§ 11.33 p.m.
§ Mr. James Dempsey (Coatbridge and Airdrie)I am very pleased to have the opportunity at this late hour to point out 614 to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary the serious lack of accommodation at our traditional high schools in Coatbridge. Lanarkshire Education Authority, which I am told from time to time by my hon. Friend has the responsibility of selecting its education priorities, has selected Columba High School as one of its urgent priorities simply because of the very serious accommodation problem which exists at that comprehensive school.
The roll of the school is nearing 2,000, yet the nature of the accommodation for these young men and women is deplorable. The main building, for instance, was used formerly for many years as a junior secondary school. Around it there are 25 huts in the vicinity and one new block of practical rooms. I asked the fire master to let me have a report on the fire hazards at the main building. He advised me in a letter that conditions were far from satisfactory and that he was concerned about the fire hazards in the main building of Columba High School. That is indicative of the nature of the problem.
About one mile away is an annexe which accommodates 850 pupils. Those pupils and the staff at frequent intervals during the day have to make their way to and from the main building by means of their own or public transport. That means that teachers and pupils spend quite a lot of time in bus queues because they do not have cars. I cannot think of a more criminal waste than for professional men and women to spend their time standing in bus queues instead of imparting their knowledge to young students.
The parent-teacher association has held large rallies in that part of Coatbridge to protest at the shameful conditions under which young people are being taught today.
The Lanarkshire Education Authority has estimated that to obviate these conditions it would need about £1½million, based on costs at June 1974. That is the sum required to eliminate the slum accommodation in that part of Coatbridge.
On the north side of the main street are two other high schools which serve the community. One is the Coatbridge High School which is using another school at present to provide the extra accommodation needed for its pupils. Many years ago we demolished several dwelling-houses and thereby created a whole 615 area of dereliction, because we have not had the funds to provide the proposed extension to the school. Again, both pupils and teachers have to commute between two schools to ensure that different subjects are taught to the young people concerned. They have to cross a busy road, just as the Columba High School students have to do in the other part of the town.
The situation is serious. St. Patrick's High School cannot possible receive any substantial improvements in its structure until the Coatbridge High School has been extended and its students have vacated the former Clifton School, the site of which is to be used for the necessary expansion of St. Patrick's High School.
If my hon. Friend could visit some of these schools, he would be amazed at the primitive conditions. At St. Patrick's High School I saw art students studying in the corridor and one of the finest junior orchestras in Scotland practising in the cleaning store. Only recently I visited the chemistry and biology departments, to find that they did not have running water. Tuition is being provided in hutments built in 1948 to meet the results then of increasing the school leaving age. They have an annex three-quarters of a mile away, so that these students are compelled to cross the busy Glasgow-Edinburgh road. These are intolerable conditions for students attending high schools like the three I have mentioned.
I understand that to enable Coatbridge High School to get off the ground and to provide a new hall for St. Patrick's High School £1.3 million is needed, but that is at 1974 prices, which means £1.4 million now. In addition, £1.6 million—again because of inflation—is needed for Columba High School. Thus £3 million is needed if the Government definitely intend to end slum schooling in Coat-bridge. We have pressed the matter year after year, only to be told that there is nothing in the kitty and that nothing can be done.
Lanarkshire has been allocated about £6½ million for the financial year 1975–76, but from that it must meet the cost of new schools which were started in East Kilbride and Bishopbriggs last year when no resources were available. They must 616 also find the cost of a new school at Lenzie. The previous Conservative Secretary of State rejected a decision of Lanarkshire planning authority against the building of private houses in that area, although he was told that there were no resources to provide schools for the new population.
About £300,000 will have to go on new classrooms to meet the need to reduce class sizes to the new formula, and about £750,000 on minor works improvements. So Lanarkshire will be held with about £1¾ million to meet its educational needs for 1975–76. That means that it will have enough only to complete school building already begun or to start one new school. It claims that it must provide roofs over heads if young folk are not to be left out in the fields.
The authority says categorically that it does not have the wherewithal to eliminate unsatisfactory conditions in Columba High, Coatbridge High and St. Patrick's High Schools without a better allocation from the Department. For some years there has been no money available to eliminate slum accommodation because of the need to build new schools. We shall receive nothing in 1975–76 and there is nothing in the kitty for 1976–77. When will there be anything in the kitty?
I regret to say that on the criteria of the Scottish Office, under both Governments, it is questionable whether we shall have proper school accommodation for the young men and women in my constituency by the end of this century. That is a serious situation. The object of my raising this matter is to make a special appeal to the Minister to do something about it.
