De La Salle College of Education (Hansard, 22 November 1982)

§ Mr. Jim Callaghan (Middleton and Prestwich)
I should like to record my thanks to Bishop Holland of the diocese of Salford, the Reverend Brother Wilfred and the Reverend Brother Terrance, the principal and vice-principal, respectively, of De La Salle college, Middleton, Mr. Cunningham, the secretary of the Catholic Education Council for England and Wales and the staff and students of Hopwood Hall for their excellent assistance and close co-operation in our attempt to change the proposed decision of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to close De La Salle Catholic college of education.
On 6 August 1982, just after Parliament had gone into recess, the Secretary of State provisionally proposed that initial teacher training courses should be discontinued at De La Salle and other colleges of education. The college governors were invited to make representations against the proposals before 17 September. That time scale was unacceptable to the governors of De La Salle. The time allowed by the Department was inadequate for us to prepare a full case against the proposed cuts.
When Parliament was in recess, many people were on holiday and educational establishments and offices were closed or had reduced staff and it was impossible to arrange adequate discussions or to submit fully developed arguments to counter the decisions that had already been arrived at in the Department of Education and Science. Where was the prior consultation that we expect in a democracy? Why was the announcement made after Parliament went into recess? Despite the restrictions and difficulties caused by the time factor, the college governors of De La Salle immediately called an emergency meeting to discuss the proposals of the Department of Education and Science.
The meeting lasted three hours, during which it became clear that the impact of the proposal would be disastrous for the college and the local community. The governors were surprised, disturbed and dismayed, as I was, at the grave implications for religious teaching, education and the economy of the Middleton area. The proposed closure will take £2½ million out of the local economy by the loss of 70 professional jobs and 200 ancillary jobs and the loss of student grants and services to the area. The closure is proposed when Middleton is suffering from the grave consequences of the economic depression more than most towns of a comparable size.
The governors were anxious about the grave consequences of the implementation of the proposal for the Catholic school system in the North-West and its effects on the supply of newly trained teachers and the development of in-service courses to meet the schools' needs. They resolved to oppose the proposals and make every effort to have the decision reversed. In addition, indignation was expressed about the lack of prior consultation, the inconvenience of the announcement's timing and the brevity of the period to make the representations.
Despite the time limit, a delegation of individual representatives from the college, Manchester university, the local education authority, the Catholic education authority and hon. Members from both sides of the House 681 was led by Bishop Holland to meet the Minister on 23 September. Despite the case put forward on 8 November the Minister wrote to the principal, Reverend Brother Wilfred, that "provisionally" the Department of Education and Science proposed to discontinue initial teacher training at the college.
Just over a week ago in the House, I asked the Minister whether the provisional proposal meant the closure of the college. His answer was "Yes". His apparent determination to close the college is incomprehensible.
The college is in the forefront in training design and technology teachers, whose skills are highly relevant to the nation's needs. De La Salle has developed the most advanced department of design and technology and also has an important microelectronics centre, much of which is involved with the initial teacher training programmes. The centre is the only one of its kind in the country. Design and technology is one of the main shortage subjects in schools, yet the Government are closing one of the curriculum leaders.
A new science and technology block has just been completed at the Department's suggestion and will have cost £1 million by the time a new computer has been installed; yet it is the only college that the Department seems determined to close. Its attitude does not make economic or any other sense.
The decision means that the college will die slowly over three years. It will cease to exist, just like another Catholic college of education in my constituency—Sedgley Park.
Is not the Minister's decision to close De La Salle a violation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy's right to allocate and distribute its traditional percentage share of teacher training places? Secondly, is it not a de facto circumvention of the Education Act 1944 which inaugurated the dual system? Is the Minister not attempting to undermine the Act by an administrative ploy and to have it nullified without recourse to parliamentary debate?
Thirdly, does the Minister recognise that in the alleged consultations with the Catholic Education Council neither he nor his assistants made it clear that their real aim was to close one Roman Catholic college?
Fourthly, is it not financially expedient for the Minister to select a voluntary college for closure? He can thereby more easily avoid financial obligations to redundant staff, in particular by refusing to make adequate funds available for early retirement schemes with enhanced pensions comparable to those in the maintained colleges.
