Education (Lancashire) (Hansard, 14 February 1996)

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd (Morecambe and Lunesdale)
One thing that all Lancashire Conservative Members and county councillors are determined upon is to do everything in their power to help to raise the educational standard of the children of their constituents and that is why I am so pleased to see many of my colleagues here today. I look forward to contributions, if there is time, by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins), and by my hon. Friends the Members for Wyre (Mr. Mans), for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson), for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) and for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) is, of course, performing his ministerial duties at the Treasury and is unable to attend. However, he knows my views on education in Lancashire and I know that he accepts the broad thrust of what I am about to say.
I am especially pleased to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), who will reply to the debate. He has been immensely helpful both to Lancashire Conservative Members and to Lancashire Conservative county councillors in all our endeavours to press the county to recognise the supreme importance of education. I know that what he says will be read with particular care by all our constituents who have children or grandchildren at school.
Over recent years, successive Conservative Governments have introduced some important policies on education. I mention in particular the introduction of parent governors and teacher governors, the local management of schools initiative, which has enabled schools rather than counties to make many decisions about their future, the national curriculum and the league tables. I am pleased by the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment that she will publish primary school performance tables from next spring. The Government have also given the important freedom to schools to go grant-maintained, about which I shall say a little more later.

§ Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre)
My hon. Friend has mentioned a number of excellent initiatives introduced by the Government. Does he agree that all those initiatives were opposed by the Labour party and, more specifically, by Labour-controlled Lancashire county council, which is depicted as saying no to education at every turn?

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
I agree with my hon. Friend. The other aspect with which I shall deal is that the council says no to funds that the Government have made available to supplement the money that it has to spend on education.
All the changes have given immense opportunities to schools to improve their standards and they have been of immense help. However, there is one point that is often not properly understood by the public. Education policy overall is a matter for the Government, but the amount that is spent by any county council on the schools under its control is a matter entirely for that county council. It is the council's decision; it is not a matter for Government.
The Government, of course, make generous provision to Lancashire county council from central taxation to add to what the council raises from the council tax and the local business rate. However, it is the county's decision whether it spends the extra money provided by the Government on education or on something else.

§ Mr. Mans
That might be a wrong decision.

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
Yes, indeed.

§ Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, despite what he is saying, capping has implications for the county council? It has to work within that level.

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
My real point—the hon. Gentleman will be able to comment on my speech in his contribution—is to ask whether the £26.6 million extra provided by the Government will be spent by the county on education in the coming financial year. Will all that—

§ Mr. Pike
Yes, it will.

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
It is interesting to hear, that because we have not heard it from the council. Two things cause prime concern to Conservative Members—I have just touched on one. The first is when the county fails to pass on all the increase that the Government have found for education to the most important of its services. The second is when the county fails to manage its bureaucracy properly and, compared with the number of teachers working in schools, keeps too many officials in county hall pushing paper.

§ Mr. Nick Hawkins (Blackpool, South)
Does my hon. Friend agree that parents in Lancashire, especially of children of nursery age, will be appalled to know that Lancashire county council did not become one of the pilot local education authorities to take advantage of the Government's expansion of nursery education?

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
My hon. Friend has made a valid point. I must add that, in their work, he and Conservative county councillors in Lancashire make it a priority to point out to the county, which as we know is Labour-controlled, precisely what is going on.

§ Mr. Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire)
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman so soon, and I thank him for giving way. Does he recognise—in relation to the intervention from a sedentary position by the hon. Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans)—that spending on 927 administration in education in Lancashire amounts to 1.6 per cent. of the total education budget, compared with the national average of 2.1 per cent?

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
I will comment later on what the hon. Gentleman has said.
The county's management of its funds for education over the years is a story of gross, in some cases outrageous, financial mismanagement. In 1994–95, it cut the schools budget by £5.1 million. As we know, last year the Government were able to increase their allocation to the county for education by only a modest amount—it was a tight settlement. Notwithstanding that, it was an increase, yet the county cut the schools budget by £19.2 million. It cut savagely what went to schools because it was not prepared to cut its education bureaucracy at county hall. Schools therefore suffered at the expense of officials in administration.
I find that remarkable, especially as, at this time, the Opposition are talking so much about the cost of administration in the national health service. For example, on 1 February at Prime Minister's questions, the Leader of the Opposition challenged the cost of administration in the health service and only yesterday those comments were repeated by the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) in the debate on morale in the health service. Of course it should be remembered that she chose the services of a school that had opted out of a Labour council's control and was in a Tory borough outside the Labour-controlled borough where she lived. What are parents in Lancashire to make of it when they see what their Labour council does to them?
One must ask—this is where I come to the intervention of the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) who will perhaps comment on this—why it is that, despite the removal three years ago of colleges of further education from the county's control, the number of staff at county hall, which was already high then, has continued to increase.
Last year, parents and teachers were understandably concerned about the cuts that schools had to make. My hon. Friends, Conservative county councillors and I visited Ministers with responsibility for education, including my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, to make our concerns known. We lobbied hard. We also lobbied Treasury Ministers, because ultimately that is the point at which we must put on pressure.
Last autumn, there was a clear expectation that this year the Government would attach a higher priority to educational assistance to the county than they had been able to do in earlier years, yet, on 28 September, a disgraceful thing happened. Mr. Collier, the then chief education officer, wrote to all head teachers suggesting that the county might have to cut the schools budget by 8 per cent. We did not know what the Government settlement was to be then, but, in September, the county said that it might have to cut the budget by 8 per cent.
Mr. Collier has now retired. He was acting clearly on the political instructions of his Labour masters at county hall. It was an irresponsible thing to do. The letter generated fear, anger and frustration in everyone who read it.

§ Mr. Hawkins
Does my hon. Friend agree that the political master on whose instructions Mr. Collier acted was the chairman of the local education authority, Labour Councillor Stan Wright, who sits for a ward in Blackpool, who has, during his leadership of education in Lancashire, been guilty of the most appalling irresponsibility, and who has continually tried to scare parents of Lancashire children?

