Lords Sitting of 17 June 1996

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwell.

Cairn Gorm: Funicular Development
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are aware of the strong and conflicting views that are held by supporters and opponents of the present form of the proposal for a funicular development on Cairn Gorm; and what plans they have to enable a resolution of the issues concerned.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, my right honourable friend is aware from correspondence that he has received that the proposal for a funicular development on Cairn Gorm has generated many comments for and against the development. Resolution of the issues concerned is a matter for Highland Council, as planning authority, in conjunction with other interested parties.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. Is he aware that well-informed observers believe that a modified version could meet many of the environmental objections while still improving the prospects for tourism and employment? As the Government are nominating the area to be a world heritage site, have they considered appointing an independent mediator to help the parties reach a solution since planning procedures alone seem too rigid to assimilate all the relevant factors or to identify possible areas of agreement?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I do not agree with my noble friend's comments concerning the
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rigidity of the planning rules and regulations. I believe that planning procedures are sufficiently comprehensive and flexible to deal with this kind of application. My noble friend also mentioned a modified project. Consideration of any alternative proposal is essentially a matter for the applicant.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, is the Minister aware that neither the proposed monitoring system nor the environmental targets for the application have yet been fully developed? Does he not agree that it would be foolish in the extreme to go ahead without them? Is the Minister further aware that approval of the development would probably lead to a permanent refusal of the designation of this site as a world heritage site? Surely we would all wish to see the site so designated and would not want to see an application rejected because of lack of care?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I do not necessarily agree with the noble Baroness's comments about the world heritage site. Development is not incompatible with world heritage site listing. The requirement is to ensure that development is not incompatible with maintaining the outstanding natural heritage value of the Cairngorms. The noble Baroness asked whether the development would be in contradiction of the development of the SAC and SPA in that area. If the Section 50 visitor management plan is agreed to, Scottish Natural Heritage is satisfied that the terms of the directive will be complied with.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the alternative proposal for a visitor centre at low level down by Loch Morlich serving the Corrie Cas area with a gondola has certain advantages over the funicular proposal? It would keep the general mass of visitors off the fragile habitat of the summit and the Cairn Gorm plateau; the new visitor centre would be easily accessed because of its low level at a mere 1,100

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feet above sea level; and it would facilitate the bypassing of the snowdrifts, which often cause the ski lifts to be closed due to inaccessibility?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, as regards the alternative scheme which has been put forward by the Save the Cairngorms and Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link's report, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is aware that it recommends an outline feasibility study for the construction of a gondola from Glenmore to Corrie Cas, the replacement and modernisation of scheme facilities and their associated works. However, those alternative proposals do not form part of the application currently before the Highland Council and therefore do not fall to be considered in that context.
Lord Chorley: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the chairlift company concerned is said to be looking for about £10 million of public funds out of a total of £16.5 million for the project and that most if not all of that money could be invested in other Highland and Island development projects? Given the highly contentious nature of the project, not least because it appears on authoritative estimates to be between nine and 20 times more expensive per direct job created compared with what is normal in the Highlands, will he ask his noble friend who would normally have replied to the Question to satisfy himself that that level of public expenditure is justified? If so, will the Government publish their findings?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, my noble friend the Minister always takes a keen interest in what is said in this House when he is unable to be here. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, mentioned a number of points relating to the cost of the proposed development which is before the planning authority of the Highland Council. Planning consent has not yet been granted and work is being carried on concerning the Section 50 visitor management programme. Until that agreement has been made under legally binding contract and planning consent is granted the sums to be invested cannot be firmly established.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, we should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for raising the Question. However, if I may say so, I believe that the Minister was, perhaps, a little too casual about the matter. We are talking about a most important development; indeed, a large amount of public money will be involved. Moreover, as my noble friend Lady Nicol said, it is a site of international importance. Therefore, will the Minister take the issue back to his department and consider the possibility of an independent examination? Some of the development carried out in the Aviemore area was rather disappointing. I believe that we should try to stop any development of that nature on this particular site.
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, it is a shame that the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, thinks that I have been casual in my answers. There was certainly no intention on my part to be so. As regards an independent inquiry
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under planning legislation, I believe that the noble Lord has in mind a proposal for a public local inquiry under the chairmanship of an independent planning reporter appointed by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. The outstanding issues in relation to the current application are already being addressed by the Highland Council, the developer and other interests. While a public local inquiry under an independent reporter remains a possibility, none is envisaged at this stage.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, in reply to a question from the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, my noble friend the Minister said that the alternative suggested was not being considered because it was not in the application. Does that not illustrate the point that I made; namely, that the ordinary planning procedures are too rigid for a case of this dimension?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, for an individual project to be considered by the planning authority, such a project must be put before it. I am sure that those concerned are aware of the report, as, indeed, is my noble friend the Minister.

Road Users: Acts of Violence
2.45 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland The Viscount of Falkland asked Her Majesty's Government:
What contacts they have had with the Association of Chief Police Officers about acts of violence between road users known as "road rage".
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, my officials have held meetings with the ACPO Traffic Committee and are considering with that committee what further measures to deal with the problem might be necessary in addition to those already available under the criminal law.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, does the noble Baroness agree that, if the opinion of people from other countries is anything to go by, we still have, overall, a fairly civilised pattern of behaviour on our roads—that is, as regards good manners and the general good usage of our roads—but that a small minority are spoiling it for us all? Is there no way in which the Government, perhaps together with organisations like the AA and the RAC, can stimulate some kind of action or campaign to stop people reacting so quickly and so violently to perceived or actual provocation? It seems that to some extent the rude finger sign and the flashing of headlights have now been overtaken by direct action, with people getting out of their cars and engaging in activities which can lead to unhappy and violent results.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I agree with the noble Viscount in that we have to consider perception. Most of the people who drive on our roads are law-abiding citizens. I also have to say that I do not believe that the term "road rage" is helpful in that it tends to glamorise

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such activity. In my view it is nothing short of unacceptable violent and criminal behaviour carried out, as the noble Viscount said, by very few people.
As to what is being done and what more can be done, I can tell the House that discussions are being held involving the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Department of Transport, the AA and the RAC, together with insurance companies which can also bring pressure to bear. The Department of Transport has produced guidance for learner drivers which it is hoped will be incorporated in the Highway Code. Indeed, it is also hoped that some of the questions forming part of the driving test will refer to behaviour on the roads. I understand that the AA and the RAC have produced guidance, some in written form, and that there is even a video which is aimed at younger drivers.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister say whether this is entirely a male problem?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I should like to say yes to my noble friend's question, but I understand that we females are becoming pretty aggressive in our driving, although I hope that we fall a long way short of criminal behaviour. Nevertheless, we are at least on a par with our partners.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether she read the reported case last week where someone developed road rage because another motorist was travelling too slowly? Further, can my noble friend bear such a situation in mind and perhaps ask the Department of Transport to instruct drivers who drive slowly to use the slow lane on a motorway? I believe that many people are provoked by other motorists who drive slowly and steadily in the centre lane, thus creating a danger to other traffic and, indeed, the build up of a considerable amount of irritation as regards other drivers.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend has made a most important point. Indeed, I expect that that will be part of the guidance which will feature in the Highway Code and form part of the questioning for those taking driving tests.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is not the noble Baroness aware that that is no excuse for what is no more nor less than common assault, and that the separation and naming of a particular form of assault is probably not beneficial to the victim? Indeed it is arguable that the separation of rape from common assault has not been beneficial to women.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the important thing is that the law is adequate to deal with this offence. This is not just a road traffic offence; it is common assault. There is a large number of traffic offences such as speeding, dangerous driving, careless driving, drinking and taking drugs while driving, causing a danger to road users, refusing to give a name or address when stopped, and inconsiderate driving. In addition there is a large number of offences under the criminal law such as attempted murder, manslaughter—all of which we have seen on our roads—murder, common assault, making
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threats to kill, wounding with intent, malicious wounding and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards a person with intent to cause that person to believe immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or her. I believe it is that side of the law which probably applies to many of the cases we have read about recently.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, as regards the guidance that my noble friend says will be incorporated in the Highway Code, is it possible that that could be sent to those of us who have not looked at the Highway Code for 30 years or so since we took our tests?
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, at least I am honest about it. There is one way of achieving my proposal. Each year we are sent a letter from the licensing authority about taxing our cars. Could not one simple sheet of paper be attached to that to give guidance to those of us not taking a driving test or reading the Highway Code?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I recognise the honesty of my noble friend. I think, as she spoke, there were probably some guilty faces around the Chamber. The Department of Transport has already issued its guidance. The intention is that it should be incorporated in the next edition of the Highway Code. The other suggestion that my noble friend made was a rather good one; namely, that we could all receive guidance when we renew our licences. I shall pass on those comments to my right honourable friend.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, does the Minister accept that I agree with her wish not to glamorise this behaviour by calling it road rage or any other apparently acceptable phrase? Will she use her best endeavours to ensure that certainly Members of Parliament and Ministers do not use the term, and if possible ensure that the press do not use the term because it constitutes a kind of excuse for this behaviour?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we can exhort people not to use the term. I do not know that I have that much control over Members of Parliament and I have absolutely none at all over the press.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is it not the case that one of the triggers for road rage—this is not an excusable trigger—is the fact that so many motorists insist on giving improper warning signals of what they intend to do and, even worse, invite other people to take action as a result of their signals? Could not the Highway Code be strengthened in its prohibition of unnecessary and damaging signals?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I shall certainly pass on those comments. I understand that all of those points are being taken on board by the group of people who are meeting to determine what can be done next. The noble Lord makes an important point.

Berkshire: Unitary Authorities
2.53 p.m.
Lord Bancroft Lord Bancroft asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they still intend to implement their proposals for splitting the Royal County of Berkshire into six unitary authorities; and, if so, what is their latest estimate of the costs involved.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers): Yes, my Lords. We intend to lay an order tomorrow conferring unitary powers on the six Berkshire district councils. The Royal County of Berkshire will remain. The first bids from the authorities concerned suggest that transitional costs may be between £16 million and £20 million in the year preceding reorganisation.
Lord Bancroft: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl for that uncharacteristically disobliging reply. Is he aware that the decision to dismember, to the point of destruction, the Royal County will cause dismay and strong opposition, especially in this Chamber, when the separate order and its accompanying O'Hagan amendment come to be debated? As to extra costs, would he care to comment on the latest extra costs which are transitional costs of £6 million a year in years four to 10 and continuing extra costs of between £18 million and £20 million a year, making a total of £25 million a year, or an additional £90 a year for the average council tax payer in Berkshire?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord should have found it a disobliging Answer. I know that he is concerned about what happens in Berkshire, as indeed are a number of noble Lords. However, he will recall that it was the local government reorganisation commission which discussed whether there should be a change or whether there should be unitary authorities. It went out to consultation on the basis of four bodies, and Berkshire County Council at that time supported that proposal. Five bodies were then recommended and for reasons of which the noble Lord will be aware my right honourable friend decided on six. The noble Lord will also know that that proposal has had the widespread support of all Members of Parliament, with the possible exception of one Liberal Democrat who decided to support his own district of Newbury. I suggest it would be quite wrong that that should have been overturned by my right honourable friend, who has taken the advice of an independent review and also of local Members of Parliament.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this matter was most carefully considered in great detail and that the decision arrived at is accepted by most people in the area as being sensible?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for making that point. When there is a change, some people become upset. However, a number of people have accepted the change that is proposed. All
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those in another place who are representatives of the people have also accepted it. The best course is to try to make it work.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will the noble Earl confirm that there is no intention to abolish the Royal County of Berkshire; the intention is to abolish the county council of Berkshire as recommended by the Local Government Commission? Is he aware, in so far as the costs are concerned, that the county council has arrived at these without discussion and has refused any discussion at all with the six district authorities? Indeed, the compilation is such as to make it extremely suspect and unreliable.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord was quite right to refer to his first point. I meant to make that point to the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft, but I failed to do so. The Royal County of Berkshire remains; it is only the county council which is being abolished.
The noble Lord also referred to costs as indeed did the noble Lord, Lord Bancroft. The only figures which are available—and they are reasonable—are the bids which have been submitted on the basis of the changes being made during next year. In fact the changes will be made in the year thereafter and new bids will have to be submitted. It will be a matter for the new unitary authorities to make savings where they can.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that my appreciation of his right honourable friend's courtesy in receiving a deputation on this subject towards the end of last week has now been considerably watered down by this decision? Is he further aware that to reserve for Berkshire alone, among the 36 shire counties, the fate of total dismemberment will come as a sharp and unpleasant shock to the traditional supporters of this Government within the county of Berkshire?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I know that my noble friend met my right honourable friend, who listened carefully to what he and those in his delegation said. However, one has to make a decision. My noble friend says that many people will not like the decision—I accept that some people will not like it—but plenty of people will like it. I repeat that the independent Local Government Commission has made its recommendations. All the Members of another place agreed with that decision. My noble friend now asks my right honourable friend to overturn the decision. If it had been a Labour area and the independent commission had suggested an all-unitary structure and all the Labour Members of Parliament agreed with it, if my right honourable friend then decided to overturn the decision, one can imagine the hoo-ha that would arise.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that in a recent MORI poll 73 per cent. of the population of the Royal County of Berkshire were against these proposals?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I suggest that MORI polls are dangerous to quote. I can quote some MORI polls

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which give another view. But we should then be bandying figures around. I think that we should leave it at that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, will the Minister confirm to the House that for three years, up until last year, Berkshire County Council campaigned for its own abolition? Will the Minister also confirm that in its evidence to the Local Government Commission review Berkshire County Council submitted that,
"All councils, including the county council, recognise that unitary authorities are the best way of delivering services in Berkshire".
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it gives me the most enormous pleasure to agree with the noble Baroness—which does not often occur. But she is absolutely right. The Berkshire County Council campaigned for unitary status. For some funny reason it changed its mind. It has now whipped up a quite enthusiastic campaign against such status. Why it changed its mind, I do not know, and I doubt whether the noble Baroness knows.
Lord Renwick: My Lords, perhaps I may join the campaign to support Berkshire County Council. Will the effectiveness of the county council's social service responsibilities benefit from the change, especially as regards the control of child abuse, the ability to organise adoption and looking after those with special educational needs and, dare I mention it, dyslexia?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, we expect the new unitary authorities to work as independent organisations. However, there will be times when unitary authorities will have to work together. My noble friend has given some examples. I refer also to schools for children who are backward. On such occasions the district councils may have to work together. I have no reason to believe that they will not.

Montserrat: Volcanic Eruption
3.2 p.m.
Lord Rea Lord Rea asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the economic and human situation in Montserrat following the recent volcanic eruption.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, most people have had to leave their homes in the south of the island of Montserrat and are staying with friends and relatives, or in the improvised accommodation in the north. The present relocation is likely to be prolonged. The economy has been seriously disrupted. The British Government are providing £16.5 million in assistance and have made special arrangements for the entry of Montserratians who wish to come to the United Kingdom.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that informative Answer. Perhaps I may remind noble Lords that Montserrat is a British dependent territory, and that Her Majesty's Government bear a direct line of responsibility for the welfare of its people, if not for the actual volcano.
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As the noble Baroness said, some 5,000 people from the more prosperous and fertile southern part of the island have been resettled in temporary shelter in the north. They are reluctant to leave Montserrat because it is their home. What plans have the Government permanently to develop the economy and infrastructure of the northern part of the island? It may well be the only safe and habitable area for many years even if the current eruption simmers down.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for not blaming the Government for the volcano erupting. However, joking apart, it is a very serious situation which has continued for nearly 11 months. The people of Montserrat have suffered sorely from it. I wish to pay tribute to their stoicism in the face of this continual cloud of volcanic dust which seems to hang across the island.
About 4,500 people have gone from the south to the north. About 1,500 people still on the border of the safe zone might have to be removed to the north should the drift of the volcano's ashes turn further northward.
In the first place we set up temporary accommodation. However, it has become clear that although the Chief Minister of Montserrat arranged the accommodation, more now has to be done. We have a full-time engineer there, plus other staff, helping the governor. We are taking the help of a number of specialist engineers. Some from Her Majesty's services have been assisting there. As did my right honourable friend, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, last week on a visit there, we are considering what further assistance must be given. We are following a twin track approach, allowing people to come to the United Kingdom for up to two years if they wish—to work, we hope, if they can find work—or through the aid programme supporting those who stay on the island.
The provision of more than £16.5 million in total for something under 10,000 people is a significant help. With the Government of Montserrat—they are responsible, although it is a dependent territory—we are considering what more can be done to help people gain a livelihood in the north and better living accommodation.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, there are so many things for which to blame the Government that we do not yet have to resort to blaming them for volcanoes.
I do not believe that the Minister answered my noble friend's Question. However, we need to consider the long-term future of Montserrat by securing a less dependent economy if those who are now leaving are to return. Can the Minister tell the House what the Government are now doing to promote an economy which is less dependent than at present?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, obviously the long-term future must be worked out with the Government of Montserrat. They are an elected government. They have made it clear that they wish to maintain Montserrat as a viable community. We shall support them in that. Those who are resident there who wish to move permanently to the north will be helped to do so. But it must be the decision of the Government

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of Montserrat as well as of the Government of the United Kingdom. One cannot take decisions away from people who are elected and will soon stand in the north for re-election. That factor is very important indeed.
While final decisions cannot yet be made, work is going on and the help that the people of Montserrat need is being given to them by people well qualified to do so and with a greater knowledge of the situation than I have.

Royal Assent
3.8 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act,

Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act,

London Regional Transport Act,

Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act,

Arbitration Act,

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Act.

Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill
3.9 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Henley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Arrangements for making grants]:
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1. line 6, after ("may") insert (", by or in accordance with regulations,"}.
The noble Lord said: This amendment heads a composite group in which Amendment No. 2 is the most important. Depending on the Minister's response, I may need at the end of the debate to move that amendment to a Division. I may also wish to come back at a later stage to other amendments such as Amendments Nos. 6, 13, 16 or 31.
I set the scene for what may be a long day's night with some words from the much underrated poet, Hilaire Belloc, who wrote:
"Godolphin Horne was Nobly Born:
He held the Human Race in Scorn …
Alas! That such Affected Tricks
Should flourish in a Child of Six"!
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I hasten to add, for the benefit of noble Lords opposite, that that is not confined to the aristocracy in any way whatever and should be held as a comment upon the whole of the human race at the age of six. But, as the twig is bent, so will the branch grow; and education in the earliest years of our lives is perhaps more significant, more important than at any other stage when the mind is wax to receive and marble to retain.
Still, we make no apology for spending some time on this scheme, and particularly in asking for serious consideration of the need to take this whole business at a responsible and respectable rate. In the terms of the Latin tag, festina lente—let us make haste slowly; because what is decided among us today and on the day we come to the Report stage will have a most significant effect on a very large number of young people. So Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 6, 13, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 32, and even so late an amendment as Amendment No. 84, which I hope we shall reach before dawn, are of great significance.
The second amendment in this group would require the Secretary of State to proceed by order in making arrangements to make grants under the Bill. Under the terms of Amendment No. 84, relating to the powers attached to Clause 7, such an order would then be,
"subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament".
The purpose is to require a further round of parliamentary scrutiny before the arrangements are put in place to enable the scheme to proceed. As the Bill stands, Ministers may proceed to impose it at any stage after Royal Assent and to make the arrangements to introduce the main schemes without any further parliamentary consideration.
It occurs to me that it is an odd Bill in so many ways. It is called the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill. But it is the word "voucher" that seems to be the cause of all the churning trouble in the nation at the present moment. A number of noble Lords tell me that their postbags are stuffed, crammed, pressed down, shaken together and running over with complaints from all over the country about nursery vouchers. They, like me, are mildly surprised that the Bill simply talks about the Secretary of State's power to make some sort of "arrangements". An examination of all the little pamphlets that emanate from the DFEE shows the scheme to be very closely argued, whether you like it or not, in relation to the issue redemption, use, value and inspection of vouchers. But there it is. That is the form in which it has come before us. It has been before the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee. After a certain amount of care and thought and much correspondence and to-ing and fro-ing with the DFEE, the committee feels that it is probably all right the way that it stands. However, given the uncertainty surrounding the scheme and its practical effect in the pilot areas—the committee will forgive me if I refer to "pilot areas" instead of "phase one areas"; the two terms seem to have become inextricably intertwined—which is as yet unproven, it

