HC Deb 21 October 1993 vol 230 cc471-80

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]

8.58 pm
Mr. Bob Dunn (Dartford)

I welcome the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, who will respond to my argument. Although the debate is about educational provision in north-west Kent, it must of necessity centre on parental rights and school democracy. I shall also introduce the concept of the "right to silence", in the context not of police interrogation of suspects, but of the withholding of their views by the representatives of left-of-centre political parties which sought election to Kent county council in May and which now control it.

Let me sketch my concerns. In 1988, when I was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at what was then called the Department of Education and Science, I gladly assisted in the passage of the Education Reform Act. Among other provisions, the Act sets down procedures according to which governors and parents seek grant-maintained status and, if successful, take their schools out of local education authority control. Those procedures ultimately involve the parents or guardians of children at such a school in the exercise of school democracy through a parental ballot.

I am also glad to welcome the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold)—I know that he would like to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker—and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe), who has been a doughty fighter on behalf of parents in her constituency since we lost control of Kent county council in May.

Between the passage of the 1988 Act and 18 June 1993, four secondary schools in the Dartford constituency successfully applied for and achieved grant-maintained status. Those were Dartford grammar school for boys, Dartford grammar school for girls, the grammar school for girls, Wilmington—that was the first school in Kent to opt out—and Wilmington grammar school for boys. As well as the secondary schools, the Sutton-at-Hone Church of England primary school also received permission to become grant-maintained.

I have already referred to the period between the 1988 Act coming into force and 18 June 1993. The House may ask what the importance of that date is. It is significant because, on 18 June, the new Liberal-Labour majority on Kent education committee voted to change its policy on grant maintained schools, from adopting a neutral stance towards schools seeking to opt out of County Council control, to vigorously encouraging them to stay within it. That change was and is fundamental. I believe that no mandate for it was put before the electors of Kent—at least, not in my part of Kent—by the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats, or by the candidates that they fielded.

When the Conservative party controlled the county of Kent, a neutral stance towards grant-maintained applications was adopted, and of course the authority made objections to some proposals that were considered not to be viable. However, the Conservatives on Kent county council made it clear that, when a parental vote in favour of seeking grant-maintained status was announced, all efforts to keep the school within the embrace of the local education authority would cease. The wishes of parents and governors would be the guiding force. Until May 1993, Kent county council took the altogether proper view that grant-maintained schools in Kent employed Kent teachers to educate Kent children on behalf of Kent parents.

However, since 18 June, another Dartford primary school, Holy Trinity Church of England school, has received approval for grant-maintained status from 1 January 1994, despite hostile objections from Kent county council.

Equally, the Horton Kirby Church of England primary school held a successful ballot, in which a majority of parents voted to opt out. Liberal Democrat/Labour Kent has moved in a hostile fashion against that school, despite the wishes of the parents and despite the unanimous vote of the governing body, which to my certain knowledge has on it some governors who do not vote Conservative. This application, which I fully endorse, is with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education for a decision.

My hon. Friend the Minister will see from the picture I am painting that the policy of grant-maintained schools has been extremely successful in north-west Kent. Nevertheless, the schools that have chosen not to seek a change in status or whose parents may decide to vote no after a properly conducted debate have a claim on my time, support and affection equal to that of the schools that have taken advantage of a policy that I helped to create in the late 1980s.

I now turn to my further concerns, which I suspect are shared by my hon. Friends across Kent, including my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw), who asked to be associated with this debate. My concerns are these. The Conservatives lost control of Kent in May this year. The first act of Liberal Democrat/Labour-controlled education committee was to abandon neutrality and to replace it with hostility—a policy now practised consistently against any application made.

I now make a serious charge, which is that, in my constituency at the most recent Kent county council elections, not one Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate, I believe, proclaimed that, if elected and if his or her party was in a position of power after the May elections, he or she would vote to oppose grant-maintained applications as a matter of hard policy.

I have read Labour and Liberal Democrat leaflets, boring though they may be, issued to electors across Dartford, and of those that I have seen, not one has mentioned that change of policy. Interestingly, all the parties at county hall published a countrywide political manifesto. Did the Liberal Democrats and socialists at county hall announce their hostility to grant-maintained schools and to such applications? Not likely. They opted for the right of silence.

Of course, if I am wrong and if a candidate from the left-of-centre parties in Dartford constituency had the courage of his or her policy and mentioned it in the issued leaflets, I shall publicly acknowledge that fact. I challenge the parties to supply me with proof of leaflets issued with their hostility to the grant-maintained policy contained therein.

