Education (Calder Valley) (Hansard, 21 June 1990)

§ Mr. Donald Thompson (Calder Valley)

I am here to speak about education in Calder Valley. Were I not here tonight I would have been at a reunion of some of my friends who were educated with me in my constituency. My wife was educated there, as were my children, for most of their school days.

We all receive a constant stream of letters from our constituents on education matters. It might be slightly eccentric, but sensible, to say what I am not going to speak about tonight. I am not going to speak about the William Henry Smith school, nor about Hipperholme and Lightcliffe junior schools and the muddle over its new school building—although I know that the Minister has undertaken to see representatives of both and that Alan Titterington and Terry Webster will be with them.

I am not going to speak about school meals at Riverside, although the governors made an excellent point about the school meals there, nor am I going to talk about annual general meetings at St. Joseph's, and the difficulties associated with them. I shall not talk about the campaign to keep education local. I support it, as I hope my speech tonight will prove to my constituents.

Education in Calder Valley is a complicated web of difficulties which is ensnaring good, dedicated teachers and their pupils. I shall sketch in some of those problems to remind the Department of them. Although Ministers, particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science who is on the Front Bench tonight, have been more than generous with their time, the difficulties should be set out in Hansard so that right hon. and hon. Members can read them here, and at home.

The local education authority in Calderdale runs two distinct and separate systems of education, one in Halifax and the other in Calder Valley. The definition is clearly set out in Calderdale's "Admissions to secondary schools 1987", which describes the pattern of secondary education in Calderdale. It states: There are two systems of secondary education in Calderdale: the county comprehensive system in the Calder Valley and the selective system in Halifax. That is reinforced in the document on the reorganisation of Calderdale schools which deliberately alters the present pattern of primary and secondary education in Calder Valley.

The legality of that dual system has been reinforced by correspondence with the Department of Education and Science on several occasions. The two systems are separated throughout the education system, not just at secondary level. Tonight I shall refer to the secondary schools, the junior infants schools, the reorganisation of small schools and the comunity charge in Calder Valley.

First, I set out the ethos of the schools in Calder Valley as I understand it from 20 years' experience in local government. I recently read the comments of an influential headmaster who is a campaigner for what he calls reform. He said: There is an obsession with standards. We need a broad education for young people who can cope with problems and adapt to change. He added: That is what employers want. 1228 He should have added that we also need higher standards in every aspect of learning. He continued with a paragraph about elitist examinations in sixth forms.

The secondary schools in my constituency are comprehensive and cater for 11 to 18-year-olds. They are separated from Halifax by the weight of the local education authority and the Department of Education and Science. Without exception they wish to remain 11 to 18 schools. They do not particularly want to opt out. I can accept a solution to the problems of Calderdale education only if it strengthens those schools and their pupils.

Brooksbank school and Calder high school are deeply rooted in the community and to take away their sixth forms would be an act of educational vandalism. Todmorden is a younger comprehensive school arid hence needs stability, not change. It has discovered that it will soon be receiving more children. Like Todmorden, Ryburn was conceived at the insistence of a Labour Government and improves and expands year upon year. It should be encouraged, not broken up.

The Brighouse secondary schools have already offered the Department of Education and Science a plan for their future. I was consulted on that initial plan, but, to my surprise, I discovered that I had not been consulted on the new paraphernalia of reorganisation for my entire constituency. If the first attempts of the Brighouse secondary school governors are not acceptable to the Department, exploration should continue and be encouraged. It would be extremely wrong to follow a plan to cream off and dilute the best in Calder Valley. The document, named in Orwellian double-speak, "A Way Forward", is not satisfactory for any part of Calder Valley. Its instructed paraphernalia of public notices should be rejected by the Government, and the local authority should be asked to think again. Children in Calder Valley schools should not be disadvantaged to the advantage of others, wherever they may be. Parents are not prepared to accept an experimental form of sixth form colleges, or any other system, just to rectify a self-generating muddle in other areas. We will not make the worst better by making the best worse.

Teachers in Calderdale, of whom I have had much experience, are exemplary. However, they suffer from half-baked schemes. Teachers in my constituency, whatever their backgrounds academically, socially or politically, want the best for their children. It seems to me from the correspondence that I have received that none of them is willing to give up one penny to the town hall in Halifax that should rightfully be given to their schools.

The Secretary of State spoke recently at a conference of head teachers, where attention was drawn to metropolitan districts such as Calderdale, which keep 40 per cent. of their cash at the centre. Mr. David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, echoed the Secretary of State's remarks when he said that he believed that some authorities were abusing this discretionary power and will face parents' wrath. He provided a list of what he called offending authorities. In the metropolitan districts, Trafford came first with 42 per cent., Coventry second with 41 per cent. and, I am sad to say, Calderdale third with 40 per cent. Oldham, Kirklees, Sheffield and Solihull followed hard on its heels. The size of the fish is often governed by the dimensions of the pond. Calder Valley children wish to thrive in a European scene, not in the narrow circumference drawn by anachronistic planners.

1229 I have been fortunate to meet former Calder Valley pupils in the corridors of Europe and to see young men and women who are confident and able. I have visited laboratories and research institutes and have met people with double degrees, such as doctors, who are all confident and able. I have met, and meet regularly, skilled men and women who work modern machine tools who are confident and able. I have spoken to young women working word processors or the most modern sewing machines who are confident and able. I have been served food and drink by confident and able young people. I meet young mothers with perfect children who are confident and able. They are the elite whom we are trying to produce and are active examples of the standards of excellence that are sneered at by that reforming headmaster. They are my constituents. The staff, in whatever capacity, of all Calder Valley schools are striving for nothing less.