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is argued by us that Parliament should have a further opportunity, having as it were conceded the principle of nursery vouchers, to consider at what point it is wise to proceed to the main scheme.
Amendment No. 6 requires the Secretary of State, in proceeding with the main scheme, to have regard to the results of any evaluation conducted in advance. That links with Amendment No. 13 which prevents the Secretary of State from proceeding with the main scheme before he has laid in front of Parliament an evaluation of the operation of the pilot over a full 12-month period. That amendment is designed to draw together the many strands of ongoing evaluation—to which I shall return—to which the department has drawn attention in debates so far, but to require that evaluation applies to the full period of the pilot, and for it to be made coherent and published in Parliament so that we can all have a look at it. Evaluation would thus become a public rather than a private process, although nothing in the amendment would impede the work which the department has already put in train to assess the pilots in their middle and later stages. It is just that the matter should not depend on what happens to churn up in Norfolk or other places during the next couple of months before that has been set in a full context.
The Government may argue that the amendment would introduce an element of delay since the full evaluation could not be completed until after 31st March 1997. But the logic of the Government's position, having started pilot schemes which are already in operation as parliamentary approval is sought, would be that those pilots ought to be allowed to run their course and a proper judgment be made as to their success or failure, strengths or weaknesses, and what lessons are to be learnt before the main scheme proceeds. Festina lente—make haste slowly.
The amendment in no way cuts against the purpose of the Bill, which, incidentally, contains no date for the main scheme to start. No date is mentioned. It merely introduces what we consider to be an orderly timetable born of the logic of the Government's policy so far which places the Bill and the parliamentary approval they seek into a proper framework. It seems to us that the onus is on the Government and the Minister to convince us that the process must go through at this breakneck speed and that evaluation is not necessary before implementation for some reason which produces the date at a point where it comes absolutely at the end of the pilot scheme.
Evaluation has been discussed before. The key point was encapsulated by the Secretary of State when she said on 19th March 1996:
"We shall evaluate exactly how the scheme works as phase I proceeds".
In other words, the evaluation will start and finish before the pilots are concluded.
But other things have been said. Ministers have committed themselves to evaluating a pretty fair range of issues. The evaluation is to include reports from the autumn, with the chief inspector being invited to report on phase one as a whole before it finishes. The second
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issue is publicity and public information for parents, which presumably can be gathered before the scheme is complete. Thirdly, I quote the noble Lord the Minister:
"We need to evaluate the benefits to children's later educational performance".—[Official Report, 20/5/96; col. 717.]
On any ordinary reading of those words it seems that those "benefits" to their "later performance" could hardly be evaluated in any sensible way until some time had passed and the benefits or disbenefits to their future educational performance had been at least investigated. Presumably they will be investigated before phase one finishes.
Fourthly, Ministers will evaluate how effectively forms reach parents. That is probably all right. It can be done within the 12-month period. The fifth issue relates to how vouchers are issued, collected and redeemed. That is more complex but, with enough person power and resources, something can perhaps be done. Sixthly, they will evaluate how effectively vouchers create new provision. That, I submit, is much more difficult. Although I believe it is an undisputed fact that, so far, very few other providers have crept out of the woodwork and set up their stalls, it may very well be that that will come on stream very much faster in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth months of the phase one pilot scheme and be much more difficult to evaluate as it actually happens.
Seventhly, do the Government propose to evaluate whether the voucher is set at a right value or not? Of course we shall have a great deal more to say about that. Once again, how much easier it will be to do if the pilot scheme has run its course.
Eighthly, there is the impact of special needs pupils. That again is going to be extremely difficult to evaluate because special needs pupils will need to be evaluated as a group and over a period. Those things cannot be done on a snapshot basis.
Ninthly, the Government have said that they will evaluate safeguards against fraud. That may be possible within a 12-month period but I have serious doubts about that.
In the circumstances it is clear that Ministers accept the need for a wide evaluation. What they have so far refused to accept, and what our amendments in this group hope to convince them of, is that it should be thorough; that it should be based on the full year's experience in the pilot areas; and, if possible, that it should be published.
The Government are running four pilot schemes or phase one schemes from 1st April 1996 to test the workings of the nursery voucher proposals in three London boroughs: the City of Westminster, Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea, and in the County of Norfolk. The plan now is that the main scheme should be introduced from the 1st April 1997, with vouchers being issued (according to the schools Minister) before the general election due by May 1997. As things stand there is no relationship between the ending of the pilot schemes and the launch of the main scheme, since the Bill as proposed enables Ministers to introduce the main scheme without any further preconditions at any date they choose.
The original purpose of creating pilot schemes seems to have been side-stepped in order to hurry this timetable for issuing nursery vouchers. I hope that the Minister will explain that when he comes to reply to this first debate because, as we see it—I approach this delicately—regardless of what may happen at a general election, the issue of nursery vouchers is not going to be helped by being rushed. If the Labour Party were returned with a respectable majority, we are quite clear what we would do: we would honour the existing vouchers and issue no more. If the Conservative Party were returned with a suitable majority it would simply carry on with the scheme as it has inaugurated it. Why the unseemly rush?
The latest government document Nursery Education Scheme: the Next Steps which was published on 9th January 1996 seems to me to invert the logic of holding pilot schemes at all by arguing that:
"Full evaluation must await the bedding down of the full scheme".
On that basis a full evaluation of a pilot scheme seems to be impossible in any circumstances.
I would make one thing very clear. This amendment is not intended, nor would it function, as a wrecking amendment. It would have the effect of preventing the Government from introducing the main scheme before a full year of the pilot scheme has elapsed, plus a short period for the evaluation and the laying before Parliament of a report. The effect of the amendment, if agreed, would be, on the Government's own logic, to enable the voucher proposal to proceed in a more effective manner. The amendment would require an order to be agreed by Parliament before the main scheme could be started, but the timing involved differs very little from that announced by Mr. Squire in launching the scheme on 2nd November 1995. In practice an order could still be laid before a general election held at the end of the Parliament, although it might be thought more proper for the subject to be a matter of debate at the general election in the light of the pilot schemes, and for the new government of whatever party then to decide whether to proceed. The crucial point is that Parliament would be empowered by being given a vote on the order if prayed against.
If I may draw all that together, this group of amendments points the way for the Government to run, as they claim they will, successful pilot schemes which can demonstrate in practice how the vouchers will work. It offers the Government the opportunity to seek a public affirmation of the value of the scheme after a one-year experiment endorsed by Parliament and introduced after proper consideration. No doubt the pilots will yield experience which will be very useful to civil servants in the private planning of the main scheme, but there will be no opportunity either to demonstrate their success or for Parliament to apply the brakes if the train appears to Parliament to be heading directly for the buffers. The Government should then in our view seriously consider whether this amendment
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does not offer the opportunity significantly to improve the credibility of their policy for the expansion of nursery education. I beg to move.
Lord Tope: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for explaining the set of amendments so fully. I am particularly grateful, because I returned from a 12-day official visit to China only late last night, and have spent my time since then trying to come to terms with all that has happened in relation to amendments to the Bill since I left. I am also grateful that he explained it so fully because I do not need to do so, and can be much briefer. I am very conscious that my body clock tells me that it is now coming up to half-past ten at night and I hope very much to be home before my body clock tells me it is time for breakfast.
The two essential points of all these amendments are, first, that a full evaluation must be carried out before we go ahead nationwide; and, secondly (and equally importantly), that Parliament must have an opportunity to debate, discuss and decide upon it before it goes ahead nationally. It seems to me (we spoke of this on Second Reading) that a full evaluation of the pilot projects is absolutely essential. I can see no point whatsoever in establishing pilot projects if we are not going to be given the opportunity to learn something from them. When the Next Steps document, to which the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, referred just now, says that a full evaluation is not possible before the full scheme has been allowed time to bed down, I worry about what the Government have in mind.
We accept of course that a full and in depth evaluation of the effects over time of an extension of early years' learning can be possible only after it has been in operation for some time. There is a whole range of other very important matters about which we are learning through the implementation of the pilot projects—indeed, that is why the pilot projects were established in the first place—and on which we need to have a report in order to be able to consider, discuss and debate them before the full scheme is inflicted on the country. There is a range of important issues about which we need to know before we apply the scheme to the country. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, has already mentioned most of that in more detail than I would wish to do.
We need to look at whether the whole bureaucratic process is necessary (and even if it is, whether it is working effectively), and what are the administrative costs going to be. It has been suggested by the Government that the administrative costs of applying the whole scheme in 108 local education authorities is only four times that of applying it in the four pilot project areas. As leader of a local education authority I find that somewhat hard to believe and would certainly wish to see more evidence of it.
There is much concern—we will return to this later today, I am sure—about the scheme's possible effects on special educational needs and their provision. We will return also to the effects on capital and training,

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three year-olds, and so on. Those are all matters upon which we need to have some evaluation as well as the actual administrative process of the pilot schemes.
I believe that it has been properly established that as we are having pilot projects before we launch a nationwide scheme, we need properly to consider a full evaluation of those pilot projects. Otherwise, what is the purpose of having them in the first place? We might just as well have gone to the whole scheme.
The second point relates to parliamentary approval, by whatever means suggested. The amendments cover a number of different ways of achieving that. The main point at this stage is not necessarily how we do it, but that we do it at all. It is important that before we go nationwide Parliament should have an opportunity to debate and consider the evaluation, and then to debate and approve the arrangements and the enormous power being given to the Secretary of State to implement such a scheme.
On Second Reading in this Chamber some reference was made to whether we had learned nothing from the lessons of the poll tax. The poll tax was implemented despite dire warnings from virtually everyone involved with local government finance, be they professionals, politicians or indeed the public. The Government went ahead regardless. I have been thinking since then that a better comparison might be with the national curriculum, which is basically a desirable objective—a good idea—as most people in your Lordships' House believe that the extension of early years' learning is a desirable objective. The national curriculum was rushed and introduced with too little regard for the many concerns and criticisms that were expressed about it. We have spent years since then not merely suffering from the effects of that rush but undoing the damage that need not have been done had there been a more careful consideration in the first place. We should learn the lesson from that.
There is much concern expressed by professionals, by people working in the scheme and by politicians about the implementation of the suggested nursery voucher scheme. We need to listen to it. That is why we need the evaluation and why Parliament must have the opportunity to decide before the scheme goes nationwide. A refusal to allow such an evaluation to be considered and the scheme to be given approval by Parliament, which must seem a logical and sensible process, can only lead to one conclusion; namely, that this Government are more concerned to push vouchers through the voters' letterboxes before the general election than to provide an extension of good quality early-years learning.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I attend this debate at the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris. I wrote him a note to say that I would listen to the merits of the argument and, if they appealed, I should support him. I am afraid that I cannot do so. I have listened with great care to what has been said. I am not concerned with the poll tax, nor with the national curriculum, nor with paving the way to an electoral victory for my party
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at the next election. But I am concerned with the merits of this argument.
As to those merits, I refer the Committee to Clauses 1 to 3. In Clause 1 the Secretary of State has very wide powers to make arrangements for making grants, which is in no way restricted by Clauses 2 and 3. There is inbuilt in that power almost unlimited flexibility, which is a far more sensible proposal than the limitations proposed in any of the series of grouped amendments that I have read.
This is not a wrecking amendment; it is accepted that it has a significant effect—the whole object of the provisions is to have a significant effect; and it is not at all in conflict with the purpose of the Bill. But all legislation is experimental. I cannot recall—perhaps some Member of the Committee will help me—any precedent for this type of double-take, especially where there is inbuilt flexibility in the master clause.
I apologise for taking time, but those are my reasons for not being able to support the amendment.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: In this group of amendments, I speak principally to those tabled in my name; namely, Amendments Nos. 2, 6, 13 and 84.
When I was in the education service as a teacher in the independent and maintained sectors and later as an education officer with Leicestershire and Oxfordshire LEAs, I used to note with professional interest how little in the way of solid evidence often underlay people's perceptions of educational issues, whether it was the issue of selective versus comprehensive schools or simply the reputation of one school compared with another. In the same way, the teaching profession would come into and go out of public favour on a tide which was often just a matter of fashion and political opinion.
We are witnessing a particularly violent swing of the pendulum at the moment. If I had been able to be present at Second Reading, which unfortunately I was not, I should have said a few words on this subject and entered a plea for a substratum of measurable facts to inform future debates on education. A great deal of nonsense is being talked in some quarters and it is doing much damage.
The relevance of the present amendments is precisely that they give us an opportunity to introduce some firm evidence into a controversial area. I do not believe that we can rely on the kind of flexibility to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has just referred. We need something a great deal more specific. In common with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, I believe that something has gone wrong with the original idea of a pilot scheme. It is very significant that it now appears under the name "phase one". How can Parliament properly agree to the main scheme before the evidence from the pilot—like the noble Lord, I shall call it that—is properly in? We need to know so many things. I shall not go through them because they have already been dealt with, except perhaps to mention the special needs situation and how pupils are faring there, which is of particular importance, and also whether new provision is effectively being created. I gather that evidence for the latter is not at the moment very encouraging.

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In the matter of educational reforms over the past 16 years there has sometimes been a tendency to legislate first and do the thinking afterwards. Not surprisingly, that has had some fairly unhappy results. We have already heard the key one in the area of the national curriculum and testing, which the noble Lord highlighted, as well as others in the local management of schools, arrangements for schools opting out and so on. Why must we rush yet another reform? Let us for once have a proper evaluation before going ahead with a plan which will shake up the whole approach to nursery education.
I said that I used to be in the educational field. I now find myself dealing rather more with health care matters. In the medical world professionals try to advance on the basis of discovered fact. They do not always succeed but at least evidence based medicine is a laudable aim. I believe that it is time for some evidence based education. For that reason I commend the amendments to the Committee.
Baroness Young: I too want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for writing to me about the purpose of his amendments. I read his letter with great interest. However, I must tell him that I cannot support these amendments. In effect, he and his colleagues are saying that they want to delay the introduction of the scheme for a year. They have adduced a number of arguments for doing so. But, although my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway said that this amendment is not a wrecking amendment, anybody reading the amendments and those which follow from them subsequently will recognise that that is exactly what it is.
I find it absolutely astonishing. I believe I can honestly say that I have taken part in every single education Bill that has come before this Chamber, certainly since 1979, if not since 1971 when I first entered this Chamber. There has hardly been a time when there has not been a plea for nursery education. from all parts of the Chamber. There has been no need—as the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, said—for all kinds of evidence to tell us that it is a good thing. Everybody has agreed that it is a good thing. What prevented it being done, by either my own party or the Labour Party when the Labour Government were in office in the 1970s, was the cost of the scheme. That is what prevented it. Nobody disagreed with the principle.
Now there is a scheme before us which will provide nursery education. But, instead of an acceptance that it is something which will help thousands of children from one end of the country to another, there is a proposal to delay it. We are told that we should find out more information about what is going on, as though somehow there were not any nursery schools in the country at large either in the maintained or the independent sector. But of course they have been in existence in most education authorities for years and operating very successfully.
I find the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, extraordinary in that, were there to be a Labour Government, they would support the four pilot
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schemes that have already been started, but would not have any more. Either one believes in these things or one does not. I suspect that what lies behind this series of amendments is the fact that, despite all the fine words, neither a Labour nor a Liberal Democrat authority has been prepared to try it out.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I should perhaps state that I did not say precisely what she said I said. I said that, in the event of a Labour Government coming to power, we would honour the existing issued vouchers, but we would issue no more. That does not mean that in the four pilot boroughs the scheme would go on for ever; we would simply issue no more vouchers.
Baroness Young: I apologise to the noble Lord if I misunderstood him and of course I withdraw my remarks. The fact remains that, even though the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, says that today, we all know that the Labour Party—I believe he is speaking for New Labour—has changed its mind on virtually every single educational issue and it will only be a matter of time before it changes its mind on this.
I never thought that I would live to see the day when the Leader of the Labour Party would support streaming and setting in schools. I find that an astonishing statement, as someone who served on a local education authority and has been an education Minister. It has changed its mind on many other matters and it will change its mind on this one.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I must once again correct the noble Baroness. The Labour Party has not supported streaming; it has supported setting. They are entirely different things, as anyone who has either experienced them or taught in schools will know. The difference between them is distinct. What is more, the noble Baroness is right in saying that a lot of this has gone on for some time. Setting is something which my children went through between the ages of seven and 11, and that was a very long time ago.
Baroness Warnock: I should like to say something which is not as political as the arguments so far put forward.
Lord Henley: Is the noble Baroness intervening in my noble friend's speech? I do not believe that my noble friend has finished her remarks. Or is the noble Baroness making her own intervention now?
Baroness Warnock: I put my name to this amendment and was supporting it for its own sake. If the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has not finished speaking, I shall of course sit down.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness Young: I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. I had not finished speaking. Perhaps I may respond to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris. I am delighted that his children were in classes that were set. I have no doubt that they did extremely well in school and they will be grateful for something of which he can be justly proud.

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However, the noble Lord knows as well as I do—I know the difference between streaming and setting—that the problem arises when one has to decide in a school who is to be set and what are the criteria. Like so many things said by New Labour, all the small print is left unsaid and people are left with a vague idea that the kind of things they have wanted for a long time will come to pass.
To return to the Bill, it is extraordinary that all those who for so long supported nursery education should be against this Bill. Nursery vouchers give responsibility to the parents. That is something I thought we all wanted to see—people taking a greater interest in their children's education; parents taking part in the decision-making. What is so immensely encouraging about the four schemes in operation is that 80 per cent. of the parents in the four areas have now applied for vouchers. That is a tremendous proportion of parents seeking vouchers. We all accept that not every parent wants their child to go to a nursery, and that is their free choice. It shows that the scheme is immensely popular.
We also heard from the Pre-School Learning Alliance that over 94 per cent. of pre-schools have registered for vouchers and 80 per cent. believe that parents value the vouchers. I am sure that those facts are right. It is an opportunity, as a parent, to choose with the voucher where one will send one's child for nursery education. It is an opportunity for there to be an expansion of nursery education, which we all want to see and which I should have thought would be widely welcomed.
I received a letter, as I am sure did many other noble Lords, from the leader of Wandsworth council making it quite clear that this particular scheme is extremely popular with parents. It has been widely accepted, with a great many schools, including voluntary-aided Church schools, now considering adding nursery departments to their schools. I should have thought that all that was to be welcomed. What would be gained by putting the scheme off for a year? We have the information. It is not as though we are deciding to introduce nursery schools for the first time.
Lord Ogmore: Perhaps I can interrupt the noble Baroness and make a point about universal acclamation for nursery vouchers. I received correspondence through the post from various constituents throughout the country and from Wales who are adamant about the nursery voucher scheme. They want at least to delay it or want a pilot scheme before going into it. They are concerned at the detrimental effect it will have on very young children.
Baroness Young: The noble Lord is raising a point which comes up on a subsequent amendment in relation to elections for those schools. I will give the noble Lord an opportunity to come back if he would like to, but I should like to answer his question.
The whole point is that, as we discovered with grant-maintained schools, which are immensely popular with parents, many people—I regret to say within the educational establishment and educational authorities—have moved heaven and earth to prevent parents voting for their schools to go grant-maintained. I could quote
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chapter and verse on that. I have not the slightest doubt that the same would apply with nursery vouchers. Many people in principle are against vouchers, against parental choice, against giving parents the opportunity to choose what they want for their children's education. They would come forward; they would be articulate; they would frighten parents; and the scheme would be dropped. That is what will happen. We must recognise that.
I received a great deal of briefing and it is easy to see from where it all came. We must recognise that where the schemes are in operation, 80 per cent. of parents are taking up the offer of vouchers. That should make everybody think. I have been a long time in politics. If I thought that every policy had the support of 80 per cent. of the people, I would be extremely pleased, as would anybody in politics. That is a very good measure.
With this series of amendments we put at risk—I do not doubt the sincerity of those supporting them—delaying the scheme for a year for no measurable value. We shall find out something from the way in which the scheme is operating and in the course of time, as my noble friend Lord Campbell pointed out, changes will be made to make it more effective and more responsive. Nothing is perfect first time round. I have no doubt that we shall learn from the four pilot schemes. The idea of waiting for another year for something of which we have a great deal of experience seems to me to be a terrible waste of time.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Before the noble Baroness sits down, perhaps she can say whether or not she agrees with me that parents have taken up the nursery vouchers because they have no choice. If they do not take up the vouchers, their children will not in future obtain the nursery education they are currently receiving. The whole scheme is simply a means of recycling money. If the parents do not take up the offer of the voucher, their children will not receive the education. What else can they do?
Baroness Young: The short answer is that it is not a scheme of recycling; a lot of new money is going into it. By using the voucher parents can choose to which type of nursery school to send their child. It is freedom of choice. I happen to believe that that is important and we would like to see it extended. I thought New Labour wanted to see that also, but I am mistaken. We are back at old Labour, which believes in telling everyone where they should send their children to school.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: I am reluctant to prolong this debate, but I am astonished by the noble Baroness's astonishment. Surely she is able to distinguish between nursery education per se, which is what we are all in favour of, and this scheme, which has a lot of question marks over it and which we think needs to be evaluated.
Baroness Young: Curious as it may seem to some Members of the Committee, I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between nursery education per se, with which we are all agreed, and this scheme. This is a way of getting more money into nursery education, getting

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more children into nursery schools, giving freedom of choice to parents and, much more, encouraging parental responsibility. I stand by all those four principles. I am sorry that the noble Earl does not.
Baroness Warnock: I support Amendment No. 2 to which I have put my name. I do so because the pilot scheme needs to be properly evaluated. I say that because the areas where the scheme is now working have their own characteristics which are not shared by most of the country. We are all in favour of more nursery education—I certainly am strongly in favour of it—but, given a shortage of resources overall, we very much want nursery education to be targeted or to be able to be targeted at those areas where it is most crucial that there should be nursery education; namely, where there are deprived children, not necessarily with special educational needs, who suffer from disability through lack of care and attention to education at home.
The present scheme is working in areas where it is difficult to tell whether that will happen. In the case of rural areas, especially in counties like Norfolk, which is enormous, there is no doubt that the use of vouchers will suppress certain small playgroups which work very well in isolated villages and where the resources simply do not exist, even with the use of vouchers, to upgrade those playgroups into nursery schools with trained nursery teachers. In any case, there will not be a large use of vouchers for these playgroups because they are too isolated. The whole idea of what is happening, on the one hand, to small village-based playgroups or even schools and, on the other hand, to what is happening with the LEA and its funding needs to be rethought before we try to introduce this scheme over the whole country.
At the other end of the scale I know from my contacts with the Girls Public Day School Trust that parents who had already decided to send their children to nursery school—the trust's schools are opening nursery schools quite frequently at the moment—and to spend money on doing so are eagerly running forward now to take up their vouchers. Those are the people who for the large part are thinking, "Oh good, we can save some money". That is admirable, and I do not begrudge it, but I do not think those are the children for whom nursery education is most valuable. It may be, but those are children who would have had it anyway. It is the children who would not have had it and whom we want to target about whom we want far more evidence to tell whether they are taking up their vouchers and, if so, whether they are getting the education they actually deserve.
Finally, we want to know whether the local education authorities, which in many places provide adequate and good nursery education, are finding that they are unable to do so because of the cost to them of the vouchers. Those are my reasons for wanting a proper evaluation and not the surreptitious turning of the pilot into a phase-one scheme.
Baroness O'Cathain: I have spoken to a headteacher of a first school in Norfolk who said that the pilot is a process of constant evaluation. She said that there were
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natural concerns among the education sector in Norfolk about the financial effects of the scheme on individual schools but that they are talking about it and evaluating it as they go along. The monitoring of the quality of provision for four year-olds is another issue, as is the logistics of dealing with the paperwork. I suppose that a pilot does put a lot of stress on these teachers, but they feel very much part of it because they are utterly committed to giving greater nursery education to children.
The headteacher of the first school said that she has had the same concern as was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, about the difficulties concerning playgroups and how they will be affected by the provision of nursery education. She said:
"I have been working very closely with a playgroup to ensure that children's education is not adversely affected by these changes and we have been quite bold in our planning for the future".
If that is what is happening on the ground with headteachers of first schools in the provision of the first level of education, I should have thought that it does not necessarily need a whole board of people at the end of the pilot period to sit back, stop the schemes and spend a year or more evaluating them. The momentum will have gone into the ground and the system will have to start from scratch all over again. We should give the people in the education sector the benefit of the doubt. They are not nine-to-three o'clockers and they are working very hard to ensure that any problems in the scheme for nursery education are ironed out during the operation of pilots so that lessons can be learnt.
To mirror what my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway said, flexibility is the issue. We are talking about intelligent teachers who are flexible and who will be able to talk to the education departments and say, "These are really not working", or, "Perhaps we should do it in a different way". We do not want people becoming enthusiastic—a lot of people have become enthusiastic about this nursery schooling—and then have to say to them, "Stop, the pilots are over, you must now wait". That would be disastrous for the long-term future of nursery education.
Lord Monkswell: We are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, who pointed out the breadth of Clause 1, which effectively gives the Minister enormous powers to disburse grants for nursery education in whatever manner he sees fit to whoever he sees fit. One of the difficulties we have is in terms of how the Secretary of State will use those powers. I think I heard my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris right when he said in opening the debate that, if the Government could give us assurances, then in the spirit of this House we would accept those assurances and we would not have to go ahead with the amendments in this grouping.
Part of my reason for speaking in the debate is that I have been a little concerned about what I detect is a partisan positioning of people on different sides of the Committee. I come to the debate as a parent. When our children were young we were initially living in an area where there was no local education authority nursery provision and we then moved into an area where there