Those who were elected for left of centre parties from my constituency to Kent county council are, of course, now happy after the election to condemn the policy of grant-maintained schools, and violently to oppose any applications that may come their way. Now they are, of course, beyond the reach of the electorate. I ask, on behalf of my concerned constituents: if the policy of allowing schools to opt out is so worthy of condemnation, why was nothing said by the local left-of-centre party candidates during the Kent county council elections?

I now turn to Mr. Pryke. Under the Conservatives, he was appointed to be our chief education officer. He had always behaved in a truly professional manner, and I was never directly aware of the immense dissatisfaction and disaffection he inwardly felt towards Government education policy. I cannot remember an expression of major concern—although I may be wrong—by Mr. Pryke to me about grant-maintained schools. I am sure that my colleagues from Kent will back me on that—[Interruption.] Indeed, they are doing that by nodding their assent. Mr. Pryke kept silent and, as a servant of the authority, perhaps he was right to do so.

With the change in the political status in Kent, with one bound he was free. Thus we saw an astonishing article in The Times Educational Supplement on 1 October, which was soundly answered by our good friends Ronnie Norman and Mr. Cecil Knight.

However, it does not stop there. I have a letter dated 1 October 1993, which was sent to the parents of pupils attending Our Lady of Hartley Roman Catholic primary school by the area director of education for north-west Kent. That letter was sent to parents in Hartley after the school governors had initiated a ballot on grant-maintained status.

The area director states: Grant-maintained means:

  • Control by central government;
  • No better standards of education for your child;
  • More in-school bureaucracy;
  • No Local arbitrator for you, the parents."
The final sentence reads: and there is no assured long term benefit. I bring that letter to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education, because I believe the issue of that letter to be a hostile act. I hope that he will take it into account if, as I hope, a submission from that school comes his way.

I hope that what I have said already is of interest to my hon. Friend the Minister. It is deeply important for the people of Dartford and, I suspect, for people in constituencies across Kent who have always attached great importance to the range, variety and choice available to them in the education of their children. If the county of Kent wishes to be set alongside Lambeth and Derbyshire, so be it. In a match of the people versus Kent county council, I am happy to say that I will always back the people I represent.

Let me leave the final word to two of my local head teachers, who were quoted in a local paper on the question of grant-maintained status. Mrs. Jill Hadman, the head of Dartford Girls grammar school, said: I am very surprised at Mr. Pryke's comments. We have done a tremendous amount for the pupils since we opted out. We have increased accommodation, provided a full range of expressive arts at examination level in response to parents and got our own language lab. In two years, we have had the flexibility to do so many things that we previously wanted. There is the sixth form common room for 230 students, additional classrooms and heating system. Mrs. Hadman said that she thought that she was far more accountable than before, with no more passing the buck to education officials. She added: We do, of course, need to co-operate with local education authorities on issues such as admissions. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) will raise that point later.

Mr. Les Clarke is the head teacher of the Holy Trinity primary school which has just received permission to opt out. He said: We are in a strong position with good buildings and have numerous things we want to forge ahead with once we get our budget. Parents are very much in favour and I can only see the school going from strength to strength. That is the point of our philosopy: to push responsibility from the hub to the rim.

I have seen the schools in my constituency that have become grant-maintained benefit from a new dimension of dynamism and activity. The four points that the area director listed are utter rot, and the authority should be ashamed of them. I hope that, in time, more of my local schools will apply to opt out, and I hope that the Minister will be seized by the arguments that I have advanced, to prevent this activity in the county of Kent.

Finally, I thank Madam Speaker for allowing me this debate on the important subject of parental rights. As I have said, if it is a question of the people or bureaucracy, the people will get my support every time.

9.15 pm
Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham)

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) for initiating this debate, which is vital to the education of children in north-west Kent, both in his borough of Dartford and in mine of Gravesham. I can confirm that, in the most recent county council election in Kent, no Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate in Gravesham told the electorate that he or she would conduct this disreputable campaign against grant-maintained schools.

In Gravesham, we have eight excellent secondary schools, two single-sex grammar schools, two Church comprehensives, two single-sex high schools and three mixed high schools—two in urban areas and one in the rural area. Together, they provide an excellent choice for parents. Every one of them embraced local financial management with enthusiasm. It has been a very effective scheme, brought in by Kent county council when it was Conservative, and implemented by an excellent team of officers led by Roy Pryke.