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
Following what my hon. Friend says, I hope that all Lancashire parents will write to county councillor Wright. What was said in September was uncalled for as, in December, the Government announced that they would increase the county's allocation towards education costs by £26.6 million or 5.5 per cent. I hope that all parents will write to him insisting that that increase from the Government goes directly into education.

§ Mr. Mans
Into schools.

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
Into schools.
Again, reasonable people will be astonished by the county's reaction to the wonderful news of such a substantial increase. So far, its reaction has been this. In early January, it published a discussion paper that outlined possible cuts in primary and secondary school funding of £25.2 million. That was greeted by parents, teachers and Conservative county councillors with outrage and frustration. No doubt because of that clamour, the county recanted just a little. It modified its proposals to say that there might be a cut in education generally of only £6.7 million.

§ Mr. Harold Elletson (Blackpool, North)
Is my hon. Friend aware that many parents in my constituency are extremely worried that, even if the county does not proceed with its initial proposed cuts of 8 per cent. and cuts the budget by only, as he said, £6 million, that will constitute a real threat to some of the most valued parts of school life, such as music and sports provision, books and many extracurricular activities? Would it not be disgraceful if those services were threatened as a direct result of the county council's managerial incompetence?

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
I agree with my hon. Friend. What I and I am sure any parent in Lancashire find perplexing is how any county council could propose cuts of £6.7 million in education when the Government have increased its share by £26.6 million. That is what County Councillor Stan Wright must answer.
I am fortunate in the timing of the debate, because the county must make a final decision about its funding on 22 February next week. I hope that, between now and then, parents, teachers and governors will write in the way I have suggested.
Any parent or teacher who is frustrated by the county's education funding has a method of escape from the problem. It is to persuade other parents in their school to request a ballot so that a vote can be taken on whether the school should become grant-maintained. In that way, they will avoid the enormous burden that schools indirectly bear for under-employed staff at county hall.
It is clear—the figures are available for anyone to see, although they vary from school to school—that a large school may benefit by many thousands of pounds every 929 year by saving what is withheld by the county for administration by county organisers. Figures show that, in Britain, grant-maintained schools spend on administration only half what the county spends. For many schools, that is therefore the way out of the county's mismanagement of its finances, and I hope that more Lancashire schools will follow that path.

§ Mrs. Audrey Wise (Preston)
I think that Conservative Members pay too little attention to announcements by the county council, because they are too busy filling the soundwaves with their unjustified complaints about the county. Were this not so, they would know that the £26.6 million is all to be spent on schools, as the county council has made clear. I am pleased, however, that the parents, governors and teachers of Lancashire understand the issues far more clearly than Conservative Members do. They know whom to blame.
I was astounded to hear the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) say that the amount of money spent on education is entirely a matter for the county. The fact is that the Government set the parameters within which local authorities have to operate. The hon. Gentleman's astonishing statement suggests that the development of a rich imaginative life, which should form part of any good education, has taken root particularly effectively in his case.

§ Mr. Mans
Does the hon. Lady agree with her hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) that education should become the responsibility of Blackburn borough council and should be taken away from the county council because it has managed education so incompetently?

§ Mrs. Wise
My hon. Friend's views on unitary status for Blackburn are well known. They do not relate to any incompetence on the part of the county council. They arise from his view of a desirable structure for local government, and that view is not directed against the county council. Conservative Members should put that point to my hon. Friend, when they have the chance, and he will confirm what I am saying.
As I was saying, parents, teachers and governors clearly understand where the blame lies. I am pleased that they were alerted by the chairman of Lancashire education committee to what might be afoot, because their ensuing campaign has successfully prevented even worse excesses by the Government. It would have been no use waiting until decisions had been made and then complaining about those decisions. Far better to encourage a campaign to improve the quality of the Government's decision-making. The Government certainly need a lot of help in that respect.
My hon. Friends and I receive a steady stream of information and complaints from schools and parents in our constituencies—none of them directed at the county council. No school or parent in my constituency has directed any wrath at the county council. I recently received a typical such letter, which helpfully included the latest inspectors' report. It comes from Savick county primary school, whose head teacher has given me permission to use the information that he sent me, as he says, 930 to fight the complacency of the present Administration". The head teacher says that he is sure that I will wish to celebrate, with him, the many good things that the inspectors found to say about the school. So I do. The school's achievements are legion, and are a great tribute to the staff and pupils. But the report clearly establishes that class sizes are far too great. The report points out that, at the crucial key stage 2, class sizes are enormous, all but one containing more than 35 pupils.
This of course is not the fault of the county council. It is the fault of inadequate funding for education generally. Unlike Ministers and the chief inspector, the inspectors who looked at Savick county primary do regard class sizes as crucial to delivering a good education. They say: A combination of a reduction in the school's budget and the need to create a reserve fund has caused an increase in class sizes to over 35 at Key Stage 2. Some teaching areas are overcrowded, which not only affects teaching and learning but also health and safety, particularly in science and physical education. The inspectors also say that financial control by the school is good; it continually seeks value for money. The recommendations of the most recent auditor's report have been put in place. Routine accounting is good and well maintained. The school, the report says, gives satisfactory value for money—yet the inspectors also say that the objectives of the staff and governors must include finding ways of reducing the class sizes". That is tantamount to saying that teachers should be not just good teachers, but magicians too.

§ Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)
As the hon. Lady well knows, it is not simply a matter of class sizes—otherwise, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) would not have sent his child past many state schools with smaller class sizes to the Oratory.
Does the hon. Lady agree that one way in which the county might make some savings is to stop campaigning in my constituency against schools that want to adopt grant-maintained status—including Archbishop Temple school, to which many of the parents in her constituency send their children?

§ Mrs. Wise
It was noticeable that the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale was unable earlier to answer the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) about administration costs in Lancashire. As he pointed out, they are below the national average. Until we hear a soundly based statistical rebuttal of that statement, Conservative Members should be quiet and cease their accusations against the county.

