SPITAL TONGUES SCHOOL, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE (Hansard, 25 July 1977)

§ Sir William Elliott (Newcastle upon Tyne, North)

I should like to thank the Under-Secretary of State for being here at this very late hour to reply to this debate. I am about to plead for the continuance in being of a school. I have had a certain amount of correspondence with the hon. Lady and with the Secretary of State. In the proceedings to do with the continuance of the school I have had the utmost consideration from the Department, and not only myself but my constituents are grateful for it.

I realise that the decision to close Spital Tongues County Primary School was made at a very late hour in terms of the school year. In fact, the school closed on Friday. It was a late decision, not least because of the consideration given by the Department to its continuance in being. My purpose in raising this proposed closure is to seek a stay of execution for at least one more school year. I do so for a number of reasons.

First and most important is the number of potential pupils for the school. There appears to be a grave discrepancy as between a year ago and the present time with regard to the number of pupils desiring to have places in the school in September this year. In 1976 it was established, I think honestly and quite 269 sincerely, that by September this year the number of pupils would be down to 10 or 12. Had that been so today, I would not be pleading for the school's continued existence.

However, it is now established, following a most careful survey by the residents' association of the area concerned, that by September this year no fewer than 32 pupils would be available for the school and would be seeking places in it. I stress to the Minister that I have the highest regard for the residents' association. It is a good one. Its officers are responsible people, and its membership is fully representative of this area of Newcastle upon Tyne. The association meets with great regularity, and is strongly supported. Its members have, at my request, been meticulous in their research, and as a result I recently forwarded to the Minister conclusive evidence that pupils could number 32 this September.

I remind the Minister that in her letter to me of 23rd May she stated that the case for and against the closure of the school was "difficult and finely balanced". That was absolutely right. In her letter to me of 27th June, in conveying to me the sad decision about closure, she said: The inescapable fact is … that within a year or two the number of pupils, already low, will have significantly diminished". That is relevant to the argument that I wish to present. Local opinion does not agree with this assessment. Local opinion, based on very careful research, is that the number of pupils wishing to attend the school and the number of parents wishing to send their children to the school will not diminish in the next one, two or three years. In fact, the reverse may well be the case.

Let me give the second main reason, closely associated with the first, why the continued life of this fine old school would be more than worth while. I believe that it is highly desirable to maintain in the centre of our major cities established communities. We can do that only if facilities for such communities are provided and/or maintained.

In the post-war years we have seen a great deal of urban reconstruction in our cities, and Newcastle upon Tyne is no exception in this regard. Much of the work of the planners can be commended. I would commend a great deal of the re- 270 construction in Newcastle upon Tyne, but we face a remarkable modern problem, in that many of our urban established communities have been broken up. We can indeed say that planners have planned out of existence many established communities which we knew in the past.

Many good residential areas of New castle upon Tyne are no more. They are broken up. The houses were razed to the ground. We have new developments, such as office blocks, and the residents of once fine old established communities have been transferred to the outskirts of the city where, in many cases, they have never been happy. The old communities, which were so valuable to my city and other cities like it, are no more.

But in Spital Tongues, where this fine old school stands, we still have an excellent residential area right in the heart of Newcastle. Unfortunatey, the community there has become somewhat unbalanced in terms of age. There is at present a high proportion of senior citizens. If, however, we can retain in being this infant school I am quite certain that an increasing number of young married people will see the enormous benefit and advantage of living in good surroundings—and they are good surroundings in Spital Tongues. It is a most pleasant area. I am sure that young people, married and single, will see a great advantage in living close to the city centre. That would be very good for Spital Tongues and for Newcastle.

There is scope for more housing in the area. There are several plots of land on which new housing could be developed. I very much regret the decision of the city council to develop the Fenham Barrack site as an industrial site rather than for housing. But Spital Tongues is still an area that I feel can retain its own character. It is still an area in which a community can live and exist happily, and from its existence the city can draw great advantage and strength.

Although it is in the centre of the city, this residential area has been known for generations as the Village. It is a village in the heart of a city. I therefore call in aid the Secretary of State's recent circular in which he rightly gave new hope to the continued life of village schools. That circular asked for certain 271 criteria to be established. I now ask that two of the requirements embodied in that circular be considered with regard to the school in Spital Tongues.

One of the requirements was that before any school was closed the fullest consideration should be given to the social problems connected with the closure. The second was that before a school was closed there must be proven financial saving. I link those two requirements with regard to this proposed closure.

Although the school building in Spital Tongues is more than 100 years old, it is an extremely nice one. It is a sound building. I ventured to invite the Secretary of State, when visiting Newcastle to conduct the first of her great education debates in the regions, to visit the school. She politely told me that she did not have time to do so. I, of course, understood that.

The important point that I wish to bring out is that in this residential area the building is used a great deal after school hours as a social centre for the Village. If it goes, there will be no social centre. This is a matter of which full account should be taken in arriving at a closure decision, and I should like to know from the Minister whether the considerable social use of the school, to say nothing of the income from its social use, was taken fully into account.

I end by emphasising my constituents' distress about the proposed closure of the school. I am aware, as they are, that the two other schools have spare capacity and are not too far away. But they are out of the area of this community, which is an old-established one.

At this time in our history it is very important to retain established communities in city centres, and I repeat that I am sure that if we can retain this school in being in this residential area young married people will be encouraged to live there.

To take away this infants' school from this community will be to take away its heart, and I plead that it be allowed to continue in being for one more year. In that year, it can be proven whether there are a sufficient number of children whose parents wish them to attend it and thereby justify its continuance in being. If it can 272 continue in being, I am convinced, as the Member for Parliament for the area concerned, that the Spital Tongues Infants' School call go on giving our community the great service that it has given for a very long time.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Miss Margaret Jackson)

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Sir W. Elliott) has raised a question which I suspect we shall see raised with increasing frequency on both sides of the House as the declining birth rate makes its presence felt in schools in every part of the country and in every community.

