§ 13. Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby)If he will make a statement on the average class size for children aged seven to 11 years in Leicestershire. [88979]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Charles Clarke)In Leicestershire, the average primary class has fallen from 26.9 to 26.7 between January 1998 and January 1999. The key stage 1 average has fallen to 25.3 compared to 25.8 last year, and key stage 2 classes average 28.0 compared to 27.8 last year. The number of pupils in primary classes of more than 30 has also fallen, from 14,984 to 14,551.
§ Mr. RobathanIt is therefore obvious that class sizes are going up for those aged between seven and 11. It is said:
the rhetoric is of much greater funding but all the announcements of extra government money for education are meaningless to us in Leicestershire … we do not have enough money to pay for the teachers we need or to improve the learning environment.Those are not my words, but those of the head teacher of a school that takes children at 11—Winstanley high school in my constituency. The school needs 1.2 extra teachers for that age group, but it has less money than it had before:It is not convincing for this government…to blame the Local Authority…The SSA is fundamentally inequitable.From the tone of her letter, I suspect that that teacher is not a Conservative supporter. She asks: 1174Why should a child at school in Leicestershire have so much less money spent on her or his education than a child living elsewhere"—such as, for instance, the Labour-controlled city of Leicester next door?
§ Mr. ClarkeI am glad that the hon. Gentleman invites me to address the question of Leicestershire. The county's LEA received almost £1.5 million this year to fund 57 extra teachers and build six extra classrooms to enable it to reduce infant class sizes. The funding that we are providing will enable the LEA to reduce the number of infant pupils in large classes from 3,146 in September 1998 to 2,630 in September 1999. The LEA has said that it will implement the policy in full by September 2000.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that, when we compare Leicestershire with other parts of the country, we find that the average class size in that county is less than the average for England as a whole, and that Leicestershire has more children in smaller classes than the England average. That is a good record of which the Government can rightly be proud, and I wish that, rather than nit-picking from the edge, he would join us in celebrating that.
§ Mr. Andrew Reed (Loughborough)I welcome the figures that the Minister has announced today. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), who, before the election, was opposed to reducing class sizes, has been heard in the House on many occasions denigrating the work that has been done. However, will the Minister take seriously the hon. Gentleman's point about the standard spending assessment and Leicestershire's funding? We have a double problem in that not only is the SSA less than those in other parts of the country—I am sure that the difference will be made up in the coming years—but there is a shortfall of £1.5 million that the LEA has received from the Department but not passed to local schools. Will the Minister ensure that, in future, moneys provided by the Department to the LEA go to schools to ensure that targets are met?
§ Mr. ClarkeI take very seriously representations on SSAs because they concern many issues that have been raised in Leicestershire and other parts of the country. I take even more seriously the issue that my hon. Friend mentioned about passporting the money. That is why, about 10 days ago, we published data setting out exactly what every local authority is doing, and that will enable a proper assessment to be made.