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was LEA nursery provision. We have, as a family, had experience of both sides. I have also been a member of a local education authority education committee and a governor of primary schools with nursery provision and of a high school. During that period when I was involved in the exercise of my responsibilities, the education system was subjected to quite a large degree of change because of legislation pushed through by this Government. One of the predominant features of those changes was the paucity of consultation.
Perhaps I may explain. One of the difficulties that we had was that consultation papers tended to be issued about July with responses required by September or October. Bearing in mind that most people in education have a long summer break during that period, those most involved in the subject were away on holiday and were therefore unable to talk among themselves in order to provide fully thought-out responses.
The other matter is that we tended to get what I may describe as "national schemes" without any pilot programme to evaluate the effect of such changes. These national changes were laid on us with very little time to make the changes.
It is worth pointing out that when the change to comprehensive education came about that was taking "best practice" by a Conservative local education authority in Leicester. The Labour Government said that it was a good idea and advocated a best practice approach across the country. But the Government did not require every local education authority to implement reorganisation into comprehensive education within one or two years. Each LEA was asked to come forward with a plan to show how it was going to be brought about in its area. Over a period of time, just about the whole country went comprehensive, but there were a few areas that held out. The Labour Government did not force them into it.
4 p.m.
Baroness Young: I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord when he is advancing his argument so closely. Those of us who follow educational debate remember very clearly the circular put out by Mr. Crosland. I believe it was numbered 10/65—I know that it had a very familiar ring. I was in a local education authority when great pressure was put on it to introduce comprehensive education.
Lord Monkswell: I do not argue that great pressure may have been put on, but the fact is that there was no legal requirement.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: It cannot be described as "great pressure": it was an order. Mr. Crosland said himself, "I want to get three Cs; comprehensive schools, a common examination at 16 and common sixth forms. You have two of them and the third is to be worked for". I can assure the noble Lord that it was an order because I have read it.
Lord Monkswell: We obviously operate in a slightly different context. Perhaps I may point out that the local education authority for Trafford, which is next door to
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Manchester where I live, still has selective education even today. Therefore, an order may have been issued by the Labour Government education secretary in the 1960s, but it has still not been adopted by a Conservative local education authority.
What would be the situation now if a Labour local education authority, in response to an order from this Conservative Government, said, "We are not going to implement it"? All hell would break loose. The Government would send in the commissioners. It would be totally illegal. The local authority would not be allowed to do it in that way. What is suggested is that as regards education Labour governments operate rather differently from this Conservative Government.
I have given a little background to this matter because we have the opportunity now, with this measure in front of us, to do things a little differently. We have the opportunity of a pilot scheme which will enable us to look at what is happening and the changes that the nursery voucher scheme engenders in three local authority areas. They are different and they will give a clue as to what might happen in other parts of the country. The pilot project should be allowed to run long enough for it to be evaluated sensibly. The Government should allow the project to be evaluated sensibly and then make a decision on how the scheme will be implemented throughout the country; whether it should be modified or not implemented at all.
One of the other advantages of this series of amendments is that it enables Parliament to be involved in the decision-making process. As I suggested earlier, we accept assurances given by government Ministers. I hope that the Government can give us an assurance that these pilot schemes will be allowed to run long enough and then for there to be a period of searching valuation. There will inevitably be teething troubles and that occurs with any new scheme. If we can have an assurance from the Government that those teething troubles will be addressed; that there will be a full analysis and review of the pilot schemes and that that review will be available for parliamentary discussion and debate, I am sure that we can allow the Bill to go forward as it is at present.
That is what we are asking for and that is what I ask for, in trying to take out party political debate from this subject. It does politicians no good to have party political divisions on such an important subject as education and to force something through without proper evaluation. It has been said on all sides of the Chamber already this afternoon that we all agree that nursery education is so important for the development of our young people that we should aim to see how best we can develop it. That is the plea that I make to the Government to try to take politics out of this particular debate. If the Government insist on putting forward a party political slant on the matter, as a number of speakers on the government Benches have done so far, I hope that the rest of the Committee will support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: After that speech. I suggest respectfully to the Committee that we shall

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only do justice to the importance of this amendment and to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, by constructive and short speeches directed to the important issues of the amendment. While I am on my feet, for my part I wholly accept the sincerity of the noble Lord when he said that this is not intended to be a wrecking amendment. I hope that we may proceed in a more sensible fashion.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: I shall be both brief and historical. I want to refer directly to the business of having to wait a year to carry through this very important educational change. Perhaps I may draw the Committee's attention to three of the greatest changes ever made in English education. I refer first to the Elementary Education Act 1870, which introduced state primary education for the first time. Mr. Gladstone's Government did not ask for a year's pilot scheme. They relied on the existing models of primary teaching in Church schools.
I refer secondly to grammar schools and to the Education Act 1902, which was the first time that the English state took it upon itself to provide secondary education. The government of the day did not rely on a year's pilot scheme, but looked to the existing endowed secondary schools and to the practice in Germany.
I turn thirdly to the disputed change to comprehensive schooling, possibly the most profound change made in English education since the 1902 Act. Circular 10/65 stated that every local authority had to come forward with a scheme for comprehensive education. It is true that some doughty Tory councils delayed—and have delayed to this day—but it was not the intention of Mr. Crosland that they should.
Perhaps I may remind the Committee of another great change in English education when a noble Baroness, who sits in this House on a different Bench but is not here today, abolished direct grant schools. No one said that there needed to be a year's evaluation.
There are many nursery schools in this country. We do not need a year to study this. I say with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that when my pupils quoted Latin tags I often feared the argument that followed.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: Many of your Lordships will have received a great deal of material on this Bill. What has intrigued me has been the number of letters that I have received from private individuals—far more than I have received on any other issue since first becoming a Member of your Lordships' House 12 years ago. Some of the letters are simply signed circular letters, but many are individually written and refer not only to a particular school but, more importantly, to particular children, to the children for whom the parents are responsible. In almost every case, the writers state that they are looking for high quality nursery education which is locally accessible.
We all support the intention of providing nursery education on a wider basis—I certainly support that—but as has already been said, the question is whether this Bill will facilitate that. I am by no means opposed to
28
the Bill, but I accept that many people in our society have grave hesitations about it simply on the grounds of what it will do to their child's nursery education. For them, it is not a political matter; it is entirely a family and personal matter.
As I said at Second Reading, I have taken the trouble to consult two of the diocesan boards of education which were involved in the pilot project. I have received comments from both about their hesitations which mirror the hesitations of many parents. The noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, referred to her talks with a primary head teacher in Norfolk. My information is that there are many models—four are spelled out in the paper that I have—for working to provide nursery education in Norfolk, of which the model mentioned by the noble Baroness is one. That seems to make the point that some sharing of experience and reflection on what is actually happening is essential.
Much of this work took place even before the nursery voucher scheme was proposed. Perhaps I may advise the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that the demand from Church schools for nursery provision was strongly in evidence even before the Bill emerged. Surely what we need is an opportunity for the kind of on-going evaluation which has been mentioned, but for that to be brought together in a reflective way so that there can be some sharing of experience. I do not see that that means that the existing pilot schemes must be halted, but I do think that it means that the scheme must be properly grounded. There needs to be an opportunity to share both the difficulties and the strengths of what is happening.
Clearly, the two boards of education which I consulted had very different views. One, in the rural area of Norfolk, was particularly concerned about a matter that has already been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. I refer to the need for local provision. That board is by no means clear that the voucher system will make available more local provision in rural areas. The concerns are different in urban areas and relate mainly to ethnic minorities and the need to ensure that information is available in a variety of languages. Clearly, such matters can be dealt with, but, if the scheme is to be properly founded, I believe that a certain amount of reflection on the experience gained from the pilots would be extremely valuable.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Parry: I begin by apologising to the Committee for my absence from earlier discussions on this matter. I have been handicapped and unable to come to the House. I am here now not because of the quantity of my postbag on this, but because of its quality. I am here not because of the organised circular letters to which the right reverend Prelate referred, but because of the friends who have asked me to be here this afternoon specifically to win a stay in what they consider to be progress towards implementing a scheme which may contain valuable provisions, but which they feel threatens the existing provision of nursery education.

29
I make a short but passionate intervention on behalf of those teachers who have written to make precisely the opposite comments to those made uncharacteristically vehemently by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, whom I have faced in your Lordships' House in discussions over many years. I know of her concern for education, but what we have heard this afternoon has been the authoritative voice of government dictating to people who have concerns rather than listening to what they are saying.
We have heard it said that only those who support the Government's case are worth listening to in the staff rooms and classrooms of Britain. However, that is not borne out by the facts. There are many teachers of great experience who care about this matter as much as anyone. From this side of the House I have never questioned the care of those on the other side of the House. However, this afternoon I have heard history rewritten from that side of the House in authoritative and ringing terms, declaring that things that never happened in the history of education in Britain happened under the administration of the governments that I have always supported.
The teachers in the classrooms of Britain and the parents who work with them in parent-teacher associations do not like the scheme at the moment. They want it to be re-examined carefully. As was said by my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that is implicit. My noble friend made it perfectly clear that he is not seeking to halt the scheme, but to improve it. He is seeking to bring into the discussion the voices of those teachers who will work with the scheme. For heaven's sake, why don't we listen to them?
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I should like to speak briefly to Amendment No. 31, which stands in my name. It states that the Secretary of State should annually review,
"the educational, financial and administrative consequences of arrangements made under section 1 and following consultation may revise those arrangements".
The argument is similar to that which we have heard in relation to reviewing the pilot scheme, but it is not identical. We are talking here about a new way of providing education. People have grave doubts about whether over the long term the Bill will achieve the objectives that have been set out for it. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, spoke about the need to target funds. That point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on Second Reading. When the Secretary of State comes to review the financial consequences of this legislation, one of the things that he could consider is whether this additional provision—if additional provision is made—is being made where it is most needed. That would be extremely useful.
We are talking also about the quality of education. People are worried because there is no provision in the Bill as it stands—later amendments seek to address this—for there to be trained nursery teachers in every nursery class. That goes straight to the heart of the quality of the education which the children will receive. If the Bill is enacted, an annual review of the
30
educational results of the operation of its provisions could enable the Secretary of State, where necessary, to amend the way in which the scheme is being operated.
I speak briefly, following the gentle hint given by a previous speaker. I believe that something as new as this must be looked at on an ongoing basis to ensure that it achieves its objectives; namely, the extension of good quality nursery education to those children covered by the Act at a financial cost which the Act determines, particularly in those places where it is most needed.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: The amendment of the noble Baroness has caused me the greatest concern. Does she know of any precedent in any other form of legislation for this type of clause?
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I am not at all sure that I do, but this is an unprecedented way in which to provide education. The world in which I am more accustomed to play a role is that of local government. When one has tight resources directed to specific objectives one tries to monitor whether they are effectively deployed. I suggest that the Government ought to do the same.
Baroness Seccombe: I did not intend to speak. However, when the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, referred to complaints it occurred to me that I also had had complaints, but from parents who were furious that their councils had not taken up the opportunity to participate in the pilot scheme. They asked when that opportunity would be available to them. We have heard about the success in Wandsworth and how popular the scheme is with parents. It widens choice and gives parents responsibilities with a variety of provision. I cannot support the amendments. I believe that evaluation should be ongoing, but I see the Bill as seeking an extension of quality education for all children.
Lord Sewel: I seek to justify the double-take objective of the amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has referred. I believe that the argument is relatively simple. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Bill as it stands at present, not because of the policy objective of widening access to nursery education—which I do not believe divides Members of this Committee—but because of the introduction of a new principle of public policy. For the first time a major public service is to be provided by means of a voucher scheme. That is a totally new departure. A case has never arisen where a major public social service—nursery education—is to be provided by the voucher method.
One thing that is certain about this legislation is that unforeseen and unintended consequences will arise. When major changes like this are made it is virtually certain that matters will arise at the implementation stage which were not even dreamed of when the scheme was put together. For those reasons, the amendments that are now being discussed are important and valuable. They provide an opportunity to see how a voucher scheme impacts on educational experience, on access, particularly access by differentiated social groups, and

31
the level of provision of nursery education throughout the country and in different areas. There is an absolutely unanswerable case for having a decent period in which consideration can be given to the effects of the scheme and an opportunity for reflection and modification. Otherwise, we stand the risk of introducing a totally new basis upon which public services are to be provided, and in a way which, to be quite honest, completely ignores the need for proper scrutiny when such a major change is contemplated.
Lord Dormand of Easington: When the Minister replies, will he say whether there is any part of the scheme which will not be subject to examination in the four pilot areas?
Lord Dixon-Smith: One of the joys that I have experienced in being a Member of the House is that from time to time I hear a speech delivered with such fluency and plausibility that, even though the argument is fundamentally flawed, I am enormously tempted to go along with it. One heard such an example this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris.
I have spent a large proportion of my life in the indirect administration of education as a member of a county council. I have spent a great deal of time battling with my LEA. On many occasions I have battled for my LEA. For a small proportion of the time I have found myself in the same situation on a national basis. I have battled with LEAs and, on many occasions, for them. I hesitate to indulge in this argument because there are a great number of black pots and kettles rattling round in this Chamber this afternoon. However, I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
Curiously enough, the fundamental issue that lies behind the Bill is subsidiarity. Of course, at national level we know what it means. If a decision can more appropriately be taken in Westminster than Brussels that is subsidiarity, and we are all for it. I have witnessed a slight change in the scene. LEAs argue about subsidiarity. Very properly, they have argued with Westminster and Whitehall over the years that decisions which can better be taken locally should be taken locally and not nationally. The argument goes on. One sees the same congruence of view here between an LEA and Whitehall. If a decision can better be taken by an individual that is where the decision should properly lie, and the purpose of this particular Bill is to aid and facilitate ordinary people so that they have greater power over their children's education from the start.
Throughout the whole of my experience in education there has been a consistent congruence of view—I hesitate to call it an alliance because I do not believe that it will ever be that—between the Labour Party, the teachers' unions and some LEAs in favour of the collective view over the individual view. That may be an uncomfortable fact. The evidence is entirely circumstantial but it is based upon long experience.
The next question is whether one is to wait for sufficient evidence to have certainty in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, has already provided the
32
answer. The great reforms are undertaken based upon something that has already happened and they have been put in, as far as possible, across the country. If one is to wait for evidence for the success of the scheme how long a period will it be? At what point does one know that the scheme is a success? Does one measure it when children pass out of primary school? Surely not. One could not then be certain of the effect and impact. Does one measure it when they leave secondary school, or perhaps university? How many cohorts of children does one need to provide solid evidence? This presents a very real problem. We cannot wait that long. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, spoke to a series of amendments. They address a way of delaying the implementation which goes against the principle of giving individuals the power to take decisions in this area of education. I cannot support the amendments because they will delay that possibility, and I think that is wrong.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I wish to speak to Amendment No. 31, to which my name has been added, in the light of earlier contributions made in the debate.
There may be, although I have yet to receive any evidence from any source, including debates and letters I have received in relation to the Bill, parents who since 1977 have been offered local education authority nursery education who would rather opt to take a voucher that would provide less than half-time nursery education funding and spend it elsewhere. I have no evidence of anyone in that position.
However, I know of people whose children receive no nursery education who may, if offered the opportunity, wish to avail themselves of the new money the Government offer to supplement full or part-time nursery education or to buy less than half-time nursery education.
The Bill includes two issues. It includes the Government's calculation of additional resources to be made available to provide nursery education where none exists and where there is no choice and availability.
The Government could say that all parents, whether or not they are offered a place by the local education authority in a voluntary aided school nursery, for example, could choose to go down another route. They could choose to take a nursery voucher and move their child from the maintained sector to some other form of nursery education. The Government could use the new money to ensure that those for whom a place was not available or those who preferred the private sector could purchase a place using that money. That situation would have been clear, and then the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, may have been valid.
I have dealt with local government finance at the sharp end, facing Government Ministers, since 1977. The Government have chosen to remove the money currently spent by local education authorities on the education of children in local authority schools, and say that parents who wish to continue to use that provision will have to apply for a voucher. They will have to fill

33
in a form and write to a private company which will assess the matter, and it will have to be collected by the school.
The Government state that they will remove the right amount of money for the children who are in the maintained sector and provide it through a voucher, and that the local education authority will get back that amount of money, if everything continues as it is now. With the greatest respect to the Minister, I have spent many years looking at the way in which local government finance works. If that degree of precision were to occur, it would be the first time in the history of local government finance.
The Government owe it not to us, but to parents, to explain why a sum of money may have to go through eight different channels to get back to where it started, involving huge bureaucratic costs, and causing trouble to Church schools, nursery schools, and everybody else.
If the Government have new money and want to target people who want to use it in that way, why do they not do so? Why do we have to have this process? There may then be a case for saying no to delaying evaluation. I am suspicious as to whether the Government's facts are financially accurate.
Lord Henley: I hope that neither the noble Lord, Lord Peston, nor the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, wants to add to the contributions from the Opposition Front Bench. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for writing to my noble friends Lady Young and Lord Campbell of Alloway. I have no doubt that he wrote to other noble Lords and will write to me. I look forward with interest to receiving his billets.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I wrote to them because I feared that they might not be here but I knew that the noble Lord would be here.
Lord Henley: I am grateful for the noble Lord's consideration. Ignoring what the noble Lord's noble friend has just said, the amendments broadly fall into two groups: first, those seeking more regulation on the face of the Bill and less of what the noble Lord referred to as arrangements; and, secondly, the major part of the group of amendments (Amendments Nos. 2, 6 and 13) which deal with evaluation. I shall deal with them separately and in that order.
The Bill sets out the broad framework, and the necessary legal underpinning for the grant, and its functions; for example, allowing the use of the child benefit database, defining the inspection regime, and so on.
Amendments made to the Bill in another place provided that two key elements of the grant arrangements should be set out in regulations. Those two elements are the type of institution which can be eligible for grant, and the description of children in respect of whose education grant can be paid.
As the noble Lord will be aware, later we shall be discussing a further government amendment (Amendment No. 21) which provides for a third key element of the grant arrangements to be contained in
34
regulations. That element is the way in which the grant will be calculated. Those three issues are key policy issues, and should therefore be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
The grant arrangements themselves will include the administrative detail. It is clearly not sensible to make all that the subject of legislation, be it primary or secondary. Time-consuming amendments would then be needed for the slightest change, which would be absurd. It would also limit the flexibility of grant which will be paid to a range of types of institution.
All the grant arrangements will be clearly set out and published. Key aspects will be in regulations, and the usual arrangements for accounting to Parliament for public expenditure will apply.
Those are convincing arguments for what I refer to as the first part of the group of amendments. I hope the noble Lord will feel that it is not necessary to press those amendments whatever he may feel about those relating to evaluation. However, in support of my case for rejecting, I need have done no more than point to the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee's report on the Bill. I am sorry that the noble Lord was dismissive of the committee's report because I believe that the committee, which we set up to deal with exactly such questions, performed its job very well on this occasion. It held considerable discussion with my honourable and right honourable friends within the department to ensure that its concerns were allayed.
The committee reported that, subject to the method of calculating grant being contained in regulations—hence the further amendment—
"the delegated powers in the Bill will be subject to appropriate parliamentary control".
I hope that the noble Lord will accept that the amendments, which are based on Amendment No. 1, are not necessary because the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee dealt with those concerns.
I turn to the question of evaluation. I accept the word of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that the amendment is not a wrecking amendment. The noble Lord knows how restrained I am on these occasions and I should be the last to say that it was a wrecking amendment. However, I must say to him that it is partially a wrecking amendment because the scheme, if it could not go forward, would be wrecked for the parents of children aged four in 1997. I am the first to declare an interest because I shall be the father of a four year-old late in 1997. As regards that group, this is certainly a wrecking amendment. I do not believe that it is necessary to delay the introduction of the new measures for a year or more, as the noble Lord suggests.
The amendments would have the effect of delaying the introduction of nationwide implementation of the scheme. There would have to be an evaluation of Phase 1 in the four LEA areas over 12 months; that is, up to the middle of April next year. A report would then have to be made to Parliament and the arrangements for Phase 2 could not be made until that had been done. Phase 2 could not, as a result, come into force in April 1997, as planned.

