Schools (Norwich) (Hansard, 23 May 1986)

§ Mr. John Powley (Norwich, South)
First, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Speaker for giving me the opportunity to raise a matter of considerable importance to a large section of constituents whom I have the honour to represent. I also want to thank most sincerely my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for his presence on the Front Bench this afternon. I am sure that the House will join with me in extending my condolences to him on the bereavement that he has suffered this week.
What is the purpose of this debate? I should like my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to say that the Department has made a mistake, that it understands the reasons and arguments that I have put forward and that it will withdraw its letter of 4 March and grant-aid the extension of St. Michael's voluntary aided school at Bowthorpe in my constituency. However, that may be going a little further than my hon. Friend is prepared to go this afternoon, so perhaps he will concede that his Department will think again, taking into account all the arguments that I hope that I can put at his disposal this afternoon, and reconsider the decision not to grant-aid the school so that we may look to some not too distant time in the future when there will be a decision to grant-aid the school.
The subject of this debate has a great deal of support in my constituency. It is not often that within a constituency one has so much support for a particular project. I have the support of all the local residents within the area of Bowthorpe, of Norwich city council, the county council and the local education authority, the governors and the chairman of the governors of the school and all the denominations of the churches within my constituency.
I particularly want to thank the Reverend Ray Simpson, the chairman of the governors, who is in the Gallery today, and Dougy Underwood, the chairman of the Bowthorpe school campaign. They have given me considerable help in preparing the case.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I should point out that he ought not to refer to anyone who is outside the Chamber.

§ Mr. Powley
I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Bowthorpe is not just a housing estate adjoining part of Norwich. Although it is within Norwich it is a separate community. It was planned about 1972 and conceived as three separate villages, not part of Norwich. It comprised the villages of Clover Hill, Chapel Break, and Three Score. The development has started and Clover Hill already has 1,506 houses.
Chapel Break, the second development, has 361 houses already and a further extension is proposed. The population at Bowthorpe is now about 5,800, and with the further 1,370 houses planned will rise in six or seven years to about 13,000. It is important to bear in mind that the area contains a high proportion of young people, and as the House will appreciate, it is younger people who have children of school age.
The area is a separate community. Of course, it has great attachment to the city of Norwich, but it has its own 710 separate community—its own village hall, community policeman, local churches and recreational facilities. There is very much the building up of a community spirit within the area—something that we do not often find on many housing developments.
The area is geographically separate from the city of Norwich, and there is little through traffic, it is very much pedestrianised. There is, of course, a ring road and there are roads within the area, but one does not go through Bowthorpe to get to another area. If someone wants to go to Norwich from Bowthorpe, he has to go out of the area, away from the city, on to the ring road and then back into the city. That is a slight geographical description of the area.
What is the problem that the area faces? I recognise the very difficult problem of the Department of Education and Science with falling school rolls throughout the country. Indeed, my local education authority is also having to grapple with that problem because there are falling rolls throughout Norwich. When proposals are made to close a school, that is done with a heavy heart. However, the argument of falling rolls cannot apply to Bowthorpe which is the most expanding area for school population in Norfolk.
Even within my constituency there are areas where the school population is falling. Within the last few days it was decided that the Gurney middle school would close in September. There is a great deal of regret about that, but I am explaining the point so that the Minister understands that we have accepted that, in some cases, it is necessary to close a school.
However, the area of Bowthorpe has an expanding child population and the figures are there for the Minister to see. We can calculate the number of Bowthorpe pupils who will go to St. Michael's school from 1987. The estimated number for 1987 is 373, increasing by 1992 to 490. Those figures are based on known children. With the new building development, the projected figure for 1987 is 430, rising by 1992 to 739, and all those children must be educated within the area.
In some of the other areas the rolls have fallen slightly. Four other schools are within striking distance of Bowthorpe-Blackdale middle, Wensum middle, Mill View middle and West Earlham middle—which have a capacity of about 1,120 pupils. One school is about to be closed so all the pupils from that school will have to he educated elsewhere. Although there is a surplus of places, the projected increase in the population and the projected increase in the number of children makes it clear that even if all the places at the other schools are occupied there will be still a surplus of children to places in the next five, six, or seven years. Those children have to be educated.
The local education authority will have a difficult problem. It will have to review its education policy. It will not be easy, without the permanent expansion of St. Michael's in my constituency, for the education authority to say to parents living close to St. Michael's that their children cannot attend the school which they can see from their bedroom window. It will be difficult to tell those parents that their children must attend a school two, three or more miles away, some distance from the area in which their friends live.
We have to look beyond this year and the late 1980s into the 1990s and consider what will be happening then. The Minister might say that we cannot spend the money now so he will put off the decision. But he can put it off 711 only for a short time because it takes time to plan, build and equip a building and to organise the education policy to accommodate new classrooms.
The cost to which I referred earlier was estimated by the local education authority to be £525,000 at 1985 prices. We are looking for grant aid of about 85 per cent. towards the building. When St. Michael's was first built in 1981 — the Department accepted that that was only the first phase — the core facilities such as office accommodation and community areas, were provided on the basis of a school with 480 places, not 300 permanent places. We are asking only for an extension of the classroom space. The school is slightly inefficient because it is over-provided with those facilities. Its efficiency will be maximised when it has the 480 places.
