HC Deb 20 January 2000 vol 342 cc955-7
1. Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford)

If he will make a statement on the cost of his plans to reduce class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. [103675]

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett)

We are providing a total of £620 million to deliver the infant class size pledge, £200 million of which is for capital, which will provide an extra 2,000 classrooms. We are providing an extra 6,000 teachers, and we will achieve the class size pledge early.

Mr. St. Aubyn

Is it not a fact that the Government originally estimated the cost of fulfilling that pledge at £100 million? Whatever the value of the pledge, is it not grossly incompetent of the Department for Education and Employment to spend six times the original estimate? Does the Secretary of State recognise that, if his Department had worked in partnership with independent schools to offer first-year schools provision, the pledge could have been delivered at a fraction of the cost? Does not that failure to work with the private sector show a lack of imagination on the part of the Minister and his colleagues? Will he welcome the intention of Surrey county council's local education authority to explore the use of independent schools, so that the pledge can be delivered with value for money while building bridges between different education providers in the local community?

Mr. Blunkett

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he appears to be mixing different Conservative policies, and not addressing the issue of class size. There is no suggestion that class sizes could be reduced by using the private sector. No one has said that the class size pledge, which has reduced the number of children in classes of more than 30 from 500,000 to 180,000, and which will reduce the number to nil within 18 months, could be achieved by buying places in infant classes in private schools that do not exist.

Mr. St. Aubyn

They do.

Mr. Blunkett

The hon. Gentleman may say so, but we are spending money on 6,000 additional teachers to make a reduction in classes possible. We are spending on capital to ensure expansion so that more people may have choice. We are keeping the pledge early, by spending at least £300 million of the money that would have gone into the assisted places scheme by 2002. All that will ensure a decent education for every child in every community, not just children for whom a private school happens to be available.

Mr. Andrew Reed (Loughborough)

I welcome the figures that my right hon. Friend has announced. It is rich to hear the Conservative party, which did not want to do anything about class sizes, moaning that we are spending too much money on reducing them. Will my right hon. Friend learn from the fact that money for the pledge has been ring-fenced? Will he ensure that all money passed from the Department for Education and Employment is passed on to schools? Will he ensure that much more funding is ring-fenced in future, so that local authorities such as Leicestershire cannot withhold money that the Government have given them for schools?

Mr. Blunkett

I am always willing to learn from successful policies. I encourage all hon. Members to ensure that resources allocated for education are spent as intended, and that is why I have written to the leaders of every council and education authority. I want all Conservative, Liberal Democrats and Labour councils to fulfil commitments to the electorate to spend that money on education, not highways, repairs or spurious projects. It should be spent on ensuring that every child has a high-quality education. We shall monitor what happens over the next few weeks, learn lessons from that and take the appropriate steps.

Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead)

While the Government are spending £620 million on keeping their pledge, secondary class sizes are rising. How much would it have cost to keep secondary classes at the sizes inherited by the Secretary of State? Will he confirm that, in order to maintain spending on education as a proportion of national income at the average achieved by the Conservative Government, the Government would have had to inject through the comprehensive spending review not £19 billion, but £32 billion?

Mr. Blunkett

Average class size in both primary and secondary sectors fell from 24.9 in January 1998 to 24.8 in January 1999. We shall soon have the figures for the past 12 months. At the same time, the pupil-teacher ratio across the whole sector fell from 18.9 to 18.8 to one. By the end of the spending review, we shall have spent £200 extra on every primary school child, compared with a drop of £30 during the final three years of the previous Government.

At the end of the previous Parliament, gross domestic product had fallen as a proportion of national income by 0.3 per cent. By the end of the current Parliament, it will have risen by 0.2 per cent.

Mr. John Healey (Wentworth)

Is my right hon. Friend aware that an extra £500,000 has been put into schools in Rotherham this year to fund 18 additional key stage 1 teachers and help to slash the number of five, six and seven-year-olds in large classes? Does he recognise, however, that some schools prefer not to have mixed age groups, and that that can make it harder to reduce all class sizes to below 30? Will he reassure such schools that their approach will be respected as the Government move to keep the class size pledge in full?

Mr. Blunkett

Yes, I can give that assurance.