§ Mr. Nigel Evans
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You heard the question that I put to the hon. Lady. Is she not obliged to answer it?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse)
That is not a point of order. As the hon. Gentleman knows full well, it is entirely up to the hon. Lady how she chooses to answer.

§ Mrs. Wise
I have answered the hon. Gentleman in a way I think effective. My constituents will also think it effective. The hon. Gentleman is merely wasting time in this debate. If he has things to say, no doubt he will make a speech of his own.
931 The outstanding feature of the views expressed repeatedly to me by parents, teachers and governors is their condemnation of the lack of Government funding and of the lack of importance attached by the Government to education resources. The Government continually imply that teachers and governors must become magicians. All this is clearly understood in Preston, and is often expressed in correspondence by my constituents. They are not misled by the attempts of Lancashire Conservative Members to divert attention from the gross iniquities perpetrated by this Administration on the county council, which its doing its very best in lamentable circumstances.
It is a gross distortion of the truth to keep repeating that it is entirely up to the county council how much to spend on education. The people of Preston recognise that. I look forward to the day when Savick county primary school and all the other schools in my constituency will be able to respond to an Administration who attach proper priority to resources for education.

§ Mr. Robert Atkins (South Ribble)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise), who represents a borough that is arguably even more incompetent than the county council.
I am delighted to be associated with the initiative taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd). It demonstrates again that on education, as on social services—about which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) introduced a similar debate—it is Conservative Members of Parliament and county councillors in Lancashire who are really fighting for parents and children in the county.
The Government have in recent years increased the allocation to Lancashire year on year, yet the Labour-controlled county council has cut the schools budget by £5.1 million in 1994–95, by £19.2 million in 1995–96 and have proposed—we have heard nothing to the contrary to date—a £9 million cut in 1996–97. That information comes directly from the Conservative county councillors on Lancashire's education committee.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale said, we pressed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and other Ministers to ensure that the mean and politically motivated attacks on our children's education were overcome by a further substantial increase this year. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, together with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), and Treasury Ministers recognised the concern of Conservative Members. Eventually, we got a substantial increase of some 5.5 per cent.—almost double the current rate of inflation.
When we pressed our case, the Government listened. That demonstrates the authority with which Lancashire Conservative Members fight the cause of Lancashire parents. It is up to Lancashire county council and its education committee to pass on the increase. We have heard suggestions that it will do so, but it is not the 932 information we have to hand. I would like to know what the county is going to do when it comes to the final decision on 22 February. The signs so far are that it will not. If it is to pass on the increase, it makes it even more reprehensible that Mr. Collier and the controlling group on the education committee have suggested that there will be one. If there is not to be a cut, they have been misleading everyone in the county.
Last year, every Conservative-controlled local education authority in the country met the teachers' pay rise and school budget increases, and some were even able to recruit more teachers. Why cannot Lancashire county council, which has one of the most top-heavy bureaucracies—across its whole administration—in the country, do the same? My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) asked a pertinent question: why does Blackburn, for example, want to remove itself from the control of the county council? Whatever the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) may say in public, we know what he says in private. My hon. Friend hit the nail on the head.
To take one issue, when will the local education authority in Lancashire address the scandal of surplus places in secondary schools, especially in areas such as Skelmersdale and Burnley?

§ Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn)
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Lancashire met the target set for surplus places by the Secretary of State in 1981 and 1987, which are the most recent targets for which figures are available?

§ Mr. Atkins
I am not going to comment in detail on the case, except to say that I am advised that there are surplus places in certain parts of our county. Our constituents are entitled to ask why the problem of surplus places in Skelmersdale and Burnley, which happen to be controlled by Labour councils or represented by Labour Members, is not being addressed, whereas in parts of the county represented by Conservatives it is. That question needs to be answered.
I congratulate Leyland St. Mary's school in my constituency, which went grant-maintained in January 1994 and has made great strides ever since. In the past, it was a good to average school, but it is now excellent. In the recent Ofsted report, inspectors picked out Leyland St. Mary's as one of the five best schools in the county. Lancashire Members know that Leyland is not the wealthiest part of the county. Inspectors described it as a school well above the national average and still improving. It was granted technology college status three months ago. I hope next month to open its new all-weather surface, funding for which has been obtained since grant-maintained status was achieved. That is a measure of what grant-maintained status can do for an ordinary school that has become an excellent school in Leyland. That was the parents' choice. I am pleased that they were able to make that choice, which I applaud.
However, in a recent ballot at Lostoch Hall high school in my constituency, there was the most extraordinary interference by the Labour county council and other Labour activists who had nothing to do with the school. It was not in the area that the person involved represented. A number of parents contacted me to complain about the 933 activities of those Labour representatives. I do not quibble with the result; that is a matter for the parents to decide. That is the key point; the result is immaterial. The Government have given the parents the choice to be able to decide what they want to do about their schools. I hope that their decision not to go grant-maintained was what they really wanted.
I question the local Labour party's involvement, especially in sending leaflets—some without an address on them—which intimidated or misled parents. I and Conservative county and district councillors did not interfere in the process, which is a matter for parents, not politicians. Labour interfered in extremely dubious ways. I find that most reprehensible—especially when the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) was defying Labour policy by exercising her choice to send her son to a grammar school in a Tory borough 13 miles from her home.
The House may be interested to know that that action has been mimicked by Mr. Hindley, the Labour Member of the European Parliament for Lancashire, South, who represents my area and claims, with some justification, to be extremely left wing. Yet he sends his son to Clitheroe grammar school, in a Tory borough—just—a long way from his home.

§ Mr. Hawkins
The action of the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) in sending her child to a grant-maintained grammar school in a Tory borough was applauded by her mother-in-law, who is a constituent of mine and a Labour activist in my constituency.

