HC Deb 17 March 1982 vol 20 cc453-62

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Gummer.]

10.15 pm
Mr. John Butcher (Coventry, South-West)

In these sensitive days—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill)

Order. Perhaps the lion. Gentleman will wait a moment while the Chamber clears.

Mr. Butcher

In these sensitive days I should begin by declaring a sort of interest in the subject of voluntary-aided and controlled schools, in that I have two children who attend a Church of England infants school. I am much satisfied with the education that they are receiving.

Having said that, I should concentrate on the proper contribution that Church schools make to education provision in the United Kingdom, both in the physical and material sense and in the moral, if not even spiritual, sense. To do this I should like to cite the example of the provision made in the city of Coventry by Church schools. I am delighted to report that we have an above-average number of Church schools, probably as a result of fairly large immigration into the city of people from Ireland in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The result is that 17 per cent. of primary school places in the city are now provided by Roman Catholic schools and 6.6 per cent. by Church of England schools, giving a total of 7, 200 places in addition to the 25, 500 totally funded by the local education authority. At secondary level 18.5 per cent. of the places are provided by Roman Catholic schools and 3 per cent. by Church of England schools.

Surely in these days, when education budgets are constricted, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science does not need to be reminded of the important financial contribution that those schools make in the 15 per cent. of initial building costs that they provide. When repairs and maintenance budgets are being reduced—or being made more efficient, should I say?—the maintenance of the external fabric of a building can cost a considerable sum.

Moving on to the broad issue of the subject of tonight's debate, I should like first to refer to a booklet entitled "The Catholic School", published in 1977, which says on page 22: The Catholic school community…is an irreplaceable source of service, not only to the pupils and its other members, but also to society. Today especially one sees a world which clamours for solidarity and yet experiences the rise of new forms of individualism. Society can take note from the Catholic school that it is possible to create true communities out of a common effort for the common good. In the pluralistic society of today the Catholic school, moreover, by maintaining an institutional Christian presence in the academic world, proclaims by its very existence the enriching power of the faith as the answer to the enormous problems which afflict mankind. Above all, it is called to render a humble loving service to the Church by ensuring that she is present in the scholastic field for the benefit of the human family. In the Durham report the following observations are made: It is a Christian's concern for the wholeness of the human being, for the quality of the common life, for the direction in which man goes that turns him towards education now and sets him inside it and will not let him disengage…We are in, and will remain in, education because that is where we belong. The pursuit of truth and the imparting of it are very much our business, as are the healthy enlargement of men's minds and personalities and the creation of truly human relationships and communities. No reasonable hon. Gentleman would disagree with those very noble and laudable words.

In my six years as a member of the Birmingham city education committee and three years as its vice-chairman, there were rarely any arguments about the role of Church schools. Indeed, parents often demanded of me that we should keep politics out of education. We did our best to do that and I am reminded that we used to say there were three major political parties in Birmingham; members of the Conservative and Labour Parties and members of the education committee. Sadly, politics is intervening more and more in education and I am afraid to report, even in the role of Church schools, that a rather vituperative political dimension is being added.

The education system in Britain comprises a variety of schools to meet the needs and aspirations of a variety of children. I include in that total system the independent schools that are under open attack from the Labour party and muted attack from the Social Democrats.

However, I wish to concentrate tonight on the voluntary sector and, particularly, on the major part of it—Church schools. They are also under attack, especially from the Labour Party at local level and by some Labour councillors—the people who implement Labour's education policy. It is a part of Labour's overall policy to be against any sort of independence, even semi-independence, in education. It would simply have the schools totally controlled by the State.

Voluntary schools are most excellent where we can observe the benefits of less State control, and of the input from foundations and persons dedicated to good education, without any axe to grind beyond that of ensuring that good education is available in their schools. Church schools are particularly well known for their insistence on good discipline, moral standards and, of course, teaching of religion. When there is general agreement today that standards of behaviour and discipline leave much to be desired, it would be utter stupidity to destroy these havens of such good behaviour and discipline.

Of course, the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) is shrewd enough to appreciate the electoral liability of alienating the millions of voters who support Church schools, many of whom use them. He must be particularly concerned at the growing antipathy of the Catholic vote when they see their schools under threat. Nevertheless, whether he likes it or not, Labour is increasingly adopting an anti-Church schools attitude, not least in London.

Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North)

My hon. Friend mentioned the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock). Is he aware that in the London borough of Ealing, which I represent, in a three-tier system there are five Church of England lower schools, three Church of England middle schools and, up to two years ago, there was no Church of England high school? The Church and people of Ealing set out to establish such a school. The hon. Member for Bedwellty visited Ealing more than once, speaking vituperatively and aggressively against the establishment of that school. The National Executive Committee of the Labour Party did its utmost, in every possible way, to prevent the Church of England from establishing a new Church of England school in Ealing, to the eternal shame of the Labour Party in Britain. That must not be forgotten, and it occurred only two years ago. I am happy to say that the battle has been won and the school established.

