HL Deb 02 July 1975 vol 362 cc316-28

8.49 p.m.

Viscount BRIDGEMAN rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that under present conditions of financial stringency a number of the existing short term residential colleges in this country will be obliged to close their doors within the next few months and whether they have any proposals for preventing this. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, as the agricultural debate drew to a close and the Chamber predictably emptied there came to my mind an 18th century couplet: The ploughman homeward plods his weary way. And leaves the world to darkness and to me"— and, of course, to the noble Lord who is to reply and to others who are to support me. As the noble Lord is a much better scholar than I am, he will not need me to tell him where that quotation comes from.

My reason for asking this Question arose because I am a member of the governing body of the Adult College at Attingham in Shropshire. Unless financial help is forthcoming from a fresh quarter, that college is likely to face closure at about the end of the year. However, I do not think I would have taken up the time of the House on the problems of one institution unless, when I came to look into the matter, I had found that out of about 30 colleges of the same kind in the country about half were in the same boat or were likely to embark in it. I believe that this emerged at a conference which the Principals of the Short-Term Residental Colleges held at about Easter-time. If I am right over that, the problem is not a local one affecting one institution but a national one, as I shall try to show in a very few minutes. I believe that already one college in Kent has closed and that another one in Buckinghamshire—Huntercombe—is scheduled to close at the end of the year, and I have mentioned my own college at Attingham.

The reasons are perfectly simple. All of these colleges derive their income partly from students' fees and partly from public money—mainly from the local authorities. Very few of them have private endowments. Especially under conditions of inflation, a well-managed college will naturally do everything it can to keep its fees up to the highest level that the, so to speak, traffic can stand, but there comes a point when the exercise becomes counter-productive if you try to raise the fees unduly and fewer students come. It would be true to say of every adult college that in the last 12 months it has not been possible in practice to raise the fees at the same rate as inflation. Any budget which anybody tries to prepare for the coming 12 months is likely to show that tendency to be even more pronounced.

If, therefore, the Short-Term Residential Colleges are to continue in their present form, more public money—whether it comes direct from the Government or from local authorities—will have to be injected into them. That money will be required not only to meet the inflation element related to their previous local government grants but also to meet the shortfall because of the impossibility—as I have tried to explain—of getting students' fees raised productively at the same rate as inflation.

In the ordinary way, Central Government—whoever they are—might well be justified in taking the line that the problem is one for local authorities. In other words, in normal times it would be quite usual for them to say that local authorities are responsible for maintaining short-term institutions and that it is for them to give that task the right priority in their annual budgets. If one now took that line, the answer for many local authorities would certainly be, No. At the moment every local council is under extreme pressure to cut its expenditure. It is under pressure from Central Government, and the pressure from local ratepayers is even harder to resist.

In practice, that kind of pressure falls harder on the smaller counties with a smaller rateable value and a smaller population. Again, anybody who has served on the finance committee of a local authority—as I have for several years—knows only too well that when the call comes to cut expenditure very few areas of expenditure are capable of being cut. You cannot close schools; you are bound to meet nationally-agreed pay awards. Therefore, when you look for the lambs to be sacrificed you find that the lambs have to come from one or two clearly defined areas. They have to come from the revenue contributions to capital. They come from rating expenditure on the roads, in the same way as when the Exchequer is hard put to it it always raises taxes on tea and tobacco. Finally, they come from the non-statutory and, what one might call, "fringe" activities like adult colleges and so on. If in these straits a local authority finds that the local adult college must go to the wall, one cannot fail to appreciate their reasoning.

The question now is whether we leave it at that tonight, whether the Government are prepared to stand by while one college after another closes, and whether they realise that if this happens all the King's horses and all the King's men will not put them together again. It will be impossible to revive them. At the least, they will be closed for a very long time—probably for ever. Therefore, this area of adult education will become a dead letter. I do not suppose that any of this is news to the Government, but in case they have forgotten about the Russell Report this is the right moment to mention it. In that Report there is a long chapter called the "Government Lead".

I am going to quote only one or two lines from paragraph 158. It says: We feel sure that, had there been a consistent lead from the Secretary of State ever since 1944 for the effective provision of adult education, this situation would never have arisen. We also believe that the duty of local education authorities in this matter would have been clearer had there been separate mention, by name, of adult education in Section 41 of the Act … Then it gives particulars of the Act with which I shall not trouble the House now. I have quoted this paragraph in the Russell Report to show that the problem had been pinpointed, and that now the crow has come home to roost. The Government of the day received the Report in December 1972. So far as I know, the Department have done nothing about it from that day to this under either Government, except for one small matter which does not affect this case.