35
Amendment No. 31 would cause further delays year on year as the grant-making arrangements were reviewed annually and consultation undertaken. It would, in addition, cause considerable uncertainty for nursery education providers in all sectors about future funding arrangements. The additional choice offered to parents by the scheme, the new arrangements for quality assurance, and the availability of new resources through the vouchers for expansion would be delayed. There is no need to deny those benefits to children and their parents up and down the country, and the Government have no intention of doing so.
Obviously, we shall monitor the operational arrangements for Phase 1 by drawing on data on the issue and redemption of vouchers provided by the voucher agent and by surveys of parents and providers. I can give an assurance that initial results will be placed in the Library of each House as they become available, with an overall assessment in the autumn. The first inspection reports under the new quality assurance regime will also be available in the autumn. Ofsted envisages publishing an overview report of early inspection findings in January next year.
The noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, asked which parts of the scheme would not be evaluated. Obviously, there are some elements of the scheme which we cannot evaluate fully until we embark on Phase 2. I do not believe that the beneficial effects of yet wider choice and greater participation will be seen overnight. However, as we move on to Phase 2 we shall begin to see those benefits and we shall be able to inspect and evaluate them as they arise.
As my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith made clear, it is not always possible to see all the benefits of every new reform overnight. One only has to look at the national curriculum, which most people now accept. We shall not see the benefits of children having studied science since the age of five until the end of the century because the full cohort of those starting to study science at the age of five will not have reached the end of the national curriculum until the end of the century. However, that should not be an excuse for delaying the introduction of such a beneficial new measure.
Baroness Hayman: Does the Minister agree that perhaps a pilot scheme with a proper evaluation of SATs for seven year-olds might have proved extremely valuable rather than having to change the whole scheme for everyone, which is what we faced?
4.45 p.m.
Lord Henley: I would be the first to accept that we did not get the national curriculum right first time. I would be the first to accept that broadly we have got it right now. That is why last year we said that we did not envisage further changes for another five years. That was broadly welcomed throughout the educational world.
The noble Baroness will be aware that we have in place a pilot scheme in order to examine some of its advantages. We have a chance to evaluate the scheme,
36
which is what I am arguing today, but we do not believe that evaluating over a longer period has any advantages. It simply delays the advantages to those who are missing out on them at the moment.
Baroness Hayman: My point to the Minister was simply that everyone nationally had to go through the pain of getting it wrong first time in SATs and that that ought to make us extremely cautious about evaluating properly the pilot scheme here.
Lord Henley: We have a pilot scheme and we are evaluating properly. The noble Baroness and her party are suggesting that we should delay the scheme even further so that no one other than those in the four areas can benefit from its advantages.
I have said a great deal about the evaluation that we shall be undertaking and the detail that we shall be making available to the House. We believe that the various data and the findings will provide a good basis for deciding in the coming months whether any changes are needed in the operational arrangements for Phase 2. They will allow us to settle for this autumn the Phase 2 voucher administration contract; our plans for publicity and information; the briefing of the LEAs, the schools and other providers; and other operational arrangements. Those must be settled this autumn if there is to be a smooth introduction of the scheme nationwide next year, as many parents and providers expect.
Let us remember what is new in the scheme. Basically, it is the funding of some nursery education via vouchers and the inspection of private and voluntary providers. It is unlikely that a full year's evaluation of Phase 1, proposed in the amendment, would add significantly to the initial findings from the monitoring and assessment that we plan. As I made clear, it will take time for the major effects of the voucher scheme to be seen. Our evaluation plans provide over the medium-term for surveys to compare the provision and use of places for three and four year-olds. Over the longer term, they provide for longitudinal research into the effects of pre-school education to at least Key Stage 1.
We are committed to the proper monitoring, assessment and evaluation of the voucher scheme at all the appropriate stages in its development. The necessary plans for Phase 1 are in place and the results will be made available to this House and to Parliament as a whole. The alternative versions proposed in the amendments are unnecessary and would disadvantage the many parents and providers who are looking forward to the start of Phase 2 next April. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am sorry to say that I find the Government's reply less than totally satisfactory. Obviously, they are determined to concede absolutely nothing. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, quoted a letter in support from Wandsworth. That is the only letter in support that I have heard until today. Most of us have received hundreds of letters from parents,

37
governors, LEAs, children, teachers and headteachers who are root and branch against nursery vouchers and all they stand for.
Lord Northbourne: I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that today I received 26 letters from playschool groups supporting the voucher scheme.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I believe that my total is 32 against and therefore on today's play I claim a victory. I may be slightly wrong on that because I have not opened all of them, but this very day I received a pile of nearly 50 letters.
Lord Henley: If the noble Lord has not opened his letters, how does he know which way they are pressing him? The noble Lord ought to be able to answer that question.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: As I said, there are at least 50 letters there, and I have opened only 32 of them.
However, I should like to clear up a few misconceptions. It is not a wrecking amendment because such an amendment would wreck the Bill. If the amendment were accepted, it would not wreck the Bill; indeed, it would simply delay the operation of one part of it. Therefore, in my submission, it is not a wrecking amendment.
I should like now to take up the point on the 80 per cent. take-up made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I should point out that in Kensington and Chelsea there is barely any new provision and the vouchers merely reflect what is already there. In that case, 80 per cent. is not good: it is inefficient. On the other hand, in Norfolk almost all the new provision is by the LEA; in other words, giving the extra money to the LEA directly rather than taking it away, shuffling it around and then pushing it back would have produced an even better expansion.
The noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, pointed out that there would be a 12-month period of evaluation, as indeed did other Members of the Committee. But that is not necessarily so. Indeed, the Minister made it clear—I should like to underline this—that the main scheme could, I believe, start in September 1997 if the amendment were accepted. As I said, the amendment would simply delay the implementation of the arrangements until the evaluation is done to some point after 1st April 1997.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: Assuming that the Bill receives Royal Assent in July, I am not sure whether the noble Lord referred to September 1997—I imagine that I may have misheard him—for full implementation. Is that correct?
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Yes.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: But that is a year ahead.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Surely it was only going to be April 1997 in the first place.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: I may have misunderstood.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Perhaps we can discuss the matter at a later point.
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I yield to no one in my admiration for the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee with whose members I have had several discussions. They were deeply concerned until The Next Steps pamphlet came out and had been discussed, as I understand it, between themselves and the Minister. In the light of what has been said, I beg the Committee's leave to withdraw Amendment No. 1. However, in doing so, I give notice that I shall move Amendment No. 2 and ask Members of the Committee to express an opinion on it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 6, after ("may") insert ("by, or in accordance with, an order").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move.
4.53 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 114; Not-Contents, 135.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Annan, L.

Haskel, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Hayman, B.

Ashley of Stoke, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hollick, L.

Berkeley, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Birk, B.

Hooson, L.

Blackstone, B.

Hylton, L.

Borrie, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Jeger, B.

Carter, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Judd, L.

Craigavon, V.

Kennet, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Kintore, E.

David, B.

Lockwood, B.

Desai, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Diamond, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Donoughue, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

McNair, L.

Dubs, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Eatwell, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Elis-Thomas, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Ewing of Kirkford, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Ezra, L.

Mayhew, L.

Falkender, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Falkland, V.

Monkswell, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Murray of Epping Forest, L

Gallacher, L.

Nicol, B.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Ogmore, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Parry, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Peston, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Gregson, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Grey, E.

Rea, L.

Halsbury, E.

Redesdale, L.

Hamwee, B.

Richard, L.

39

Ripon, Bp.

Taverne, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Rochester, L.

Tenby, V.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Seear, B.

Tope, L. [Teller.]

Serota, B.

Tordoff, L.

Sewel, L.

Varley, L.

Shannon, E.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Shepherd, L.

Warnock, B.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Weatherill, L.

Southwell, Bp.

White, B.

Stallard, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Winston, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Addison, V.

Hooper, B.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Howe, E.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L.

Ilchester, E.

Astor of Hever, L.

Inglewood, L.

Balfour, E.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Birdwood, L.

Kimball, L.

Blatch, B.

Lauderdale, E.

Boardman, L.

Leigh, L.

Bowness, L.

Lindsay, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Lucas, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Lyell, L.

Brentford, V.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Bruntisfield, L.

McConnell, L.

Burnham, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Butterfield, L.

Mackay of Clashfem, L.

Butterworth, L.

[Lord Chancellor.]

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mackay of Drumadoon, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Camock, L.

Manton, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Marlesford, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Merrivale, L.

Chelmsford, V.

Mersey, V.

Chesham, L. [Teller.]

Miller of Hendon, B.

Clanwilliam, E.

Milverton, L.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Monson, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Courtown, E.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Mottistone, L.

Cuckney, L.

Mountevans, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Moyne, L.

Denham, L.

Munster, E.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Murton of Lindisfame, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Nelson, E.

Downshire, M.

Newall, L.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Northbourne, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Northesk, E.

Elles, B.

O'Cathain, B.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Elton, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Erroll, E.

Oxfuird, V.

Ferrers, E.

Palmer, L.

Flather, B.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Peel, E.

Gage, V.

Pender, L.

Gainford, L.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Quinton, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Rawlings, B.

Harlech, L.

Renwick, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Romney, E.

Harrowby, E.

St. Davids, V.

Hayhoe, L.

St.John of Bletso, L.

Henley, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Holderness, L.

Seccombe, B.

40

Selbome, E.

Swinfen, L.

Sharples, B.

Teviot, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Slim, V.

Trumpington, B.

Stewartby, L.

Ullswater, V.

Strathcarron, L.

Vivian, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller]

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Wedgwood, L.

Swansea, L.

Wynford, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.1 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 7, at end insert ("except in any area of a local education authority within which a majority of parents of children with places in maintained nursery schools, voting in a ballot organised in accordance with regulations, has voted that arrangements under this Act should not be applicable to that area").
The noble Baroness said: Opting out has been a theme of government policy since the passing of the Education Reform Act 1988. That Act was intended to give parents the opportunity to vote to establish a different system of governance in their children's school, with funding direct from the Government. Later, an element of selection was introduced.
This amendment follows precisely that logic in providing that parents should determine whether vouchers should be introduced in their area. In many parts of the country, most notably Solihull in the West Midlands—an authority under Conservative control where provision was made available for all parents of four year-olds who wished their children to avail themselves of that provision—local parents are clear that the mechanism of the voucher scheme, as enshrined in this Bill, will bring no benefits to their area. In areas with a high level of provision such as Solihull the removal or raiding of local authority finances to provide the base of the funding for the scheme is imperilling existing provision in an area where the local authority has made that provision widely available and where it is widely used. Parents in Solihull are increasingly puzzled as to why vouchers are necessary. I await with interest the Minister's reply.
In the debate on the previous group of amendments the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to the level of success as being measurable by the number of parents who claim their vouchers. However, that is the only way that parents who are satisfied with what they have now, and with the resources that are available to the local authority, can ensure that the system may continue. However, the huge bureaucratic nightmare of red tape and the cost involved in those parents in Solihull and elsewhere having to claim the money through a different route is bewildering to those parents and to most people involved in the education service in England and Wales, and in Scotland where the Government can hardly claim that their proposals have met with universal welcome. Parents ask why, if they are satisfied with provision now, they should have to claim vouchers through this costly, bureaucratic, red-tape nightmare in order to continue to receive what they now have.
These are not assertions or criticisms of the legislation. This amendment accepts that the Bill will proceed, but provides that it should do so as a measure empowering parents rather than imposing a scheme upon them. It would require the Government to bring forward regulations to set up a system of balloting, not dissimilar to the system established by the Government under the 1988 Act (and revised in 1993) for opted-out schools. Where a majority of parents with places in maintained nurseries voted that arrangements should not apply within that LEA area, they would be exempted from the voucher paper chase.
The Government claim that the system they propose to introduce is universally popular. I can find no evidence of that. People in areas such as Solihull can find no one to speak in support of the scheme. Surely the Government ought to judge the legislation they propose on the basis of their past philosophy and logic. If the Government believe that there ought to be parental choice, why cannot those parents collectively express that choice? Why on earth should we waste public money to ensure that parents apply to obtain what they have now, and why should we have to pay for seven, eight, or ultimately even nine bureaucratic hoops? I have seen the Government's statements about the cost of the scheme. I remain totally unconvinced on that point. We on these Benches believe that if the Government are being consistent they will support this amendment. I beg to move.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: I also support this amendment. Parental choice is an important principle, and the Government do not have a monopoly on it. The difficulty has sometimes been in persuading them to apply it in cases where the result might not be to their liking. The classic example of this was in our debates three years ago (I was re-reading some of them last night) over the rights of parents to opt back in from grant-maintained status if circumstances later changed—a right which the Government were not prepared to grant. That was apparently a choice too far.
Here we have a situation where it is clear from our postbags that in certain areas, notably those where nursery education is already thriving, parents see real problems in the patchwork arrangements this Bill seeks to impose. They should be able to opt out if that is their majority wish. There is no reason in logic or practice why a scheme of balloting should not be devised which gives effect to such a choice. I would urge the Government to look favourably on this amendment.
Lord Tope: I rise briefly to support this amendment, which is also tabled in my name. The points have been well made by the two previous speakers. In my experience—I speak as a leader of a local education authority and our party's Front Bench spokesperson—not only have I not received a single letter from anyone supporting this scheme so far, and certainly no letter from anyone castigating my authority for not taking part in the pilot schemes, but the overwhelming majority of letters have been from parents who simply do not understand why, when they already have good provision for their four year-old child, they will have to go through this enormous paper chase and great
42
bureaucratic tangle. They do not understand why we shall have to spend, by the Government's estimation, £20 million—although some of us suspect it will be rather more than that—administering a hugely bureaucratic process which simply takes them back in the end to where they are now, or something worse. It must be entirely consistent with the Government's education policy over the years not to impose a national scheme on parents who do not wish it, but to allow them the choice to opt out if they so wish. That seems entirely consistent with government policy and practice. I find myself a little uncomfortable in supporting it, but on this occasion I believe that it is right to allow the opt-out. I am pleased to support the amendment.
Lord Bowness: I am sorry that I was not present for the whole of the Second Reading debate. I am even sorrier in many ways to find myself not in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington. They are local authority colleagues of many years' standing, albeit from the other side.
I understand entirely that Members of the Committee opposite may approach the question from a point of view and direction different from that of the Government. Indeed, as a former leader of a local authority I can understand some of the problems and worries expressed about the paperwork involved. I have no doubt that the Minister will consider whether, in the light of experience, the process can be streamlined in some way.
However, in the context of this Bill, I find the amendment incomprehensible. The proposal goes further than that urged upon us by local authority associations in their briefing to Members of the Committee. The amendment does not even propose a scheme to be adopted at the discretion of individual local education authorities. It proposes a vote among those people who currently have a benefit in a particular sector as to whether or not a similar benefit should be extended to those who currently do not enjoy it.
There is no proposal to seek the views of those parents who do not enjoy the benefit. During the course of this afternoon's debate, there has been an assumption that all parents who put their children into nursery education in the private sector can do so without hardship. Yet I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, will know from their local authority experience that local authority leaders are frequently told that if the provision of nursery education is inadequate in their area, for whatever reason, it causes many people considerable hardship. But those parents suffer financial hardship in order to put their children into nursery education in the private sector, either because they believe passionately in nursery education, or because it is necessary to have some kind of childcare to enable a parent to go to work.
The ability of an education authority to provide nursery places is not limited solely by the question of resources. It relates to the physical constraints, the location where places can be made available, the size of the sites and the suitability of the schools. To say that the amendment carries forward the principles of opt-out proposed in previous legislation for grant-maintained

43
schools is not true. There one consults the parents in one school at a specific time about the future of that school. That does not deprive other parents within the area of the opportunity to put their children into local authority maintained schools. If parents were against grant-maintained status, and a ballot goes against them it does not prevent those parents putting their children into local authority maintained schools.
However if the amendment were agreed, it would enable parents with a vested interest at the time the vote was taken—those with children in maintained nursery schools—to prevent the proposals in the Bill being made available to other parents.
While the question presumably would be prescribed by the regulations referred to in the amendment, who will explain to the parents concerned the implications of voting yea or nay? I do not believe that one can draw a parallel with this proposal. It is not appropriate to go to one small sector of the community—parents who happen to have their children in maintained nursery places—to decide whether or not other parents can take advantage of a national scheme which is put forward to increase the number of places available. I oppose the amendment.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness David: The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said that some people will be put at a disadvantage by the amendment. But the parents of those already in nursery schools will be the major part of the electorate who will be involved in the scheme. No doubt in areas such as Sollihul, with about 95 per cent. of children in nursery schools, the major part of the electorate of that area will be affected. I am strongly in support of the amendment. I believe that it follows the case of grant-maintained schools where parents have the choice. I do not see why parents should not have the choice as regards this scheme. I have received a vast number of letters asking for this amendment to be put forward. Since the Government make such a thing about parental choice, I believe that those voices should be listened to. I hope very much that the Government will look kindly on this amendment. I strongly support it.
Lord Monkswell: In a previous debate, our noble colleague from Essex—I regret that I forget his name—
Lord Henley: I believe that the noble Lord refers to my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith.
Lord Monkswell: I thank the Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, suggested that the nursery voucher scheme was an example of subsidiarity. A rather better example of subsidiarity is the mechanism put forward by this amendment. We need to recognise that while there may be some advantages for individuals receiving nursery vouchers, there will be disadvantages in terms of the withdrawal from local education authorities of funding which is currently spent on nursery provision. We need to recognise that factor. We need to recognise, too that local people should be able to judge the balance of advantage and disadvantage.
44
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, spoke of everyone wanting to become grant-maintained but being prevented from doing so by adverse propaganda, pressure and so on. I do not believe that anything could be further from the truth. I suggest that one of the reasons why there have been no opt-outs in, for example, Manchester, is that the local population has considered the balance of advantage and disadvantage and made a judgment locally that it is better off within the local education authority provision rather than opting out. To argue that it has been coerced is absolute nonsense. People make a judgment locally.
While the Government provide the facility for individual schools to opt-out of local education authority administration within the area—effectively going from LEA administration to national administration—it is surely only right that the local community should be able to make that judgment about the provision of nursery education within its area—whether it should be funded and provided through the LEA or through the voucher scheme. Surely it is only right that the Government should allow that sort of local discretion. It would enable the local community to accommodate the situation that will pertain in the local area.
Perhaps I may give two examples of how that situation might be variable. At one end of the spectrum a local education authority, having received the revenue support grant funding for nursery provision which the Government are intent on withdrawing, may make up that funding from other areas within the budget: from the council tax or by diverting funds from other areas of revenue support grant. At the other end of the spectrum the perspective could be completely different. Not only will the situation vary from one local education authority to another; it will also vary over time. Among other provisions, this amendment would enable those who will be subjected to the regime to make a decision, probably year by year, which on balance will be to their advantage. I hope the Committee will recognise that as a very sensible and logical provision to make within the Bill.
Baroness Hayman: I support the amendment. I see it as a way of limiting, at least in some cases where parents participate in these ballots, the transaction costs that worry me in relation to the implementation of the scheme. I share some of the concerns expressed on the Benches opposite in relation to ballots of parents; namely, that a particular group of parents at a particular time will shape policy in their area for the future. This issue has been of particular concern in relation to grant-maintained status. As the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, said, there is the difficulty of going back when perhaps a different group of parents concerned with the same school take a different view about how they want the school organised.
My anxieties about the transaction costs involved in the nursery voucher scheme are such that I believe we ought to take any opportunity to limit those costs. As I said at Second Reading, I have had the bitter experience of working in the health service, and seeing the introduction of markets and pseudo-markets in the provision of a public service. I have seen the costs that

45
come with that. I have two concerns in relation to this particular scheme. The first was argued by the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington. It relates to the number of layers of transaction costs that will be involved in recycling the money back into the local education system where the majority of nursery education is being provided. I should much prefer to see a scheme whereby local education authorities were able simply to provide, with targets set for them, the most suitable and necessary education in their particular areas through whatever providers—voluntary, public or private. It is a waste of public money to enter into the sort of transaction costs that are proposed.
The other issue is whether schools and local education authority nursery schools will be able to reclaim the money owed to them, as it were, for the pupils whom they already have on their books. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, referred to the difficulties involved.
We underwent a similar exercise in the National Health Service, when we changed from funding provider units directly to a system of capitation funding through purchasers. It was called the "template" exercise. The object was to look at what hospitals were doing, see where the patients came from, see what every treatment cost, and then divide up our budgets. The money would then be reallocated to all the purchasing authorities for them to provide a purchase service on behalf of patients and come back to the hospitals through a different route. That was to be called "steady state"; and there was to be no difference in the funding. Seven years on, we are still arguing about the inaccuracies in the template as it was first set up. It makes me extremely wary that this scheme will simply plough back to those already providing the service the funds necessary to do so. For those reasons, I very much support this amendment.
Lord Sewel: The Bill and the amendments provide an interesting example of the tensions between individual decision-making and collective decision-making. It could be reasonably argued that individual decision-making is an appropriate form of decision-making where there is a clear alternative, and collective decision-making relates to either something or nothing at all.
In the scheme before us, people do not have the opportunity anywhere in the elaborate decision-making process into which they are almost entrapped, of saying, "No, we don't want a voucher scheme". They can make a choice as to whether to go down the public or the private route thereafter. But that choice is already open to them, and will remain open to them under any circumstances. The difficulty is that the Bill does not give the individual a choice in terms of saying yes or no to the voucher scheme per se. My noble friend's amendment tries to achieve an opportunity for parents to say, "No, we don't want a voucher scheme. We will exercise our choice between different forms of nursery provision, completely separate from a discussion about provision through vouchers".
Lord Tope: Before the Minister replies, I wish to comment briefly on the points made by my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, in suggesting that under this amendment the electorate is perhaps drawn a little
46
too narrowly. As I am sure he knows, the basis of the electorate mentioned in this amendment is exactly the same as that currently used for grant-maintained schools. If he wishes to argue that the electorate for a ballot to opt out and assume grant-maintained status should include prospective parents, particularly from feeder primary schools in the case of a secondary school, and from neighbouring schools that would be affected if the school were to opt out, I should have much more sympathy for his argument.
The purpose of this amendment is simply to base the electorate on the same basis as that chosen by the Government in dealing with primary and secondary schools that wish to opt out of the system. That is the point. In addition, in this case we are talking about parents and schools having a change imposed upon them which they may feel they do not wish to accept. We are saying that they should be given an opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to adopt this scheme. In other words, we give them freedom of choice.
Lord Bowness: Perhaps I may respond to the noble Lord on that point. Clearly, he did not understand the difference between the ballot for the opting out of a grant-maintained school and the proposal in the amendment. If parents vote to take the school out of the direct control of the local education authority into the grant-maintained system, free education still exists, whether in the grant-maintained sector or the local authority maintained sector. Parents within the area of the local education authority can put their children, if they feel so strongly about it, into a local education authority directly maintained school.
In this situation, however, if the amendment were carried, parents who could not get their children into local authority maintained nursery education would be denied the right to the voucher, which they might find particularly useful, given that for a number of reasons, not just to do with resources as I outlined in my previous remarks, there may not be sufficient places. Such a vote by such a closed community would deprive a larger number of people of the benefits of a national scheme. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, there is a significant difference.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Henley: I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Bowness for making that point. I had intended to assure the noble Lord, Lord Tope, that he was wrong. I shall come to that in due course.
I find this the most extraordinary amendment in many ways, first because we now see the party opposite espousing opt-outs. I seem to remember the one-time Opposition education spokesman in another place, Mrs. Ann Taylor, telling a Labour Party conference, "We oppose opt-outs in principle because it is wrong", but we have seen further changes today.
The reason I find the amendment totally extraordinary is its wording and its wholly defective nature: first, because it does not do what the noble Baroness is setting out to do; and, secondly, because of its extraordinary