Mr. Butcher

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. If something should come out of this debate, I hope it will be an assiduous investigation in constituencies throughout the land into the attitude of local Labour Parties towards denominational schools.

The London Labour Party produced a draft manifesto in preparation for the last GLC elections. That was prepared in September 1980 and Labour proposed policies in that document to curtail the rights of voluntary schools, reduce their intakes and, eventually, eliminate them altogether. Of course, such policies are wrapped up in party jargon. A passage states: We deplore the attitude of those voluntary schools which seek to retain an element of selection in their intake and we intend to ensure that these schools bear a fair share of any reductions in size resulting from falling rolls. Another says: No child should be educationally segregated by virtue of his or her sex, religious, ethnic, or socio-economic status". What that means, among other things, is that a Catholic school may not select children for that school on the grounds of their being Catholic. Further on, the document says: In order to further the spirit of a fully comprehensive education service, the status, pupil selection system, and role of the voluntary school sector should be completely reviewed with the aim of ending all selectivity". That again is a euphemism for saying that a Church school may not select admissions—not even on grounds of Church commitment. It is interesting that almost identical policies came out some months later at the Easter conference of the National Union of Teachers in 1981 as a motion submitted by the Lewisham branch of the union. It was a long motion listing five ways in which Church schools should be made "more accountable", as the motion put it. It sought to prevent Church affiliation from being a criterion for admission of pupils. It sought to have the local authority control three quarters of the governors. It sought to prevent religious affiliation being a factor in appointing staff. It sought to prevent the proportion of pupils in voluntary schools increasing in any area.

So seriously did the Catholic Church take this threat that the diocese of Westminster circulated all its Catholic schools with the terms of the motion and a point by point answer to it. The diocese makes the valid point that in some areas there have never been enough Catholic school places to meet the demand from the local Catholic population. Falling numbers of children, including those among the Catholic community, mean that by retaining the same number of Catholic school places, the demand from the Catholic community can at last be met. Those who, in the past, have been unable to find a Catholic place can now do so. In other areas, where the supply of Catholic places has in the past matched demand, the diocese rightly concedes that places will need to be taken out of use as that demand falls.

This is the major onslaught on the Catholic schools at present.

Mr. J. F. Pawsey (Rugby)

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He speaks without bias. He is not a member of the Catholic faith, although he is a well-known and respected member of the Church of England. It is fair to say that Church of England schools also play a prominent part in the life of the educational system and denominational schools. There are many good Church of England schools. Will my hon. Friend agree that those Church of England schools are also directly under threat from Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Bedwellty, (Mr. Kinnock)?

Mr. Butcher

I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. I would not like to go against moves towards ecumenicalism on the matter. I am sure that the two parts of this equation feel equally under threat.

The antagonists are saying that if, in an area, the number of Church school places has been, in the past, say 10 per cent. of the total number of maintained school places, then, when the total demand for school places falls, as is happening in London and the other big cities, the number of Church places should still be no more than 10 per cent. Yet, if the free expression of parental choice is permitted, all the evidence is that far more parents prefer a Church school for their child than they have been able to achieve in recent years. Now, with falling rolls, there should be a greater opportunity to meet that parental choice.

A very articulate priest who resides in my constituency has addressed himself to thoughts on the role of Church schools. He says: To the Roman Catholics themselves the schools allow growth within their faith, not in isolation but hopefully allowing children to face society with firm Christian principles. He lists as a second advantage: To the general education system the schools allow a viable variation for parental choice". Thirdly, he sees the schools as "a strength" with a strong philosophy of education to counteract some of the more extreme doctrines that seem to abound these days". The Church schools are the enemies of intolerance and the disseminators of clear Christian values. I have sought this debate for two reasons—to reaffirm the role and value of Church schools and to put a shot across the bows of those who may be tempted to produce policies that threaten their existence within a pluralistic society.

I conclude with a further quotation from a Church of England man, the Rev. Gerard Hughes, of the Coventry diocesan education team, who said: Education tends to socialise its pupils. We must, however, go beyond this and try to initiate children into what is valuable in society". I am sure that reasonably-minded hon. Members will support that objective and I hope that my hon. Freind will lend his support to that category of schools which is most assiduous in its pursuit.

10.29 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Dr. Rhodes Boyson)

We owe a debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mr. Butcher) for introducing this debate today. I know that many others present, including my hon. Friends the Members for Rugby (Mr. Pawsey), for Winchester (Mr. Browne), for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) and myself are concerned about the preservation of voluntary schools in Britain. I draw attention to the empty Opposition Benches and to the absence of any Labour, Liberal or SDP Member, when everyone knew that there was to be an Adjournment debate this evening about voluntary schools and their importance to the educational system.