§ Mr. Atkins
That confirms that it is not only the hon. Member for Peckham and Mr. Hindley who choose, and I do not decry it, to take the opportunity to send their children to the school, whatever sort it may be, of their choice. However, Labour is trying to prevent parents in my constituency, and in those of my hon. Friends, from doing the same. That is a classic example of "do as I say, not as I do".
All that adds up to rank hypocrisy, allied to rank incompetence. I was interested by the report yesterday of the Secondary Heads Association, which had examined the Labour party's education policy and described it as "simplistic and bland", short of ideas, unlikely to assist in raising school standards, poorly thought out, uncosted and lacking in detail. It questioned the Labour party's assurances that local council powers to interfere in local school management would not be restored. That sums up Labour policy on education and is similar to the history of Labour control of Lancashire's education. It was Conservatives who fought for the review of the area cost adjustment—and got it; pressed for substantial increases in the Government allocation—and got them; pressed, locally and nationally, for improvements in and standards for regular testing, for choice and for more information for parents—and got them all. We continue to press the case for reducing class sizes.
This debate is important because parents, teachers and governors, who, like Conservative Members, really care about children's education, can learn the facts of the policies of both new and old Labour in Lancashire and realise that it is only the Conservative party that has their real interests at heart.

§ Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley)
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this important subject, but I regret that Conservative Members have used it as an opportunity not to speak about education in Lancashire positively but to have a go at Lancashire county council.
The right hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) referred to the problem of surplus places in Burnley. The problem is much more complex than he suggested. Another school may need to be built, or additional places may have to be provided, at one end of Burnley where there is excessive demand, while a school at the other end of the town may have to be closed. Along with John Entwistle, a member of the county council, I have tried to draw attention to the issue in the press. He and I want to involve the people of Burnley in dealing with the secondary school problem. No quick decision should be made; we must ensure that whatever decision is made is in the best interests of secondary school children.
The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) said that county councils had the right to determine priorities in their budgets. That is true in theory, but Conservatives tend to forget that local authorities have been capped for some time. In theory, additional money has been made available for education through standard spending assessments, but the Government grant is not rising proportionately. To meet the capping criteria, Lancashire county council must cut its budget by some £45 million, or 5.1 per cent.

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something that he said earlier? He is in close contact with Lancashire county council's ruling group. Is the council going to increase its education spending by £26.6 million in the coming year—the amount that the Government have provided?

§ Mr. Pike
I must emphasise that a standard spending assessment is not money from the Government; it is what the Government say a council can spend. In the current financial year, Lancashire county council is spending 7.5 per cent. above SSA. Yes, the £20-odd million that is being made available is going to schools; but, because the council must cut its overall budget, other education and social services must be cut proportionately more. The council will continue to spend well above its SSA. It already gives priority to schools, and it will pass the money on to them.

§ Mr. Mans
The hon. Gentleman said that Lancashire county council had problems because it had been capped. Surely it makes no sense for a council that has been capped to decrease the amount of money that is available for schools, as Lancashire did last year. A council with limited resources should make education a priority, rather than spending its money elsewhere.

§ Mr. Pike
The hon. Gentleman has not been listening. Lancashire is already spending 7.5 per cent. above SSA on education. Anyone who does not recognise that the council already regards education as a priority is not living in the real world.

§ Mrs. Wise
Does my hon. Friend agree that measures such as the proposed voucher scheme for four-year-olds 935 are detrimental to areas such as Lancashire, where four-year-olds are already at school? Lancashire can only lose. Is that not an example of the inadequacy and stupidity of the Government's approach?

§ Mr. Pike
That is a valid point. Until nursery education is provided as of right for all who want it, and is included in the grant formula, counties such as Lancashire will be penalised even more by the move to the voucher system. Tory and Liberal members of Lancashire county council understand the problems better than Conservative Members of Parliament: they have lobbied the Government for more money.
Under the area cost adjustment, every primary school pupil in Essex receives an extra £147 this year. Secondary school pupils aged between 11 and 15 receive an extra £197, and those aged between 16 and 18 an extra £235. The arrangements should be reviewed.

§ Mr. Nigel Evans
I shall give this question another go, because I know that the hon. Gentleman is more up to speed than his hon. Friends. Does he agree that Lancashire county council could save money if it dropped its campaigns against schools that wish to become grant-maintained—such as Clitheroe Royal grammar school, where the Labour MEP Michael Hindley sends his daughter and where, no doubt, some of the hon. Gentleman's constituents send their children?

§ Mr. Pike
I totally disagree with what the hon. Gentleman has said. Like anyone else, including me, the council has the right to campaign against grant-maintained status. We have an absolute right to ensure that parents are in possession of all the facts before they vote. By law, every governing body must decide each year whether to ballot on grant-maintained status. Most have not done so, because they know that Lancashire has a first-class education record, and they want to remain part of mainstream education.

§ Mr. Pope
Conservative Members say that there has been an abuse of taxpayers' money. Will my hon. Friend join me in condemning the disgraceful way in which the Government have spent millions of pounds on the Grant Maintained Schools Trust and the Grant Maintained Schools Foundation? Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money have been spent on bribing schools to opt out.

§ Mr. Pike
I do condemn that, as I condemn the way in which the Government have spent millions of pounds on advertising their policy on issues such as privatisation over the past few years.

§ Mr. Hawkins
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Pike
As the hon. Member will not be a Lancashire Member for long—he is in danger of losing his seat—I will give way to him.

§ Mr. Hawkins
Will the hon. Gentleman remind his hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) that the Government have an electoral mandate? We won the election. Lancashire county council, however, is wasting taxpayers' money on improper campaigns.