We were told yesterday about further restrictions on capital spending for the social services and education. In a situation like this, however, surely the most urgent priority imaginable is the right to decent accommodation for boys and girls attending high schools in 1975. Even if it means discriminating against other services I would urge my hon. Friend to find the necessary money to enable us to proceed not simply with the building of new schools but with the provision of decent accommodation.
One of the schools is using old gymnasiums which were there in 1930. There has not been one item of improvement in 617 the gymnasiums, and buildings are split between schools. The same can be said of practical accommodation. I have never seen such a revolt against intolerable conditions as there has been from the parents of the pupils of Columba High School, and that revolt was right. No hon. Member could possibly defend or justify the disgraceful and shameful school conditions under which the pupils and teachers are expected to operate.
My appeal to the Minister is therefore as follows. Is there no way in which resources can be made available to Lanarkshire? Must we go to the Chancellor or. if we are dissatisfied with that, to the Prime Minister? I am satisfied that no stone will be left unturned until the Government have taken the necessary remedial action to eliminate this shamefully unsatisfactory accommodation which is a disgrace to a modern society. I know that everything will be done to enable these young people to look forward to the same facilities as are enjoyed by many others not only in Lanarkshire but throughout the country, decent tolerable standards in which they can study.
We know that investment in other services is important, but surely the most important capital is human capital. When we invest in schools we are investing in the lives not only of the present generation but of generations to come.
§ 11.48 p.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Robert Hughes)I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to what my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) has said about the deficiencies of the accommodation in the secondary schools in Coatbridge. I know and appreciate his concern about conditions in these and other schools in his constituency which is reflected in the number of letters he has written to me on the subject.
May I start by saying that as a result of my hon. Friend's efforts on behalf of parents and teachers, of the representations which have been made by the parent-teacher associations for the schools and by Lanarkshire Education Authority and of the reports of my Department's inspectors of schools, I am very much aware of the extent to which the accommodation in secondary schools such as Columba High School and St. Patrick's High School falls short of what is desirable. 618 I am nevertheless grateful for the detailed account which he has given of the present situation and in particular of the difficulties which accommodation deficiencies present for teachers and pupils.
It is true that much still remains to be done to improve and modernise secondary school accommodation, not only in Coat-bridge but in many other parts of the country. Many schools unfortunately lack facilities of the kind described by my hon. Friend, quite a number have pupils accommodated in annexes some distance from the main building with all the disadvantages which this entails, and others have too much temporary classroom accommodation. The secondary school accommodation problems in Coat-bridge are therefore part of a larger problem which will inevitably take time as well as very substantial resources to resolve.
As the proportion of the school population in modern or improved buildings increases year by year there is. understandably, increasing dissatisfaction and impatience among those who still have to make do with less satisfactory accommodation. I know how hard it is to accept that pupils and teachers must continue to occupy such premises, particularly where it has been known for some time that proposals have been drawn up by education authorities for their improvement or replacement. But to improve or replace all unsatisfactory schools, eliminate all annexes and reduce the amount of temporary accommodation would need a vast amount of capital investment. Even in much more favourable circumstances than those prevailing at present, this obviously cannot be put right all at once.
I know from meetings which I have had with education authorities recently the growing pressures on them to make faster progress with improvements and replacements. I had a useful and wide-ranging exchange of views with representatives of the Lanarkshire Education Authority and the Strathclyde Regional Education Committee, which will be assuming responsibility for education in Lanarkshire in the middle of next month. As a result, I can say that we all have a better understanding of each other's problems. One of the things that we agreed at that meeting was that officials 619 of the Strathclyde Regional Council and the Scottish Education Department should meet to discuss the school building needs for the future and what can be done to speed up building programmes. The harsh fact is, however, that we cannot make progress faster than the available resources permit.
There is necessarily a limit to the resources that can be applied to the improvement and modernisation of school buildings, and often this means that the necessary works have to be carried out in stages. This is the position with Columba High School. The new science and technical block was completed and brought into use last year, and the education authority has made provision in its 1974–75 school building programme for the replacement of the adjacent St. Mary's Primary School to enable the whole of its accommodation to be converted for secondary use as part of Columba High School.
The authority has included in its proposed programme for the two years 1975–76 and 1976–77 alterations at St. Mary's estimated to cost £150,000 which would, I understand, provide about 100 further places, together with an extension to enable pupils in the St. Edmund's annex to be accommodated on the same campus as the rest of the school at an estimated cost of £1,300,000 at 1974 prices.
In the same proposed building programme there is also in Coatbridge an extension at Coatbridge High School to enable that school to release its Clifton annexe for use by St. Patrick's Roman Catholic High School, and in turn enable that school to discontinue its use of the St. Andrew's annex. The estimated cost of this project, together with the erection of an assembly hall at St. Patrick's and remodelling of existing accommodation, is estimated to be a further £1,300,000.
