Education Expenditure (Hansard, 25 January 1982)

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, 1 beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, in answering the noble Lord's marginally narrower Question, I can say that the Government have already reconsidered their expenditure plans for the next financial year and have done so very recently. On 21st December 1981 my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science announced in another place that planned total expenditure on education for 1982–83 is £11.7 billion, an increase in cash terms of 3½ per cent. on the estimated outturn this year.

§ Lord Molloy
But when the noble Lord quotes that figure, my Lords, does it take cognisance of the rate of inflation? Although the increase might sound grand in this place, in actual fact when it comes to financing Britain's education it is a decrease. Do not the Government take serious cognisance of the bitterness which is being felt throughout the nation, which we can read about in the media every day? Throughout the length and breadth of Britain's education service—from infants schools, junior schools, secondary moderns, comprehensives, right through to universities—there is a grave feeling that these cuts are eating the seedcorn and damaging the future of our nation.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, in settling the plans for 1982–83, the Government have taken into account the extent—some 2 per cent.—to which spending by local authorities on education in the current year is expected to exceed the plans, the additional resources (some £50 million for England), announced by the Prime Minister last July to enable more young people to stay on in full-time education in school or college and for additional costs in higher education. The new plans provide for an increase of 5 per cent. in the cash available for education compared with the previous plans. The new target is realistic, but it still requires constraint.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the latest constraints to be announced in the public sector of higher education involve severe cuts in real terms, and that these will mean that the polytechnics will have to cut down on the number of 753 students? Is not this ludicrous, coming at the very moment when the number of 18-year olds is reaching its peak and when this country needs all the highly educated manpower it can get to develop the new technologies? Is not this a ludicrous state of affairs?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, nevertheless we have to economise and we intend to do so in a pragmatic way related to the output of the institutions concerned. The distribution of the quantum of advanced further education expenditure within the predetermined pool, determined by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, following consultations with the local authority associations, at £539 million, assumes that the major part of securing the necessary economies should fall on those polytechnics and other institutions with the higher unit costs.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, how do the Government propose to supply enough training in the technical colleges for their new Youth Training Scheme, announced in December, which I know does not start until this year? If the technical colleges are to sustain the cuts—which they undoubtedly are—it would seem to me that they would be quite unable to take on the training which will be necessary. Will the Government reconsider the cuts in that area?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I take the point made by the noble Baroness, but if she will study Hansard she will see that I have already referred to the provision made for this contingency.

§ Baroness Gaitskell
My Lords, is it not ludicrous that we are now advocating cutting not only education generally but particularly higher education? Is this not the most absurd and shortsighted act to take just now when we need higher education? Every day in the press we read stories about this, and one Minister after another—particularly Sir Keith Joseph—does nothing but go round and say that we cannot afford higher education. If we cannot afford higher education, for sure we cannot afford Sir Keith Joseph.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, the remarks of the noble Baroness about my right honourable friend's daily programme are a travesty of the truth. He is a most energetic Minister and he is very cognisant of the problems to which the noble Baroness has alluded. I would add that over and above the universities' recurrent grant for the next academic year of £1,137 million, the Government are allocating £50 million in the financial year 1982–83 to be used by the University Grants Committee specifically for restructuring, including the cost of redundancies. My right honourable friend is announcing today that, subject to two modifications, guidelines formulated by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals for the compensation of university academic staff who are made redundant are acceptable. The modifications concern staff over 50 for whom the existing premature retirement arrangements will apply. Details of the scheme have been placed in your Lordships' Library.

§ Lord Beloff
My Lords, in addition to considering unit costs when reductions are made in the amount allotted to polytechnics, would nay noble friend suggest to the Secretary of State that important attention is paid to whether they are fulfilling their proper role of increasing our technological potential, or whether they are continuing to expand in the teaching of subjects in which they are inferior to universities and likely to remain so?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, my right honourable friend is a more pragmatic man than he has been given credit for in earlier questions, and I will certainly bring that to his attention.

§ Lord Wynne-Jones
My Lords, will the noble Lord pay attention to the letter which was sent out last week to the directors of polytechnics in which they were informed that there was to be a new formula by which a polytechnic was to be allowed to charge only half of what it was charging last year for its undergraduates? Will he in particular absolutely disown the nonsensical remarks just made about the polytechnics?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I will certainly direct my attention to the circular. As to disowning, I shall leave the difference of opinion where it lies.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his answer to my supplementary may have misled the House? Whether he intended to say it or not, he seemed to imply that cuts had only been made related to unit costs. Is he aware that all polytechnics are having cuts in real terms? Even the lowest cut of all, in the case of the Oxford Polytechnic, is being made. Will the noble Lord correct the impression, the wrong impression, he has just made? Cuts in real terms, savage cuts, are being made in all polytechnics and they will all have to reduce their student numbers in the coming year.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I certainly did not intend to mislead the House, nor, I think, did I do so. What I attempted to say was that the necessary reduction in funds would he done in such a way as to temper the wind, if I may so put it, to the shorn lamb. That is perhaps not the best analogy, but to put the money where it is most needed and take it from where it is least needed.

§ Baroness Gaitskell
My Lords, is the Minister aware—

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Young)
My Lords, we have now had nearly seven minutes on this Question. It was a very wide Question and I think there is a danger that it is developing into a debate, which your Lordships will recall is one of the things which the Procedure Committee felt should not happen, and I would suggest that we ought to move on to the next Question.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, may I put a supplementary?