HC Deb 22 October 1998 vol 317 c1385
6. Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North)

What plans he has to establish a common funding methodology for 16 to 19-year-old students. [55095]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. George Mudie)

None, but we are alive to the concerns of the issue and will watch closely the effects of three factors: first, the use that local education authorities make of the greater freedoms provided by the fair funding regulations; secondly, the effect of the extra money—£100 million this year and £255 million next year—that we have put into the further education sector; and, thirdly, how well and quickly the collaborative protocol agreed between the further education sector, the LEAs and the TEC National Council has an effect.

Mr. Chaytor

I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and add my congratulations on his appointment to the Front Bench. Will he meet representatives of the college sector to discuss the issue further? When will the latest version of the funding costs comparison report be published?

Mr. Mudie

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the ten-minute Bill that he introduced yesterday on the subject. The document will be published as soon as possible and certainly this year. I am happy to meet him and any of his colleagues on any occasion to discuss the matter.

Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)

Will the Minister with responsibility for lifelong learning accept congratulations from the Opposition on his appointment to an important position? Does he accept that the funding problem is by no means new and that successive Ministers, including myself, have wrestled with it and tried to mitigate the consequences? In the real world, the problems are caused not so much by the different funding streams or the fact that further education has traditionally been funded at the margin and schools have been funded on an average cost basis, but by the danger of destabilising sixth-form provision. Will the Minister neverless accept that we welcome the attempts to bring the various parties together? Anything that he can do to reduce the problems will be welcome.

Mr. Mudie

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. The funding problem is difficult and we all wrestle with it. I do not wish to be political, but the problem was made worse by the era of competition between the sectors that was introduced by the previous Government and by the cuts that the further education sector experienced. Now that we have increased the money for further education, we might have a better atmosphere in which to work towards a solution.