These schools then looked to the opportunities of GM status, which brings with it total local decision-making and financial control in schools. It is a logical extension of Kent's Conservative policy of local financial management. The schools in Gravesham carefully considered and steadily went towards GM status, with overwhelming parental support—votes of 90 per cent. and more in school after school—for instance, St. George's Church of England school, Meopham school, Southfields school, Northfleet school for boys. Parents are now balloting at St. John's Roman Catholic school.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford was right about the letters from the area director of education. The parents at St. John's received the same hostile and misleading letter, with hardly a change besides the name of the school itself.

It is ironic that both the grammar schools—Gravesend grammar school for boys and Gravesend grammar school for girls—remain among Kent county council's secondary schools. They both know that the new Labour/Liberal Democrat alliance that is running Kent county council is hostile to them. According to the policy and instincts of both parties, they would scrap the Gravesend grammar schools, but the fascinating thing is that they cannot do so, trumped by the capacity that the Government have given the schools to go grant-maintained and thus beyond the destructive clutches of the Lib-Lab alliance running the council. So the council has grudgingly accepted the continuing existence of these excellent schools, on the grounds that it is better to have a grammar school in the clutches of Kent county council than no school at all.

Considering all the advantages flowing from local financial management and then grant-maintained status, all should be well—and I can report to the House that all is well in the schools. But all is not well in terms of Kent county council's relations with those schools.

I have a letter from the Rev. Joe King, chairman of the governors of St. George's Church of England school. The House should be aware of this gentleman's background. He appeared in the election address of my Labour opponent at the general election, and he strongly endorsed Labour policy and the Labour candidate. That letter IS also signed by four other chairmen of school governors, one of whom is also a strong Labour party supporter and a CND member to boot, and seven head teachers.

This letter from the Rev. Joe King, the Labour supporter, and his colleagues states: The Authority's"— that is, Kent county council's— previous neutral stance has apparently been replaced by a very vindictive approach in which a school that has recently obtained Grant Maintained status has experienced petty obstructionism. Two schools in the process of becoming Grant Maintained are experiencing outright opposition from the Authority. Head Teachers are placed in an invidious position in relation to their Local Authority colleagues when matters of concern to all schools are being discussed and there is no clarity in what we can expect from the Local Authority. The matters they should discuss with us include admissions, and failure to reintroduce the proper professional structures will prejudice the education of children in Gravesham. Another vindictive attack that has come to light may be of interest to the House. Kent county council, now in Lib-Lab control, has exploited historic arrangements relating to the funding of special needs education in grant-maintained schools, and that directly affects young people with special educational needs. Having brought that to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Schools, I am glad that he has already tackled the issue with his new code of practice, provided for in the Education Act 1993.

The House would expect to see all schools, regardless of their status, co-operating to provide good education in their areas. Furthermore, it would expect Kent county council to continue to work for the good of education in Kent. However, Kent county council education committee is now under the malign influence of the political prejudices of the new Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition. Mr. Pryke, the chief education officer who has been mentioned in the debate, has made destructive partisan utterances.

We should be absolutely clear on the meaning of grant-maintained status. Some 10 per cent. of education funds is now being spent by grant-maintained schools. That is the proportion of the funding for education that is spent on specialist and administrative services, and that money cannot be spent twice. If it is spent by the grant-maintained schools, as it quite properly is, it cannot be spent by the central education administration of Kent county council.

Consequently, the central administration of Kent county council must slim down accordingly. If it does not, those additional funds can come from only one of two places —Kent county council's taxpayers or the remaining schools under the county council, and that would be totally wrong.

Mr. Dunn

The point to be made in the debate is that it is Mr. King, a Labour supporter, who speaks about the vindictive approach of Kent county council. The children who are being taught in schools that have become grant-maintained are still Kent children. Has not the Lib-Lab coalition that runs the county council effectively declared war on those children and their parents? We are taught to respect the wishes and the result of the ballot box. Why cannot our new masters in Kent county council do the same?

Mr. Arnold

That is the point. The Rev. Joe King, the chairman of the governors, a parish priest and a person who normally keeps out of politics—although he intervened on behalf of the Labour party at the last general election—is so worried about the welfare of the children in his schools that he has spoken out.

My feeling is that Mr. Pryke, as head of the central education administration in Kent, should concentrate on the slimming-down process of that bureaucratic core. He should not spend his time playing politics in pursuit of his vested interests. He has to remember that he is an expert employee of Kent county council. He is not a councillor. He is, indeed, a servant of that county council. He should attend to his duties.

