School Closures (Waveney) (Hansard, 29 October 1987)

§ Mr. David Porter (Waveney)

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the many people of Waveney who are deeply concerned about the closure proposals affecting Waveney schools. I accept that Waveney is not unique in having some schools on death row. Within Suffolk several decisions are awaited on closure proposals. Those decisions are to be taken by my hon. Friend the Minister. Indeed, all over the country schools are being closed, as they always have been, for a variety of reasons ranging from newbuild to falling rolls, from reorganisation of two-tier to three-tier or for economic or educational reasons. That, put simply, is fair enough. No one expects education to stand still and not be in need of continuous reassessment.

The widespread concern in Waveney stems from a number of sources: the over-zealousness of the county council and the manner of its approach; the educational arguments about small versus large schools; the community needs in an area on a geographical limb, as Waveney is; the contradictions in the Government's policy of reducing the so-called surplus places, yet widening parental choice; and the dilemma of listening to democratic demands, yet responding only to one interest's viewpoint.

I am aware that my hon. Friend the Minister cannot comment in detail on closure proposals or on objections regarding Reydon high school, Henham primary school and Wrentham primary school. In any event, the objection period is not over and I have not yet asked him to receive a deputation. Those decisions are not yet his to make. However, I hope that when they are he will be able to make a speedy response.

The decision to close Flixton primary school in Waveney has already been taken, and, although we have corresponded and he is under no obligation to say anything about it, I hope that in general terms—this is the core of the debate—he will feel able to shed some light on why a clear and unequivocal expression of community feeling can be overridden in favour of the views of the county council's civil servants and councillors in the hope, perhaps, that if Flixton goes their own areas will be saved.

One would be hard put to find an authority more prudent or loyal to the Government than Suffolk. Many members of the authority are acutely unhappy at being pilloried for their interpretation of Government wishes. They came to see my hon. Friend the Minister for closure clarification, based on the Department of Education and Science circular 3/87. They learnt from that meeting that it is up to them. They adopted a consultation exercise with parents, governors, churches, parish councils and the community, which is recommended to the letter by the Department. However, that exercise left every person involved feeling that the authority had already decided to close the school, that no arguments would change any minds and that the whole thing was an expensive and pointless farce. Social engineering is not confined to Left-wing councils.

Local education authorities must have the powers necessary to do their business. They are confined to 556 educational and financial arguments. However, Suffolk has given closure decisions solely to its education committee, so decisions are not ratified by a full council. My hon. Friend the Minister has an education brief, but I submit that he also has a wider brief.

To the widespread disbelief of many people in Waveney, the authority maintains — my hon. Friend upheld it by closing Flixton—that small schools per se are educationally unviable. The county officers sound almost Shirley Williamsesque in maintaining an optimum number regardless of any contrary views. I will not waste precious time rehearsing the arguments in favour of smaller personal education, except to say that I find the case against smaller schools to be unproven.

The need to bolster numbers at the Sir John Lemon high school in Beccles by transferring children from Reydon or taking primary children from Flixton to Ilkeshall St. Lawrence or from Wrentham and Henham on to Reydon primary school may be educationally justified at a time of fewer children being born outside the town areas, but it is not being presented to the community in that light. The result, wrongly or rightly, is that people feel that the authority wanted the school land for disposal, and then wriggled around for a specious educational vindication.

I feel sure that the Minister will take all these points into account and give weight to the fact that in these rural areas, versatile and dedicated teachers not only work but live alongside their pupils. Thus, the ongoing educational process is both modern and traditional. I hope he will grasp this opportunity to recognise that and will send these schools forward without the shadow of the axe but with constructive progress towards standards of rising excellence.

As I said in my maiden speech on 30 June last, most of my constituents live in the Greater Lowestoft area while about 30,000 do not. Many of those 30,000 live in an area covered by a rural development plan. Anyone who has driven north of Ipswich or east of Norwich will vouch for the inadequacy of our roads network. The prosperity and rapidly rising growth seen by hon. Members who represent other East Anglian seats has not yet reached the most easterly constituency of the British isles, nor the one of my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss).

Our relative isolation is part of our attraction, but with fewer young people as a proportion of the population who will service the Reydon and Southwold area if it is to become a young person-free zone? What price a balanced community in terms of health care, social mix and environmental harmony if younger families and families with young children no longer see schools as an organic part of their areas? The Minister can play a part in strengthening that "social cement" by which the Secretary of State has graphically described small schools in villages.

