Engagements (Hansard, 18 October 1990)

§ Q1. Mr. Butterfill
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 October.

§ The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)
This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

§ Mr. Butterfill
Has my right hon. Friend found time in her busy day today to read the report of the Audit Commission on managing sickness absence in London? If so, does she share my concern that socialist authorities in London are tolerating sickness absence of two and a half times the average in local authorities elsewhere and that that is costing their community charge payers an estimated £27 a head?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes, I have seen the Audit Commission's report and have noted what my hon. Friend said, that is, that absentee levels in certain local authorities are nearly three times those in private industry and that some of those local authorities are not even aware of what the absentee levels are, let alone able to take any action about it. That is grossly unfair to the charge payer and once more proves that Labour authorities are totally inadequate from the point of view of financial control.

§ Mr. Kinnock
Will the Prime Minister make it clear to everyone today that she is completely against vouchers for schooling?

§ The Prime Minister
We have an introduction of vouchers for training. That is very good because it increases choice. In education we are attempting to increase choice—in city technology colleges, in grant-maintained schools and with open rolls. Of course, local authorities are against choice. They want central controls. They do not want opportunity, and that is why the right hon. Gentleman is against choice and against vouchers anywhere.

§ Mr. Kinnock
Even though the right hon. Lady is trying to evade, it is obvious from what she said last week and from what she just said that she is in favour of vouchers for schooling. The Prime Minister is a crank—[Interruption.] Is not it obvious to her that every examination ever undertaken into vouchers, including that done by her noble Friend Lord Joseph, has concluded that vouchers are an expensive, bureaucratic, divisive system entirely irrelevant to the real needs of schooling?

§ The Prime Minister
Nonsense—[Interruption.] Nonsense. They are one, and only one, method of what we are already operating; the money follows the pupil. That is a form of giving extra choice and of giving the voucher to the parent for the pupil. Of course the right hon. Gentleman hates it. He wants total central control of education through socialist, Labour authorities that hold money back from locally managed schools. Of course he 1375 hates choice. Of course he hates higher standards. Of course he hates opportunity. He is socialist—a crypto-communist. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order.

§ Mr. Kinnock
It is a long time since we had quite such a tantrum from the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Question Time. Everyone knows that the British education system is now more centralised than it has ever been. Everyone also knows that the Prime Minister has spent the past 11 years making a complete mess of education. Why does she not now start concentrating on the things that need to be done to help education, and stop chasing after the things that can only hurt education?

§ The Prime Minister
On the contrary, with city technology colleges, grant-maintained schools and locally managed schools we are totally and utterly decentralising power and responsibility away from the local education authorities to the parents. That is what the right hon. Gentleman objects to. In the meantime, let me point out to him that, during the stewardship of the Conservative Government, expenditure per pupil in education has increased from £515 to £1,360—an increase of 41 per cent. According to an OECD report quoted in The Sunday Times last week, when it comes to the percentage of our national income per head spent on education, Britain has a higher percentage than the United States, Japan or Germany.

§ Q2. Mr. Burt
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 October.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Burt
Bearing in mind the previous exchange, I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has seen news reports today about a head teacher who describes himself as a former knee-jerk anti-Tory chap, and who now runs a successful grant-maintained school in the north of England that takes its pupils from nearby council estates. Does she believe that the aspirations of those parents and children will be fulfilled by any big idea that threatens to destroy their choice and opportunity in grant-maintained schools?

§ The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend, as usual, is absolutely spot on. The money goes directly to the grant-maintained schools—into the classroom and not into the local education authority administration.
Head teachers of grant-maintained schools find them extremely good. There have been a number of comments about them recently—the head of Bankfield school in Cheshire, for instance, has said: 18 months ago I had serious reservations about the applications for grant-maintained status—not now. For me seeing and experiencing has been believing. Another in Northampton said—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The Prime Minister is answering a question.

§ The Prime Minister
Another head teacher, from Hendon, said: We have more time to deal with educational issues as opposed to administration and coping with bureaucracy. That is another example of a head teacher satisfied with a grant-maintained school. A third said: 1376 We are finding it easier to recruit staff. Of course the right hon. Gentleman does not like that, because it means more staff and less bureaucracy; however, the schools are good.

§ Mr. Ashdown
Given the Prime Minister's previous answers, why does she disagree with her own Secretary of State for Education and Science, who said over the weekend that he felt that the introduction of education vouchers would be an unnecessary distraction from the real task—putting right what was wrong with Britain's failing education system?