The case that the hon. Gentleman raised is a somewhat unusual one, in that the school is a small one, with all the characteristics, good and bad, of small schools, but a small school in an urban community rather than a rural one. It was an unusual case and an extremely difficult one in many ways on which to make a judgment; the hon. Gentleman alluded to the comments that we made about the difficulty of making a balanced judgment on the proposal.

I would emphasise one point that the hon. Gentleman made very clear. It is that every care and consideration is given when we look at any proposal for the closure of a school, especially a school of this kind. In whatever kind of community a school is sited, there is no question of the Department rubber-stamping the decisions taken by authorities. Every aspect of a proposal is considered with the greatest care, as is every objection and every comment, and every factual point is investigated with equal care.

The circular on school closures to which the hon. Gentleman referred is not intended to be a signal for wholesale closures. It is intended to give authorities some encouragement to consider the schools that they have in their areas and the best use that can be made of them for the benefit of all the children in their areas, and to help them consider what proposals for the future use of schools might be necessary in the years ahead.

I must emphasise, however, that it is for the local education authorities to make these decisions. It is for the local education authorities to take the initiative 273 to propose school closures. If an authority decides to c1ose a school it must not only publish public notices of its intention; time must be given for objections to be made. Two months must be allowed, after the publication of a notice, for objectors to make their views known to the Secretary of State. The final decision whether a school should be closed then rests with my right hon. Friend.

The decision to support the proposal of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Education Authority to close the Spital Tongues School was not taken lightly. As the hon. Gentleman said, it has been a good school, and although its buildings are old they are in good condition. It was popular, too, with parents, but it appeared at the time when the decision was taken that within a year or so the total school population in the area would be down to single figures. At that time it was less clear than the hon. Gentleman suggested that there might be a dispute about the size of the future population, and particularly about the school population in the following year.

In all these proposals one question that comes much into our considerations is the alternative facilities that are available locally. There are a variety of such facilities in the surrounding area. Reference has been made to the role of the school and to the social facilities in the village. Such arguments are always very much in our minds. Although I recognise the arguments advanced by the hon. Gentleman on the value of this school to the community within a large city, nevertheless his constituents are in a rather different position from, let us say, those who live in a small village isolated in a large rural community where no other facilities are available. I recognise the value of the school to the local community, which residents wish to preserve, but nevertheless it is not their only source of social life. In a city such as Newcastle, which offers social facilities, the school is not the only source of community activity.

Furthermore, we are not in this case dealing with an area in which alternative school provision is many miles away over difficult or treacherous country roads. We are dealing with an area in which alternative school provision is not inferior to that of Spital Tongues School. This provision is in easy walking distance of 274 the nearest school, or a little further afield for those parents who do not wish their children to go simply to the nearest school. Therefore, although I recognise these considerations, they are perhaps less severe than sometimes face people, particularly those who live in rural communities.

I recognise that when the case came before us it would have been possible to agree that Spital Tongues School should carry on for another year, but we had very much in mind the fact that nothing can be more debilitating or depressing than a school which is told to carry on in the knowledge that it is under a suspended sentence of death. Sometimes it is the death knell of the school. In such a case parents are often less willing to send their children to such a school. Therefore, I am not sure that suspension of the decision for a year would produce the result that the hon. Gentleman and many of the local community expect.

The hon. Gentleman commented that the area, which may be eligible for redevelopment—the Fenham Barracks area—is not to be developed for housing, but I understand from the city planning department that although the area as a whole is earmarked for the preparation of a local plan it does not anticipate that it will lead to a substantial increase in the amount of family housing. In future one does not see any possibility of a substantial growth in the local community, with corresponding need for provision for extra children who will want school places.

However, the argument that is always paramount with us in such cases is what we consider to be the balance of educational advantage or disadvantage for the children involved. We always seek to make a judgment on the basis of whether the children, on balance, obtain more educational advantage from the perhaps more individual attention in a small school or—the other side of the coin—from being with a larger peer group, mixing with children from a bigger circle, being with more children of their own age, in a way that outweighs the perhaps slightly better pupil-teacher ratio. We approve a closure only when we have become convinced—sometimes reluctantly, and sometimes with difficulty, as in this case—that that is where the 275 balance of advantage lies. It is very much the interests of the children that we have in mind at such a time.

My final point is one of substance, but I have left it to the end because I did not wish the hon. Gentleman to feel that it was the only matter that concerned us, and that we did not recognise the arguments of his constituents. It is that under the law as it stands, once the approval of a proposal of this kind has been given under Section 13 of the 1944 Act it is not open to my Department to withdraw or vary that approval.

The hon. Gentleman sought from me tonight a possible stay of execution, as he put it, for a year. It is not within my power to give it. It is now for the local authority to decide on what date it will close the school. After the case has been most carefully considered and all the procedures have been gone through, the authority's proposal has been given the Department's approval. It is now within the authority's power to decide when to carry out that closure. It is not now within my power to withdraw 276 that approval, or to vary its terms. It is within the local education authority's power to make the final decision that the hon. Gentleman seeks.

In fairness to the authority, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that if it were within my power I think that, reluctantly, I would perhaps not grant his plea. If I had felt that it would help the school to keep it open for another year, the decision would not have been taken in the first place. It is now for the authority to make the decision, and I am sure that it has the best interests of the local community and the children in it at heart, just as we have.

I ask the hon. Gentleman and his constituents to recognise that good will and to make good use of it, even if the school cannot be kept open, to see that the children settle happily and fruitfully into a different school and that the community suffers as little as may be by the closure.