I greatly respect my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West. I met him when he was on the education committee in Birmingham and when I spoke to the advisory committee of the Conservative Party in that area. Our friendship, which I very much treasure, began in those days before he joined us as a Member of Parliament.

Tonight he has drawn our attention to the valuable part played by the voluntary schools in the education service of Britain. I am only too pleased to assure him that the Government continue to support the voluntary schools, especially the Church schools, and that, as far as any Government can, they will protect those schools from those who would destroy them or, as seems to be the policy of the Labour Party, slowly to strangle them.

Such voluntary schools—which are largely Catholic, Anglican or Jewish, but which could be used by other multi-racial or ethnic groups, and which frequently are in some parts of Britain—give parents the opportunity to have their children taught in a school where religious and moral values reflect those of the Church and the family. In an age when moral values are under attack, that ensures that children are brought up with roots that can withstand the storms of adolescence. Never have religiously based schools been more necessary.

Voluntary schools are also part of the free society. They balance the increasing power of the Government and local education authorities, of which I have always been suspicious. Lord Acton's dictum was Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely and a free society will be preserved only by power centres that are not pawns of the State but which can balance the State's powers. Voluntary schools are one of the foundation stones of the free society. Poland is a current warning of the need for alternative power structures independent of the State.

My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to documents emanating from the Labour Party, which wishes to control admissions to these schools, taking away from the Church control of over its own schools and reducing the intake to those schools, even against parental wishes. I wish to bring my hon. Friends up to date—my hon. Friend spoke of the draft manifestos of last year—about what has happened more recently along those lines. Further documents published since the local elections of last year regrettably demonstrate that the fervour of the Socialists to control, to use one of their euphemisms, the Church schools remains unabated.

The Socialist Education Association produced a document only last December entitled "The Dual System of Voluntary and County Schools". The Socialist Education Association is affiliated to the Labour Party, and the president and driving force of that association is none other than Mrs. Caroline Benn, wife of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). Mrs. Benn said that the document would be considered by the Labour Party national executive committee with a view to incorporating it into party policy.

The proposals in that document amount to the eventual abolition of Church schools. The local education authorities would control admissions to the voluntary schools. At present the head and the governors control admissions and, to take a simple example, they admit Catholics to Catholic schools. The Socialists would take away the right of control over admissions. If they do that, the special ethos of those schools will be completely destroyed.

Similarly, under this recommendation the local education authorities would control staff appointments to the voluntary schools, which again is a way of removing the special attributes of the schools. But the most immediate and effective control that the Socialist Education Association proposes is on the actual numbers allowed into those schools, to which my hon. Friend referred. Hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that while most areas of the country are suffering from falling school rolls, the numbers applying to the voluntary schools are holding up more than those to the county schools. In other words, left to themselves, many parents show a preference for the voluntary schools such that numbers in these schools decline only slowly compared to the greater decline in the county schools.

To this state of affairs the Socialist Education Association says: The local authority must be given powers to see that schools share the falls and closures equitably, rather than leave developments to be determined by crude market forces. Presumably what is meant by "crude market forces" is parental choice. The association seems to be saying that the parents—presumably ratepayers and taxpayers—should not be allowed to exercise choice for their own children.

Mr. Pawsey

Does my hon. Friend recognise that Catholics raise money for their own schools? Surely they are putting their choice where their money is.

Dr. Boyson

I welcome that intervention. Catholics do raise money for their schools. Even in the building of schools they raise 15 per cent. of the cost. There is a financial penalty clause which accompanies that choice.

The document continues: Legislation will be required to give local authorities the right to determine school size after due consultation with all interested parties. We know what is sometimes meant by consultation. This is what was in the Labour Government's 1979 Education Bill of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams), who was the then Secretary of State for Education and Science. That Bill fell with the election.

The right hon. Lady makes much of her 1979 Bill, and she claims that we simply stole it and turned it into our 1980 Act. We certainly "stole" the non-controversial bits, such as calling managers and governors of schools simply governors. On admissions and the voluntary schools, however, we made very careful and intentional changes to what she had proposed in order to restore the full rights of the voluntary schools and to make sure that these rights would be retained.

The right hon. Lady's Bill would have made it possible for local authorities, supported by the Secretary of State, to impose a reduction on the entry to a popular voluntary school, even where such reduction was clearly against the wishes of the parents, and clearly against the so-called "crude market forces". In Committee I led the then Conservative Opposition in opposing the Bill. That Opposition fought it tooth and nail. We kept the Bill in Committee until the previous Labour Goverment fell. In other words, the right hon. Lady attempted the kind of legislation that the Socialist Education Association is still asking for today. Indeed, the SEA is kind enough to give us credit for supporting the voluntary schools in our 1980 Act, which I took through Committee. It states: The 1980 Education Act gave aided voluntary schools significant new independent powers in matters of admissions and certain appeals The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), the chief Opposition spokesman on education, has gone to some lengths to try to distance himself from these views of the Socialist Education Association. He even found it necessary to write to the Catholic newspapers pointing out that the document was only a discussion document and was not necessarily Labour Party policy.