This brings me to a point which is fairly familiar to anybody who has been in this House for a long time. Every so often one comes across a case of this kind which is said to be an ordinary administrative problem, but when one looks into it more carefully one finds that it is nothing of the kind, and that handling the administrative problem in the way that is proposed, or leaving it alone, will result in the stultifying of some other piece of Government policy which we are not told about. It is the function of the House to draw attention to matters of this kind when it thinks that they have appeared.

There is no doubt in my mind that if the matter is allowed to slide, and adult colleges are allowed to close one by one, the effect will be to stultify that portion of the Butler Act under which adult colleges were set up and which has run with success for 30 years. If the bell is going to toll for a place like Hunter-combe and Attingham, it is only fair both to the local authorities and to the governing bodies of these places that they should know where the Government stand, and know it in what I am quite sure is the proper way, that is, by a Statement in Parliament. That, my Lords, is why I put down this Question. I await with interest the Answer which I hope the noble Lord will give me. Therefore, I beg leave to ask the Un-starred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

8.59 p.m.

Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN

My Lords, may I support the observations which have been made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, in regard to the difficulties of residential colleges at this time. I do so in view of my interest, which is that of chairman of an educational charitable trust known as the Brantwood Trust, with which I have been concerned for about 18 years. The duty of the Brantwood Trust is to look after the home of John Ruskin at Coniston in the Lake District. It is a very ugly house with about 30 to 40 rooms and 250 acres of land in a beautiful situation, and if the House will bear with me for just a few moments I should like to deal with some personal matters.

When I became involved with this charity, it owned many hundreds of pictures and drawings by John Ruskin and contemporaries of his, and also many thousands of letters associated with him. It became a hobby of myself and my wife to convert this almost derelict house and its grounds into something more habitable. We were fortunate in that after spending many thousands of pounds on the property, we were able to encourage one national institution to take it over at a peppercorn rent and to run it for a few years. Financial difficulties arose and at that stage the trustees—myself and my colleagues—felt unable to accept a large grant for capital improvements that had been generously offered to us because at that time, which was over 10 years ago, we did not think that the financial stability of the Trust was adequate to support further capital improvements.

I was then fortunate in becoming associated with principals of technical colleges and universities, and with an admirable staff we were able to build at Brantwood a project which involved giving courses to some 30 students at a time from these technical colleges and the universities. At the same time the house had to be held open for the public to visit and look around, and see the pictures and the other Ruskiniana that were present there. This was happily going forwards until about 18 months ago, when the cost of living went up, the salaries of staff rose immensely and we also found that the local authorities and the universities were unable—or unwilling—to increase their payments for charges for these residential students.

I understand that members of staff of the Department of Education and Science attended courses, and thought they were very interesting and useful in the progressive attitude that was then taken by certain principals of technical colleges in the modern education of their students of technology. As a result, we found that the local educational authorities became late in their payments and just could not increase their payments to us. Therefore the trustees, with great reluctance and in view of the fact that our endowments consisted of only a few hundred pounds, which was just adequate to put back the slates that were so frequently blown off the roof in the winter on that house in the Lake District, to a large extent have now had to close our doors to residential courses, and we endeavour to rely on daily visitors and the tourists who now come so frequently to the Lake District.

I am sure your Lordships will understand that this is something in the nature of a cri de coeur. The project at Brant-wood has been well accepted in educational circles. It provided a house of great historical interest, in an environment associated with artistic matters of a unique character, and many people have expressed to me their deep regret that these courses have had to be cancelled. Of course, the trustees hope to revive these courses at Brantwood and I have been wondering whether it would be possible for the Government to consider any small help—for instance, in the way of alleviation in relation to rates for a charitable institution of this kind. Of course, we realise the problems of the present financial stringency, and the difficulty the Government would have in giving grants. I thank noble Lords for their patience in listening to me while I expressed my experience of the ravaging effect of the monster of inflation on private individuals like my colleagues and myself as trustees of the Brantwood Trust. in endeavouring to further educational progress in the way we succeeded in doing over a period of 10 years.