Schools in Gravesham are working well. They are co-operating well. They could do so even better with the co-operation of Kent county council. Those schools have my support in their continuing endeavours to provide first-rate education to the youngsters of Gravesham.

9.25 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr. Robin Squire)

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) has done a service to his constituents and the House tonight in making a speech that was so well prepared and delivered. It drew on his wide experience and knowledge of education matters. The only pity is that, although he criticised the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats, the Benches opposite were empty. Labour and Liberal Democrat Members will have to read his words in Hansard.

My hon. Friend was eloquently backed by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) and by the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe), who is a fellow Minister.

Before I go to the heart of my hon. Friend's speech, I hope that he will understand that I cannot comment on the specific school proposals to which he referred. They are currently with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I assure him that they will receive the closest possible attention. I hope that we shall release a decision as soon as practicable.

I have good news for the House and for my hon. Friends. Today, I approved no fewer than five more grant-maintained schools. There are now 754 grant-maintained, self-governing schools approved or operating in England.

Self-governing, grant-maintained, status is the most complete form of local management for schools. Parents in an ever-increasing number of schools are voting for it. In the White Paper published in July 1992, the Government made clear their commitment to grant-maintained schools and their hope that, in time, all schools would become grant-maintained. Measures in the Education Act 1993 will ease the transition to grant-maintained status and ensure that an increasing number of grant-maintained schools enjoy the best operating conditions.

Grant-maintained schools control their total budget, and this enables them to focus spending where it counts—on the delivery of education in the classroom. Grant-maintained schools are popular with parents and effective. Independent schools have noted good-quality lessons and deployment of resources, increased demand for places, commendable pupil behaviour and attendance and improved teacher morale.

The grant-maintained movement is about much more than money. Grant-maintained schools find that there are enormous benefits in being masters of their own affairs and having a real sense of ownership. Grant-maintained schools can make proposals for change directly to the Secretary of State—for example, on the age range of pupils.

Decisions are taken by parents, teachers and members of the local community—those who care about the school most, are closest to it and can take decisions faster than a bureaucracy every could. Grant-maintained status encourages increased parental involvement, from the initial ballot for grant-maintained status to increased numbers of parent governors on a grant-maintained governing body.

Despite their new-found independence, grant-maintained schools are far from isolated. There have been encouraging reports of such schools co-operating with one another by sharing information and making joint decisions about the purchase of services. What is more, there is no reason why grant-maintained schools should not continue to have an excellent relationship with schools which remain with the LEA. For example, schools can and do continue to co-operate in sixth form consortia.

My hon. Friends the Members for Dartford and for Gravesham appreciate the resounding arguments in favour of grant-maintained status. They will both be delighted to witness the growth of the grant-maintained sector in their county.

Kent is in the forefront of the grant-maintained movement. Ballots have been held in more than 50 per cent. of Kent secondary schools—more than one in eight schools in general. Only one LEA, Essex, has more grant-maintained schools than Kent. Indeed, of the 754 English schools which have now approved for grant-maintained status, 69, or almost one in 10, are in Kent.

The first self-governing secondary schools in Kent were incorporated in September 1989, and the first self-govering primary schools were incorporated in January 1992. The sector has expanded rapidly since then, and 39 per cent. of Kent secondary schools are now grant-maintained. More than 100 heads have attended conferences in Kent on going grant-maintained.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham pointed out, the sector in Kent now embraces a wide range of schools: selective as well as comprehensive schools, primary and middle schools as well as large secondary schools, county schools and voluntary schools affiliated to both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, as well as ex-county schools.

Nationally, about four out of five grant-maintained ballots result in a yes vote. I am delighted to say that, in Kent, the rate is higher still, at almost 95 per cent., showing clearly that Kent parents recognise what is best for their children's schools.

There has been a great deal of speculation about the effect of the change of county council control on the growth of the grant-maintained sector in Kent, and my hon. Friends both referred to that tonight. However, what really matters is not what Kent county council thinks but what Kent parents think.

Measures in the Education Act 1993 will help to ensure that opinions in county hall do not control parents' thinking. They will create a fair and balanced debate by providing grants to governors to cover the cost of informing parents about grant-maintained status from the 1 January 1994. They will also limit the amount that LEAs can spend on influencing the outcome of the ballot.