47
lack of precision or definition. First, the amendment draws absolutely no boundaries for the areas which might opt out of the scheme, merely referring to:
"any area of the local authority".
How would that be defined? Would that be the parish? Would it be a parliamentary constituency? Could it simply be one borough within the LEA or one district? The matter is not defined at all. Secondly, the amendment specifies that only parents of children attending maintained nursery schools—I emphasise that, and that is what the amendment says—would be eligible to vote in such a ballot. As I think the noble Baroness will be aware, there are some 550 maintained nursery schools in England, but they are not spread evenly throughout the country. There are a number of LEAs with no maintained nursery schools at all. In those LEAs all the maintained nursery provision is made in nursery classes attached to primary schools or in reception classes. They are excluded from the noble Baroness's amendment.
I shall give the noble Baroness a few examples which will be close to home for her and for the others who put their names to this amendment. Lancashire, which the noble Baroness knows well, has more maintained nursery schools than any other English LEA. I am advised that in January 1996 there were 39 maintained nursery schools. Sutton, which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, knows as well as the noble Baroness knows Lancashire, had only two maintained nursery schools in January 1996, although Sutton does make extensive provision for children under five, but in nursery classes, not in nursery schools. Perhaps I can turn to Oxfordshire, although I see that the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, is not in his place. I regret I do not have the figures for Leicestershire, with which he also has connections. Oxfordshire has some 18 nursery schools but has a relatively low overall participation rate for the under fives. A final interesting example would obviously be Solihull, which the noble Baroness mentioned, and there was much debate in another place, as the noble Baroness will be aware, about that particular LEA. Solihull has no nursery schools at all, so there would be no parents eligible to take part in the ballot because their provision is made not by means of nursery schools but by nursery classes or reception classes.
Thirdly, one has to look at who is being asked to take part in that ballot. I merely ask why parents of children in maintained nursery schools should be able to determine whether or not all other parents in an area should be able to benefit from the new grant arrangements. That certainly is the effect of the amendment as it stands.
We want to give parents of all four year-olds the opportunity to choose the type and nature of the nursery education which best suits their child. When we say "all", we mean all of them and not only those currently fortunate enough to have secured a nursery education place. That is why we believe very strongly in parental choice, and the voucher effectively allows every parent to express his or her view about local provision across the board. If that local provision
48
satisfies the parents' needs, the maintained schools and LEAs have nothing to fear and will lose nothing whatsoever. We also want to offer opportunities to those who have not yet secured a place for their children or who would prefer a different sort of place. Let us be quite clear that if a local education authority wants to continue to provide the same number of places to the same children, it will be absolutely free to do so and will not lose out. If an LEA continues to recruit the same number of children in the same pattern, it will be no worse off. I have heard no allegations from the noble Baroness or others that the kind of provision which local authorities are making is not satisfactory and that individuals will not wish to make use of it. Good provision, from whichever sector, that is meeting the needs of the parents has absolutely nothing to fear, and I hope therefore that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The Minister, in his response to the debate, appeared to indicate that were certain phrases or words in the amendment not to be used the Government would be quite happy. He appeared to imply that if the wording of the amendment were to ensure that parents of children in nursery units and classes and reception classes in Solihull were also able to vote, the Government would be happy to satisfy that request. The Minister appeared to be saying that if the franchise were to be widened he would recognise that too.
The objections that have been raised by the Minister to the drafting of the amendment appear to be of more concern to him than the principle. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, referred to finding a way to simplify the system. Surely the simplest way to make the system easier is for those who are satisfied now to be able to opt-out of having to have a voucher. It is a very strange comment from a Conservative Minister that, on top of the wasteful, bureaucratic cost of paying for what parents already have (and which is funded through the revenue support grant, Government income, the national non-domestic rate, the local council tax, redistribution and the allocation of grant) the Government want to add a procedure whereby, the LEAs have to get the money back through eight different systems, in order that parents continue to have the provision they already have and with which they are satisfied. The Minister says it is perfectly all right: the Government are finding the money from somewhere else. I am sorry. My experience of the people of Solihull and the way they view local government expenditure is that they will not be satisfied by the Government saying that it is perfectly OK, they will make sure that the additional bureaucratic costs come from somewhere else. My experience of parents is that they look at the size of the primary school classes and say, "Thank you very much, Government. We would rather spend the money on teachers than on jumping through eight new bureaucratic hoops".
The amendment enfranchises only parents with places in the current system. That is the Government's comment. But these are the parents who are most

49
concerned about what they have now being imperilled as a result of the vouchers being imposed. The electorate is exactly the same as that which would apply in the case of a GM ballot. The Government seem to say: "There are parents, parents and parents. When it suits us we will take only the parents of children in a school. When it does not, we will not." Obviously, if the Government were able to support the principle of the amendment and take it away and look at it, we from this side would be prepared to withdraw the amendment at this stage and await the Government meeting the request of parents for parental choice. I see the noble Lord the Minister shake his head against that, and therefore I have no alternative but to seek the opinion of the Committee.
5.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 88; Not-Contents, 111.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Addington, L. [Teller.]

Lovell-Davis, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Berkeley, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Blackstone, B.

McNair, L.

Borrie, L.

McNally, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Carter, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Mayhew, L.

David, B.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Meston, L.

Desai, L.

Methuen, L

Diamond, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Donoughue, L.

MonsksWell, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Morris of castle Morris, L.

Dubs, L.

EatWell, L.

Nicol, B.

Elis-Thomas, L.

Ogmore, L.

Ewing of Kirkford, L.

Palmer, L.

Falkender, B.

Perry of Walton, L.

Falkland, V.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Prys-Davies, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Redesdale, L.

Gallacher, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Geraint, L.

Rochester, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L. [Teller.]

Seear, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Serota, B.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Sewel, L.

Grey, E.

Shepherd, L.

Hamwee, B.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hayman, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hollick, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Tope, L.

Hooson, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Varley, L.

Jay or Paddington, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Jeger, B.

Warnock, B.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

White, B.

Judd, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Lockwood, B.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Longford, E.

Winston, L.

50

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Addison, V.

Kimball, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Leigh, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Lindsay, E.

Balfour, E.

Lucas, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Blatch, B.

Lyell, L.

Boardman, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L

Bowness, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

[Lord Chancellor.]

Brentford, V.

Mackay of Drumadoon, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Marlesford, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Bruntisfield, L.

Merrivale, L.

Burnham, L.

Mersey, V.

Butterworth, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Cadman, L.

Milverton, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Mottistone, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Mountevans, L.

Carnock, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Munster, E.

Chelmsford, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Chesham, L. [Teller.)

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Nelson, E.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Norrie, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Northbourne, L.

Coleridge, L.

Northesk, E.

Colwyn, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Courtown, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Park of Monmouth, B.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Peel, E.

Denham, L.

Pender, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Downshire, M.

Rawlings, B.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Renwick, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Romney, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Elton, L.

Selsdon, L.

Feldman, L.

Sharples, B.

Ferrers, E.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Flather, B.

Skidelsky, L.

Gage, V.

Stewartby, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Strathcarron, L.

Gray, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller.]

Gray of Contin, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Swansea, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Harrowby, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Henley, L.

Trumpington, B.

Holderness, L.

Ullswater, V.

HolmPatrick, L.

Vivian, L.

Hooper, B.

Wise, L.

Howe, E.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Inglewood, L.

Wynford, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.48 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 7, at end insert ("except where any such arrangements would have the effect of reducing the resources available to any local education authority in the first or subsequent financial years of the operation of those arrangements by comparison with the last financial year before such operation").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 86 are grouped together. For the convenience and, I hope, intelligibility of this group, I shall move

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Amendment No. 4 and leave Amendment No. 5 to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, with the certain knowledge that my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies will be able to enlighten the Committee on Amendment No. 86.
The purpose of Amendment No. 4 is to prevent the loss of resources to authorities with high levels of provision through the system of financing vouchers chosen by the Government. It is intended to press the Government on their justification for imperilling existing provision in a number of areas. The issue was raised at several stages in another place, notably and strongly by the Conservative Member Mr. lain Mills on behalf of his authority of Solihull.
I have this day received a letter which was wrapped around a large box. I cannot, of course, exhibit the box in any way, but it is a marvellous box and I believe that it is in order for me to refer to it. It contained 1,200 (give or take a few) hand prints from children in the schools in Solihull that would be affected by the Bill. Although I cannot exhibit anything in the Chamber, if at any time Members of the Committee would like to see the kind of artwork that takes place in those marvellous schools—there are some wonderful ones in Solihull—the box is available for their inspection in my room.
The letter is addressed to,
"Dear All Lords and Ladies, re. nursery vouchers".
It says that they are sending the 1,200 sets of handprints from the children of Solihull, because in Solihull they have an excellent education system for pre-school children which has taken them a long time to build up and which would take only a short time to destroy if the nursery voucher scheme were to be implemented as compulsory. They beg us to consider giving Solihull and many other authorities the chance to opt out of the scheme and continue with their excellent provision. The box was presented to me just after midday today by a lady acting on behalf of the Solihull Parent Action Group. I thought it might lighten the proceedings a little if I were to refer to it.
The method by which the Government propose to fund the larger part of the voucher scheme is, in our view, flawed and of great concern to a wide number of people. Most of the finance will be taken from local authorities in a way which will affect them very differently, and that is the point. Some of the highest providers will lose not only what they spend on four year-olds, but also a great deal of what they spend on three year-olds. In other words, the introduction of vouchers will not only place existing provision for four year-olds in doubt it will impede progress towards expanding nursery education for three year-olds.
In biblical terms it is a case not so much of "Unto him that hath shall be given", but of "From him that hath shall be taken away everything that he hath, especially if he has got rather a lot". Or, to use another parable, the wise virgins are going to be punished and the foolish virgins are going to be given a considerable handout.
The reason that could occur is that the majority of the funding for the scheme is to be deducted from local education authorities and under the Bill redirected to the making of grants equivalent to the value of the voucher.
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The problem is that the amounts to be deducted per child bear no relation to the actual cost of providing a place in a specific area. The largest deductions will be made from those LEAs with the highest provision.
The Government will claim that the money lost will simply be regained if parents with vouchers again choose the LEA schools. But that is a simplistic attitude to the problem. We have already heard from my noble friend Lady Farrington of the paperchase—the way in which the vouchers money will go from one end of the LEA to the other and back to where it started in an extremely difficult bureaucratic scheme. It also ignores the impossibility of planning and budgeting for services for which the funding is wholly uncertain until after the start of the financial year.
I hope the Committee will agree that we are not running a corner shop. We are running more than 106 LEAs, and they are running a highly complex and difficult financial operation. Not to be able to plan forward—to have one's forward planning vitiated in this way is extremely serious. The financing method threatens to destabilise existing nursery provision at the price of expansion in areas with fewer places. Not only is that unfair, a more logical system would better deliver expansion in nursery education: if the additional resources which are being created were simply made available to LEAs for the expansion of the public and private sectors in partnership.
Of the £750 million intended to be spent on the voucher scheme in 1997–98, £565 million will be deducted in advance from the revenue support grant payable to local education authorities. Thus £165 million will be new money. The money deducted from LEAs represents over half of the £1 billion which the Government consider authorities should spend on nursery education. But in the case of the high providers such as Solihull, with high levels of provision for both four year-olds and three year-olds, 95 per cent. of the money which the Government consider they ought to spend will be removed to fund vouchers in this circular system. It may or may not end up back with them. What a way to run a railway!
The system is inefficient because the process of passing vouchers from hand to hand involves administrative costs which the Government have conservatively estimated at £20 million of the total. There is no provision in that for the training of staff, or for capital spending on buildings and equipment. Therefore, before the expansion has started, resources are being frittered away for the sake of this ideological experiment. Nor is this experiment one that has been followed through in practice since already in the inner city pilot areas, authorities, we are told, have waived the distinction between children whose parents do and those who do not actually produce a voucher. That must be done apparently in order to cope with the number of parents whose first language is not English and the number of deprived families in the areas concerned. Otherwise we just penalise the children.
In practice therefore the money is not following the voucher-bearing child, calling into question the need for the associated bureaucracy and for vouchers at all. A

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more sensible Bill would enable providers to claim grants on the basis of the numbers of four year-olds for whom they provide, without having to present all over the place bits of paper which some parents, for good reasons, cannot produce.
The core difficulty with the mechanism which the Government need to explain is that the deductions will be made according to the number of four year-old children in part or in full-time education in the area rather than the total number of children in the area. That sounds technical. It is. But that technical requirement leads automatically to the highest deductions in the highest providing areas, and that is unfair. The Government need to explain—please, will they do so—why deductions are not based on the number of four year-olds in the population of each area. For example, in Wales the deduction is to be made on precisely that basis, so it is not impossible.
The Government will argue that there is a distinction in that in Wales individual authorities do not have a standard spending assessment for education. That is a technical smokescreen, since the SSA for education authorities in England is drawn up on the basis of four year-olds in the population, and it would be quite straightforward to make the deductions on the same basis. It would produce a proportionate burden all round and avoid removing grant which is being spent on provision for three year-olds.
This is not the easiest thing in the world to follow, which is why I read carefully from my brief. It is important that we understand it and get it right. What it all adds up to is that the Government need to explain the difference between the position in England and in Wales. Further, they need to recognise that a more effective way to expand nursery provision would be to start from the existing base, using LEAs to secure extra places in both the public and private sectors. The new moneys available should be allocated directly to expansion with a strong lead to LEAs being given in national guidance. There should be no bureaucratic or other wastage of scarce additional resources in this very crucial area. I beg to move.
Lord Tope: The noble Lord, Lord Moms of Castle Moms, indicated that I would speak, in particular, upon Amendment No. 5. I shall do as he suggested. However, we support fully what he said in regard to Amendments Nos. 4 and 86 which we believe to be extremely important.
In the Second Reading debate I expressed some anxiety about the effects of a flat-rate voucher scheme, currently suggested as £1,100. That was intended to cover capital costs as well where appropriate, and certainly no separate provision has been made. If, as stated, one of the principal aims of the scheme is to expand nursery provision as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said, it is particularly important that we attempt to target resources on those areas which currently have less or low provision.
If we are to see an expansion, then, by definition, it will not come in those areas which are already well provided for and where the need for additional capital expenditure will be less. If we are to see an expansion,
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it will come in areas of low provision where there will inevitably be considerable capital costs both in terms of premises and in terms of new equipment in order to run the nursery provision. The purpose of this amendment is to try to draw that out and to enable a scheme to be set up which can target resources where a high level of capital expenditure will be necessary in order to achieve that expanded provision.
I have an additional concern that the present approach will disadvantage local authority providers as compared to providers in the private sector. Local authorities are subject to stringent capital expenditure controls imposed by central government, whereas private providers will be free to borrow to finance capital expenditure, presumably on the security of the expanded provision they will then be able to provide and the income they will get in order to resource their debt.
The purpose of the amendment is to try directly to target any new resources on areas where expansion is necessary and thus to make better use of scarce resources to achieve the object of the Bill, which is the expansion of nursery education.
6 p.m.
Lord Skidelsky: The purpose of the amendment is to prevent any local authority losing resources but the purpose of the Bill is that local authorities should lose resources if the pre-school provision they provide is not approved of by parents. That is precisely what is meant by freedom of choice. There will be £150 million of new money going into this provision in the first year. All of it, minus administration costs, will go to local authorities if parents decide that it is to local authority schools they wish to send their children. How one can complain about that and say that the Bill will deprive local authorities of resources I do not know. If they are doing the job that parents want them to do, that will not happen. If we believe in freedom of choice, as do noble Lords on this side of the Committee, and we accept that local authorities which are not efficient in providing what parents want should lose resources and others which are efficient should gain resources, the total effect will be the expansion of pre-school provision. But we do not believe that local authorities should have a monopoly of that provision irrespective of the standard of service they provide. This is a wrecking amendment because it cuts out the primary purpose of the Bill.
Lord Prys-Davies: Perhaps I may deal briefly with Amendment No. 86 which is grouped with Amendments Nos. 4 and 5. I have little to add to what my noble friend Lord Morris of Castle Morris said in his speech in favour of the other two amendments. The purpose of Amendment No. 86 is to clarify and make explicit in the revenue support grant settlement for local authorities each year the basis on which deductions will be made to fund the voucher scheme. It also draws attention to the different methods being used for England and Wales, but I am comfortable with the situation in Wales as far as the methodology is concerned.
As I understand it, in England the deduction, as my noble friend Lord Morris indicated, will be calculated in each local authority area according to the number of

55
four year-olds in nursery places rather than in the population. On the other hand, the basis of deduction in Wales will be the number of four year-olds in the population. The Government claim that this is for a technical reason: that Welsh authorities, unlike English ones, do not have a separate standard spending assessment for nursery education. However, I am glad to acknowledge that a fairer basis of deduction has been positively adopted in Wales.
I would refer in particular to the Welsh Office document entitled Pre-school education: Implementation of the voucher scheme, which was published on 8th July last year. In that document the Welsh Office examined both options and concluded that the first option—the deduction by the number of four year-olds in the population—appeared more equitable since it would not penalise those authorities that had traditionally made a particularly high level of investment in pre-school provision. The nursery SSA for English authorities is calculated on the basis of numbers of four year-olds in the population and therefore it can be argued that the deductions consistent with that should be on the same basis.
The amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out in the RSG report laid before Parliament each year the basis of the grant deduction and the effect on the distribution to each authority through the SSA mechanism. That would enable Parliament to decide whether it considered that the basis was fair and consistent between the authorities and, I suppose, between England and Wales.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: I should like to add my voice to Amendment No. 5, with some slight surprise that it is linked with Amendment No. 4 because we seem to be slightly jumping between topics here, and reinforce the point about some of the problems there might be. I saw today in my post from the Pre-school Learning Alliance, which has done a study of the four pilot areas, quite strong evidence that there will be a problem among its members on the capital element of expanding provision. As has already been noted, if there is a problem on the private side, there will be even more of a problem on the LEA side. So this business of capital costs, which it is hard to see will be satisfied within the £1,100 flat rate, looks like being a real problem.
Lord Henley: I offer my apologies to the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, if he thinks that the grouping of Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 is not appropriate. I can assure him that myself and my team and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, and his team, went to considerable trouble to try to get the grouping right. It is always a difficult matter but it probably assists the work of the Committee, or of the House at Report stage, if we can group as much as possible in order to try to speed up the process of debate and try to bring together matters that ought to be brought together. I think that we can have a perfectly useful discussion on these three amendments even though they are all on slightly different subjects. I hope the Committee will therefore bear with me if I go through the three amendments in much the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, suggested we should, first
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dealing with Amendment No. 4, then going on to Amendment No. 86 and then coming back to Amendment No. 5.
Perhaps I may deal with a couple of misconceptions of the noble Lord, Lord Morris. First, he said that what is proposed is likely to affect provision for three year-olds. I must remind the Committee that no deduction will be made in respect of three year-olds. Only the voucher value in respect of four year-olds already in maintained schools, all of which can be regained if recruitment of four year-olds remains the same, will be deducted. Three year-olds will not be affected in any way. If parents choose the maintained places, as they do now, maintained schools need have nothing to fear.
Secondly, he made the point, which again I do not accept, that it will be virtually impossible for the LEAs to plan forward. Again I would have to say, as others have said on previous occasions, that that is not the case and that they are in no different a position from either the private or the voluntary sector.
The essential principle behind the voucher scheme is that grant should follow the pupils. Neither the noble Lord, Lord Morris, nor myself would want the LEAs providing good quality provision—I am grateful for the stress that my noble friend Lord Skidelsky placed on that—to be financially disadvantaged. But under the funding mechanism proposed for the voucher scheme such LEAs will not be disadvantaged. We have already been told just how good much of the LEA provision is. No LEA, both high and low providers alike, will lose funding if they continue to recruit the same number of four year-olds. So the only LEA provision that is threatened by the voucher provision, as my noble friend Lord Skidelsky, made clear, is poor provision and provision to which parents do not choose to send their children. To me, that suggests that those who talk about schools of their acquaintance losing funding have relatively little faith in the quality of those schools.
But why should LEAs have their existing level of funding guaranteed even if the quality of their provision is poor? I refuse to limit parental choice, which that would do, and remove incentives to improve quality by providing a guarantee in primary legislation that the LEAs cannot lose no matter what they do.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, also asked why deductions are not based on population rather than provision. Deductions from the SSA are made for four year-olds with places to ensure that each LEA can regain its funding, as I have said three times, by recruiting as many four year-olds as they do now. If they do that no LEA will lose out whether a high or low provider.
Noble Lords spoke about the different SSA deduction mechanism in Wales and asked why we had gone down a different route when comparing England with Wales. Overall, there is a higher provision for four year-olds in Wales and less variation between the LEAs as to what the provision is. Therefore, the effect of the "top slice" deduction will be much more evenly balanced than would be the case in England. Moreover, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, made clear, local