The Department rightly has rules and regulations about the distances that anyone can be expected to travel. Two to three miles from the mid-point in Bowthorpe to one of the alternative schools does not sound far. However, I tried walking it the other day. I am relatively fit, I did not have children with me, it was a Sunday afternoon and it was not raining, but it took me 29 minutes to walk from St. Michael's school to the nearest alternative school.
Most parents would do the journey on foot and they would have to walk with their young children for at least 30 minutes. Anyone going by car has to go out of the Bowthorpe area, on to a busy ring road and back into the area of the other schools. I suggest that the local education authority and the Department of Education and Science would not want people to do that.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take account of all the points that I have made. We are talking about a community and an expanding population that will need to be educated. There are not sufficient places in the long term for all the prospective children to be educated. It would be silly of me not to accept that there are places close by now, but I hope that the Minister will take my arguments seriously and will understand the strength of local feeling, backed up by facts and figures. Like any responsible Member, I am looking not only at the present, but at what will be needed in my constituency in the next five or 10 years.
I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically at our case and at the representations of interested parties and will give me some grounds for optimism that he will review the decision that I am sorry that his Department had to take a few weeks ago.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Powley) for his kind personal remarks at the start of his speech. They are sincerely appreciated by me and my family.
I also thank my hon. Friend for raising a number of important matters on which I welcome the opportunity to reply. I am grateful for the close interest that he has shown in St. Michael's Church of England middle school. He has written many letters and lobbied robustly in its cause, and I am aware that the reasons for the rejection by my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State of the St. Michael's extension proposal have not been fully appreciated locally.
712 St. Michael's is a voluntary aided school and the estimated cost of extending it, at £630,000 at November 1985 prices, would represent a major investment from the very limited resources available to the Department for voluntary aided provision.
When considering projects involving additional voluntary provision, as proposed at St. Michael's it is our policy first to consider whether there is a basic need for more places in the area. If such a basic need is proved, we consider whether there is a case for enhanced denominational provision. I am sure that my hon. Friend realises that even following the impending closure of the Gurney county middle school later this year, there will still be about 450 surplus middle school places available in the area.
All those places are within the three-mile statutory walking distance for children of middle school age. Indeed, some sections of the Bowthorpe estate are closer to schools with surplus places than they are to St. Michael's. Therefore, it appears to us that there is no basic need in the area as a whole. I appreciate that my hon. Friend's constituents are opposed to the prospect of pupils moving outside the immediate boundaries of the Bowthorpe estate, for their education.
On the question of denominational need, I am aware that, although designated as a Church of England establishment, in practice, St Michael's plays the role of the local community school. Indeed, when I met a deputation led by my hon. Friend it was made clear to me by the diocesan representatives that St Michael's operated a policy of admitting children from Bowthorpe in preference to pupils from other parts of the city, irrespective of denominational affiliation. No pupil had either been admitted to the school or, indeed, refused entry on denominational grounds. Against that background, therefore, it would seem to be self evident that, at the present time, there is not only no basic need for additional provision in west Norwich but no case for additional denominational school places.
The case for an enlargement of St Michael's cannot, however, be considered in isolation from the effect that such an enlargement would have on other schools in the area. My hon. Friend may recall that in our White Paper "Better Schools" which stated the Government's policies for school-based education in England, we stated our views, based on Her Majesty's Inspectorate's advice, regarding the desirable minimum size of certain types of schools necessary to maintain educational standards and make efficient use of resources. This advice was that middle schools providing education for pupils in the age group eight to 12, which is the system in operation in west Norwich, should not fall below two forms of entry—240 pupils. When they do so, it requires above average staffing levels and makes uneconomic use of other resources.
My hon. Friend is aware, I am sure, that, due to the general and sharp fall in demand in west Norwich, numbers on roll in four other middle schools in his constituency have reached the point where, in each case they have significantly fewer than two forms of entry. Latest returns collected by the Department in February this year show that total numbers at West Earlham middle school are down to 215, leaving 85 surplus places; attendance at Mill View middle school is very low, at 186 pupils, leaving 96 surplus places; Wensum middle school 713 has only 209 on roll with 241 surplus places; and Blackdale middle school has 217 on roll with 43 surplus places.
I know that my hon. Friend cannot fail to agree that it does not make educational sense to allow the four schools that I have just mentioned to atrophy, or economic sense to add to the great number of surplus places currently available in his constituency within such close proximity of the Bowthorpe estate. If my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State had approved the significant enlargement of St Michael's, such a decision would have had expensive consequences for the staffing levels and resources necessary to maintain adequate standards of education for pupils at West Earlham, Mill View, Wensum and Blackdale middle schools.
I have listened with great interest, and appreciate the arguments advanced so capably and well by my hon. Friend, but I believe that he appreciates the general 714 situation that I have outlined and the need to protect the interest of all the children seeking middle school provision in the west Norwich area.
It is, of course, open to the governors of St Michael's to make fresh statutory proposals in the appropriate way for the enlargement of the school. Should such proposals be received, the Secretary of State would be required by law to consider them anew with due regard to the material facts and his general policies. I cannot, therefore, speculate on what his decision might be. However, I hope I have made clear why the recent statutory proposal was rejected.
I thank my hon. Friend most warmly for the way in which he has, in this case, as in so many others in recent years, represented his constituents' interests so capably and well. I hope that he will accept the response that I have had to make this afternoon.