§ Mr. Pike
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Does he believe in local government or not? Education is a local government responsibility. In 1981, Labour won control of Lancashire county council, and—with or without an overall majority—it has been in control ever since. Having fought elections on the basis of certain policies, it has the right to implement them.
Conservatives often misleadingly say that Lancashire wastes money on administration. According to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall), the figure is below the national average. In any event, such matters as student grants—on which Lancashire has an excellent administration record—are part of the education budget, and must be provided for.
The capital allocations have implications for education. The annual capital guideline for 1996–97 is £8.166 million, but the bid was for £37.227 million. The amount provided for improvement and replacement work within that sum is only £265,000. Indeed, in total, the bid is less than that for the committed county council programme for the forthcoming year.
We have many old schools that need to be rebuilt or improved if we are to provide education in the most suitable schools. In many schools, work needs to be done on the smaller programmes. In the forthcoming year, £265,000 is available to spend on 771 schools. What nonsense. Rosehill junior school is desperate to have toilets that are fit for 1996. The county has made that work a top priority. It recognises that the work needs to be done and it carried out some urgent work just over a year ago, but it cannot fund the main programme because it does not have the money.
The simple reality is that the education of our children in Lancashire is handicapped because we have a Tory Government. The quicker they go—just like the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins), who is looking for a seat—and we get a Labour Government, the quicker we can get on with providing a proper education for all our children in Lancashire.

§ Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre)
I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to say a few words about Lancashire and education.
Lancashire county council—particularly the education authority—likes to say no to education. It said no to local management of schools. When it was forced to do it, it delegated to schools the minimum amount that it could get away with. Even now, some years on, when many Labour activists and, indeed, the Labour leadership in London, understand how useful local management of schools has been, the county still delegates less to schools than virtually any other large shire county. That was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd) made about costs outside schools and about bureaucracy.
Lancashire county council keeps back from schools nearly 15 per cent. of the general schools budget for costs outside schools. If they were among the best rather than the worst in the land, each school in Lancashire would have, on average, another 7 per cent. to spend on teaching, books and other things that help education, and Lancashire county council would have 7 per cent. less to spend on facilities outside schools and central bureaucracy.
937 Recently, the county showed where its priorities lie. As has been mentioned, the county council recently appointed a new chief education officer. It had an ideal opportunity to look again at the chief education officer's responsibilities, bearing in mind the fact that, since the last one was appointed, a number of schools in Lancashire have become grant-maintained—

§ Mr. Pope
An avalanche.

§ Mr. Mans
The hon. Gentleman talks about an avalanche, and that is precisely what will happen to Lancashire county council when Blackburn and Blackpool become unitary authorities, because then the responsibility and the scope of the education authority in Lancashire will be reduced considerably.
One might have thought that this would be an opportunity, perhaps, to dispense with the services of a chief education officer and simply promote one of his deputies, thus saving about £100,000 in administrative costs. But, no, the county council never even looked at his job specification; it simply appointed a successor, who may or may not be a very good man—I do not know—without considering his responsibilities or the scope of his task. That clearly shows Lancashire county council's priorities—not books and teaching, but looking after the fat cats at county hall in Preston.
It does not end there, because the county council said no not only to LMS but to teacher assessments and the testing of pupils. It is bitterly ironic that, having said no to the testing of pupils, the Labour party is trying to use the results of those tests—tests that it did not want in the first place—to criticise the Government. The Labour party should criticise its own education authorities for not teaching children better in the counties that it controls, such as Lancashire. We know why the Labour party did not want the tests—because the results in Lancashire could have been much better, and would have been had county hall practised Conservative policies.

§ Mrs. Wise
Does the hon. Gentleman understand that it is not the education authority that teaches the children but teachers, and that the burdens that his Government have placed on teachers have led to intolerable stresses, greatly increased sickness rates and the need to take early retirement on health grounds? Does he agree that the priority should be to enable teachers to remain in post so that they can do their job, which they do so admirably in the vast majority of cases?

§ Mr. Mans
That was an interesting intervention; the hon. Lady should address her remarks to Lancashire county council, which should put teachers before bureaucrats and ensure that teachers get the support that they deserve. Her comment about sickness is also interesting, because, as she knows, the record of absenteeism in Lancashire county council is disgraceful. Lancashire county council has more people absent for one reason or another than the vast majority of local authorities, which says much about its leadership and how it cannot persuade people to work for it.

§ Mr. Nigel Evans
I should also like to say something about the hon. Lady's intervention. She knows a lot about early retirement, because her daughter was forced to take early retirement as leader of Preston council because 938 people in Preston and Lancashire are sick and tired of political posturing. They were extremely angry at the way in which Lancashire county council and Andrew Collier wrote to all the schools and scared all the parents, frightening them with an 8 per cent. budget reduction when they did not have any of the facts or statistics. The fact is that the Government were committed to funding education in Lancashire and in the rest of the country and to putting education first, and that is precisely what they did.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. In short debates, long interventions do not assist.

§ Mr. Mans
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making a point that I would have made a little later in my speech, but, of course, I shall not now do so, to ensure that a few more hon. Members are able to contribute.
Lancashire county council said no not only to testing but to grant-maintained status. That is hypocrisy of the worst order. We are told by the Labour leadership that it believes in stakeholding. What better example of stakeholding is there than to give parents, teachers and governors a stake in their school? That is what Conservatives mean by stakeholding. What the Labour party means, judging by its opposition to grant-maintained schools, is that it wants the bureaucrat miles away to have a stake in that primary, secondary or other school.
That cannot be right, and many Opposition Members understand that by their actions, because, as has been mentioned, Labour activists and Labour leaders throughout the country are voting with their feet and sending their children to Tory-controlled boroughs to grant-maintained schools. Even worse in terms of the doctrinaire policies of some Opposition Members is that some children were sent to selective grammar schools.
It is clear that the Labour's attitude to education has not changed one bit in 20 years. Opposition Members want to climb the ladder of opportunity and pull it up after them to ensure that no one else has the chance to take the opportunities that they had. That is precisely what the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) and the Leader of the Opposition have done. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) went one stage further, because he made the interesting comment that people on MPs' salaries could afford to send their children to private schools. The hon. Gentleman exercised the option to do precisely that. Perhaps a few more Opposition Members would like to follow his example and provide more opportunities for people who do not have the chance to send their children to schools in their own areas.
The policy in Lancashire is clearly to get rid of selection, to get rid of the good schools, particularly in Lancaster, that have always had selection. That must be wrong. Parents must be given choice and the opportunity to send their children to the schools that they think are best for them. The county council wishes to deny that opportunity to parents and to create conformity and an image of levelling down rather than levelling up. That is what comprehensives are all about; we can see the effect across the county, because the results in comprehensives are not as good as they are in many other schools.
I shall now deal with the way in which Lancashire county council manages its budget. Last year, it cut the schools budget by 5.5 per cent., but, as far as I can ascertain, it did not cut the central administration for 939 schools at all. It increased the amount of money for social services. That is fine, but the money was not spent on helping the elderly. I do not know where it was spent, but I know that, at the end of January, the social services budget had a surplus of £3 million. The county council should spend that money now on helping people who need domiciliary care but have had it taken away from them, or it should be transferred back to the education budget so that it can be spent on books and teaching rather than sitting in county hall, which is where it is at present.
The record of the county council over the past decade shows that it has consistently put bureaucracy before books and administration before teaching. It is time that it stopped saying no to the education of our county's children and started saying yes.