In a written reply to the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) the Secretary of State referred to unavoidable redundancies among teaching staff. He stated: Teachers aged 50 and over who lose their posts because of redundancy qualify for statutory minimum redundancy payments and for the existing premature retirement compensation terms. Those arrangements will continue to apply. Does the Minister intend to ensure that in the voluntary sector additional funds will be made available to the central reserve so that all claims for redundancy and premature retirement compensation are met in full?
The Secretary of State also said: Additionally, because of the substantial reduction in advanced further education teaching (including colleges of education) that is expected over the next few years, I have decided to allow local education authorities and governors of 682 voluntary and direct grant colleges in England and Wales discretion to offer improved terms to teachers aged 41 to 49 in advanced further education for the period of the academic year 1982 to 1985. The new maximum payment will be 66 weeks' pay, subject to age and length of service."—[Official Report, 8 November 1982; Vol. 31, c. 36–37.] In allowing the governors of voluntary colleges discretion to offer the maximum payment, does the Minister intend to give them sufficient funds to make the payments in full?
Fifthly, has the Minister already determined to close other voluntary colleges in the near future under the smokescreen of further administrative exercises?
Sixthly, did the Minister take steps to ascertain the percentage of non-Catholic students in each Roman Catholic college before deciding which one to close?
Seventhly, is the Minister aware that De La Salle college is one of the Roman Catholic colleges with the smallest percentage of non-Catholic students and that it has faithfully remained close to the original purpose of its foundation?
Eighthly, does the Minister agree that in closing De La Salle college he will be closing a viable, healthy college with an excellent standard of teacher training and does he admit that he is suppressing it merely for the financial savings that will result?
Ninthly, will the Minister now state clearly the precise grounds on which the decision to close De La Salle college was made and will he explain those grounds in specific terms rather than in vague references to general criteria applied to all colleges?
Tenthly, is it true that when the criteria were initially applied, De La Salle college was not on the resulting list of closures but was added at a subsequent stage and was that done for new and quite different reasons?
Eleventhly, has the Minister any idea of the enormous financial burden that the closure will place on the providing body?
Twelfthly, has the Department abandoned the principle of the historic share, leaving the Catholic Education Council with only 8.5per cent. of public sector teacher training rather than its historic share of 9.33 per cent.?
Thirteenthly, and lastly, because of the distribution of Catholic population, the Catholic Education Council has aimed to have about 50 per cent. of its total teacher training in the North of England. Does the Minister agree that his decision would reduce the percentage in the North to 39 per cent. so that the North as a whole would suffer as well as the area around Middleton?
If the Minister cannot give me the answers off the top of his head, I hope that he will give them to me in writing.
Despite my questions about redundancy payments, I should make it clear that the Catholic community will fight to save the last Catholic college in the North-West on which 300 Catholic schools in the surrounding area and about 900 schools within easy access of Middleton depend. That is one-third of all the country's Catholic schools.
On 10 November 1982, to show that the fight was on, the 42 Roman Catholic bishops passed a resolution at their conference rejecting the Minister's decision and directing the appropriate Department of their education commission to challenge that decision and to secure its withdrawal.
I personally deplore the erosion of the rights of the Catholic community to its historic share of initial teacher training places, the erosion of the rights of the bishops to control through the Catholic Education Council, the 683 distribution of such places, and the damage that will be done to the interests of the Catholic community, particularly in the North of England.
The Minister's proposal in effect limits the choice of Catholic students to be trained in a Catholic college. I assure the Minister, as I did on 23 September when I came to see him with Bishop Holland, that the bishops and the Catholic community are appalled at the damage that will be done to the Catholic position in the national education system if the closure takes place. As Bishop Holland said on 23 September, we have a dual system of education that has lasted for more than 100 years, but the Minister's proposed decision will violate the Catholic place in that system.
The proposed decision also encourages the suspicion that political considerations have outweighed judgments of educational quality. It is hard to accept that the main victim of the exercise—indeed, the only college to close—with its brand new facilities and high reputation in the shortage subjects of craft, design and technology and religion is less valuable to the nation than some of the institutions that have survived.
Therefore, I urge the Minister—it is no good his nodding his head—to reconsider and change his decision. If he fails to do so, it is my belief that he will turn this into a national issue. This decision represents an unfair and unjust descrimination against Catholics. I ask the Minister please to reconsider his decision.

