Engagements (Hansard, 18 April 1995)

§ Q1. Mr. Mandelson
To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 18 April. [17590]

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major)
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

§ Mr. Mandelson
Will the Prime Minister endorse Labour's condemnation of the minority of militants who behaved so badly at the National Union of Teachers conference in Blackpool last weekend? Does he agree that the best way to isolate those individuals is for the Government to start listening to what governors, teachers and, above all, parents across the country are saying—that it is madness to trade cuts in the education of our children this year for tax cuts next year?

§ The Prime Minister
I certainly share in the condemnation of the behaviour that we have seen at the National Union of Teachers conference in the past few days. Millions of parents would have been concerned about the behaviour that they saw. It was, frankly, disgraceful. It was loutish. If I may say so, Labour's Front-Bench education spokesman was appallingly treated by those militants.
I am happy to share in the hon. Gentleman's thorough condemnation of the behaviour of that minority of teachers. I also very much regret the fact that their conference has decided today to ballot on strike action, against the advice of their executive committee. I strongly hope that wiser counsels will prevail and that teachers will decide that their job is to be in the classroom teaching their pupils, not outside teaching bad habits to their pupils.

§ Q2. Mr. Clappison
To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 18 April. [17591]

§ The Prime Minister
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

§ Mr. Clappison
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the massive boost that he gave to British prestige by his decision to use Concorde for his recent visit to meet 15 President Clinton in Washington? Will he take this opportunity to declare his pride in travelling in that magnificent advertisement for British technology?

§ The Prime Minister
Although the technology is now 25 years out of date, it is a magnificent aircraft, it is unequalled across the world and I congratulate all those with the wisdom to travel in it.

§ Mr. Blair
rose—[Interruption.]

§ Madam Speaker
Order.

§ Mr. Blair
I see that the recess has not improved Conservative Members, Madam Speaker.
On education, I agree that strike action would be wrong and misguided, but the Prime Minister's Secretary of State for Education admitted last week that, as a result of the Government's refusal to fund the teachers' pay award, some schools would face hard choices and might be unable to absorb the pressures put upon them. What does the right hon. Gentleman say to those schools?

§ The Prime Minister
The fact is, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, that this Government have consistently made education a priority, benefiting parents, pupils and teachers. We have given parents more choice over their children's education and more information about how they are progressing. Even this year, with the funding levels about which the right hon. Gentleman complains, we are spending record amounts on education, as he will know. We are spending almost half as much again per pupil as when we first took office. We are on top of inflation and we now spend more per secondary pupil than Germany and Japan and more per primary pupil than Germany, France and most of the European Union. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that we are dealing fairly with education now, as we have in the past.

§ Mr. Blair
I do not. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will confirm that the pupil-teacher ratio has worsened under his premiership. The actions of a few extremists in the teaching union should not obscure the hard work and professionalism of the vast majority of teachers; nor should it allow the Government to escape their responsibility for their own brand of extremism, which is forcing education cuts on schools the length and breadth of the country.

§ The Prime Minister
Our extremism has been to give people more choice and more information, to put far more of our young people into further and higher education than ever before, to increase spending on pupils by 50 per cent. and spending on school books by 50 per cent. over and above inflation, and to increase some areas of ancillary spending by more than 130 per cent. since we have been in government. If that is extremism in education, it is extremism that every other budget in Whitehall would have been happy to have.