Teachers' Pay

HC Deb 19 May 1992 vol 208 cc137-8

9. Mr. Madden

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received concerning the funding of the teachers' pay award; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. John Patten

I have received a number of representations.

Mr. Madden

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Bradford, for example, the failure of the Government fully to fund the teachers' pay award last year and this year has plunged the education service into a financial crisis with the prospect of 150 lost teaching posts and consequential damage to the quality of education received by our schoolchildren? Will he consider meeting a delegation of the local education authorities affected, through the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, and urgently consider making additional funding available to avoid teaching posts being lost?

Mr. Patten

Rather than taking up time with such a meeting, I urge the hon. Gentleman to pass on the information that in the current year the Government have given an extra £60 million to bridge the gap between the money allocated to local education authorities and the level they need fully to fund the pay award, and that many education authorities, such as Bradford, could greatly improve their performance by cutting out central administrative waste, by removing surplus school places and by extending the range of services put out to compulsory competitive tendering. Such measures result in more teachers in the classroom. The hon. Gentleman might also pass on to the AMA the news that it will be seen from figures to be announced shortly that last year's threats of cuts have turned out to be totally false.

Mr. Harry Greenway

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that under pay review body arrangements he expects the teaching profession to be much better paid— it is already a great deal better paid than it has ever been —that he welcomes that and believes that it will help to raise standards in the profession, which in turn will raise teaching standards for the children?

Mr. Patten

We are lucky to have our 400,000 teachers. Their professional status and standing has been enhanced by the pay review body and I know that that professionalism will increase in future years.

Mr. Cryer

The Secretary of State shows remarkable ignorance of the difficulties that LEAs in general, and Bradford in particular, face. Is he aware that Bradford's education authority is facing increasing school rolls, unlike many similar authorities, and that it has a massive problem of crumbling schools, all of which put pressure on educational funding? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will examine sympathetically, rather than in the arrogant fashion that he has displayed so far, the request by Bradford fully to fund the education award, which would be a decent and fair attitude for a sympathetic Secretary of State to take?

Mr. Patten

The hon. Gentleman should realise that Bradford must put its own house in order. It is not exactly in the forefront of LEAs in Britain. It could do much more by cutting back on administration and by putting out more services to competitive tender, so getting children better taught by more teachers. We shall see, from announcements to be made by my noble friend Lady Blatch in another place shortly, just how last year's pandemonium and tumult about the onset of teacher redundancies turned out this year. Each year we get claims about there being great cuts in the teaching force and each year they turn out to be wrong.

Mr. Anthony Coombs

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the average salary of a classroom teacher is now 18,800 a year, which is 36 per cent. higher than it was under the last Labour Government, and that that is good reason why the number of applications for teacher training, at 28,800 is the highest it has been for the last 20 years? Does he agree that in view of the huge investment made in teachers' salaries by the Government, a rigorous system of assessment for teacher performance is absolutely vital?

Mr. Patten

My hon. Friend is perfectly right. We have a better paid teaching profession than ever before, with more people wanting to enter the profession than at any time since the 1960s. I confirm that assessment will remain a firm part of the future way in which teachers are remunerated.