§ Mr. Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden)
I should like briefly to—

§ Mr. Speaker
Does the hon. Gentleman have the agreement of the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Callaghan), who has the Adjournment, and the Minister, to speak on the Adjournment?

§ Mr. Haselhurst
I believe so.
I should like to underline the main thrust of the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Callaghan). I once had the honour of representing that constituency in the House, and thus am well acquainted with De La Salle college. Obviously, I feel keenly about the decision with which we are faced.
The hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich will understand that I cannot agree with all his arguments because I realise that my hon. Friend has difficult decisions to make on the totality of training places in the country. I stress, however, that this is an enormous blow to Middleton. The area has already seen the closure of one Catholic teacher training college. The loss of De La Salle would be serious indeed.
I also underline the loss to the Catholic community of greater Manchester. I remember that there were eight Catholic parishes in Middleton alone, let alone the large Catholic population all round and in Manchester. There will be a real sense of loss, both in terms of education and the blow to the community of Middleton, if the college disappears.
I hope that this matter can be carefully reconsidered. I am surprised that, if there has to be a thinning out in Catholic teacher training colleges, Middleton seems to have attracted the axe that Newman college seems to have escaped. It is not for me to make that decision. I imagine that the Department has the advice of the Catholic 684 hierarchy on what is the best way to administer any cuts that might be considered by the Department to be necessary.
I hope that a way may be found to maintain both establishments, as this would be in the best interest of maintaining the number of Catholic teacher training colleges. Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to say that the door is not finally closed on what would be a serious blow to the Catholic community of greater Manchester, and in particular to the constituency of Middleton and Prestwich.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Waldegrave)
I can clear up a number of points made by the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Callaghan); some can be cleared up quickly, others will require a letter to the hon. Gentleman.
There is a misunderstanding about the word "provisionally" in the letter of 8 November. The sentence begins: I wrote on 6 August to inform you that, provisionally". The letter of 8 November was the decision taken after consultation, and, subject to the will of the House, is the final decision.
With regard to redundancy, there is money available to make sure that the intention of the Secretary of State about redundancy terms for the voluntary sector and the local authority colleges are the same.
I should be speaking with equal passion if a college in my constituency were being affected, and I understand the hon. Gentleman. However it is not fair to say that the Roman Catholic hierarchy has or ever had a right to distribute the targets among its colleges. The Education (Schools and Further Education) Regulations make it clear that this is a function of the Secretary of State.

§ Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, Central)
rose—

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I have a large number of points to answer in the speech of the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich alone, so I cannot give away.
I shall give a little of the background. As recently as 1971 initial teacher training was undertaken in 42 universities and 184 public sector institutions, producing an output of 40,000 new teachers a year. The decisions that were announced in 1977 went some way to aligning supply with possible demand, but even then not enough was done. There must be further reductions over the next two or three years.

§ Mr. McNamara
rose—

§ Mr. Waldegrave
In May, advice from the advisory committee pointed to a considerable reduction in the overall need for newly trained teachers following the sharp fall in the birth rate and the school population. There has been a reduction in the school population of more than 1.5 million—more than 25 per cent.—in the past decade.
The Secretary of State's proposals try to align the supply of teachers overall from all the institutions more nearly with the jobs that will be available. In secondary teaching we shall still be producing many more teachers than will possibly have jobs. We think that that is right, as it will give the employing authorities a real choice. It is clear that to allow the teacher training sector—voluntary, local authority or university—to preempt funds from higher education resources as a whole, 685 which would otherwise be available for other courses, would not be fair to those who would then not find places on other courses. It is sometimes not understood that these are not additional cuts to those outlined in the White Paper and debated by the House. These are part of the higher education cuts. If resources are pre-empted in this area they will have to come from somewhere else.

§ Mr. Frank R. White (Bury and Radcliffe)
But what is the percentage in the North-West?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The proportion of teacher training places available in the North West planning region—it is 28.7 per cent. per 100,000—is considerably higher than the national average, which is 24 per cent. per 100,000. The North-West has not been unfairly treated.

§ Mr. White
But what about the cuts?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
That is after the cuts. It is argued that it would have been possible to spread the cuts in places more thinly between more institutions. That was one of the options but I believe that it would have been the wrong one to take.
It has been said that in due course we shall need to expand the supply of teachers. Having considered all the options, we came to the conclusion that it would not be the best course to expand institutions which would be weakened in the interim because of a low uptake. Students do not take up places when jobs are not available following secondary courses. That is part of the trouble. At a time when many places in courses in higher education—

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris (Manchester, Openshaw)
There was an increased uptake.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The targets were handled in a different way this year, including those for BEd at De La Salle. Recruitment generally was increased this year because of the lower targets that were set.

§ Mr. Morris
rose—

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The BEd course at De La Salle was not an especially high recruiter. Students are not taking up courses in teacher training, which are providing training for jobs that will not be available.

