City Technology Colleges (Hansard, 28 February 1989)

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, the city technology colleges programme continues to make excellent progress. Kingshurst CTC opened last year and two more, at Teesside and Nottingham, will open in September this year. CTCs in Bradford and Gateshead and a city college for the technology of the arts in north Croydon are planned to open in September 1990. Further announcements will be made soon.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, perhaps I may request the Minister to answer the first part of my Question. How many city technology colleges do the Government intend to establish? Will he concede that there is no possibility of the Government achieving the number stated many times by the Secretary of State—at least 20—by next year which was the original intention?
Will the noble Viscount also agree that the main reason for lack of success is the failure of the Government to attract private funding which is the whole concept of CTCs? As a result, huge sums of taxpayers' money are now involved.

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I confirm that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced the CTC programme in October 1986. The programme aims to establish 20 independent schools in urban areas offering a free education with a technological bias to 11 to 18 year-olds of all abilities. So far as concerns the timing, that is a matter for negotiation between the private sector, the LEAs and the Government.
CTCs will play a crucial part in the Government's action for cities initiative; they will serve urban disadvantaged areas and cater for pupils of wide-ranging abilities. That fact is borne out by the first CTC, Kingshurst in Birmingham, where the first year intake has an ability span of 70 to 120.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, can the Minister say how much money the Secretary of State announced that he expected and intended to receive from industry and how much he has actually achieved so far?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, the planned expenditure is £19 million for the current year; £35.275 million for 1989–90 and £35.55 million for 1990–91.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, I am afraid that that response does not answer my question. I asked how much the Secretary of State had said he expected and intended to get from industry and how much he has in fact achieved.

§ Lord Graham of Edmonton
It was a straightforward question.

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I was in fact trying to find the answer. If the House will be patient for a moment, I shall endeavour to do so. No, I am sorry, I cannot find the answer; I shall therefore write to the noble Baroness on the matter.

§ Lord Wolfson
My Lords, will my noble friend agree that it is a shortage of sites rather than a shortage of sponsors which is causing the programme to be slower than necessary? The sites are not being provided by the local authorities as they might have been? Can he say what the Government are proposing to do about the situation?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I understand my noble friend's problem. It is absolutely true that the sites are not readily available. However, negotiations are taking place all over the country at present.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell us what the shortfall is in teachers of technology? Further, will he agree that the concentration of so many of those teachers in these city colleges will make the situation even worse in schools throughout the country where there is a very great need to have such teachers in place as soon as possible?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, there is no shortage of teachers or children in the CTCs at present. Parents and children are flocking to these colleges and teachers are readily available. We are having a discussion next week on the shortage of teachers generally. Perhaps then I shall be able to answer the question more fully.

§ Lord Ritchie of Dundee
My Lords, can the Minister give the House any idea of the criteria used by the Government in deciding eligibility for the establishment of a city college for the technology of the arts? For example, can any school in a city area, where the bias is towards the creative and performing arts which necessarily involves some technology, apply for that status?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have that information with me today. However, I shall write to the noble Lord on the matter.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, do the Government realise that the establishment of these selective direct grant secondary schools—for that is what they are—is making nonsense of local authority planning of its own secondary education, especially at a time when the number of secondary school pupils will drop catastrophically between now and the mid-1990s, and when local authorities are having to cut down on secondary school places? Therefore, does not the whole thing make nonsense in those circumstances?

§ Viscount Davidson
No, my Lords. CTCs will cater for pupils of different abilities, and it is nonsense to describe them as elitist. They will serve urban disadvantaged areas and their intake will be fully representative of the communities they serve. CTCs represent a new investment with new money in education in our cities by government and the private sector. Already £90 million of planned expenditure by the Government has brought in over £31 million from the private sector. That, in fact, is the answer to the question put by the noble Baroness. Targeting that money at a few schools will bring maximum impact in terms of experiment and innovation. The 943 beacon effects of CTCs will mean that schools generally will benefit.

§ Lord Beloff
My Lords, does my noble friend share my bewilderment that noble Lords opposite, who constantly refer to the damage caused to society by unemployment, seem so averse to every measure taken to spread skills in society and so diminish unemployment?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I share my noble friend's bewilderment not only on that subject but on many others.

§ Baroness Lockwood
My Lords, if there is a shortage of sites for CTCs and no shortage of teachers of technology, as the Minister said, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that those resources go into state schools in the urban areas which the CTCs are supposed to service?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, CTCs have caught people's imagination. As I have said, they are being funded with new money; they are not taking money from LEAs.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, I am bound to say that it is news to me that CTCs are now part of the Government's employment programme. My knowledge of economics does not enable me to extend my imagination to comprehend that idea. As the Minister said that there was a training and employment aspect to this matter, perhaps I may ask why the money is not being used where it is known to be most effective; that is, in the further education sector where the Government are cutting funds for training. Why do not the Government use those enormous funds in that sector rather than in the tiny number of CTCs?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, the Government are funding education in all parts of the education sector.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, is the Minister aware that most of the bewilderment to which he referred is felt on this side of the Chamber not only because of the confused answers we have had from him but because of the utter chaos of the CTC programme? Will he stop trying to run the nation's education service with gimmicks?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord will expect me to agree with him.

§ Lord Annan
My Lords, is it not a fact that the initiative is much to be welcomed and that it follows what the Germans have been doing for something like 30 years, which is why there is such a difference between the educational attainments of their workforce and ours?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Annan. I suggest that most of your Lordships will agree with him.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, if we are extending this matter and going slightly wide of the Order Paper, the Minister may like to consider that the reason the German education system is so successful is that the German Government pour vast amounts of money into their ordinary straightforward schools, which is what we should like to see happen in our schools.