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government funding in Wales is somewhat different to that in England in that there is no specific education budget. I hope that both noble Lords will accept that as a reason for that difference.
I now turn to Amendment No. 86, to which, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, spoke. The amendment seeks to adjust the presentation of two local government finance procedures—the Secretary of State for the Environment's determination of revenue support grant, and local government finance reports. The amendment is based on a misapprehension of the technical workings of the revenue support grant and standard spending assessment processes. However, I am confident that the effect the amendment seeks will be achieved in other ways. Every step will be taken to ensure that the effect of the voucher scheme on local authority funding allocations is transparent.
In summary, the Government will discuss fully with the local authority associations the way in which the SSAs take account of the introduction of nursery vouchers. Individual local authorities will have the opportunity to make representations about the pupil numbers on which their own proposed SSA reduction is based before it is finalised. The effect of the reduction on the final distribution formula for RSG will be notified to each local eduction authority as for 1996–97; and the Secretary of State for the Environment's determination of revenue support grant will show the amount of revenue support grant which local authorities will receive taking into account the reduction in SSA. As usual, the distribution of revenue support grant and so, by implication, SSAs, must come under parliamentary scrutiny. I accept that that is necessarily complicated. I hope that the noble Lords concerned will at least read what I have said in due course before taking matters further.
I now turn to Amendment No. 5, to which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, spoke. It deals with capital expenditure. Clause 1 as presently drafted does not preclude the payment of grant for specific capital purposes to providers in any sector; nor does it prevent providers from using voucher income for capital purposes. The amendment seeks to provide a separate stream of capital funding for nursery education.
We expect the voucher scheme to lead, over time, to an expansion of places. In some cases expansion will not entail capital expenditure because new premises can be leased. In other cases, premises can be converted at limited cost. Where appreciable capital expenditure is required, we envisage equal, but different, treatment for all providers. The private and voluntary sectors will be able to borrow on the strength of voucher income, as is common business practice. LEAs can set their own priorities for capital expenditure and, subject to the passage of this Bill, grant-maintained schools will be able to borrow commercially. Total allocations to LEAs for county and voluntary controlled schools this year will be £458 million, a rise of 7 per cent. on the current year.
Many LEAs have already made nursery education a priority within their own capital programmes. Annual capital guidelines do not represent spending limits on
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school buildings. LEAs are also able to invest capital receipts and transfer from their revenue budgets if they choose. The maintained sector can also enter into partnerships with the private sector under the new freedoms offered by the private finance initiative. That will bring private sector investment and expertise into the public sector. I suspect that both the public and private sectors will benefit.
Within the department we are currently working with a number of local education authorities to develop pathfinder PFI projects. Although none of the more advanced schemes is in the nursery sector, the department is aware of interest in the PFI approach to nursery proposals. Phase 1 of the voucher scheme I hope will provide an opportunity to develop the potential of PFI in nursery education.
I appreciate that we have taken together three amendments of some complexity. I hope that that explanation will be sufficient and that the noble Lord, Lord Morris, will be able to withdraw his amendment.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: As the Minister said, this is a technical matter. Among the papers that have been showering on me like confetti the Committee may like to know that I have just received another petition against this entire Bill from a primary school in Haringey. The petition is signed by between 180 and 200 parents, saying they are not happy about it. I do not know where the paper has come from or why it is here. But I put that forward as an example of the way in which we are being deluged with concern from people everywhere about nursery vouchers.
Perhaps I may take up a few matters in an attempt to throw some light on what is obviously a difficult situation. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, makes. I shall want to study and think about it. I say to him that what we are proposing here is not in any way a wrecking amendment because it uses the Welsh model to fund expansion; it does not in any way deny that deductions should take place. We are rather more concerned about the way in which those deductions are taking place.
If the highest provision is in Wales, to me that only underlines the need not to imperil high provision in England. The fact that there is no Welsh SSA is not relevant. The English SSA, the grant to the LEAs, is calculated by population. The grant from the LEAs will be by the numbers of four year-olds. It could easily be done in the same way as it is done in Wales as far as we can see. But it is, I agree, a complicated situation. We would all do well to think about it at greater length and come back to the matter at Report stage when we have had time to talk to each other.
Perhaps I may take just a few minutes to put before the Committee a theoretical example which has been presented to us which I think throws a certain amount of light on the way in which the scheme might work at individual local authority level. Let us imagine two local authorities—this is taking me back to what I like doing, which is teaching—authority A and authority B. The SSA for nursery education for authority A is £4 million.

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The number of four year-olds in LEA nursery places in authority A is 2,700. The number of three year-olds in LEA nursery places is 1,000. The deduction from SSA will be £1,100 multiplied by 2,700 which is £2.97 million. The amount remaining in the SSA of authority A is therefore £1.03 million. Let us compare that with our imagined authority B, which has an SSA for nursery education of £4 million, which is exactly the same as that of authority A. The number of four year-olds in LEA nursery places is only 750 and the number of three year-olds in LEA nursery places is just 50. The deduction from SSA is £1,100 multiplied by 750 which is £0.825 million and the amount remaining in the SSA is £3.175 million. There is a tremendous difference between the two.
On the basis of the figures given for authorities A and B, if it is assumed that all children currently in LEA nursery places redeem their voucher (so the income from vouchers is equal to the deduction from SSAs)—a reasonable supposition—authority A will have an SSA of £1.03 million for making provision for 1,000 three year-olds and for extra provision for special educational needs. It may also have to cope with the financial consequences of providing any new places for four year-olds if the £1,100 voucher income does not cover the full cost of the new places. Authority B will have an SSA of £3.175 million for making provision for 50 three year-olds and for extra provision for special educational needs.
The Government argue that the practical effect of their proposals is that if all the four year-olds currently in local authority schools stay in those schools and redeem their vouchers, deductions will be equal to income and there will be no net effect. However, the difficulty with that argument is that deductions based on actual numbers of children and based on an actual amount (£1,100) are being made from notional indicators of need. These notional indicators of need (SSAs) are related in a very complex way to the amount of grant a local authority actually receives from the Government and is allowed to raise through the council tax by the Government. There is a theoretical possibility that if the Government proceed on this basis, some high-providing authorities could actually end up with negative SSAs for nursery education.
It is clear that authorities will suffer highly differential effects by this operation. Those which are already committed to high levels of provision will, we believe, suffer a financial consequence which will place current provision in a great deal of doubt. That is why we felt that this group of amendments was well worth considering. We agreed to the grouping—I believe that the Government were content—of Amendment No. 4 with Amendment No. 86 because the position in Wales seems so much clearer, granted that provision in Wales is, as the Minister said, much more even because the spread of high providers and low providers is so much less.
We should like to return to this matter on Report. We have now got our point on the record, so let us see what happens when we start to think about it. This is a technical and important point and I do not want to bandy
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figures across the Dispatch Box with the Minister. Having put this on the record, let us think about it before the next stage. That might be a better way to proceed than arguing the toss.
We think that it might be better if something close to the Welsh scheme were adopted in place of what seems to be proposed to cover a situation where there is a wide spread of provision. Having said that, I do not feel that this is an issue on which we should ask the Committee to express an opinion now—not least because several Members of the Committee might not feel that they have total command of all the detail, such as the Minister and I—and obviously several other noble Lords—have had to attain by a process of black coffee and wrapping wet towels around the head for a considerable period of time. I hope that the Committee will agree to return to this on Report. Perhaps we can make some progress with it then rather than now. If that is the feeling of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 not moved.]
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 1, line 7, at end insert—
("( ) The power contained in subsection (1) above shall be exercised in pursuance of the duty imposed by section (Nursery education duty) below.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 7, I should like to speak to some of the amendments in this group and I am aware that other noble Lords would like to speak to others.
The aim of Amendment No. 7 is to require the power to make arrangements for nursery vouchers to be exercised in pursuance of a general duty on local authorities to secure the provision of nursery education. The amendment proposes a new duty on local authorities in relation to nursery education. A previous "duty" on local education authorities to provide nursery education was replaced by a "power" in the Education Act 1980. Nursery education has been expanded (within tight constraints) in recent years, but the creation of a clear statutory duty would strengthen the position.
It is a tragedy to think of the thousands of children who were denied education before it became clear that under the 1944 Act there was a duty, not a power, on local authorities. Sadly, the right of children to have nursery education as a result of a duty being imposed on a local education authority was removed by the Government as soon as it became apparent that it was a legal duty.
The amendments suggest a new context in which nursery education should be pursued within the framework of the Bill. The creation of a voucher scheme should go hand in hand with the restoration of a clear lead in this area so that there is a strong public responsibility for the further promotion and expansion of nursery provision.
Under this amendment, local authorities would have a duty to secure, rather than solely to provide, nursery education. Their duty would thus be to promote the mixed economy in nursery provision which already

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exists and which the Bill seeks, through vouchers, to promote. The local authorities would be the local leaders of partnerships with the private and voluntary sectors, bringing together the many elements of education, care and recreation which meet the needs of the under-five age group. Local authorities are ideally placed to do that and to take forward the development of nursery education in the future.
There is clearly a role for local authorities and local government in various areas of social policy. I cite only one other example. The Morgan Report asked the Government to place a duty on local authorities with regard to tackling crime in their localities. The Government may say that everything can be left to the free market, that eventually the balance will settle in the right order and that even co-operative partnership planning across the private, voluntary and local authority sectors is unnecessary. It is the experience of almost all in local government that haphazard market forces alone can leave areas lacking provision. Ingenuity, innovation and initiative are required to ensure that children in the most remote localities have access to nursery education. I know of cases where there has been, not wilful, but deep deprivation of children in rural communities. I take the case of a child of three. It was discovered that the child was not speaking. His mother lived alone most of the time in an isolated environment and was depressed and nobody ever spoke to the child. It is that kind of planning to meet real needs which is important. I also cite the example of those children for whom provision is perhaps the most difficult because of behavioural problems. Sadly, one hears of many cases of young children who appear to suffer from deep-seated behavioural problems. Any proper planning of provision must ensure that, while condemning the circumstances in which these children find themselves nowadays, provision is made to meet their needs and something is done about such deep-seated problems. We can all criticise; that is easy.
I believe that perhaps the greatest problem in our society today is what I term "grandfather deprivation". When families were less mobile many small children, particularly boys, spent weekends with their grandfathers. Families are now fractured and often children have little or no contact with adult men and their behaviour may become difficult.
I make no apology for citing these examples. They are precisely those where the needs of individual children may fall through the net of the voluntary, private and local authority provision if no attempt is made, on a consensual basis, to bring together all the partners. It is my experience in the county of which I am a county councilor—Lancashire—that there are many good projects that are improved by widespread co-operation. In tackling the problems it is important to bring in different faiths and partners in the voluntary-aided and voluntary-controlled schools sector and to bring together those in urban and rural communities. Amendment No. 7 is a big step in ensuring that those needs are met.
Amendment No. 19 seeks to remedy a weakness in the existing arrangements. Every LEA would be required to say how in future it would go about making
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provision available to all three and four year-olds. I should like to make absolutely plain that we on this side of the Chamber do not see nursery education becoming a feature of statutory schooling where parents are informed that the only pre-statutory schooling provision that should be available to meet the need is in the nursery education sector. However, it is clear that there is need for a commitment to prepare development plans in order to see how parents' needs can be met. The voluntary and private sectors have embraced development planning. In considering this Bill, it is important that we respond, for example, to the majority of the Early Childhood Education Forum who feel that this kind of future development planning is important.
There are other amendments in this group, and I know that other Members of the Committee will seek to speak to them. I have pleasure in moving Amendment No. 7. I beg to move.
6.30 p.m.
Baroness David: I have put down my name in support of Amendment No. 53, which is part of the present group. That amendment seeks to amend that part of Schedule 1 which concerns the general functions of the chief inspector. The first duty is recited in paragraph 3:
"The Chief Inspector has the general duty of keeping the Secretary of State informed about—

(a) the quality and standards of funded nursery education, and

(b) the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of children for whom funded nursery education is provided".

My amendment seeks to add sub-paragraph (c):
"the availability in England and Wales of nursery education to children aged three and four whose parents wish their children to receive such education".
Therefore, under the amendment the chief inspector has to inform the Secretary of State as to the availability of nursery education for three and four year-olds. I believe that it is a follow-up to what my noble friend has just said. If the amendment is passed the chief inspector will have to report on the quantity of nursery education available to three and four year-olds in addition to the responsibilities imposed by subparagraphs 3(a) and (b) and on whether or not it meets the demand. The reference to three year-olds will significantly alter the requirement on the chief inspector.
The Government have stated that the main rationale for the nursery voucher scheme is universal nursery provision for four year-olds and the extension of that commitment to three year-olds. However, the voucher scheme under the proposed legislative arrangements does not guarantee any increase in nursery places. The amendment will go at least some way towards ensuring that the Government are made aware of the true availability of places for four year-olds. The requirement on the chief inspector to report on the availability of places for three year-olds may go some way to safeguard existing three year-old provision. A great many people are very worried that the three year-old provision may be pushed out. There are grave concerns with regard to three year-old provision. Anecdotal reports from areas outside the four Phase 2 LEAs appear to justify those concerns. For example,

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Hounslow LEA, where every primary or infants school has a nursery class, stands to lose —3.1 million from its education budget when the scheme is fully implemented. The CEO has stated that where the majority of places in nursery classes are occupied by three year-olds they will be forced to close. There are anxieties about this matter. I hope that the general need for nursery education for four and three year-olds will be addressed in this Bill, which is concerned with nursery education. I strongly support my noble friend.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I wish to address largely Amendment No. 19 in regard to the question of development plans. I support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady David, about attention to the needs of three year-olds which many people believe are important. Amendment No. 19 also includes a reference to three year-olds.
It is important to remember also that the local education authorities should have a duty, as proposed in Amendment No. 28, to put forward a plan for providing nursery education in their areas. That idea is welcomed by the voluntary and private sectors. There is a consensus that an expansion of places should build on the good practice that has already been developed in many local authorities in partnership with the voluntary and private sectors.
A plan for providing nursery education would assist the Government to use the money where it was most required. The education authority would not have to provide nursery education, but would have a plain duty to analyse the gaps in provision.
The Government have stated that their main objective is the expansion of availability of nursery education. It is extremely important to know where the expansion is required. It is not enough to say that individuals can use their voucher to secure education: in some areas the likely effect will be no expansion of education because all those children are already provided for in some way; in other areas it will merely assist some parents who are paying for nursery education because they will pay slightly less. The provision will not necessarily be expanded because a number of people may escape through the net, and the money will not be directed to where it is most needed. That is a point I made earlier this afternoon.
If local authorities had the duty to ensure that everyone had access to local authority education, they could tackle another problem with the Bill, which is the lack of provision for capital investment or for any support of teacher training. Those matters will be debated later, but they are scooped up in these amendments, because I am trying to explain that the duties placed on a local authority would lead to a better analysis of gaps and a better ability to support provision with capital and additional training for new staff.
A large number of local authorities is doing precisely what the amendment suggests. Those authorities are spread across the country and view the matter from different political angles. In Buckinghamshire the nursery class provision programme has been reinstated, and large numbers of nursery classes are being opened.
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It is hoped that that programme, subject to budget availability, will continue next year. That is one local authority which plans to increase provision.
Bradford, which is a totally different kind of authority, is planning to increase provision in areas of greatest deprivation. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, addressed that point and stressed the need to ensure that the money goes where it is most needed for expansion of provision.
Hampshire and Shropshire authorities, which are different from each other and different from the two I have mentioned are both working with the voluntary and private sectors to increase the availability of nursery education to everyone who wants it. Shropshire is one of the most rural of our local authorities. There is a long list of other authorities, ranging from Richmond-upon-Thames to Salford, which have different approaches but where our recommendation is already in place.
It would be ridiculous to interrupt a programme of expanding nursery provision, in many cases undertaken by local authorities with the co-operation of the voluntary and private sectors—a deliberate attempt by local authorities to use non-statutory providers to satisfy a local need—by providing the funds in a totally different way.
The amendment contains some very useful ideas. I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply. It attempts to do precisely what he has declared to be one of the main objectives of the Bill. It does not attempt to do so entirely or even principally by local authority provision, but through the co-ordinating powers of a local authority with respect to statutory, voluntary and private provision.
Lord Monkswell: I support my noble friend Lady Farrington of Ribbleton on this amendment. I shall speak to Amendment No. 19 which deals with a local education authority making development plans in conjunction with the Funding Agency for Schools, which is the government national arm for funding the grant-maintained sector, and with other providers.
According to the Government's plans, there will be a precipitate injection of demand into the system by the issuing of vouchers next April. There will not necessarily be an equal and balancing provision of supply. There will be a need for staff and premises and for entrepreneurial activity by the local authority or private providers. There will also be a requirement to obtain planning permission for the physical provision of the facilities that will hopefully emerge as a result of that demand.
The provision of supply to balance that demand will not be available at once everywhere. There will be a patchiness. Where there is a lack of entrepreneurial culture in the local community, private sector providers will not spring up overnight. Even if they did, there would be a requirement for those providers to obtain planning permission for premises that complied with the planning laws and relevant regulations.
Given that scenario, rather than a range of people trying to meet the precipitate demand there should be a sense of co-ordination and bringing together of people.

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The local authority planning department and planning committee should recognise the likely pattern of demand in its area. That is what will happen next April, according to the Government's plans. Perhaps I may go beyond that and look at the way in which the scheme will develop over time. I am sure that the Government will not argue that the whole Bill is aimed merely at putting £1,000 in the pockets of the relevant parents next April. There will be a longer term perspective on the arrangement for nursery provision which will change as communities and the number of three and four year-olds in a geographical area change. Inevitably, in some localities there will be a decline in the demand for nursery provision and an emerging demand in others. Therefore, we must consider how the private sector and public sector provision will develop over time.
It is sensible to ensure that that changing provision is accommodated and recognised and that there is a mechanism by which people can come together and say that a nursery school in a particular area may have to close because of lack of demand but that it is necessary to open one in another area as a result of increasing demand. I believe that Amendment No. 19 provides a mechanism under which sensible co-ordination and planning can be established. I am not speaking in the rigid sense of centralised planning but, in terms of co-ordination and provision, of ensuring that a gap in one area is filled perhaps by asking a private provider to make provision or for the local authority to expand a local school in order to make provision available.
I hope that, in the spirit of non-partisanship and with a view to providing long-term continuity and a sense of progression, the Government will look sympathetically at Amendment No. 19.
Lord Skidelsky: I wish to tease out the meaning of the curious new nursery education duty, which is the subject of Amendment No. 28. It provides:
"A local authority shall secure the provision of nursery education within the meaning of section 1(2) above for children within its area".
Which children are they? Are they children whose parents want such education for them; children who are deemed to need such education; or all children, whether their parents want it for them or whether they need it? If the duty of the LEA is to provide education for all children in its area, that is simply a way of extending compulsory education.
I am asking some questions and trying to tease out the answers. If it referred all children, that would be compulsory education under a different guise. If the provision related to children who need education in its area, who is to determine their needs? If it relates to children whose parents want education for them, that is already an entitlement of the Bill and therefore the provision is completely irrelevant.
Am I wrong in detecting the cloven hoof of compulsion; that the object of this group of amendments is to force children into pre-school education, whether
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they need it or whether their parents want it? If not, what is the new nursery education duty which is not already contained in the Bill?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I hoped that I had made it clear when I said that it was not the position of those supporting the amendments to change statutory schooling. However, nursery education should be available to all parents who wish it for children of three and four. That is the aim of this group of amendments.
Within the legislation as proposed by the Government, while there is an availability of nursery vouchers, the planning or the provision to meet the needs of parents—a freely exercised choice by parents—does not fall on anyone. Therefore, this group of amendments seeks to put in place a planning framework in which the more difficult or intractable problems of provision can be met. I draw on my experience of Lancashire where there are tiny village schools. As a result of the nature of the Lancashire communities and because of parental preference over decades, if not centuries, we have tiny Catholic and Anglican village schools. There is a need to make provision in those circumstances.
I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, that none of the amendments is about forcing parents to accept anything. It is my experience that at a meeting about nursery education I have yet to hear an angry parent say, "You are trying to make me have something I do not want". People know that they are not forced to have something they do not want. The amendment is tabled in order to ensure that parents have a range of choices, whatever the circumstances.
Lord Skidelsky: In that case, why does not the amendment provide that the duty relates to children whose parents want education? The duty is to provide education for children and the noble Baroness and others constantly talked about needs. They started talking about wants and preferences only when I asked the question.
Lord Henley: I can explain to my noble friend Lord Skidelsky that I suspect that the thrust behind a number of these amendments is about putting local authorities back in the driving seat in the provision of nursery education. That is why the noble Baroness talked about a "planning framework" and used other such expressions long loved by socialists. The amendments clearly set out two different ways of achieving that but, in essence, both approaches are about preserving the place of local authorities and denying the chance for a real diversity of provision to grow up in response to parents' needs. I cannot say often enough how much the issue of parental choice is our theme. I believe that by introducing parental choice and nursery vouchers we will, over time, stimulate new places to come on stream. Those places will need to respond to parental advance as, under our voucher arrangements, parents will be in the driving seat.
Perhaps I may take the two approaches in turn. First, Amendments Nos. 7 and 28, linked to Amendment No. 92, would place a new duty on LEAs to secure the provision of nursery education for those children within the age range defined by the Bill in their area. In