The Secretary of State, at Blackpool on 7 October, said: Choice is what we want to extend to everybody"— and he cited the 1405 Act, which he said laid down that every man or woman, of what Estate or condition that they be, shall be free to set their son or daughter to take learning at any manner of school that pleaseth them within the Realm. The Secretary of State commented: this eloquent declaration of free choice was restated in the Education Act 1944 in the famous phrase that children should be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents. 557 I support that aim to the last echo. In Lowestoft there are three high schools. Parents have choice. But if that is to mean anything in the country as a whole, it must mean biting some tough bullets, and the authority cannot do that unless the Secretary of State allows it to do so.

The revised targets for removing spare capacity by 1991, as ordered in circular 3/87, mean in Suffolk a further 3,500 primary and a further 7,500 secondary places being taken out. That represents 10 Reydon high schools and perhaps 100 primary schools. Who is to say that the birth rate will not rise again?

Some will say that that scale of closures is right educationally. Many will say it is right financially, even with bussing and building costs added. But it does not square with parental choice. It is no good saying that these people can choose to live in the towns. That is the "let them eat cake" approach. What quality of life would Suffolk have if everyone lived in the towns?

Hon. Members are familiar with the campaign that is inevitable every time a school is due for closure. Local councillors who live, work and have their being in their communities have a duty to respond to the feelings of their communities, just as we have duties here. We listen to the experts, and we pay them to advise us, but we do not have to accept their advice every time. If we did, we would not need elected councillors, or even Members of Parliament.

We must heed gut reaction and go for the heart, but I beg the Minister not to tear the heart out of the community. If that community wants its schools so badly, it should not have to fight the authority for them. I urge the Minister to get Suffolk county council off the backs of the community by allowing more to be raised and spent, if that is what is wanted in response to the demand for community education. I ask him also to get off Suffolk county's back by ending this absurd line on surplus places in the fastest growing region of the country.

The Minister will not wish to comment on specific proposals, but I know he will add my comments to the lorry-load of representations that he will be receiving and will give them due consideration, even though they carried no weight in the Flixton school case. I dare say also that he is unable to postpone decisions on closures until the opting out measures in the proposed Education Bill have been approved by the House.

Perhaps the Minister will clarify those proposals for schools under death sentence seeking grant maintained status. Perhaps he will comment on whether feeder and smaller primary schools will be able to opt out of the parent high school, if that is the wish of the community, and confirm whether a decision, once taken, is irreversible.

I thank my hon. Friend for coming to the House not only to answer me but to answer my constituents and the local education authority, who will follow his remarks very closely.

I conclude by asking by what right we say that any expert knows better than parents how best to educate their children, especially in a sane, sensible, attractive area such as Waveney.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Dunn)

Before responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) I should like to pay tribute to the way in which he has presented the views of his constituents. Long before the general election, he demonstrated his concern 558 over important local issues when he joined a deputation led by his predecessor, Jim Prior, to present the views of parents objecting to the closure of Flixton primary school. It is very clear to me that the Waveney constituency is in very good hands.

Before I attempt to deal with the specific points raised during this debate, I must remind the House of the background against which the Government must consider proposals for the closure of schools. The Government do not seek the closure of small schools purely for the sake; of closure. I am only too aware, from the many deputations I see from all over the country, that the loss of a school is always a matter of great local concern.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that nationally school rolls have fallen dramatically. I must stress that when proposals are made legally to us by local education authorities the educational interests of the children are uppermost in our minds. It was no accident that when my Department issued guidance to local education authorities earlier this year what is now more commonly referred to as circular 3/87 was actually entitled "Providing for Quality".

The circular made it very clear that the assessment of the viability of an individual school is not solely a question of pupil numbers. A true assessment must also take account of its ethos, the quality and balance of expertise of its teachers, links with other schools, the fitness of its premises and the extent to which all these factors can be sustained. In our consideration of rural areas, we said that account should also be taken of travelling distances to other schools and of the age of the children involved. Size in itself is not a determinant of the quality of a school. There are good and bad schools of all sizes. Particularly in rural areas, good teachers in small schools have done much to overcome the limitations of size. However, there must be general agreement that a point can be reached at which, even with disproportionate resourcing, a small school cannot always overcome the educational difficulties caused by having only a small number of pupils. In small primary schools the age range in classes can become very wide and there is little opportunity for proper group interaction.

