This is yet another of a whole series of situations in which we feel that continually once we get to a stage of pressure which becomes too much, when the education authority is too worried, we get a few kind words, a new proposal, and a new possibility. But when we try to tie down that possibility and demand the help which we need, we find that it is withdrawn.

In that same letter is a sentence about the matter of which I make complaint: Urgent consideration is being given to the future of Roger Manwood School, on which no firm decisions have yet been taken. Yet at the Ministry today is a proposal for changes in the plan which directly affects the Roger Manwood School. To have made those decisions without consulting any of the local schools concerned, except a brief chat with one headmistress on the morning on which it was presented to the school's sub-committee, is indicative of the kind of problem which those who have been working for these places have been up against.

Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to do for me but three things. First, will he bring every pressure that he can to bear on the education committee to see that it rescinds the plan to stop the 60 children going to a direct-grant or independent school? Secondly, will he ensure that the education committee takes every step to provide the emergency accommodation and the hutted school which was promised for this area? Thirdly, will he look with all compassion and with all the care that he can upon the proposals, should they be put before him by the local education committee, for new school provision in an area which is expanding so fast that it needs 2,000 new primary school places but, curiously enough, does not appear to be expanding fast enough to need one new secondary school place?

2.41 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William van Straubenzee)

I hope that it will be not inappropriate if I start by saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer) and I, who have known each other for some years, have probably never supposed that we should be taking part together in a debate on the Floor of this ancient House on an historic day when we shall very shortly be taking our farewell of you, Mr. Speaker. This is particularly appropriate, because in your previous incarnation you always took, as I remember gratefully, a close personal interest in educational matters. I am glad that although our sights today are narrow, we are nevertheless discussing an education matter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only upon his speech this afternoon but also upon the very consistent way in which, as I well know, he has represented the interests of all his constituents in these matters and has sought always to put before the Departments, since he had responsibility for representing his constituents, their needs in educational matters, as, I am sure, in others of which I do not have personal knowledge.

Although it is the season of good will and all that, I must make the comment that it seems to me to be somewhat strange, considering that we have plenty of time, that no other parliamentary representative of the great borough, part of which my hon. Friend represents, is taking part in his discussion, which must be of crucial importance to the whole borough, and that it has been left to my hon. Friend to represent the views of that part of London, which he has done with conspicuous skill.

My hon. Friend has made of me three requests, which I shall attempt to answer. At least I think that I can give him assurances on some of the points which he has raised. I must, however, make one passing comment on a matter which, by comparison with the others of which my hon. Friend has spoken is a detail—but only by comparison, because it is, of course, important in itself—namely, my hon. Friend's references to some children who were out of school in his constituency for lack of an appropriate place to which to go.

I have made a quick inquiry about this and I am assured that, at least as at today—I am speaking of today, and in this sense my hon. Friend and I are probably not in disagreement—no children of secondary school age are out of school either at Greenwich or at Lewisham. It is the Inner London Education Authority's information that all children have been placed in what that authority at least considers to be appropriate secondary schools, and no school attendance order proceedings are in view. It is only proper for me to say that, but it is not intended in any way to cast doubt upon the facts given by my hon. Friend, which, as he explained, referred to an earlier period.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer

I should like to point out to my hon. Friend that, as I am sure he is aware, the only reason why that can now be said is that the pressure upon the authority has resulted in its taking over an amenity room in one of the schools which was previously full in order to provide places for parents, who steadfastly refused to send their children these enormous distances.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I see the reasons. I simply state the facts about absence as at this moment. However, the point made by my hon. Friend is perfectly fair.

I was asked about the method of calculation of the criteria for need by my Department. In a sense, my reply to my hon. Friend in this respect will not be entirely to his satisfaction, and for this reason. As I understand the system operated by the I.L.E.A., which, as image we know, is a great authority in numbers and extent, it is based upon the individual or combined borough requirements within the I.L.E.A. area. In other words, the onus of proof, the necessity for assessing need, rests with the I.L.E.A., which does it on the basis of either individual boroughs or districts, which, I understand, largely, but not exclusively, coincide with the boroughs, or, in some cases, combined boroughs.

What I am seeking to say is that we, from our point of view in Curzon Street, do not simply do a mathematical calculation based upon the whole of the Inner London area north and south of the river and then divide by a given number. I believe that my hon. Friend understands this perfectly well, but his remarks might have led people to suppose the contrary. It is as well to have that perfectly clear.

My hon. Friend mentioned his anxiety about secondary school places and what was in the pipeline. In fairness to the I.L.E.A., although my hon. Friend is very close to the whole question and will know the details, I ought to remind him of them. I shall give the details only for the Borough of Lewisham. I have with me the details of other neighbouring areas but it would weary the House unduly if I dealt in detail with them other than for the Borough of Lewisham.

For 1970–71, the authorised starts in the London Borough of Lewisham are the Manwood Road Secondary Girls School, which is an extension from 450 to 1,170 places, at a gross cost of £755,000. That is the authorised start. It obviously dates from well before the change of government at the centre. For the raising of the school-leaving age programme, which is obviusly important when one is talking about secondary schools, two extensions are authorised in the borough: first, at Forest Hill Secondary Boys School and, secondly, at Sedgehill.

When we move on to the authorised starts for 1971–72, also in the borough, we find that the authorised start is a substantial programme costing £541,000 at the Christopher Marlowe Secondary Girls School, being an extension from 600 to 1,050 places.