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pursuance of that duty, the Secretary of State would be required to make grants in respect of nursery education under the provisions of the Bill. As I said, those amendments would put local authorities in the driving seat; in other words, the duty to provide places would rest with local authorities. While the amendment gives the Secretary of State the scope to issue guidance about how this duty might be fulfilled, it would be local authorities which determine precisely how to fulfil their duty.
Amendment No. 19 places an unnecessary additional requirement on local authorities but does not give them any new powers. Any local education authority can put together a development plan for a particular element of its provision and in doing so can consult interested parties. As there is already legislation ensuring that the provision within an area is being looked at and nothing to prevent an LEA putting together a development plan of any description to inform its own actions and to help parents understand its plans more clearly, the amendment is not necessary.
There is no need for the Bill to require LEAs to draw up a development plan and, indeed, in many ways that would be undesirable. We would not want parents to be discouraged from choosing a provider which satisfied the relevant quality assurance requirements and met their needs and those of their children simply because the LEA had not happened to mention that provider in a development plan. As I said, Her Majesty's Government believe that the manner of the expansion of nursery education should be determined by parental choice and not by the LEAs.
I should now like to say a few words about Amendment No. 53, to which the noble Baroness, Lady David, spoke. As I understand it, the amendment seeks to place on the chief inspector a requirement to report on the number of places that are available for three year-olds. That is how the amendment is worded on the Marshalled List, but I assume it to be a misprint. I see that the noble Baroness shakes her head. I imagine that the noble Baroness meant it to refer to three and four year-olds. However, the point is immaterial and I merely make it for the sake of the record.
I believe that it would be inappropriate to ask Her Majesty's chief inspector to report on the availability of places for just three year-olds or, indeed, three and four year-olds. It goes very much beyond his remit as a guardian of education standards. Rather, we should look at the effect of the scheme on the number and type of places available for both three and four year-olds as part of the evaluation. We have in mind a special survey of parents to take that forward, but I would expect any such effect to be discernable over a longer time-scale than Phase 1.
As we are now on the subject of Her Majesty's chief inspector and as there are official spokesmen for the Opposition sitting opposite me, one of whom will no doubt reply to the debate, perhaps I may take this opportunity to invite them to deny the allegations that were reported in the Mail on Sunday yesterday; namely, that the current Chief Inspector of Schools, Mr. Chris Woodhead, would be sacked by an incoming
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Labour Government. I believe that to be a quite reprehensible suggestion, especially as it applies to a public servant who has provided the most excellent leadership in the world of education and who is doing much to see that standards are raised. When the noble Baroness winds up the debate, I hope that she will be able to deny the report that such allegations have been made. I also hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
7 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I should like to begin by reminding the Minister that I have been in local government for too long, first, to believe everything that I read in newspapers. Secondly, I believe slightly less of anything that I read in The Mail on Sunday.
Lord Henley: Do I take it that the noble Baroness is denying that report?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Thirdly, I should point out to the Minister that my experience in local government has taught me that it is unwise ever to refer to an individual public employee by name in public; and, indeed, to rely on someone else's account. I have absolutely no doubt that the Minister is being scrupulously fair in the prét he has given me of the article. However, I cannot be 100 per cent. sure that he read it clearly and carefully. Even the Observer some three or four weeks ago described my honourable friend in another place, Peter Mandelson, as a "former spin-doctor". Therefore, I cannot comment further.
I return now to the issue under discussion.
Baroness Seear: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but I wonder whether she agrees with me on my following point. The next election will probably not take place for another nine or ten months yet. Are we really going to have electioneering in the debates on every Bill that goes through this Chamber? It is taking an enormous amount of time and it is extremely boring. Could we not have an agreement to cut such electioneering until at least three months before the election is due?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I bow to the greater experience and distinguished record of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. I shall seek to do as she suggested. Indeed, I shall be delighted if the noble Baroness can tell me exactly when three months before the next election will be.
I am afraid that the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, inhabit a different world from the world of local government in which it has been my pleasure and honour to work and from which I have derived my experience. I do not know where the parents are who are told what it is that they require. However, my experience is that none of them lives in Lancashire. From the experience of colleagues across the political spectrum—whether it is the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, or the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith—I know that parents are not backward in coming forward. The idea that a local education authority could gather together the voluntary

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sector, the Churches and everyone else and thereby instruct parents as to what they should say they want for their three and four year-old children is a nonsense.
Planning is not a dirty word; indeed, it is not just a socialist word. It is a word that Conservatives in local government have used to secure adequate places to meet the needs of rural communities. I shall read the Minister's response most carefully. I do not propose to divide the Committee on this issue at this stage. I merely say that I do not know from where the Government receive their information regarding the behaviour of the public or of local government. But, in my experience, it certainly does not come from my neck of the woods in Lancashire. We work together and parents say what they want. We actually endeavour to plan to ensure that no child slips through the net. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Dormand of Easington: Before the amendment is formally withdrawn, I should like to say a few words about Amendment No. 53 which the Minister included in his response. I really want clarification on something that the Minister said. He referred at least once to standards, but the thrust of the amendment is availability. I believe that the Minister will agree that one of the functions of the inspectorate is to draw the Government's attention to, say, bottlenecks, or the short supply or over supply of certain items; for example, the number of playing fields in schools or, perhaps, the shortage of science teachers. All those matters are part of the normal function of HMIs.
I should have thought that "availability" as referred to in my noble friend's amendment, to which the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has attached his name, ought to be drawing the attention of the Government to what might be a shortage of nursery education for children aged three whose parents wish their children to receive such education. I believe that to be an absolutely normal function and, as it happens, a most important one especially in the context of this Bill. It is possible that the Minister meant to refer to availability, but he actually referred to standards. I should like to emphasise the fact that the amendment is not primarily concerned with standards: it is concerned with availability.
Lord Henley: I am afraid that the noble Lord misheard what I said. I was trying to make clear the fact that I believe that looking at the availability of places goes beyond the actual remit of Her Majesty's chief inspector, as that is not his proper role. However, as regards the availability of playing fields, and so on, I look forward to debating that matter with the noble Lord some time later this week. I was simply making clear that the number of places available for three and four year-olds was not appropriate to HMI's remit, but that there are other ways that we can look at the numbers. I promised that the department will look into the matter.
Lord Dormand of Easington: In that case, what are the "other ways" to which the Minister referred?
Lord Henley: Again, I thought that I had made it clear that we would look at, say, a survey of parents to examine availability. I do not believe that Her Majesty's
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chief inspector is the appropriate person to look at the numbers of three and four-year olds. That is what I was trying to make clear.
Amendment No. 7, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving the Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage begins again at ten minutes past eight.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Fishing Vessels (Decommissioning) Scheme 1996
7.10 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington rose to move, That the draft scheme laid before the House on 8th May be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, it is but a short time since we had a detailed discussion of the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Perry of Walton, about the serious problems facing fishing fleets, not just in the European Community but worldwide. We learnt that many of the stocks on which UK fishermen are critically dependent are at risk of biological collapse and that urgent action needs to be taken to reduce the pressure of overfishing. Those warnings have been given even more force in the past few days by news of the North Sea herring stock. We also heard a deal of criticism of the Government's efforts to respond, in particular in terms of removing capacity from the UK fleet.
In answer to those comments, I assured the House that we were in full earnest in the measures we were taking and that we already had a substantial decommissioning programme amounting to over £50 million to the end of next year. I know that there are suggestions that this is too little and too late. But, as I also explained to the House, the problems of overfishing have to be tackled on a common basis by all who fish the same stocks. Quite apart from the financial burden of acting alone―and the economic impact on our fishermen and their communities―such sacrifices would simply not have the desired effect if others continue to fish without the same controls and restraint. That indeed is the basic rationale for our staying in the common fisheries policy and making it work.
It is therefore with some sadness that I have to tell the House that the Commission's ideas for the next series of multi-annual guidance programmes, which were announced at a press conference in Brussels on 29th May and which are designed to address this whole problem of over capacity, are simply not acceptable in their present form. First, as my honourable friend the Minister of State in another place has already said, UK fishermen cannot be expected to contemplate further cutbacks as long as there is no satisfactory progress with sorting out the problem of quota hoppers.

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But, in addition, it is clear that there are a large number of inconsistencies and shortcomings in the Commission's underlying approach, most blatantly in respect of its failure to make any recommendation about the level of industrial fishing. At the Council of Ministers meeting on 10th June, I am pleased to say that many of our concerns were echoed by a number of other member states. It is therefore clear that much further work needs to be done before conclusions can be reached. Given the more narrow purpose of the debate tonight, I do not think that we should attempt to go further into these aspects now. I was, however, anxious to give your Lordships a full and frank explanation of the background before moving on to the detail of the draft order itself, which is a much more limited measure designed to deal with our existing commitments to reduce fishing capacity and to meet targets due to expire at the end of this year.
There is much confusion over the rate of UK progress towards these objectives, resulting largely from the Commission's use of different figures and different units of measurement from those reported to Brussels by the UK and indeed other member states. On the basis of gross registered tonnes (GRT) in which our multi-annual guidance programme targets were set, the UK fleet now stands at approximately 207,000 tonnes. Compared with our original target, this is still uncomfortably high. But a number of new factors have come to light about the historical data on which this assessment was based. We are pursuing these with the Commission in an effort to get the figures corrected. If we are successful, the remaining percentage gap will be in single figures and well within the scope of the decommissioning programme which we have been successfully pursuing for the past three years. The question of what more needs to be done to address future targets is, as I said, for another day. In the meantime I wish to elaborate on various improvements we are making to the present decommissioning scheme, notably in the light of a consultation exercise with the industry held earlier this year.
I am happy to tell the House that it has been possible to meet most of the concerns raised in the consultation exercise and significantly to expand the 1996 scheme to make it more attractive and better value for money. I shall therefore conclude by outlining those changes and the principal features of the measure before the House today. In essence the changes relate to the eligibility criteria, which we have widened considerably. In particular we have reduced the number of qualifying days spent fishing from 100 to 75. This will enable a number of vessels that failed to meet the previous 100-day requirement to apply and will maximise the amount of EU funding available to us. We have also removed the restrictions on licence type to allow any licensed vessel over 10 metres in registered length to apply. This will allow applications from shellfishermen and from vessels in the Nephrops and distant water segments.
The exclusion of Nephrops vessels last year was controversial. The Government have listened to those who pointed out that fleet segments are volatile. It is
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true that a large proportion of demersal vessels fish for Nephrops and vice versa. To that extent the segmentation is an artificial construct which we will be seeking to change in the forthcoming MAGP negotiations. I believe that this change to the scheme rules will be widely welcomed. We have, however, retained the exclusion for vessels under 10 metres. With finite funding available we wish to target that part of the industry which has the highest impact on stocks.
In the decommissioning consultation exercise we suggested the possibility of allowing vessel owners to retain or dispose separately of their decommissioned vessels' track record. This was intended to increase the incentive to submit lower bids for applications. The response demonstrated little support for such arrangements on the part of the industry. Again we have listened to the industry and have not proceeded with the suggestion. Finally, in response to a number of concerns, we have introduced a greater degree of flexibility to permit historic vessels to be preserved afloat. This can be done while safeguarding public funds by allowing such vessels to be placed with registered museums. I very much hope that this will enable a valuable part of our maritime heritage to be retained for future generations.
The scheme provides, as it did in 1993, flexibility for Ministers to set deadlines for the scheme. The scheme was launched on 9th May. It has already been announced that applications must be submitted before 25th June and that those that are accepted must decommission their vessels by 31st October 1996. Except for the significant changes I have mentioned, the 1996–97 scheme is similar to its predecessors in that vessels must be over 10 years old, be seaworthy and hold a valid fishing licence and, if accepted, vessels must proceed to decommission or be excluded from future schemes.
As in previous years we will be paying particular attention to the value for money of bids received. If, for whatever reason, funds remain unspent from the current round the timing this year will enable a second tender to be held in the autumn should this prove necessary. To sum up, the 1996 decommissioning scheme is an important part of our strategy to ensure that the UK fleet can remain viable in the face of reduced fishing opportunities and go on to contribute to the renewal of the resources on which so many livelihoods depend. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft scheme laid before the House on 8th May be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committed].— (Baroness Trumpington).
7.20 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her excellent outline of the 1996 scheme and for telling us of the latest state of the British fishing fleet. We are returning to a subject on which we have had two major debates in this House already this year. I refer to the debate on 14th February on the common fisheries policy; and to that on 16th April on the need for a worldwide reduction of fishing effort. There was also my more recent Starred Question on 15th May to

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which the reply came that, if treaty changes were needed, the Government would seek improvements in the CFP at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference. I aim to go on from there and not to repeat what I said on those occasions.
The scheme for 1996 is a further instalment following agreement between the British Government and the European Union on a reduction in tonnage of about 19 per cent. in the United Kingdom fleet from 1993 to 1996. I should add that tonnage by itself is not an appropriate measure. I am sure that that is one of the points to which my noble friend referred as being a difference between ourselves and the Commission. The effective catching power is the realistic statistic for fair comparisons.
Responsible and experienced fishermen's leaders accept that conservation is essential and that fishing effort has to be reduced. They are, rightly, very concerned that this must be carried out fairly between fishing nations, and particularly within the European Union.
The key point in this decommissioning scheme is that about 20 per cent. of the registered British fishery fleet consists of foreign boats—mostly Spanish and Dutch—masquerading as British. They are described as the quota hoppers. Not only do they qualify to fish for UK quotas, but presumably they also inflate the figure for the total British fleet and thus distort the targets for decommissioning.
We have discussed in the past the history and reasons for this extraordinary paradox. I sum up the situation in this way. There is a lamentable contradiction between the European Union laws on establishment of businesses within member countries' jurisdictions and the European Union system of fishing quotas which is based entirely upon the different nationalities of member states. It is not difficult for foreigners to set up offices in this country, as the Spanish have done, and to reorganise their boats to pose and to pass as British.
The European Court of Justice, presented with the task of interpretation of laws on establishment, has ruled that such vessels are British and entitled to be on our register. The Court's interpretation is no doubt correct. Its effect has been to demonstrate that the EU law is incongruous in this field and that sea fisheries were most unlikely to have been in mind when that part of EU law was being drafted and accepted. If Spanish, Dutch and other foreign boats are included in the tonnage total and in the provision of grants, that would be the main objection to our schemes for decommissioning.
We cannot do anything about that this evening except to register protests. I have been registering protests in this House for several years from well before our Merchant Shipping Act was passed changing the qualifications for our register. That Act still did not meet EU law on establishment, according to the Court's later ruling. I trust that the British Government will now be able to secure a resolution of this quota hopping aberration at the IGC.
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Before I leave the subject, clarification is needed on a letter which appeared in The Times of 5th June from a Mr. Wood. I gave notice to MAFF last week that I should raise this matter. The letter stated that the Spanish and Dutch,
"got their quota from the British skippers who owned it",
and went on to describe this as selling one's birthright to the highest bidder. Can my noble friend comment? Does she know whether any British skippers or boat owners were selling their part of the British quota? They may have made some financial transactions with Spanish companies or Spanish fishermen to help them operate from British ports, but the suggestion that individual parts of the British quota were on sale from British skippers should be confirmed or denied. If necessary, a correcting letter in The Times is required. (I am not sure whether The Times would accept a letter from me as it printed one of mine only the day before yesterday. However, that was on a quite different subject—football and inappropriate theme tunes).
The 1996 scheme is broadly acceptable to the main British fishermen's organisations. It enables fishermen to leave their occupation on a voluntary basis with compensation, and with changes from previous schemes which they welcome. My noble friend mentioned some of those.
However, two of their criticisms should be noted. British fishermen are not to be eligible for a decommissioning grant if their vessels are disposed of outside the EU for fishing purposes, or inside the EU for non-fishing use. However, that grant is available to other EU members in those circumstances.
Another source of EU finance which is not available to British fishermen, although it is to others, promotes joint enterprises with parties from third countries. This could help to reduce fishing effort less painfully, with financial contributions from the Commission. Why not bring British fishermen into such schemes, with EU financial help on offer?
Looking ahead to the immediate future, the British Government should be working for radical changes to the CFP. Can my noble friend tell us when the CFP review group, established by our Government, will report with its recommendations, if it has not done so already? Preparations are necessary, too, for the fourth EU multi-annual guidance programme covering three years starting 1st January 1997 and now being negotiated. Matters to be settled are predictions on fish stocks and the extent of proposed fleet reductions.
Further ahead, there has been the latest statement from the EU Commission that there should be a 40 per cent. reduction in fleets from present levels by the end of the year 2002. That can be acceptable only if it relates to the bona fide British fleet and not to the 20 per cent. of foreign quota hoppers; and provided that all the other EU members are carrying out the same or greater reductions, and that the process is being reliably monitored. Reduction will affect fishing communities, many of them small, around our coasts, where sea fisheries have been the chief industry which has provided virtually all the employment, with associated services.

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I reiterate the proposals that I made in the debate on 16th April. I believe that I was the only speaker who touched on this subject. There should be accompanying measures to help provide alternative employment. Fishermen will no longer be certain that their sons can follow them in the same occupation. There will be fewer fishermen in future and there will be some distress in the smaller fishing communities.
The scheme before us is needed. Much work is also necessary for the development which is to be expected in the immediately following years.
7.29 p.m.
The Earl of Clanwilliam: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this debate to our attention. The Minister referred to the government response to your Lordships' Select Committee. That committee found that we were behind schedule in decommissioning and called for more radical targets to be set. I do not know whether there is a confusion in the figure of 407,000 tonnes for the British fleet mentioned by the noble Baroness. It indicates that there may have been some confusion in the mind of the Select Committee. It only goes to show how bewildering and differing constructions can be put on all the directives of the European Union. I am delighted to hear that the reduction proposed by Brussels has been totally rejected by the Government. I should like to know what the decommissioning figure will be: what percentage, what it will cost, and by what number boats are expected to be reduced.
The licences to which my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy referred are to be returned on decommissioning. Can we be assured that the licences will be reissued only to UK fishermen; and that a licence will be issued on the basis that the Government have an option for first refusal on any sale at a fixed price? That may get round the problem presented by the European Court of Justice. Perhaps my noble friend will be able to comment on that.
At the risk of rehearsing previous debates, there are alternatives to decommissioning that we ought to consider. They have all been considered before, but there is the opportunity to limit the use of beam trawlers, which are having a devastating effect on the sea-bed and its biota. Ironically, they were a British invention, a post-war design to maximise production and efficiency regardless of the environmental effect. It is another example of the compulsive urge towards intensive methods of production which pervades all our food production activities. We know what dire effects that can have. Perhaps those trawlers could be redesigned in a more environmentally sensitive manner.
Secondly, there is the vexed question of discards. Can we not unilaterally declare that all discards should be optional? Let all the fish caught by our fishermen be used in either retail or commercial markets. It is important to eliminate the disgraceful waste which is abhorrent to all and which mystifies the general public. It is another example of Brussels madness. Incidentally, it gives rise to yet another environmental disaster on the sea-bed.
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The Select Committee also recommended further trials of the successful rigid sorting grids that were clearly illustrated by MAFF at a recent seminar. There is good news in relation to the square mesh, and especially about the inserts and escape panels. However, I am sorry to hear that the rigid grids are considered too cumbersome for UK boats. Perhaps new boat construction could incorporate this extremely successful and useful system. It is vital for the needs of conservation.
There is one further point. Members of the industry were receptive to the idea of the temporary closure of areas where a high proportion of juvenile fish were known to congregate. In response to the report the Government said that they would look upon that suggestion favourably. I wonder whether anything has been done about it since. With those remarks, I commend the scheme to the House.
7.34 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I am glad to be taking part in this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Robson, slid out of it with great ease and quickness when she discovered I was to be here. The debate is important, not because of the rather miserable measure we are discussing but because of the extraordinarily serious situation in fishing of which all of us are aware. We know that something has to be done.
I understand that we said we should spend £53 million. We have spent £26 million; £13 million is on offer now for 1996 and a further £l3 million in 1997. It may be that the £13 million will not be taken up. It appears that we are not very successful in getting people to decommission their boats. Possibly we make it too difficult; there are too many regulations. The Government have done something in regard to prawners. They have widened the scope. But they are still not getting fishermen to decommission their boats. On my figures, we still have to remove 15.8 per cent. by the end of this period if we are to achieve the 19 per cent. that is promised. The Government may try to have the figures manipulated, but the fact is that we shall be extremely short of the target.
The general position is that the Lassen committee of scientists advises a 40 per cent. reduction. It may well be right. Our experience in the North Sea—we had to close the sea for herring fishing for years before the stocks recovered—is that it is very easy to destroy stocks. Now, not only herring but cod, haddock, mackerel, whiting and practically every fish caught in the North Sea is under threat. Something has to be done. We need not blame flags of convenience.
I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who has great experience and who knows the situation better than most, should wonder whether the letter in The Times was true. There is no other method by which the quota can go except by fishermen selling it. I criticise the whole of the quota system, including that for milk. It is the same sort of thing. Farms are worth less in some cases than is their actual quota in milk. That must be rubbish. A quota is of no advantage to the farmer. It is a thing granted by a bureaucratic

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body. To let it have a value and be traded in this country is bad enough. It keeps young people out of milk production. In this case, in Europe, the quotas can be traded on a European basis. Again, I am told, it is totally common for the quota to be of more value than the boat itself.
The faults must lie with the system. If a British fisherman cannot get a decent decommissioning grant from the Government, he will take the best money that he can from elsewhere. That is why we are in this ridiculous situation. It is very difficult now, but I suggest that the Government try to keep the value where it belongs—in the hands of the licensing authority—instead of letting it accrue to people who have done nothing for it except to be in the business before others were. That keeps new entrants out of fishing.
Again, the Government must surely be to blame for the fact that the Scottish fleet is old, ageing and not up to scratch. There is a scheme on the Continent whereby, if the government of the country concerned put up the money, the EC will add to it for the modernisation of boats, and that is at present being taken up.
The whole question of fishery policy needs to be examined. Norway is a very good example of how to proceed. It has a policy of the discards coming back to port. Also, very sensibly, all forecasts of the fish in the quotas and the amount to be caught are decided in collaboration by the fishermen and the scientists. In Europe generally we do not have that form of collaboration, which can at least make the fishermen believe in the truth of the recommendations. At present fishermen are extremely doubtful as to whether the scientists have a grip on the situation. That is one thing that could happen. Of course it is no good saying that Britain should come out and control her own fishing in the way that Norway does because Norway depends on the European Union producing a sensible policy and preserving the fish. The fish do not confine themselves to one country's area.
A good deal of black fish is being landed in this country today. That appears to me to be ludicrous and dangerous; it means that our supervision is not sufficient. It also means that information on fish landed in Spain, with less than a quarter of the number of inspectors we have in Britain and a bigger fleet, must be, to say the least, somewhat doubtful.
The question of the communities, mentioned by Lord Campbell of Croy, is very important. Something has to be done if we are to reduce, as we must, the number of fishermen employed with the new methods. The Highlands and Islands board has done a great deal to raise employment in the fishing areas and of course that must continue. The late Lord Thurso said that small ports could survive if they were allowed to fish freely with the long lines. I well remember going out in a boat with a long line when I was a candidate in Angus long ago. We took the long lines, baited by the wives with mussels, ran them out over a mile and then descended into the cabin, drank tea and smoked. If a political person was on the boat the idea was to keep him there long enough to make him sick. In my case they just
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failed. Afterwards, the fish were taken off and the small fish thrown back. The fish would command in Arbroath a considerable premium in price over net caught fish. It is possible that no fisherman wants to go back to line fishing, but it could keep the population in the small areas going to some extent. The suggestion may be impractical but it is worth studying. It is essential to get the right answer. Without control in European and world waters there will not be any fish.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for giving as usual a lucid explanation on this order, which deals with a very important subject. I say at once from this side of the House that we welcome some parts of the Government's attitude towards the fisheries policy. The inclusion of Nethrops is right, and as a more flexible approach to the multiannual guidance programme, the MAGP, is sensible. We particularly welcome the proposal in Article 8(4)(b), which allows boats with an historic interest to go to trusts or museums. Perhaps I may repeat a question I have asked a number of times before, and I know has been asked by other people. If decommissioned boats can be given to museums, why can they not be used as part of development aid for third world countries? They could not come back into the European fleet because they would have no licence. I understand that this option is available to the other member states. It would be interesting to know why we are not allowed to take advantage of it in this country.
We agree entirely with the Government that the 40 per cent. reduction figure which has been floated around by Mrs. Bonino, the Fisheries Commissioner, is completely unacceptable and should be sunk. What we are talking about is effort control. This is something more than a reduction in fleet size. I believe there has been a number of proposals from the fisheries organisations for the use of technical and conservation gear. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister what is the Government's response to those proposals, which seem to us to be eminently sensible and to approach the problem from the point of view of effort control and not just a reduction in fleet size.
We agree also with the Government that the omission of industrial fishing from the Commission proposals is quite extraordinary. As we know, industrial fishing can cause grave ecological damage. We are at one with the Government in their reaction to that submission. Industrial fishing must be brought back into the calculation.
I turn now to quota hopping. That has always seemed to me a rather strange phrase: it sounds like some curious form of disco dancing. What firm proposals do the Government have to deal with that problem? I have on a number of occasions seen the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in his place. He knows that I have raised the point that Mrs. Bonino has made certain proposals which suggested that within the existing rules it would be possible to deal to some extent with the problem of quota hopping. The answer we always get is that her suggestions are unworkable, but we are not told why. It would be helpful if the Minister could say why the hints