Standards originate in primary schools but those schools are being destabilised, first, through the introduction of the Education Reform Act 1988 and local accountability and, secondly, through Calderdale's inability to come to terms with the community charge. I have seen a press report that a community charge of £297 is reasonable. However, in its commentary on the 1990–91 budget the local majority party said that it was levying a community charge that was almost the lowest in England. It also said that next year the Government would add approximately 40 per cent. to the charge, whatever the party did. That kind of misrepresentation has infuriated everybody, including many of my opponents' supporters.

Calderdale has set a community charge of £450, but the bill is £297 on account of the safety net and a low rateable value grant totalling £163, borne by the Exchequer. If we add two other figures to the £450—£292 paid by business and £270, which is the amount of Government support —the gross cost of services amounts to £1,020.

The Government say that that is 5 per cent. too much. The local authority can reduce that figure only by attacking children and the voluntary bodies. I have spoken to the chairman of Calderdale Primary Head Teachers Association. Mr. Wilkinson was wise enough to come to see me last year. With this latest letter he has included a petition signed by head teachers from all over Calderdale. He says that it would be unfair not to say that he criticises the rapid introduction of the national curriculum and other policies, but that if there have to be expenditure cuts they should not be made in the education budget. He says much more than that, but he emphasises that point.

I have also met representatives of the secondary head teachers. It was an honest, open and straightforward meeting. Mr. David Scott is the chairman of the Secondary Head Teachers Association. In a well-documented and carefully thought out letter he says that the local authority should reassess all growth items and all standstill budgets and that there should be an across-the-board reduction in all budgets. The association agrees with the primary head teachers that education in Calderdale should be safeguarded. I agree with all that, but the power lies not with Parliament, or with the Minister, or with me. It lies with local people. They can persuade their locally elected representatives to reassess the education budget.

1230 I have been encouraged by the careful and detailed way in which the governors, managers and head teachers of schools such as Hebden Royd Church of England school have written to me. They say: The Governors of this school, without any exception, are very much in favour of the concept of LMS, but we do, of course, have grave concerns about the way in which the total resources are being allocated, both nationally and locally". The headmaster of St. Chad's school wrote to me in November. He said that the introduction of the Education Reform Act 1988 was causing serious difficulties due to the speed of implementation. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has taken note of that criticism. In his letter he said that the staff support the idea of a national curriculum but that they are worried about the pace of reform. He makes the point that, although we should have an improved pupil-teacher ratio, we should also consider the inspector-adviser ratio especially in small areas like Calderdale where the number of advisers must, in proportion to the budget, be higher than in other areas. The headmaster of Cornholme school in Todmorden expressed similar worries in a letter thanking me for a letter from the Secretary of State. The headmaster wrote: I am enclosing his reply, as requested, which … says nothing about the armies of administrators and inspectors". The headmaster of Ferney Lee school in Todmorden is also concerned about those problems.

Those concerns are well known to my hon. Friend the Minister and he and his colleagues have been kind enough to reply to my letters. However, the situation has been exacerbated by the Government requesting a 5 per cent. cut by the authority. It is the first duty of local government to implement the objectives set down by central Government. Therefore, I am amazed that people think that the Government's supervision of budgets is in any way new.

I mentioned earlier that some of the comprehensive schools in Calder Valley were built at the direction of the Labour Government with a threat of the imposition of what I seemed to recall were called commissioners if the job was not carried out. Those same comprehensive schools are now being attacked by the same party with the threat of the removal of their sixth forms. I happened to be the chairman of the local education authority when the directives came from the Labour Government to move to comprehensive education. With the support of local people at Ryburn and Todmorden, that is what we did.

In Calder Valley there are ways of achieving the expected reduction of 5 per cent. without a frontal attack on schools. Those means have been available since the local budget was set, but time slips by. The academic year is closing and the hope of continuity at the beginning of September is receding.

Another aspect of uncertainty is the programme of small school closures. My hon. Friend the Minister has a copy of a document produced by Black Hall school which sets out the objections to the closure of that junior and infant school. That document repays careful study and I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to page 17. We must remember that pre-schools for comprehensives have a special and different role from pre-schools in a selective system. The author of that document points out the distorting effect of 40 per cent. to which I have just referred. He believes that a disproportionate amount of money is going to other primary schools in Halifax. On page 17 he states: 1231 If the LEA were to be consistent with their pupil to staff ratios, one particular school would have 179 extra children on the roll with 26.2 teachers"— the figure for Calderdale is 27, while another school would have— 139 extra children on the roll with 24.7 teachers. It would certainly appear that some larger schools in the authority are being subsidised by the smaller schools. The author also encloses a petition signed by many distinguished people who have been involved in local education for many years asking that the school in question not be closed.

When my constituents read of the planned expansion of services proposed in a recent local budget, they wonder where that money will be directed. They fear, as the Blackwood document says, that some larger primary schools are being subsidised by some small schools.

Calderdale education is under threat. We can expect the secondary schools to feel undermined. They are undergoing a transformation in the way that money is being allocated and determined locally. We are asked, in all schools, to deal with the problems in the Education Reform Act 1988. Although many people welcomed the Act and locally determined spending, the 40 per cent. provision and the speed of implementation are upsetting them. The people in Calder Valley can do much for themselves. They must—I emphasise the point again—persuade their locally elected councillors, on a one-to-one basis, to alter their targets.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to send back "A Way Forward", to uphold the objections to the closure of small schools and to insist on parity of treatment for all schools in Calderdale with respect to the local management of schools.

I have gone on a little longer than is usual, but I have confined my remarks to Calder Valley. I know that my hon. Friend will say that a great deal is in the pipeline and that he cannot comment because the decision on the community charge is sub judice. However, I know that he has listened. The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) has also been present for this debate and has listened carefully and courteously.