§ The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is sitting next to me, and disagrees totally with the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of what he said. Had the right hon. Gentleman listened to what I said earlier, he would have realised that city technology colleges, grant-maintained schools and, to some extent, open enrolment are a form of choice for parents. If we add to that the money following the pupil, it is virtually a voucher system.

§ Mr. Peter Bottomley
Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity of inviting in the head of Twyford high school in Ealing, Hazel Hardy, the head of Lilian Baylis school in Waterloo and Peter Dawson, who used to be the headmaster of Eltham Green school in my constituency and get them to explain how it is that, with the opportunity of attracting pupils to their schools, they have managed to make the schools attractive to ethnic minorities and poor families and to provide the type of education that the Leader of the Opposition received in Wales? More families at the bottom need choice, and with my right hon. Friend and the Secretary of State for Education and Science, we expect to see more of it.

§ The Prime Minister
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Choice is for the overwhelming majority of those who go to the public system of education. That is why we are extending it. That is why we have grant-maintained schools, which are independent state schools and that is why we are giving more choice to parents, knowing full well that they will use it to go to the school that offers the highest standards of education. More choice means better standards and more opportunity.

§ Q3. Mr. Winnick
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 October.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Winnick
Can the Prime Minister give any explanation why the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) remains convinced that it was the Foreign Secretary who suggested that he make the visit to Iraq, although I am aware that the latter has strongly denied that? What is the Prime Minister's own view about the forthcoming trip, bearing it in mind that, we hope, some sick and elderly British hostages will be released—people who should never have been taken hostage in the first place? Indeed, no one should have been taken hostage.

§ The Prime Minister
Of course people should never have been taken hostage in the first place. That is why we are all at one in the House in insisting that the United Nations resolutions must be upheld, and insisting that every day that the hostages are held is a fresh offence and 1377 act of war. As far as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) is concerned, he will make his own best judgments. If he decides to visit Iraq, or any other country, he will of course be given the normal courtesies. Similar facilities were available for those Opposition Members who visited Iraq recently.

§ Q5. Mr. Marland
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 October.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Marland
Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to study the recent confession by Mr. Herman Ouesley, the chief executive of Labour-controlled Lambeth council, who laments that no final accounts have been prepared in Lambeth since 1985 and that 40,000 community charge bills have not been sent out? He also laments what he describes as "corruption" in the administration system and says that the financial situation is near catastrophic. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that reflects the flavour of a possible future Labour Government?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes, I saw the report in the Local Government Chronicle to the effect that Lambeth had not finalised its accounts since about 1985, which is an utter disgrace for any local authority. I think that the chief executive was very critical about it. That is typical of Labour's financial management, typical of the way that their last Government handled the nation's affairs, and typical of the way in which Labour authorities carry on, and it is very adverse to community charge payers and the services that they receive.

§ Mr. Galloway
As the Prime Minister knows, there is an election next week in Pakistan. Does she accept that there is now a real fear in Pakistan that, having failed to find a legal case against Benazir Bhutto and, largely thanks to President Bush, having failed to have the elections called off, Miss Bhutto's enemies may have concluded that the only way to stop her becoming Prime Minister again is to kill her? Will the Prime Minister make it clear today that 1378 Britain expects next Thursday's election in Pakistan to be free and fair? Will she ask her ambassador in Islamabad to convey to the Pakistani authorities her concern for the life of Benazir Bhutto?

§ The Prime Minister
When the high commissioner of Pakistan came to see me yesterday, because his period of accreditation to this country is over, I raised the matter with him. I said that we all expected those elections to be fully free and fair and that we shall watch carefully to see whether they are free and fair. We are aware of all the concerns about them.

Q8. Mr. Robert G. Hughes
To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 18 October.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Hughes
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the recently announced rents-to-mortgages scheme will bring the reality of home ownership to many thousands of families who never believed that that option would be available to them? Does my right hon. Friend further agree that, rather than being an irrelevant scheme, as it has been described by the Labour party, it will be so successful that in the end the Labour party will claim that it was its own idea?

§ The Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend is aware, the original right-to-buy scheme has enabled about 1.5 million council tenants to purchase their homes. There are some who are still unable, under that scheme, to take the plunge but who would like to purchase their homes. In Scotland and Wales, therefore, we have run a pilot scheme on rents to mortgages. A number of people have taken advantage of it. We intend to run a pilot scheme in England for new-town houses to find out whether the scheme would also be welcomed here, with a view, if it succeeds, to extending it much more widely in order to enable another group of people to enjoy the benefits of home ownership, which they would never have got from the Labour party.