HC Deb 22 May 1979 vol 967 cc848-50
1. Mr. Meacher

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his policy on comprehensive schools.

7. Mr. Rooker

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on his support for comprehensive and non-selective secondary education.

13. Mr. Thorne

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement on his policy of support for comprehensive education and the ending of selection for secondary education.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Mark Carlisle)

The Government's policy is not to force authorities to reorganise on comprehensive lines but to maintain and improve the standard of education in all our schools.

Mr. Meacher

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that his policy both of opening up local authority places at independent schools and of encouraging grammar schools to coexist alongside comprehensive schools simply turns the latter into glorified secondary modern schools? Will he acknowledge that this policy is socially divisive and, to satisfy his political dogma, does unwarrantable damage to the hopes and opportunities of the vast majority of the nation's children?

Mr. Carlisle

I do not accept any of the hon. Gentleman's premises. The fact is that certain areas have already reorganised completely. Others still have selective schools. It will be left to each local education authority to decide what it wishes to do.

Mr. Rooker

Can the Secretary of State give a guarantee that there will be no relative cutback in the facilities in any of the comprehensive schools in Birmingham compared with any of the selective schools he mentioned in his earlier answer. Is he aware that in those comprehensive schools my constituents' children now have a wider range of choice of O and A levels than they ever had before reorganisation?

Mr. Carlisle

Expenditure on the schools in Birmingham, as in all other areas, will be a matter for the local education authority.

Mr. Thorne

What does the Secretary of State propose to do should a local education authority exercise its right and say that it is opposed to any form of selection and therefore will not follow the policy that he has enunciated?

Mr. Carlisle

I think that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the policy. If he is asking "What is the position where an authority does not wish to change that which it has?", the answer is that it is entirely up to that authority. If the hon. Gentleman is asking what my position is if an authority puts in proposals to reorganise, the answer is that they will be considered on merit.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman

Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept the grateful thanks of the people of Lancaster in that they will no longer be forced to adopt a course that they did not wish? Will he also accept that our secondary schools are absolutely superb and reject the comments of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), who cast aspersions on our other secondary schools?

Mr. Carlisle

I am grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. We have implemented at the earliest possible moment the undertaking we gave at the time of the election.

Mr. Flannery

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that 85 per cent. of schoolchildren of secondary age are now in comprehensive schools, and that comprehensive education is. the greatest success story that has ever been known in the history of education in our country? Will he kindly explain to us how it is possible to have a creaming-off process, by which the top 5 per cent. or so of pupils is taken away, and still call the schools that are left comprehensive schools?

Mr. Carlisle

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says in so far as I think that 83 per cent. of children of secondary school age are being educated at comprehensive schools. I assume that in his comments about creaming-off he is referring not to the Bill that we published last week but to the Bill promised for later in the year, under which we intend to set up our assisted places scheme. I shall deal with that matter during the debates on that Bill.

Mr. Peter Bottomley

Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider the complaints from parents in my constituency, where all secondary schools at the moment are comprehensive and where families are having discrimination applied to them, so that in a non-selective system children graded as 1-1-1 have a smaller chance of getting into the school of their choice than if their parents had not encouraged them to work hard in their primary schools?

Mr. Carlisle

Certainly I shall look at any matter about which my hon. Friend cares to write to me, but he must table a specific question to get an answer to it.

Mr. Oakes

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman undertake that those authorities which in the future wish to go comprehensive—for example, Tameside and possibly Bolton and Kirklees—will be given unfettered freedom to do so? Secondly, in those authorities where parents have the misfortune still to have a selective system, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman allow them freedom of choice to transfer to an authority where they have comprehensive education and order the authority concerned to pay the out-of-district fee?

Mr. Carlisle

The hon. Gentleman has asked two totally different questions. The second relates to the education of children across the boundaries of local education authorities. That is a matter which, presumably, will be considered, as it was during the passage of the 1978 Bill, during the course of the later Education Bill.

As for the first of the hon. Gentleman's questions, I say at once that local education authorities will now have the power to put in proposals for reorganisation of the schools in their areas if they wish to do so, and I shall look at them in the normal way under section 13 of the 1944 Act.