HC Deb 02 March 1993 vol 220 cc130-1
9. Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on comparative levels of expenditure per pupil in individual local authorities.

Mr. Forth

Education standard spending assessments allow for variations in the costs that authorities in different parts of the country incur in providing a common standard of service. Differences in levels of actual expenditure per pupil depend, however, on spending decisions taken by local education authorities.

Mr. Hinchliffe

The Minister will be aware that there is a school of thought that people born in Yorkshire are naturally more intelligent than the rest of the nation. Do the Government subscribe to that school of thought, or are there other reasons why pupils in Wakefield are allowed £1,000 a year less expenditure per head than pupils in Conservative Wandsworth?

Mr. Forth

I might be tempted to subscribe to the view that the further north one is born the more intelligent one is, but I will leave that to the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman must not get into the business of trying to make invidious but specious comparisons about expenditure per pupil across the country, for a number of reasons. In several authorities expenditure per pupil is less than in his own; his is 15th off the bottom of that particular league table, if he wishes to look at it in that way. More particularly, there is no proven relation whatever between expenditure per pupil and quality of education. Many excellent local education authorities have amply demonstrated that it is the quality and outputs that count, not the money that is shoved in at the other end.

Mr. Ian Taylor

Will my hon. Friend confirm that point from the evidence of going round the excellent schools in Surrey and particularly in Esher, where teachers are making use of the local management budget and getting tremendous output, very high-quality results and low levels of truancy? That is what teaching is all about: the commitment of the teachers and the headmasters in the schools.

Mr. Forth

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. It is typical that from the Government side of the House we have an acknowledgement of how quality of education comes about, whereas from the Opposition we simply have an obsession with money and expenditure. That sums up as well as anything could the different attitude to education of the two sides of the House.