§ 2.46 p.m.
Baroness VICKERSMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government how many local authorities in England and Wales have not taken up their allocation of money for the years 1976, 1977 and 1977–78 for maintained nursery schools and nursery classes.
§ The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge)My Lords, nursery education building allocations were not taken up by 20 local authorities in the programme year 1975–76; by 31 in 1976–77; and by nine in 1977–78. In the same years, allocations were taken up only in part by 23, 10 and five authorities respectively. It must be understood that unless an authority applies for an allocation, none is made. In 1976–77 four authorities, and in 1977–78 51 authorities, made no bids for allocations. For the current year the Government have allocated £4.2 million to 59 authorities which made bids. So far, none has given notice of not taking up the allocations in full.
Baroness VICKERSMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is there nothing he can do to encourage local 7 authorities—including, for example, Gloucestershire, which has not applied for anything at all—to do this very necessary work? In view of the fact that the population of pupils over five is going down, would it not be possible to allocate some of their classrooms which are spare in some schools instead of having to go to the expense of building, and so bring a larger number of the under fives into education?
§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGEMy Lords, the answer to the second part of the noble Baroness's supplementary question is that that is being done. The answer to the first part is that the Government cannot—we are always having to say this from this Bench—tell local authorities on what to spend their money. However, I can point out that over the last two years there has been a £200 million under-spending on education. Though local authorities have been under a squeeze, the kind of figure about which we are talking was within their capacity. There are very different attitudes towards nursery education in different local authorities and I think it is a question of trying to convert them.
§ Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILLMy Lords, the Minister is suggesting that money allocated in rate support grant and intended for education is either not being spent or is being diverted to other services. If that is so, would the Minister suggest to the Secretary of State that the stage has been reached when the rate support grant should include certain earmarked provision so that the Secretary of State may be able to carry out national policy in education, whereas at present she cannot?
§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGEMy Lords, the House will remember that my Secretary of State, if I may put it crudely, had a go at this not long ago and met with no support whatever from local authorities, and the Government have not thought it politic to enforce this. If a proposition came from a majority of local authorities that they would like something of this kind done, no doubt my Secretary of State would consider it very carefully.
§ Lord WYNNE-JONESMy Lords, would my noble friend agree that it is a 8 very grave issue when decisions of Central Government and indeed of Parliament are being flouted by local authorities who choose to spend the money in other ways or who have heavily overspent in some other direction?
§ Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGEMy Lords, I think the problem is that they have not spent it—not that they have spent it in other ways; the £200 million underspending indicates this. I think that I should add for the comfort of the House that, under the urban programme, the Department of the Environment has considered applications from 48 local education authorities in this context, and grants have been announced last week to 27 LEAs and five districts within local education authorities, which adds somewhat to the total who are doing something about this matter.