Mr. Pawsey

We will not be taken in by that.

Dr. Boyson

Quite so. I do not think that we are being taken in by that. However, the document states: This is not the first time the Labour Party has committed itself to discuss problems arising over the dual system. In our party programme 1973, setting out policy for a future Labour Government, we pledged that a Labour Government would start informal talks with the voluntary sector on some of the problems being met. We know what those informal talks would mean. We are entitled to observe that what may be extreme Bennite policies one year tend to become accepted Labour policy the next.

Furthermore, we are entitled to observe that the former leader of the ILEA, Sir Ashley Bramall, and a present ILEA committee chairman, Miss Margaret Morgan, as well as the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price), are listed as contributors to the Socialist Education Association document. I was also amazed to find that an ILEA inspector is listed as a contributor to that political document.

Let me quote from another Socialist source. There is a journal published by the Left-wing branch of the London Labour Party under the name TLK. That stands, believe it or not, for "Teaching London Kids". In one issue a Mr. Dave Pictor states: The proportion of pupils in voluntary schools is rising fast…The 1980 Education Act by deliberately strengthening the position of the voluntary aided and special agreement schools is an attempt to permanently defend those voluntary schools. We say "Amen" to that. He, too, credits us with defending Church schools. I consider that not an attack but an honour.

Mr. Pictor also says of the Catholic schools: What is most unacceptable about the position is the way in which the Catholic authorities, by virtue of the aided status, are able to formulate their own plans for secondary organisation. At least he concedes: The way forward is not instant abolition of the voluntary schools". I have to say, however, that the way that he emphasises instant abolition seems to imply that the way forward is the eventual strangulation of the voluntary schools. However, the Left-wing of the Labour Party kindly reminds the hon. Member for Bedwellty that the matter of the Church schools is a "political hot potato" and that If handled in a clumsy way it could lose votes". If that is all that the Labour Party offers, can voluntary schools look to the SDP for help? I sadly fear not. Not only did the right hon. Member for Crosby, when she was still in the Labour Party, put into her 1979 Bill proposals that would have seriously curtailed the voluntary schools, but let us look at what the SDP is saying now.

I quote from the Camden SDP: the county and voluntary schools should share equally in falling pupil entry, and that all schools should be kept open with reduced intake. That is what my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West quoted the Labour Party as saying. Here again the SDP is saying that the voluntary schools must take an equal share of falling rolls, ignoring the fact that there is still a tremendous demand for those schools and that parents do not want them to be cut back equally with the other schools. One outcome of that SDP policy would be the end of the Church schools, for many of them are only three forms of entry. To reduce their intake still further would be to make them very difficult to run.

Let me return to Labour's policy and quote another of the formidable Benn family. Councillor Hilary Benn, now I believe the prospective parliamentary Labour candidate for Ealing, North, and son of Caroline and the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East, in a letter to The Times of 12 February this year stated: The case against any extension of voluntary aided denominational education is overwhelming. Again, betraying that true Socialist view, he stated: The most fundamental objection of all is that the principle of comprehensive education, whose purpose is to break down barriers of selection, class, race and social inequality, would be irrevocably damaged if our education system were to be divided on religious lines. In other words Church schools can stay if they are not concerned with religion—one can have any colour of car as long as it is black.

No wonder the Church schools are alarmed. No wonder they look to the Conservative Party as the only party that clearly and without a shadow of doubt continues to support the retention and the continued independence of the voluntary sector of education.

This is not a political monopoly, however, that we should like to preserve. We should be only too delighted to have the Labour Party and the SDP joining us in clear and full defence both on religious and personal choice grounds. I regret that this is not at present the case. We should welcome the presence of the SDP to hear what is being said in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Page) is a great supporter of voluntary schools. I welcome his presence.

The debate has been important. The preservation of religious schools is important on religious grounds and for the defence of freedom.

Mr. Greenway

I attended the weekly communion service of the Twyford Church of England high school in Ealing last week. Children of all races were there, which proves that the schools are multiracial and rules out the Labour Party's racial objection.

Dr. Boyson

There were three times as many first choices for the school this year, after it had become a Church of England school, than three years ago, when it was non-denominational. Despite the Labour Party's total opposition, the success of the transfer of the school to become a Church of England school is demonstrated by the parental support. I trust that similar parental choice will be permitted throughout the country.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.