The improvement element of these two major projects, which amounts to £2,600,000, accounts for well over half of the proposed secondary school improvement programme put forward by the authority for consideration. I think this shows not only that the authority fully appreciates the secondary school improvement needs in Coatbridge but also the priority which it attaches to projects designed to remedy the accommodation deficiencies in the schools in question.
620 However, my hon. Friend has been given to understand by the education authority that with the resources that have been allocated to it for the 1975–76 school building programme and for the provisional programme for the following year it will not be possible to make a start with either of these two major improvement projects in Coatbridge in these years, and I should like to explain the present position as regards school improvements.
It is essentially a question of resources. Provision has been made in the school building programmes for the full amount estimated by the Government to be required for additional primary and secondary school places. My hon. Friend has referred to the fact that the major effort is going into roofs over heads as a first priority. Unfortunately this has been the case, because if children have no schools to go to they must be provided with them. In difficult circumstances priorities have to be drawn up. Because of the limitations on public expenditure, the authorities were told when they were notified of their allocations towards the end of January that there would be only limited scope for the improvement or replacement of unsatisfactory primary or secondary school accommodation in the programme for 1975–76 and in the provisional programme for 1976–77.
I am afraid that in these circumstances this means that it will not be possible for any education authority, after providing for the additional school places, to start in their entirety during the period major secondary school improvements or replacement projects such as those proposed by the Lanarkshire Education Authority. I very much regret this, but the fact is that the pace of school improvements must be governed by available resources. These are necessarily limited at present when public expenditure must be so tightly constrained.
I am sorry to tell my hon. Friend that I cannot be more helpful. I very much sympathise with education authorities generally as well as with parents and teachers in their disappointment that, for the time being, resources will not permit progress to be made with major secondary school projects designed to improve or replace unsatisfactory school buildings. However, I can assure my hon. Friend 621 that I have taken note of all he has said about the conditions in the Coatbridge secondary schools to which he has referred and will bear it in mind together with similar representations about other secondary schools when circumstances permit more resources to be allocated for improvement or replacement projects.
I should like to point out that a considerable amount of work at the secondary schools in Coatbridge has already been put in hand in the past two or three years. Projects to the value of about £750,000 have been started and a major first phase of the extension to St. Ambrose Roman Catholic High School is due to start under the 1974–75 programme. The needs of the area in the secondary sector have therefore already been recognised to a quite significant extent.
My hon. Friend referred to the fact that the amount of building which has been authorised for the Lanarkshire area in 1975–76—£6,400,000—is to a considerable extent committed for projects already authorised. He has asked why part of this allocation has been earmarked when the education authority has already said that it has serious problems about improvement areas. The reason is partly that the authority accepted that part of the cost of the two major secondary school projects in the 1974–75 school building programme should be a charge on the 1975–76 programme and partly that provision was made at the authority's request for projects to provide additional school places, mainly at East IKilbride, after the resources for 1974–75 had been committed.
As I explained to my hon. Friend in our recent correspondence, it will be for the authority to decide, in agreement with the Strathclyde Regional Council, which particular projects should go ahead in 1975–76 within the uncommitted amounts applicable. I have not yet been informed of the agreed programmes for the area and do not this evening know what provision, if any, they will include for additional places or minor improve- 622 ments at secondary schools in Coatbridge. In our allocation to Lanarkshire Education Authority we allowed money to make additional places available and for improved staffing standards.
If we take the amount of money which has been allocated to Lanarkshire Education Authority, bearing in mind the difficult choices which we have had to make over the whole of Scotland, it will be seen that Lanarkshire has had a reasonable crack of the whip. My hon. Friend appreciates that there are difficulties and that the problems in his constituency, not just in Coatbridge, are not new ones which have suddenly developed over the past 12 months. He has said that the amount of resources available have not been sufficient for a number of years.
These difficulties are compounded by the problems facing the Government over public expenditure programmes in view of our difficult economic circumstances. My hon. Friend reminded us of the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday of the even more difficult period that we shall have to face in the next 12 months. I know my hon. Friend understands that we cannot correct all the wrongs of the past in 12 months or even two years. I am sure he knows that the Government will do all they can within the limited resources available to try to provide the best schooling possible. and to improve older schools as well as provide new ones.
I cannot help my hon. Friend tonight by giving any promise that there will be additional allocations to Lanarkshire for its 1975–76 programme. He has forcefully expressed his concern for the children of his constituents. We shall certainly take this into account as resources become available and we try to remedy the problems which he has so graphically described.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Twelve o'clock.