HC Deb 29 March 1994 vol 240 cc787-8
11. Mr. George Howarth

To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will increase the funds available for discretionary awards in the coming academic year.

Mr. Boswell

It is for local education authorities to decide how much to devote to each area of the education service, including discretionary awards, in the light of local needs and circumstances, their own priorities and the resources available to them.

Mr. Howarth

Is not it the Government's responsibility, having presided over the greatest disruption in pupil education in recent years, to make sure that resources are there so that those people who have suffered can have a second chance? While the Minister is at it, why does not he apologise for all the disruption?

Mr. Boswell

I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I doubt whether he has in mind the fact that public funding for the maintained schools sector has risen by more than 45 per cent. in real terms since 1979 and that my right hon. Friend and my colleagues have been driving up educational standards.

However, since the hon. Gentleman asks what our responsibility is, I can tell him that it is to provide, as we do, more than £17 billion through the standard spending assessment, which represents an increase of 2.4 per cent. over the previous year. That is a record of resourcing local education authorities that allows them to assume and, we hope, discharge their proper responsibilities.