Lord BALERNO

My Lords, I should like to intervene briefly in this short debate. I happen to be the Governor of such a college in Scotland—New Battle Abbey—and I confirm what my noble friend Lord Bridgeman has said about times of economic crisis and the reluctance of local authorities to help out students going to such colleges. So far as New Battle Abbey is concerned, we have a large proportion of students coming from South of the Border, so anything that is going wrong with local authorities South of the Border will obviously affect us as well.

I should just like to remark on the civilising effect that these colleges have. They provide a need for a certain type of person who does not have the time, shall I say, to study at the Open University and who wishes to pick up something additional to his life, and to his interests in life, in order to broaden his outlook as he gets older. I trust that the Government will give sympathetic consideration to the plea of my noble friend and that of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran.

9.7 p.m.

The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Crowther-Hunt)

My Lords, I am sure we are grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, for asking this Question and for the clarity and restraint of what he said. We are grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, for giving us his direct experiences in this area and for telling us of the initiatives which his Trust has so admirably shown. This gives me the opportunity to clarify the position of the Government on short-term residential colleges generally. I welcome this opportunity of doing so. Of course, I recognise the profound disappointment of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that having worked so far for his own college, Attingham, the Governors are now having to face the final decision on whether it should close.

Let me begin by saying something about the short-term residential colleges, which were the subject of the noble Viscount's Question. There are some 35 of these in England and Wales. I will come shortly to the point made about Scotland by the noble Lord, Lord Balerno. The short-term residential colleges in England and Wales are maintained by local education authorities or jointly by a group of authorities. Others belong to university extra-mural departments, voluntary organisations or independent sponsors. Students go to them for a day or two, a weekend or sometimes a little longer to benefit from opportunities for study in a residential setting. And the courses at these colleges seem almost infinite in their variety. Their range is a testimony to the spread of interests that can capture the minds of men. Far from undervaluing these colleges, the Government see them as an important component of our adult education service. They form an essential part of a varied and comprehensive service of adult education, although the further development of that service is impeded by our present economic difficulties. In debate after debate in this House we have the question of a little more money, the little more that would solve all the problems for all our good causes and, of course, there are so very many good causes.

My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, asked whether the Government are aware that under present conditions of financial stringency some of the short-term colleges will be obliged to shut their doors in the next few months. In his speech he said that a large number were in the same boat as his own college of Attingham.

We are of course aware that all the short-term colleges are feeling the effects of present financial stringency—as, indeed, is the whole education service. We could not expect otherwise, since education cannot be exempted from the economic difficulties facing us all. But it would be wrong to allow the impression that the number of short-term colleges about to close is large. Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools keep us in touch with the affairs of these colleges. They have identified some 5 or 6 of the 35 where the future is in jeopardy—including Attingham, Huntercombe Manor, and Kingsgate College in Kent. which were mentioned by the noble Viscount. But in some of these cases arrangements are being worked out which, I hope, will enable them to carry on with, perhaps, a rather different role. No one who values education can with equanimity face the prospect of the closure of any institution. Yet the picture is by no means one of unrelieved gloom. Local education authorities generally are making every effort they can, despite present financial stringency, to preserve these colleges. Indeed, only last month a new, purpose-built college was opened by Lancashire Education Authority at Chorley.

The noble Viscount also asked whether the Government have any proposals for preventing the closure of those short-term colleges threatened by the present conditions of financial stringency. In his speech he implied that the danger to these colleges, and to adult education in general, arose from the absence of a Government lead on the Russell Report. The present conditions of financial stringency affect us all—the local authorities as well as the governing bodies of inde pendent colleges; everyone in the country as well as adult education students; all public services as well as education and, of course, the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget Statement announced cuts of £1,100 million in public expenditure programmes planned for 1976–77. And my right honourable friends are now urgently having to reassess their priorities for the education service in England, Wales and Scotland to achieve its share in that saving. This amounts to some £86 million from the spending of about £4,753 million originally planned for next year's expenditure on education, libraries, science and the Arts.

That is the context in which I have to consider the noble Viscount's Question and his remarks about the lack of a Government lead on the Russell Report. It is a context in which we now know we have less money for 1976–77 than we had originally planned. It is a situation in which we shall be severely restricted in what we can do. Constraining though these circumstances are, I cannot rule out the possibility of worse to come.

