HC Deb 29 November 1977 vol 940 cc246-8
6. Sir David Renton

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she is aware that the Cambridgeshire Education Authority has had to make cuts in its education services because of lack of rate support grant; what steps she proposes to take to help the authority to overcome this problem in the current financial year; and whether she will give an undertaking that adequate funds will be made available for improving educational services in the coming financial year.

Mrs. Shirley Williams

Yes, Sir. The rate support grant settlement for 1978–79 offers some measure of protection to local authorities like Cambridgeshire who lost grant in 1977–78. I understand that the authority's share of grant next year should differ only fractionally from its 1977–78 share. For details of the settlement, I refer the right hon. Member to the rep12, given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 18th November.—[Vol. 939, c. 389–9.]

Sir D. Renton

Is the right hon. Lady aware that the situation in Cambridgeshire is most unsatisfactory and that in the coming financial year, following severe cuts and great increases in the present financial year, further cuts will have to be made in education services despite a 20 per cent. increase in rates? Is the right hon. Lady satisfied with that sort of education provision in Cambridgeshire?

Mrs. Williams

I am not satisfied. However, it must be made clear that Cambridgeshire made proposals for a cut in the education budget of £1.75 million in the coming year before it knew the result of the rate support grant settlement. I understand that its decisions were provisional, and, further, that since the difference is at most a fractional one it is up to the authority now to reconsider what were very drastic proposals.

Mr. Ward

Is my right hon. Friend in a position to comment upon the general effect of rate support grant on teacher employment across the country?

Mrs. Williams

Yes. If teacher numbers were to follow the school population, which will fall by more than 100,000 between 1977–78 and 1978–79, there would be a reduction overall of 3,700 teaching posts. In fact what we have done is to make provision for an additional 1,000 teachers in deprived areas, an additional 1,800 teachers to allow the induction year to start, an additional 1,700 teachers to allow in-service training, and an additional 6,800 teachers to allow an operating margin in the light of falling rolls. Altogether, this means that in the rate support grant settlement there will be 11,300 more teaching posts than there would have been if the RSG had not been altered in this way.

Mr. Speaker

I allowed that question to be answered, but it goes far beyond the Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Freud

In view of the powers of the Secretary of State for the Environment in distributing rate support grant, does the right hon. Lady feel that her Department has sufficient powers to ensure adequate education standards for the children of Cambridgeshire?

Mrs. Williams

The hon. Gentleman will know, since he and his hon. Friends frequently talk to me about teacher unemployment, that one of the matters that I am most concerned about is the absence of specific powers to make sure that rate support grant is spent on education when it is allocated for education. This means that everything I say about the rate support grant settlement depends on whether local authorities spend the money that has been made available for that purpose.

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