HC Deb 31 January 1989 vol 146 cc150-2
4. Mr. Harry Barnes

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has to encourage local education authorities to reduce the number of surplus places in schools; and if he will make a statement.

Mrs. Ann Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has to encourage local education authorities to reduce the number of surplus places in schools; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. John Butcher)

Local education authorities are aware of the high cost of underused capacity at schools with a substantial proportion of surplus places. It is, therefore, very much in their own financial interests to continue to come forward with proposals to rationalise their school provision where appropriate. The Government's public expenditure plans assume that authorities collectively will achieve the national targets for the removal of surplus places.

Mr. Barnes

What extra help will be made available to local education authorities to deal with surplus capacity when their plans have been frustrated by opting-out procedures exacerbating surplus capacity in local education? In Staveley in my constituency, Staveley Netherthorpe school has opted out, thereby creating problems for two other schools in the area.

Mr. Butcher

The hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood the raison d'être behind the Education Reform Act. The driving force behind decisions on which schools will remain open and which will close will increasingly be parental choice through open enrolment. As for the substantive part of his question, we shall consider each section 12 proposal on its merits. In parallel and together, we shall consider grant-maintained status applications on their merits.

Mrs. Taylor

Will the Minister confirm that it is still the Secretary of State's opinion that opting out should not be used as a lifeline by schools that face closure because of local authority proposals? Will he confirm that the majority of opting-out proposals so far have come from schools that face closure because of local authority reorganisation? How does that fit in with what he has just said about rationalisation and the proper use of resources?

Mr. Butcher

We have said that opting out which will not be used as a bolt hole for schools that are not viable. We have said that many times, and we shall consider each application on its merit. However, there is increasing evidence, and it has been confirmed yet again, that municipal Socialism is a creature which turns vicious whenever its hold on its captive subjects is threatened. We believe in democracy and parental choice. The hon. Lady should look at the behaviour of certain Labour councils when parents try to exercise that democratic process.

Mr. Pawsey

I note my hon. Friend's reply, but does he agree that surplus places take up scarce resources, spending money on empty desks rather than on children? Despite what he has heard from Opposition Members, does he agree that grant-maintained schools represent a cost-effective way of educating children? They are invariably oversubscribed and give parents a valuable yardstick against which they may judge schools in LEAs.

Mr. Butcher

This mini debate has shown yet again that the Labour party is about 15 years out of date. There are something like 620,000 primary places and some 800,000 secondary places surplus to capacity. That represents a cost in premises-related expenditure of something like £240 million a year. There is no incompatibility between grant-maintained schools and the need to tackle that problem.

Mrs. Peacock

Does my hon. Friend agree that not all schools applying to opt out are, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) suggests, those due for closure? Heckmondwike grammar school in my constituency is certainly not due for closure; it is due, if the Labour party gets its own way, to be changed considerably. However, the parents have decided that they do not wish to have those Labour party changes, so they will seek to opt out.

Mr. Butcher

I appreciate that my hon. Friend has had to live alongside some of the worst aspects of that municipal Socialism to which I referred earlier. It is our policy to enhance parental choice, whether through grant-maintained schools or otherwise. We shall safeguard the interests of parents who wish, in a fair and free manner to exercise that choice if they recognise that their school is excellent and worth retaining.

Mr. Straw

Is the Under-Secretary aware that he shows the same ignorance and ineptitude on this subject as he used to show at the Department of Trade and Industry? Is he aware that well over half the schools that have sought to opt out have been in Conservative-controlled areas? If, as he says, opting out is not a bolt hole for schools under threat of closure, why is the Secretary of State's front organisation, the Grant Maintained Schools Trust, actively encouraging any school under the threat of closure to seek to opt out? Do not he and the Secretary of State understand that their opting-out policy is completely paralysing any sensible rationalisation of school provision by local authorities? How can local authorities propose schools for closure when the effect of such a proposal may be that the Secretary of State says that that school shall remain open for ever and outside local education authority control so that the LEA then has to propose for closure schools that it would otherwise have kept open?

Mr. Butcher

We shall be entirely fair and open-minded on grant-maintained status applications, whether they come from Conservative or Labour-controlled LEAs. The hon. Gentleman obviously does not believe in his own arguments and that is why he has had to play the man and not the ball.

Mr. Batiste

When my hon. Friend is rightly encouraging LEAs to reduce surplus places, will he also make it clear to LEAs such as that in Leeds, which rules over a large and diverse area, that there is no reason for political dogma in imposing blanket solutions on diverse local communities, and, in particular, that the Government regard village schools as an important part of village life and rural communities?

Mr. Butcher

My hon. Friend is saying what I have tried to confirm over the past few moments, which is that Conservative Members believe in pluralism while the Opposition believe in incorporatism.