The Government set out some general principles concerning the size of schools in our White Paper "Better Schools" but, as we emphasised in the circular "Providing for Quality", these are not to be regarded by LEAs as narrowly prescriptive. We expect education authorities to think long and hard before proposing to close a schooll, and to take account of the wider considerations I have just mentioned, and of the views of local people.

Over the past few years, the Suffolk local education authority has approached the problem of falling school rolls in two different ways. I understand that the authority has conducted area reviews where it has looked at a secondary school or schools and the feeder schools to see what, if any, rationalisation might be undertaken. The authority has also examined all primary schools where there are fewer than three full-time teachers.

As my hon. Friend knows, his constituency has experienced both types of the reviews being conducted by the Suffolk LEA. Recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, after very careful consideration of all the issues put to him, approved the closure of a small primary school at Flixton. Reydon has been the subject of an area review.

559 My hon. Friend represents a constituency where there are many small villages and hamlets, many of which have small primary schools. One of these schools at Flixton was the subject of review by the Suffolk authority, following which statutory proposals were put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the school's closure from July 1988. This proposal was approved after careful consideration of all the arguments, including those put to us by local objectors.

As my hon. Friend has said the Suffolk LEA has conducted a thorough review of primary and secondary provision in the Reydon area. I was aware before this evening's debate that the review had occasioned much local interest. I am aware also that the whole of Reydon closed down for a day in an attempt to demonstrate how the town might be affected. That shows that local concerns are strong, as does the fact that my hon. Friend has chosen to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

I understand that educational provision in Reydon is presently organised on the basis of 5–11 primary schools and 11–16 secondary schools and that it is the authority's intention to reorganise provision on a three-tier middle school system. I should explain to my hon. Friend that my Department has no locus in the formulation of proposals for any change in the nature or pattern of school provision. This is entirely a matter for local education authorities. It is for the Suffolk authority, which has the statutory duty to provide primary and secondary education, to consider how best to discharge that duty and to make proposals for change as it considers necessary. The law then provides for local objectors to make their views known and for the Secretary of State to take all relevant matters into consideration before taking decisions.

Against this background, I cannot comment at this stage on what is apparently emerging from the Reydon area review. The publication of statutory notices for changes in the education system in Reydon and the surrounding villages provides my hon. Friend's constituents with a legal right to register any objections which they may have. All public notices explain the procedures for lodging objections and I suggest to my hon. Friend that he encourages his constituents to make their views known in the proper form.

560 For my part, I promise that any statutory objections to proposals for change in the pattern and number of schools serving the Reydon area will be very carefully considered before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State makes any decisions. I am also willing to receive and listen attentively to any representations that my hon. Friend may yet care to make. I hope that he will accept that these elements of the decision-making process are not empty rituals. We as a Government are prepared to listen to the views of parents. In the final analysis, we are concerned to see that children receive the best education possible that is commensurate with the proper use of the available financial resources.

My hon. Friend has posed the question whether, if the Suffolk authority make statutory proposals for the closure of Reydon high school, the school will be allowed to opt out of the maintained system. I am afraid that I must say to him that the legislation which will allow for schools to opt out has yet to be placed before Parliament. Until that legislation has secured parliamentary approval, statutory proposals can be considered only under the law as it now stands. We did, however, make it clear in our consultation document on grant maintained schools that, once the new legislation is in place, it would be possible for school governors to seek grant maintained status as a counter proposition to an authority's proposal that a school should close. The Secretary of State would consider any such proposal on its merits. The likely future viability of a school will, of course, be relevant in the context of an application for GM status as well as in considering closure proposals.

In the meantime, the Secretary of State will, as always, take all relevant considerations into account in reaching decisions on statutory proposals. Where school closures are proposed, I have no doubt that objectors will make known their view that a particular school remains viable. The Secretary of State weighs all such issues in the balance before reaching any decision.

I appreciate the concerns and anxieties of parents in the Reydon area, but I can firmly assure my hon. Friend that they will receive a fair hearing from me.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the earnestness and robustness with which he made his views so clear in the debate.