§ Mr. Morris
rose—

§ Mr. Waldegrave
We are not offering a kindness to students by training them for jobs that will not be available.

§ Mr. Morris
What about consultation?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I accept that the time scale for consultation was tough this year. It would have been no kindness to the colleges, or to their providing authorities, to prolong the consultation. That would have resulted in long delays and a planning blight on colleges. There was no college affected by the proposals that was not enabled to produce formidable cases to me and the Secretary of State. Hon. Members from both sides of the House approached my right hon. Friend and myself and the Catholic Education Council was consulted. There were many letters and delegations.

§ Mr. McNamara
Rubbish.

§ Mr. Morris
There was no consultation.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met the Catholic Education Council and I met delegations from all the affected colleges who requested it.

§ Mr. McNamara
Only under pressure.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
After the proposals were published we had consultations. Some of the proposals were amended, as hon. Members will be aware. The consultations were real, because in four cases—

§ Mr. Morris
There was no consultation.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The right hon. Member is perhaps overheated because his consultations were not successful. However, four other consultations were successful and the proposals were changed.

§ Mr. Morris
Ask Brother Wilfred.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I had conversations with Reverend Brother Wilfred and with other members of the Catholic hierarchy. Senior churchmen said to us fairly—perhaps more fairly than has been said to us across the House tonight—that few countries in Western Europe treat the denominations with the generosity that, during the years, Governments have treated denominations in Britain. They are given complete freedom to spend taxpayers' money on religious education. Senior members of the Catholic church were generous enough to say at the beginning of the consultations that this has been and remains a generous regime.
Let us consider the argument of the Roman Catholic share. It is understood, certainly by senior members of the hierarchy, that as the teacher training system becomes smaller, it becomes more difficult finely to tune the percentages, because, by definition, each institution represents a larger share of the smaller totals and one cannot manoeuvre it to the exact percentage point. The intakes to Catholic colleges last year were about 8.8 per cent. After my right hon. Friend's decisions, the intakes will be about 8.5 per cent. That is a loss to the Catholic share of teacher training, but it is hard to describe it in the catastrophic terms of the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich.

§ Mr. Jim Callaghan
It is 100 per cent. disastrous for this college.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
I do not deny the fact that the proposals so far as this college is concerned are entirely unsatisfactory. However, those are the decisions that we must take. We must try to balance a wide range of considerations against one another and reach a decision that is bound to be unsatisfactory to many colleges.
It was clear to all those who studied the matter that some colleges would be closed and that the proponents of the colleges to be closed would not welcome the decision. A wide range of factors were taken into account—

§ Mr. Frank R. White
Why did you close this college?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The use of resources was one factor, the commitment of the institution and the providing body to teacher training—[Interruption.] If hon. Members would listen with their ears instead of with their mouths, they might learn. We considered the strength of the institution, the commitment to education and the relationship between teacher training and other courses. 687 We looked for a commitment to primary work, where we are calling for rapid expansion, and the proposals of the college developed in consultation with officials—

§ Mr. Morris
There was no consultation.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
Consultations have been taking place for months with officials about what the college would do for the development of primary education. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) points to one factor that weighed in the college's favour. Money has been spent there, but it would have been impossible to allow that tail to wag the whole dog. The £250,000 spent at the college is a loss and must be written off. We could not allow the matter to be decided because of one investment decision.
We considered the existing base for primary work, the recruitment patterns, the facilities and resources, the relationship between PGCE and BEd courses, in-service training in the area and the geographical distribution of institutions. Having come to the conclusion that it was desirable to keep open—it will depend ultimately on student choice—one of the two—

§ Mr. Morris
It has nothing to do with student choice.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
That is not so. Having come to the conclusion that it was right to keep open one college, we noted that there was considerable Catholic presence in the North-West, and Birmingham would have had no Catholic representation. However, in terms of the supply to 688 schools, it is possible to over-estimate the number required. The hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich said that there are about 300 Catholic schools in the area. The output of the college is in no way commensurate with the needs of the schools. It is a significant proportion—

§ Mr. Frank R. White
Why did you choose De La Salle?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The teachers in those schools come from a wide range of institutions—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman had listened, he would have heard me reading out the list of criteria against which we decided. Ultimately, we had to make the difficult decision that some teacher training colleges would close. That is a decision not unfamiliar to Members of the Labour Party—

§ Mr. White
The Minister chose this one.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
Many more teacher training colleges were closed by the Labour Government than by this Government.

§ Mr. McNamara
rose—

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The consultations were deep and were much more productive than the—