Education Funding (Hansard, 12 March 1991)

§ 5. Mr. O'Hara
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he last met representatives of local education authorities to discuss the funding of education.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
Funding issues are discussed in many of the meetings that I and my ministerial colleagues have with representatives of local education authorities.

§ Mr. O'Hara
Will the Secretary of State confirm that if local authorities had restricted their spending on schools to the sums proposed by central Government in their standard spending assessments there would have had to be substantial cuts in spending on schools? Does he further agree that such local authority discretion is important because the government of education must involve a partnership between central and local government and that any moves to bypass the local education authorities simply to rescue the poll tax would be misguided in the extreme?

§ Mr. Clarke
Some local education authorities spend less than the Government's standard spending assessment and, so far as I am aware, deliver a good quality service and do not achieve lower standards than education authorities in other parts of the country. The present position is that education is a local government responsibility. As the hon. Gentleman says, that undoubtedly means that authorities have their discretion to set their own priorities and to decide where to spend more money and where to spend less. I very much regret that some authorities take quixotic and occasionally damaging decisions when exercising that discretion, but that is not my responsibility. The SSA allows any local authority to deliver a good quality service.

§ Mr. Pawsey
Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that in 1991–92 funding for education will increase by 16 per cent. to £17 billion? Will he further confirm that it would be of enormous benefit to children if local education authorities would direct some of the funds that they use for central administration to the classrooms and the schools?

§ Mr. Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend that the 16 per cent. of which he reminds us must be set against inflation, which is forecast to drop as low as 6 per cent. in the same year, so it represents a massive injection in terms of Government assessment of education spending. If, due to past expenditure, drawing on reserves, or past misjudgments, some local authorities are having to consider retrenching in some areas, I believe, like my hon. Friend, that such an authority should look first at its central administration costs and not start by making cuts in the classroom.

§ Mr. Matthew Taylor
The Secretary of State will be aware that in many parts of the country, including my own, there are real difficulties in delivering the national curriculum in school buildings that are old and are now inadequate for the purpose for which they were designed. The Government have postponed the 1981 regulations on achieving new standards for school buildings, but when does the right hon. and learned Gentleman expect to complete the review that we are told is being conducted on that aspect? Will he pledge to the House that that review will not involve cuts in the standards that our children can expect?

§ Mr. Clarke
We have increased the capital allocations for next year by 11 per cent. I agree that that is a justifiable increase because we still have many Victorian buildings, especially in rural areas such as the hon. Gentleman represents, and also many 1960s system-built buildings which are no longer adequate for their purpose. The regulations to which the hon. Gentleman referred apply to all new buildings and have done so for many years. The part that is still postponed relates to comparatively small features of schools and will, of course, be part of the review that we are currently undertaking.

§ Mr. John Browne
During my right hon. and learned Friend's discussions, did anything take place that might encourage local authorities to cut adult education or is adult education something which the Government believe should be pursued?

§ Mr. Clarke
I believe that there is a continuing and important role for adult education, which should be part of the provision of any well-managed local authority. Where there are cuts in adult education, that can only be because the local education authority has got itself into a financial mess or is choosing to spend the money on some other part of the service.

§ Mr. Fatchett
We know that the Secretary of State for the Environment wants to transfer the funding of education to central Government, but a recent interview in The Guardian showed that the Secretary of State for Education and Science wished to keep education as a local service. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that that is still his view and that he still wants education to be funded by a mixture of local and central funding, or will he be rolled over in the poll tax review so as to cut poll tax bills?

§ Mr. Clarke
I have yet to read any newspaper account of the discussions that my colleagues and I are having that has been at all accurate. Day after day, I read with amazement of the stances that we are supposed to be taking. My own remarks in The Guardian and elsewhere have always been designed to be Delphic in their content and I shall continue to ensure that that is the case. From time to time, however, I suffer the fate of the Oracle in that my remarks are misunderstood.