§ Mr. Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire)
I was somewhat puzzled, at the start of the debate, about its central matter, but it soon became obvious when the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) described what he said was a method of escape for people in the county—grantmaintained schools. Perhaps it is no wonder that he wants to wrap the debate around that assertion—I understand that there are no grant-maintained schools in his constituency. I take it from that that, despite his vigorous efforts, the people in the area are satisfied with the education service that is being provided by the county.
Since 1989, only eight secondary schools and six primary schools have voted to become grant maintained. As schools have periodically to take a positive decision on the issue, that means that 591 primaries and 98 secondaries have made a positive choice to remain within the Lancashire system.

§ Mr. Mans
The hon. Gentleman has said that schools have to make a positive choice to go grant-maintained. That is different from the situation 10 or 15 years ago, when grammar and other schools had no choice about whether to go comprehensive.

§ Mr. Pickthall
I am speaking about the system that appertains today and the system that Conservative Members try to advocate, which is at the centre of what they are about. They are desperate to get schools in their areas to go grant-maintained. However, schools do not want to do that and Conservative Members wrap a debate around the issue, using as many insults and myths as they can find. For example, the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) called the chairman of education in Lancashire, who is the mildest and gentlest of men, a political monster. I have seen letters from the right hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) in which he tells schools in his area that the county will not put the money from the last Budget into schools. The same hon. Member and his colleagues, however, tell us all the time that the county is trying to frighten the electorate.
The hon. Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) said that Lancashire likes to say no to education. That is a preposterous and silly remark. He described many of the legislative measures in education that Lancashire people and Lancashire county council have opposed. However 940 much we disagree with legislation, the key question is whether, when it has been passed, we in Lancashire put it into practice in the best possible manner. The answer to that is yes, as the record clearly shows. The hon. Member for Wyre said that Lancashire wants to get rid of good schools. That is absolute nonsense. What does it mean? Does it mean that they should be closed and thrown into the sea? That is plainly absurd.
The debate hovers around a self-seeking agenda that has been set by Conservative Members who pretend that they are concerned about the generality of education in Lancashire. They elide education funding and schools and use the two interchangeably. I remind them that education in Lancashire covers a heck of a lot more than schools, although schools form the central and most important part of it.

§ Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd
The hon. Gentleman says that Conservative Members are self-seeking. In January, a discussion paper, not a decision, was issued by county hall for consideration by county councillors. It dealt with cuts in primary and secondary school funding of £25 million. I appreciate that we must draw a distinction between specific cuts and cuts in education generally. The figure was later changed to cuts of only £6.7 million. How does the hon. Gentleman explain those figures against the background of the Government increasing funding by £26.6 million?

§ Mr. Pickthall
They are explained against the foreground of the Government's Budget. The county council estimated what it would get from the Budget and it made its expectations public. Although I would quarrel with the nature of the extra money that was targeted at schools in the Budget, Lancashire decided to put that money into schools, and 5.1 per cent. extra will go to schools to account for the extra money. That extra money did not take account of the fact that, next year, a large number of extra pupils will come on stream in Lancashire or that a large extra amount will be spent on special educational needs next year. It did not take account either of next year's pay rise for teachers, which is likely to be higher than the rate of inflation. All those matters have to be taken into account when considering the money that Conservative Members perceive as extra, as a bonus. It is nothing of the kind.
As I have said, Lancashire is putting 5.1 per cent. extra into the schools budget—not into education in general. To be able to do that, it has to make cuts of 6.4 per cent. in spending on the rest of its services. They include not just highways and social services but the rest of the education service, the youth service and discretionary awards. They will have to be cut to pay for the extra spending on schools. That is an agonising decision for the county, and it has had to make such decisions for 10 or 12 years.
I do not have much time left, but I want to mention one or two other matters. Conservative Members consistently argue that Lancashire spends a vast amount on its central administration, but that is just not true. They say it over and over again, as if doing so might make it true. I repeat that Lancashire spends 1.6 per cent. of its education budget on central administration. Not only is that a lower proportion than all other local authorities in the country bar nine: it is lower than most private enterprise firms spend on central administration. Lancashire is an extremely efficient outfit.
941 My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) mentioned the area cost adjustment and the difference that it makes. The adjustment means that a secondary pupil in Essex—a similar county, according to the Shaw criteria—is deemed to be worth £235 a year more than a pupil in Lancashire. All the Lancashire Tory Members in the Chamber today have voted year after year to maintain an area cost adjustment and a funding system for nursery education that disadvantage Lancashire, and they have the cheek to come here today to argue that the county council is doing a bad job. There is an awful lot more that could be said, but my time has run out. I find the origin of the debate offensive and its execution futile and silly.

§ Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn)
First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) on his good fortune in securing this important, if brief, debate on education in Lancashire. I declare an interest—I am the parent of three children, all of whom are receiving state comprehensive education of high quality in Lancashire schools.
The hon. Member sought to paint a picture of failing education in the county, but that view is obviously not shared by teachers, governors or parents in his constituency, where not one school has chosen to opt out. Indeed, at Morecambe high school—the one school where a ballot has taken place—parents voted against opting out.
On the subject of opting out, the House will be aware that the Funding Agency for Schools for England takes over the functions of the local education authority when 75 per cent. of pupils in any sector attend grant-maintained schools. At the current rate of opting out in Lancashire primary schools, that will happen in 2704. That is hardly a real date—it is more of a captain's log star date. It will happen only when we are run by planet Portillo.
The House has seen this morning a grotesque collection of selected half-truths and truths from Tory Members who have sought to distort the real picture of what is happening to education in Lancashire. The truth is that Lancashire has much to be proud of in its education service, despite the damaging funding regime imposed by the Government and supported by Tory Members.
As my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) said, Lancashire has suffered particularly because of the area cost adjustment. If we look at authorities of a similar size, we discover that Hampshire, for example, receives £137 per secondary-aged pupil more than Lancashire, that Kent receives £162 and that Essex receives a staggering £197.

§ Mr. Atkins
May I ask the hon. Gentleman as a Front-Bench spokesman, rather than as a Lancashire Member, whether he would tell his colleagues in Labour-held seats and Labour-controlled councils in the south that they must do without the money that the area cost adjustment gives them in order to benefit Lancashire? I would be delighted, as would my constituents, if that were the case.

§ Mr. Pope
The Government—supported by the right hon. Gentleman—have cut funding year after year, and Opposition Members will take no lectures from them on education funding. Despite the effects of the area cost 942 adjustment, Lancashire is spending 7.5 per cent. more than its education SSA. In the financial year 1996–97, Lancashire is likely to spend 5.1 per cent. more on its schools budget, despite having to bear cuts of £6.4 million in other areas of the education service.
Year-on-year Government cuts in section 11 funding have led to a loss of income of £1.65 million to Lancashire county council, yet the Minister of State, Home Office said that the Home Office used Lancashire's work with under-achieving ethnic minority pupils as a model of good practice. We should consider the voluntary-aided sector, as Lancashire has more aided schools than any other LEA in the country. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Lancaster said that his diocese had been extremely well served by the Lancashire Education Authority. Across the range, Lancashire pupils are doing well. Lancashire's 1995 GCSE results compare favourably with those in other LEAs in the same Shaw group. Between 1988 and 1993, the number of pupils getting five or more A to C grades increased by 37 per cent. nationally. In Lancashire, the increase was 51 per cent. A-level performance in Lancashire schools has also been good for a number of years. In 1993, the number of students in Lancashire schools entered for two or more A-levels placed Lancashire fourth in the entire country. I would be the first to accept that that is based on a small sample, because most Lancashire pupils receive their post-16 education in further education colleges.
While mentioning FE colleges, perhaps I might say in passing what a disgrace it is that, at colleges such as Accrington and Rossendale in my constituency, lecturers are being made redundant and class sizes forced up as a direct consequence of the actions of the Government and the Further Education Funding Council.
Lancashire has a good record on special educational needs and is committed to a policy of integrating children with special needs into mainstream schools. There are now more pupils with statements in mainstream schools than there are in special schools in the county. For the past two years, more than 70 per cent. of the statements that have been issued were for children in mainstream schools.
Lancashire is a nationally outstanding authority in terms of the range of provision available for children with special needs. The county provides more than 50 special schools, special facilities in mainstream schools for hearing impairment and language difficulties and specialist teams of teachers for children with complex learning, reading and language, and behavioural difficulties. Perhaps best of all, a new centre for pupils with autism was opened this year. In addition, Lancashire provides specialist inspectors, advisers and psychologists.
In early-years education, Lancashire again leads the way, spending well above the under-fives element of its SSA and providing every Lancashire child with a school place at the start of the school year after their fourth birthday. That means that many Lancashire children—such as my four-year-old son—receive a school place a full year before the law requires. In addition, there are part-time nursery places for about half of all three-year-olds in the county.
Lancashire has been keen to expand the number of nursery places it can offer, but has been prevented from doing so by the low level of capital allocation from the 943 Government. Indeed, the present Secretary of State—like previous Secretaries of State—has turned down specific requests from the county council for extra nursery classes for aided schools in rural areas. Lancashire has a proven track record of being a high-quality, high-level provider—precisely the kind of authority that will be damaged by the Government's half-baked plans for nursery vouchers.
We have heard much from Tory Members this morning about the perceived failings of the Lancashire education service, so let me put this point directly to the Minister. In the last year for which comparable figures are available, Lancashire students received more new mandatory awards than did those in any other LEA in the country. Furthermore, the total number of mandatory awards was the highest in the country in both 1993–94 and in 1994–95. If Lancashire is the failure that Conservative Members have tried to suggest, why does it have the highest number of pupils of any LEA going on to higher education? Is that not a clear indicator of the success of Lancashire schools and colleges?
Efficiency has been mentioned by several hon. Members. The facts are these: on surplus places, Lancashire has met in full and exceeded the targets set by the Secretary of State; on central administration, Lancashire spends only 1.6 per cent. of its education budget compared with a counties' average of 2.1 per cent; on efficiency in administering student awards, the district auditor found, in a national review, that Lancashire had the second highest number administered per employee and the second lowest staff costs per award processed. If Lancashire is as inefficient as the Conservative party claims, why is it that, since 1989, only eight secondary schools and six primary schools have voted to become grant maintained, while over the same period 591 primary schools and 98 secondary schools have chosen to remain in partnership with the local education authority?
The fact is that the gap between the parties on education, both in Lancashire and throughout the country, could not be clearer. The Tories want a divisive, two-tier education system. Their hidden agenda is a return to selection—a system that wrote off three quarters of our children as academic failures at the age of 11, often with disastrous consequences for the children themselves and for the long-term interests of our economy and society.
Labour in Lancashire, like Labour in the House, is about driving up standards for all our pupils, not just the privileged few. We look forward to the day—in the near future—when Lancashire children will get the support they deserve and need and which they can get only from a Labour Government.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) on his first speech from the Opposition Front Bench. He will be reassured to know that I agree with little of what he said.
I want to respond to the point about capital spend immediately, in case I am unable to do so later in the short time available to me. In the last three years alone, the Government have made available some £2 billion for 944 county and voluntary-controlled schools capital spend, and the increase for the forthcoming year will be some 7 per cent. Conservative Members recognise that, against the tight financial position that we are still in, that is an excellent settlement that will allow opportunities for all local education authorities to carry out the necessary maintenance and improvements in their schools.