But even if we had the resources to help the short-term colleges, there are other factors we have to consider. Most of the colleges are maintained by local education authorities. The adult education provision of local education authorities is funded by central Government, not by direct grant from my Department for particular purposes, but by the rate support grant settlement. It is for each local authority, and not for my right honourable friend, to decide how to allocate its available resources between, and within, its various services. Even if more resources were provided through rate support grant, it would be for the local authorities to determine their application, as I know the noble Viscount recognises.

There is also the fact that each of the short-term colleges largely serves a local need. But they also attract students from wider areas—including countries overseas. Where short courses of a few days are concerned, it is inevitable that local people will make the most use of them—if for no other reason than the high cost of travelling a long distance. And there is great value in these colleges being geared to the needs of the adult education service in their own particular areas.

For these reasons, my Department has followed the policy that, unlike the six long-term adult colleges, such as Ruskin, and New Battle Abbey mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, which serve a national need and are independent institutions—and they have been specifically included in aid for long-term residential colleges in the 1975 Act of Parliament; I am glad we have been able to do that by making grants for people attending these colleges mandatory—grant aid is not given to the short-term residential colleges. If a local education authority judges that there is need for a short-term residential college in its area, and has the resources to do so, it can maintain its own college, share in its provision with one or more other authorities, or assist an independent institution.

This does not mean that we have washed our hands of the short-term residential colleges. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman knows, I visited his college, Attingham, in January of this year, and a very pleasurable and instructive day it was. Attingham has a delightful and historic setting, and a well-deserved reputation. It was to help keep Attingham open that, in 1973, my Department agreed to grant-aid courses at the college which were provided by Birmingham University's Extra-mural Department as part of their approved programme. By this means both the Department and the University of Birmingham made a substantial effort to help the college with its difficulties. But I had to tell the Governors when I met them in January that I did not see how we could offer further assistance, although I undertook to ask Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools to take whatever action they could to try to find other local authorities willing to take a share in assisting the college. I still hope that, even at this late stage, other authorities will join Salop County Council and the Metropolitan District of Walsall in assisting Attingham. If that were the outcome of this debate, it would be a happy one indeed.

The noble Lord also mentioned Huntercombe Manor, a short-term college maintained by Buckinghamshire County Coun cil. My understanding is that the local authority has decided to close the college but that its actual closure has still to take place. Since it is maintained by the local education authority, its future is inevitably a matter for the authority. But my right honourable friend's predecessor asked a member of Her Majesty's Inspectorate to make some inquiries to see whether other solutions could be explored.

My Lords, while my right honourable friend does not provide grant aid for the short-term colleges—and would find it difficult to contemplate doing so for the reasons I have given—we are doing our best with that reservation to help them. The Department's advice and the experience and knowledge of Her Majesty's Inspectorate are readily given, and we will always seek solutions where solutions can be found. I regret that these stop short of grant aid. But I greatly hope that no college doors will be closed finally until all possibilities have been explored.

I now come to the point the noble Lord made about the lack of a Government lead on the Russell Report and the way in which, in his view, this threatens adult education in general and the short-term colleges in particular. My Lords, what has caused the delay on the Russell Report is not any lack of sympathy on the Government's part towards it or towards adult education in general. It has been due to the deteriorating economic conditions of the country. Certainly, when my right honourable friend's predecessor said last July that the Government were ready to open discussions, we did not anticipate then the further deterioration in those conditions which has since taken place. In consequence, we are having to reassess the possibilities for the future.

We are now re-examining the extent to which, in the light of the public expenditure savings required by the nation's economic circumstances, realistic options are still open to us as a basis for wider discussions about Sir Lionel Russell's report. Unfortunately—and I have to say this—the possibilities are far smaller and fewer than we should have wished.

I am grateful to both noble Lords for raising these difficult questions and to the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, for raising the question of New Battle Abbey. It has enabled us to consider the needs of adult education and, in particular, of the short-term colleges. The Government value adult education as an essential part of our national education service. We believe that adults should be provided, as resources permit—and I stress that phrase—with opportunities to return to education when they need to do so at stages throughout their lives. We know that the adult education service has waited long for action on the Russell Report; and we hope to begin the wider discus sions as soon as practicable. As to the short-term residential colleges, I end where I began. These colleges are a valuable component of our adult education provision. We should not lightly lose what has benefited so many in the past—and could benefit so many more in the years ahead. I have explained the Government's position in this respect; and I greatly hope that, before any decisions are taken to close a college's doors, every other possible solution will be explored.

House adjourned at twenty-one minutes past nine o'clock.