My hon. Friend has already noticed that there is nothing in the way of a start for the year following that. The reason is that which he himself drew to the attention of the House. It is true that there was a project for the 1971–72 design list programme which centred on Colfe's School, as my hon. Friend has reminded us. Although in any part of the country these are essentially matters for the local education authority concerned, I understand that my hon. Friend is absolutely correct in saying that the original proposal for the substantial extension of that school emanated from the Inner London Education Authority under Labour control. It was adopted by the Inner London Education Authority under Conservative control, and was essentially the same scheme in both. In both, because it is the same scheme, there was still an element of selection, and as that scheme, along with others, was approved by the then Secretary of State, who was a member of the Labour Party. Both major parties have had a hand in the scheme. One put it forward and the other approved it, on the understanding that there was in it still a basis of selection.

The authority has very recently written to my Department informing us that it will not be proceeding with the Colfe's School project in the 1971–72 design list programme. I cannot know what reasoning led to this change of mind on the part of the authority. The Press notice says that the governors of the school, which is run by the Leathersellers Company, said that they had now made it clear that the arrangements they would lay down for admissions to the new unit would be unmistakably selective. To the best of my knowledge they were always unmistakably selective in one form or another, but this must essentially be a matter for them.

The I.L.E.A. now approached the Secretary of State with a provisional proposal, the substitution of two other projects which would together provide about 100 more places than the previous one. This request by the I.L.E.A. is under consideration in my Department. The revised proposals are to extend the new Kidbrooke Park School from a five-form entry boys to an eight-form entry mixed school, and the Manwood Road (King Alfred) School from a seven-form entry girls to a nine-form entry mixed school—five forms for boys and four for girls. I understand that the Authority is consulting the governors, head and staff of the King Alfred School but does not intend to do so in the case of Kidbrooke Park because there it is a bringing forward in time of a proposal which has previously been discussed.

My right hon. Friend will need to make a decision on that request. What I can tell my hon. Friend without reservation is that I shall make sure that the very cogent points he made are right in front of my right hon. Friend and those who advise her before she comes to a decision on that request. I gladly give that assurance, because many of my hon. Friend's points were very important.

On the essential point my hon. Friend raised about criteria, I hope that I have explained how the matter is decided. I shall make sure that I am satisfied as to the method of operation, and if there are further examples that my hon. Friend wishes to represent, I am always at his disposal for that purpose.

I think that I have dealt with the actual school problem. But my hon. Friend made another very important point highlighting the practical effect upon his constituency of the I.L.E.A.'s decision to cease as from next September to take up places at direct-grant schools. The I.L.E.A. has, as it is bound to do, made it quite clear that it is continuing to see through their school career all those who have actually started. Both my hon. Friend and I must wish to make that clear to remove any possible anxiety in the minds of the parents of such children.

It must be said very clearly that there is a gulf between the attitude of mind on this matter of the present controlling party in I.L.E.A. and of my right hon. Friend and myself. I believe in variety of provision. In particular, I have always been attracted by a system—and I prefer to talk not about direct-grant schools but about a direct-grant system—which bridges the gap between the wholly independent and the wholly maintained schools. I have often felt that it might, intelligently used, be a way forward for wider provision in future years when finance possibly allowed. For that reason, I deplore the decision of the I.L.E.A. not to take up places any longer after September. It is a decision totally within its competence, and I have no power to prevent it doing so. It would not accord with my general approach of giving not decreased by increased discretion to local authorities if I were to take any other view.

Mr. Ernie Money (Ipswich)

rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. If an hon. Member seeks to intervene, it is not enough to stand. He must ask the Minister whether he will allow him to intervene.

Mr. Money

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I hope that in making representations of this kind to the Inner London Education Authority he has drawn to its attention the outstandingly progressive role played by the Leathersellers Company in educational ventures of all kinds.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I have certainly made representations on all relevant matters to do this and I am well aware of my hon. Friend's point. I am sorry to have overlooked him: he is not easy to overlook, but on this one occasion I achieved the impossible.

I was saying that I have this firm belief and support for the direct-grant system. It has to be said that schools other than the direct-grant system schools at present vary very widely indeed in size and educational standards, and in other ways. As an entity, in so far as they have a complete entity, I believe them to have very great importance in our educational system. I have never understood why people can, for purely political reasons, bring themselves not to use a system of this kind.

The effect of that decision is excellently illustrated by examples given by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West. It is perfectly true that certain other boroughs not as bigoted as this authority are taking up places, but that does no good whatever for the young people concerned, whom my hon. Friend represents, and those in the other parts of the borough.

Mr. Speaker

Order. It would seem from the Minister's own argument that this is a matter for the local authority and that he has no power to intervene. I do not know.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I was talking in general terms, Mr. Speaker, and explaining what the broad umbrella was. I should hate to incur your wrath on your last day, but I have made the essential point and I will leave it there.

I can tell my hon. Friend—and here I move immediately to matters which are strictly within the purview of the Department I represent today—that, as she announced publicly, my right hon. Friend is in very careful consultation with the Direct Grant Joint Committee to see how in these circumstances she can help it in its educational work. I am not in a position this afternoon to carry that further—this is a complex matter, as he will understand—but I want him to take from this debate the very clear understanding that those were no idle words on my right hon. Friend's part: indeed, as all who know her can testify, she is not given to idle words. I therefore add my plea that educational considerations will be uppermost in the mind of the authority concerned, but it can only be a plea—I do not have power to instruct.

I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that I have now dealt with all the points he raised. As I say, I respectfully congratulate him on the vigour with which he does this. I am so new at my job that it is a fresh experience for me to be stung regularly by someone as active as my hon. Friend, but I think that it is good for Ministers. He does it on behalf of his constituents and, as today has shown, on behalf of the whole borough, with great energy and skill. I hope that the authority will take very close note indeed of what he said, because he has been proved right before and it could easily be that he will be proved right again.