Of course, LEAs that are opposed to grant-maintained status are perfectly entitled to put their views to parents in any school that is considering opting out of local authority control. There have been some instances in which LEAs and others have submerged parents under a sea of paper in the process of putting forward their case, while schools have had limited resources with which to conduct their campaign.

It is also important that the information that is sent to parents, from whatever side, is objective, explanatory, factual and non-political in content, tone or presentation. To help to achieve that, the Department and the Society of Education Officers have drawn up a common code of conduct. The SEO has distributed the code to its members, and the Department will promulgate it shortly.

I was disturbed to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham said about a particular leaflet. I invite him to forward the leaflet to the Department, where it will be given the closest attention, to establish whether or not it breaches the code.

I have every confidence that the grant-maintained sector will continue to grow, irrespective of the views of Kent county council. I have every respect for the ability of Kent parents to think for themselves.

In the time remaining, I wish to turn to Mr. Pryke's article in The Times Educational Supplement, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham referred. In general, I agree with his views—that is, the views of my hon. Friend.

Perhaps I could take the opportunity to set the record straight on a number of matters. In the article, Mr. Pryke complains about inequitable funding arrangements. True, self-governing schools get some grants that are not available to their LEA-maintained counterparts. However, those grants reflect the additional responsibilities of grant-maintained schools and the additional expenditure they face, which LEA schools do not face.

The real difference in the financial arrangements of grant-maintained and non-grant-maintained schools is not the total amount of money but the fact that grant-maintained schools have control over 100 per cent. of their budget, so that they make all the spending decisions.

Mr. Pryke went on to attack the common funding formula on the grounds that it is a crude national formula which will not take account of local variations. Yet the formula proposed includes an element for pupils with special educational needs, an element for fixed costs—which will be of particular help to small popular schools—and an element to take account of the additional costs associated with operating a school on more than one site.

Schools have already begun to feel the advantages of heavily pupil-led funding under LMS. The common funding formula will mean that, for the first time, each child can expect educational provision based on a genuine assessment of need rather than accident of birth within a particular LEA boundary.

Elsewhere in his article, Mr. Pryke spoke about inspection arrangements. Frankly, it is absurd to suggest that there has been no evaluation of the performance of GM schools—or, indeed, that there has been some kind of cover-up of the findings. Her Majesty's inspectors published a report earlier this year. Their findings were that, in general, self-governing schools have improved morale among staff and resulted in better management of resources and a much better climate within the classroom for effective education and improved pupil attendance. Those are the firm foundations for higher standards and improved examination results.

Under the new inspection regime, all schools that are wholly or mainly dependent on public funds—including, of course, grant-maintained schools—will be inspected on a regular four-yearly basis. The registered inspectors' reports will be published, as will the governors' action plans drawn up in response.

The Department for Education closely monitors the admission arrangements of self-governing schools. When a school applies for self-governing status, it must include in its proposals details of its admissions arrangements. Once those arrangements have been agreed with the Department, they cannot be changed without the prior approval of the Secretary of State.

Grant-maintained schools have a range of responsibilities beyond those of LEA-maintained schools. They are directly accountable— through governors— to parents and the local community. That is the local democratic base. New arrangements such as those for the Funding Agency for Schools are not about structures that interfere with day-to-day running of individual schools. The FAS will most certainly not be a replacement LEA.

Once 10 per cent. of pupils in a local education authority sector are being educated in grant-maintained schools, the responsibility to ensure sufficient surplus places will be shared between the LEA and the funding agency. That division of responsibility recognises the increasing contribution to the provision of places made by grant-maintained schools.

Each party will be able to act only in relation to its own sector. The FAS will have the power to propose the expansion, alteration, or discontinuance of grant-maintained schools, while the LEA will retain these powers with respect to LEA schools. The FAS will therefore be able to reduce surplus places in grant-maintained schools in precisely the same way that LEAs can act to reduce surplus places in LEA-maintained schools.

Mr. Pryke claims that, because the LEA is not responsible for self-governing schools, the grant-maintained system is unaccountable and undemocratic. That is patent nonsense. No school goes grant-maintained without the majority of parents' approval; that is real democracy at work. Once grant-maintained schools have been established, they are directly accountable to parents and pupils.

I have listened with interest to, and I agree overwhelmingly with, what my hon. Friends have said. I believe, without doubt, that the grant-maintained sector will continue to grow and thrive, both in Kent and across the country as a whole. In years to come, people will wonder why we ever doubted that schools could run themselves on behalf of parents, pupils and their immediate community without being controlled by their local education authority.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes to Ten o'clock.