HC Deb 14 June 1994 vol 244 c502
3. Mr. Luff

To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the level of the education component of the standard spending assessment for Hereford and Worcester county council.

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

The increase in the Hereford and Worcester education standard spending assessment is higher than average. Allowing for changes of function, this year's education SSA is 3.2 per cent. higher than last year's.

Mr. Luff

Will my hon. Friend confirm that that generous settlement, which is well above the rate of inflation, could have been used by the Lib-Lab pact at county hall to do two things that they shamefully failed to do? First, it could have funded the teachers' pay award, preventing the need for widespread redundancies in schools in my constituency; secondly, it could have been used to carry on paying discretionary awards, preventing much heartbreak and hardship among young people in my constituency.

Mr. Squire

The House has heard my hon. Friend's wise words. He will know that it is a responsibility of all education authorities to determine their own priorities, but it is self-evident that his particular county council has had an increase in its standard spending assessment which is higher than the amount needed to fund the teachers' pay award. Therefore, it must account to his constituents for the way in which it has chosen to disperse the assessment, which on the face of it sounds rather eccentric.

Mr. Foulkes

Will the Minister join me in congratulating Hereford and Worcester council on its manifestly good adult education because, like 70 per cent. of the United Kingdom, its people returned a Labour Member of the European Parliament in the past week?

Mr. Squire

If I may bring the debate back to education issues, the question that I was asked originally, and which I am happy to repeat, is how education authorities of local councils generally determine their priorities. The party of the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) once talked about socialism being the language of priorities, but in the case highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) the priorities seem rather strange.