§ Mr. Hawkins
Is my hon. Friend aware that I received a letter this week from the secretary of the Blackpool association of the National Union of Teachers? I shall ignore the bad spelling and typographical errors. It says that I will be pleased to hear that school budgets are to increase by 5.1 per cent. and, referring to the average for English county councils, that that makes Lancashire's 5.5 per cent. "seem a real bonus".

§ Mr. Squire
I intended to deal with revenue budgets in a moment. My hon. Friend has provided us with a useful hors d'oeuvre.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) on initiating this debate. He has done a service to his constituents and to everyone living in Lancashire by drawing the attention of the House to his concerns about education in the county. He was eloquently backed by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins), by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) and, by their presence and occasional interjections, by my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson), for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) and for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), has also indicated his support.
If I dare say so, we witnessed a St. Valentine's day massacre of the Opposition.

§ Mr. Elletson
Has my hon. Friend noticed several prominent absences during the debate, in particular that of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw)? Obviously he is absent because he is embarrassed by the record of Lancashire county council. Other prominent absences include Liberal Democrat Members, who consistently claim that they say yes to education, but not one of them has bothered to turn up today. Does not that say a great deal about the Liberal Democrats' real attitude to education in Lancashire?

§ Mr. Squire
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. By their refusal to join in our discussions on Lancashire, Liberal Democrat Members show the priority that they give to that county.
All my hon. Friends emphasised the importance of raising standards and of making the best use of the considerable resources that the Government have made, and are making, available to schools in Lancashire, as elsewhere, to support that end. Government policy is pushing forward all the time across a wide front, with policies designed to raise achievement and to encourage choice and diversity. I shall touch on just some of those.
To begin with, and as the hon. Member for Hyndburn knows, we are currently discussing in Committee the Nursery and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill, which will tackle excellence and opportunity of choice for the 945 pre-fives in a way that will lead to a big expansion in provision and obviously contribute to quality of education for those children, especially later in their school lives.
My hon. Friends sought, understandably, a guarantee that the money made available for education in Lancashire would find its way into schools. I know that all my hon. Friends accept that, in practice, it is for Lancashire county council to set its own budget and to decide its priorities within and between services. The council has the last word on how much is spent on education and how much is spent on other services.
Hon. Members should be aware that I have received many letters saying that, this year, Lancashire has been forced to cut school budgets by more than 5 per cent. That is simply not true. The fact is that Lancashire has been able to increase its budget for all services by some £4 million and can spend £888 million on all services. That is a very large sum and it is for the county council to decide how much of it should be given to schools.
I hope that there will not be a repeat performance of so-called cuts—which are not actual cuts, but are based on a wish list drawn up by a local authority, including full allowance for all movement in cash and volume changes. It is then suggested that cuts on that final figure represent a reduction in support. I hope that that will not be repeated in the current year. As my hon. Friends made crystal clear, the Lancashire LEA had an increase in its spending assessment of more than £26 million, or 5.5 per cent. I have to tell the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) that that is real money. He implied that it was fictional money, but he should have a word with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is very clear that it is real money.
I repeat what my right hon. and hon. Friends have said on other occasions. We are unclear from today's debate whether Lancashire is committed to feeding all the increase into schools, so it must be made crystal clear to all parents and teachers in the authority that if that does not happen, it is the responsibility of the county council and no one else.
The hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) referred to concern about class sizes in Lancashire schools. Despite the horror stories that occasionally appear, the latest available data show that average class sizes in Lancashire 946 are 28 for primary schools and 22 for secondary schools. If there are class sizes of 35 plus, it is for the county council in the first place, and those managing school budgets in the second, to explain to parents why they are so far above Lancashire's average.
My hon. Friends made several references to the quality of grant-maintained schools. I join them in urging parents in Lancashire to think carefully about the benefits that GM status can bring. As we have heard this morning, Lancashire has a tiny number of GM schools—13, representing only 1 per cent. of its primaries and 8 per cent. of its secondaries. Nationally, one in five secondary pupils is now in a GM school.
A glance at the school performance tables or Ofsted's list of recently published oscars shows just how well GM schools are performing—they comprise 40 per cent. of outstanding secondary schools: 29 per cent. of improving schools, against a national average of 18 per cent; and 6 per cent. of excellent primaries, against only 1 per cent. nationally. Going GM sets schools free to make their own choices and develop their own characters. We see evidence all around us of just how much that can do for a school. It releases the energies and talents of staff, and it is the key to raising the attainment of their pupils.
In Lancashire, only 5 per cent. of schools have even held a ballot on going GM, which is half the rate in the country as a whole. Governors are not offering parents the chance to choose; but parents need not wait for governors. They can ask for a ballot themselves, and I urge them to do so.
In relation to the much-reported activities of Labour councillors and Labour Members of Parliament in Lancashire and elsewhere who have been campaigning ferociously against schools being given the freedom to run themselves, while their colleagues are sending their children to GM schools, I can only say that it is not only a desperate and disgraceful situation—it is hypocritical in the extreme. One does not drive up standards in our poorest schools by abolishing some of our best schools. The Labour party needs to learn that lesson.
This debate has been wide ranging and interesting, and I am grateful to my hon. Friends for raising so many important issues. They have clearly ensured that the Lancashire LEA is charged with the responsibility.