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or suggestions she has given cannot be followed through. If her suggestions are unworkable, have we any ideas of our own to put forward?
Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of State, Tony Baldry, have said that we intend to deal with flag vessels. The simple question is how? The Government have said that a number of times. We are still waiting to hear what the proposals are and how they intend to deal with it. It has been suggested, rather unkindly, that the Government decided to kick the whole problem into touch in the IGC. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what the Prime Minister and the Minister of State meant when they said that we intend to deal with flag vessels. Exactly how do they propose to go about it?
From these Opposition Benches, and indeed from other places, there have been a number of suggestions, not major but ones which would help if they could be adopted; for example, proposals regarding the national insurance contributions from the crews of fishing vessels, a requirement for British officers to captain vessels which have been fishing in British waters, and also the proposals for the proportionate use of UK ports to make it uneconomic in some degree for the quota hopping vessels to operate.
Why are those proposals not workable? If they are not workable, could the Government tell us what their alternatives are? It is clear—we can all agree about this—that we cannot ask UK fishermen to decommission their vessels in order to make way for vessels of other member states. That was made clear by my noble friend, Mr. Gavin Strang, the Opposition spokesman on agriculture and fisheries, speaking in the other place on 19th December 1995. He said:
"It is unacceptable that we should be decommissioning vessels to facilitate additional fishing opportunities in waters around the UK for the fishing industry of one of our European partners—in this case Spain".— [Official Report, Commons. 19/12/95; col. 1358.]
It is clear that we are not able to accept or agree with it. We are at one with the Government on that.
Perhaps I may offer the Minister an analogy. I was minded to try it when I heard the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, about milk quota. Let us suppose that a farmer in the north of France decided to buy a dairy farm in Kent which had quota. He paid the money for the quota and when the cows were milked, he put the milk in a tanker, transported it through the Channel Tunnel and delivered it to a dairy in France. I think I am correct in saying that that delivery would be quoted against the French milk quota. The French farmer would have paid for the English quota, so the English farmer would have benefited, and would have done a favour to other British dairy farmers because he would not be delivering against our quota. The delivery of that milk on the other side of the water—which would not be completely impossible if the two farms were close to either end of the Channel Tunnel—would, I believe, be quoted against the French milk quota. It is perhaps unfair to spring the question on the Minister but, if that is the case, why cannot that be done in a similar way to deal with the problem of the quota hopper when it comes to fish?
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There have been proposals for scrap and build. It would be interesting to know where we stand with that proposal and how the Government regard it. In common with most member states, the UK fleet is too large in relation to available fish stocks. We all agree with that. The decommissioning scheme has been effective in reducing the size of the fleet. If it has not been as effective as we might have hoped, it is a start. As we all know, it has the advantage of being voluntary. No fisherman is forced out of business.
The British fleet is suffering from the legacy of the late 1980s, when the present Government refused to introduce a decommissioning scheme while the rest of the European Union operated such a scheme to some effect. The main disadvantage of the decommissioning scheme is that, although it is effective in reducing fleet capacity, it does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problem of an ageing and unprofitable fleet. With very few exceptions, the British fleet is now increasingly inefficient in comparison with many of our continental and Scandinavian competitors.
What is required is a mechanism that can achieve the twin objectives of fleet reduction and fleet renewal. At first sight, those objectives might appear to be contradictory. As I said, the possibility of scrap and build offers an alternative. Through a combination of public funding and capacity aggregation, it would be possible to encourage fishermen to modernise and/or rebuild their vessels while at the same time reducing overall capacity. In return for obtaining public funding for modernising and/or building a new vessel, the applicant would be required to take out and scrap a number of existing vessels. In that way the dual objective of fleet reduction and fleet modernisation could be achieved for the same cost as a decommissioning scheme. That would seem to me to be an extremely sensible approach. It would be interesting to know why the Government seemed to reject it. With that in mind, would it be possible to bring forward any part of the decommissioning money for future years and speed up the process?
We have our criticisms, but we have no objection to the order. It is a start, although, as I said, we wish that it were part of a policy to go much farther and much faster.
7.54 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I did not expect this to be a dull occasion and I have not been disappointed. I am only too well aware of the concern of your Lordships' House for the conservation issues underlying the present state of marine resources and for the welfare and livelihood of the fishermen who depend on them. They are all most difficult and sensitive issues and it is right that we should examine them rigorously and critically. There are no easy ways of producing the virtuous circle which gives more fish tomorrow for those prepared to take less today. Economic and political realities inevitably mean that balance and compromise have to be found.
My first point is that we do not have unlimited financial resources. Decommissioning is an expensive policy and will become more expensive as the efficient

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vessels are taken out. It cannot be the only instrument for reducing fishing effort. Certainly, it could not deal with cuts on anything like the scale that the Commission is pressing for, even if they were acceptable on other fronts.
The noble Lords, Lord Carter and Lord Mackie of Benshie, mentioned that the fleet is increasingly out of date and uncompetitive and suggested that we should operate a scrap and build policy instead of decommissioning. I agree that a scrap and build policy is more positive than decommissioning but it is even more—much more—expensive. Funds are limited. We must therefore concentrate on the most pressing objective of removing capacity. Once we have a better balance between the number of vessels and the amount of fish, it should be easier for the industry itself to finance investment for modernisation.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie, said that the Government were not paying out enough for decommissioning. The rate of grant is set by competitive tender. The Government do not set a maximum limit, provided the bids represent value for money. Unfortunately, quotas are a necessary means of rationing a scarce resource.
Let me answer the various questions from my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy and the noble Lords, Lord Mackie of Benshie and Lord Carter, on the subject of quota hopping. There are currently some 150 quota hoppers on the UK fishing vessel register which are fully or partly owned by overseas interests, mainly from Spain and the Netherlands. Of those vessels, around 40 joined the UK register in the early 1980s, prior to the operation of EU quotas and licensing restrictions. Since the mid-1980s the UK has operated a restrictive licensing scheme, which has meant that it has only been possible to bring a new vessel into the UK fleet or take up commercial fishing activity by acquiring a licence from an existing vessel owner.
It is perfectly true that British fishermen have sold their fishing licences and access to UK quotas to agents or others acting on behalf of Spanish or Dutch fishing interests. In some instances those selling licences would not have been aware of the eventual destination. There have been no restrictions on such activity and the rules of the marketplace have operated.
British fishermen cannot be blamed for the advent of quota hopping. The system of national quotas agreed as part of the common fisheries policy in 1983 was designed to safeguard the interests of the fishing communities of each member state. That has been undermined by the practice of quota hopping: foreign-owned, foreign-based and foreign-crewed vessels, fishing against our quotas and landing their catches abroad. The Government took positive steps to deregister such vessels in 1989, but action was subsequently overturned by the European Court in the Factortame judgment. As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy said, the present situation cannot be allowed to continue. That is why the Government are raising the matter through the IGC. We must be able to ensure that our fishing communities derive real benefits from national quotas allocated under the CFP.
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The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked whether Commissioner Bonino had put forward effective measures to regulate quota hopping. Let me put the record straight. Commissioner Bonino has agreed to re-examine with her legal experts the scope for imposing controls on quota hoppers. MAFF and Commission officials are discussing options. But we remain to be convinced that there are effective measures which can be taken within the existing framework of Community law.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked when the Government would present their proposals on quota hopping to the IGC and what those proposals would be. My answer is that we expect to put those proposals in due course and we shall keep the House informed.
As already explained, we have notified the IGC, the Commission and other member states that we shall be tabling proposals to deal with the problem of quota hopping and envisage that they will take the form of a protocol to the treaty which recognises that national quotas allocated under the common fisheries policy are intended for the benefit of national fishing communities and that, notwithstanding the treaty, individual member states may adopt appropriate measures which ensure that there are real economic links between their fishing communities and the vessels which fish their quotas.
It may be necessary to look again at limiting the time at sea. But we can only contemplate that if reductions apply to vessels of all member states operating in the same areas. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, it is difficult to quantify the level of blackfish landings with any precision since such landings are by their nature clandestine. However, it is clear that such illegal activity undermines the efforts to conserve fish stocks and threatens the future viability of the fishing industry. The scale of any additional reductions is clearly a matter for debate, which has a long way to go. It would not be appropriate to go into the detail of that now other than to reiterate that we must have progress on sorting out the quota hopper problem before any decisions are reached. We must also have measures which seem to be necessary, fair and workable which command the confidence of the industry itself.
We are certainly not dismissive of the scientists or their warnings. But there are real doubts about parts of the so-called Lassen Report on which the Commission's current thinking is based. Those relate to issues like industrial fishing and to assessment in areas like the Irish Sea where new evidence is about to be available and the relationship between the different fisheries is unclear. The Lassen Group also recognised shortcomings in some of its data and inconsistencies in the quality of member states' catch reports and their evaluations of their own fishing effort.
It is simplistic to assume that reductions in fishing mortality can necessarily be achieved by simple cuts in fleet tonnage. The relationship between effort and catches is much more complex and needs to be addressed in some detail before decisions can be reached. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, that we are pressing for factors like the age of the UK fleet to be taken into consideration.

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The measurement of tonnage and the need to replace that with catching power was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy. I agree that tonnage alone is a crude measure of fishing efficiency. That is one of the points that we shall be pursuing in the forthcoming negotiations.
In order to allow decommissioned vessels to be given as aid to third countries, under EU rules member states are obliged to ensure that decommissioned vessels are permanently excluded from fishing in Community waters. Normal practice is therefore to require that any vessel be scrapped before grant is paid. We looked carefully at the possibility of allowing vessels to be exported as opposed to being scrapped. We have been unable to devise arrangements which offer the necessary guarantees that vessels will never return to the EU fleet.
I know that the present decommissioning scheme has its critics and that it cannot solve all problems—it is not meant to. It is simply the latest instalment of our current policy designed to meet existing MAGP targets. Effective conservation depends on a wide range of factors, including catch controls and technical measures. My noble friend Lord Clanwilliam referred to the UK fleet as now standing—I believe he said—at 407,000 tonnes. Actually what I said was 207,000 tonnes. I felt that I should set the record straight.
Decommissioning has proved successful. In the three schemes so far, 6.6 per cent. of the fleet has been removed at a total cost of £26.2 million. I can break that down into years, but I will write to my noble friend. He indicates that he does not want it, which is a great relief.
A great deal of confusion has been caused by the Commission quoting figures on a different basis from those supplied by the UK and because of a number of technical factors. We are in discussion with the Commission on the detail. If all the adjustments we identified as necessary are taken into account, we estimate that we may now be only 5 per cent. short of our end of 1996 targets. The Commission's latest figures, on which I have already commented, reveal that eight member states still have to meet some or all of their current MAGP targets and the UK is by no means the worst offender.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about decommissioning allowing in Spanish boats. My answer is no. When a vessel is decommissioned any fishing licences held in respect of that vessel must be surrendered. Under the Western Waters Agreement, which is an entirely separate issue, the UK's fishing quotas are unchanged and our industry's ability to take their quotas is fully protected. We will not lose any fish to the Spanish.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked what the EU is doing about industrial fishing. The total allowable catch is based on scientific advice, except for industrial fisheries such as sprat and Norway pout. In December 1993, at the request of the UK, the Commission established a working group of marine ecologists with fisheries biologists on sustainable fisheries and on industrial fisheries in particular. Last year a working group was set up with Norway to address the problem
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of herring by-catchers in the sprat fishery. That work is continuing in 1996. My honourable friend Mr. Baldry, the Minister in another place, drew attention at the Fisheries Council to the magnitude of the industrial fisheries in the North Sea urging a cautious approach to their management.
It is clear that technical conservation methods have an important role to play in preserving fish stocks. The Commission does not view them as part of its structural policy but it is right that we take their effectiveness into account in assessing what needs to be done. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, will be interested that the fisheries conservation group set up by the Government earlier this year has just produced a report which makes an important contribution in that regard. We are pressing the Commission to reflect its conclusions in its proposals. I commend the scheme to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill
8.9 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 1.
Lord Elis-Thomas Lord Elis-Thomas moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 1, line 7, at end insert—
("(1A) No arrangements for the issue of vouchers in respect of nursery education (in this subsection called a voucher scheme) shall be made under this section in relation to Wales, other than arrangements for experimental voucher schemes, until the conditions set out in subsection (1B) have been met.
(1B) The conditions referred to in subsection (1A) are that—

(a) experimental voucher schemes shall have been in operation for a period of I year throughout the area of at least two local education authorities in Wales; and

(b) the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report on the operation of those experimental voucher schemes, and of voucher schemes in England, which in particular shall include an assessment of the likely effects of voucher schemes upon the provision of nursery education in Wales.

(1C) An experimental voucher scheme under this section shall not remain in operation for more than one year.").
The noble Lord said: Perhaps I may first of all apologise for not being present for the Second Reading debate. I was acting in pursuance of my duties on behalf of the Government, promoting their Welsh language policy. That has some relevance to what I want to speak about today.
I have a major problem with the Bill because it is a piece of primary legislation which applies to England and Wales together. The normal practice in this place is to have separate Bills where there is a major difference of policy or timing, such as in local government or in language policy, or, where it is a major Bill which has relevance to both countries, it is taken with specific Welsh clauses. I would instance the Environment Bill which had specific clauses relevant to policies or practices that were to be pursued in Wales. In all education legislation, certainly post-war, there are relevant clauses which have applied specifically to the

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Secretary of State for Wales since 1964, and before that to the Secretary of State for Education through the Education Department and the Ministers who were responsible for Wales.
One of the areas of devolution in this kingdom which has probably gone on longer than most—certainly in the context of Wales—is education. Yet this Bill does not do that. The Bill provides for no devolution of policy and no devolution of administration. The whole structure of the Bill is centralist. It behaves as if England and Wales were a unitary state and as if the Welsh Office did not exist. Your Lordships may have views about whether the Welsh Office should or not exist. I am strongly in favour of it because it pays my salary for two days a week. However, since it is not paying my salary this evening or perhaps it is, I feel free to criticise—in fact I feel it is my duty to criticise—the Welsh Office in this case. I try not to criticise a department for which I work on a part-time basis, generally in areas of policy which coincide with my work for the Welsh Language Board, but in this case I believe that I have the support not only of the Welsh Language Board, which put forward a memorandum to the Welsh Select Committee in another place which looked at this issue, but also of the overwhelming majority of educationists and of parents throughout Wales in moving this amendment, which would have the effect of placing on the face of the Bill a statutory equivalent of a Welsh pilot scheme.
I say that because, like so many Members of the Committee, I have received genuine correspondence—letters written by real people who expressed real concerns. I have also personally received a number of petitions in all my capacities on this issue. Those petitions will be forwarded to the Welsh Office in the appropriate interval between this debate, depending on what happens to the amendment, and Report stage. I promise that we shall turn to the issue of the relationship between education and nursery education in Wales at all further stages of the Bill until we receive a clearer understanding of the position from the Government.
What we are doing in the Bill so far as concerns Wales is legislating for provision which already exists. I find that a complete legislative anomaly. I can understand the Government saying, "Yes, there are certain education authorities which do not deliver a service and therefore we need to provide diversity of provision there". But the case in Wales is over the top. On one calculation, with double counting, the old county of Clwyd has 101 per cent. of four year-olds in school. We do not all reach Clwyd proportions but even Gwynedd, which for historical reasons is at a lower level, is at 77 per cent. of its four year-olds in school at January 1995. The overall Wales average is 92 per cent. The figure for three year-olds in nursery, primary or special schools in Clwyd at the same date was 65 per cent. while the figure for Wales as a whole is more than 50 per cent.
So when the Prime Minister made his commitment about the introduction of nursery education, he was making a commitment which I am sure was relevant to large parts of England but was not as relevant to Wales as provision already existed. I take rather a dim view
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of a piece of legislation which works to undermine the consensus of operation which we have established within the Principality in the way that the Welsh Office, the inspectorate, the local education authorities, the Welsh Joint Education Committee and the voluntary sectors, both Mudiad Ysgalion Meithrin and Wales PP have worked together over the years to develop this level of provision and the commitment that we have. I find myself in agreement not for the first time with John Ellis, the now retired Director of Education for Dyfed, who gave evidence to the Select Committee in another place on behalf of Cvmdeithas Cyfarwyddwyr Cymru, the Association of Directors of Education Wales, in which the scheme was described as an imposition on Wales of a solution designed to meet the significantly lower levels of provision in England. Whereas I would be in favour of schemes imposed on Wales to improve the level of provision to that of England in a number of areas, that is probably not the case in education. Therefore, I think we need to look at ways in which we can, as it were, rescue the Welsh Office from its willingness to go along on this matter with the Department for Education and Employment.
A letter was sent to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, which indicates quite clearly that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, has consulted his departmental colleagues in the Welsh Office on this issue, but it is not a convincing letter. It does not go much further than information which we already had. Therefore, I still believe that the evidence given to the Select Committee in another place and the response subsequently from the Welsh Office to that evidence is still the benchmark for the implementation of this policy and it will be as far as I am concerned—I am sure that other colleagues will speak on this issue in a similar way—until we are convinced that this is a cost-effective scheme in terms of Welsh Office funding, local government funding and LEA funding and indeed in terms of the voluntary sector.
What is the administrative cost of devising a scheme which provides for, at best, two-thirds of the cost of a place, which top-slices that funding away from the all Wales local authority budget and then puts it back, allegedly through the operation of the voucher scheme? At the same time the individual parent will have to apply for the voucher scheme to the private contractor. I have no objections to private contractors provided they are delivering a service which is more efficient than that delivered in the public sector. In this case I am not convinced that that is happening. This whole bureaucratic structure will exist apparently to create choice and diversity. Where is this choice and diversity in deepest Powys where a parent seeks to ensure nursery provision for a child? There may be the small development of voluntary groups in the area, but if that child is already in the reception class or in the nursery class of the local primary school, surely there is no way in which that parent in deepest Powys in that rural context can exercise a choice. That position is replicated throughout the Principality in different ways.
We do not know, because we are not yet privy to the PES round for next year, how much new money, if any, will be added to this scheme. But I think it would be

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helpful if we could have an indication of any parameters of possible new money. It seems to me that the present design of the scheme creates a situation whereby the local authority service is to be denuded of resources in order to create an appearance of choice which in real terms it is not possible to deliver and to create the appearance of choice where already there is such a high level of public provision. Therefore, I say to the Government and to the Welsh Office Ministers who went along with the scheme in Wales and did not take a Welsh Office option for a different policy structure, which I shall come to in two minutes, that this Bill is seen in Wales as being deeply ideological. That is why there has been such a sharp response across the board from a whole range of bodies—I shall not repeat the list—which gave evidence to the Select Committee.
The Government will argue that the office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector has, in its inspection, identified areas where standards need to be raised. Of course, there are areas throughout both the voluntary and maintained provision where standards can be raised, but the way to do that is to target additional resources where they are most required. The Prime Minister should have gone to the Conservative Party Conference at Porthcawl—from my observation in the Gallery of the other place today during Welsh Questions, Ministers were quite tanned and fit after being in Porthcawl—and announced the introduction of a nursery voucher scheme for three year-olds in Wales, because that would have been the logic of his position. I am not arguing for that. But if the Government are interested in extending choice and providing diversity of provision in Wales, they should have set up a voucher scheme in that area where there is not yet full provision, and not interfered with the level of provision that all the players in the complex scene of under-five education have established in that structure.
So what has the department succeeded in doing, and the Welsh Office on its coat tails? They have succeeded in antagonising a whole section of Welsh educationalists and parents. In 20 years of representative politics I have never seen such a big, genuine postbag as I have seen on this issue. I am sure that that applies to my other colleagues here as well.
There is a simple way out. The Minister has still the opportunity to speak with his new colleague in the department. Perhaps I may say en passant that I regret the way in which his previous colleague in the department was forced to resign. I do not believe that it is helpful to public life in this country that people's personal lives should make profits for newspapers and that Ministers are removed from office in that way. I say that en passant for the record.
With a new Minister in the department with responsibility for education, there is now an opportunity for the noble Lord, Lord Henley, to talk with Mr. Jonathan Evans in another place and to reassess the relationship of the Bill to Welsh education and nursery education and the particular role of the Welsh Office, and to provide for a very simple resolution of this issue. The Secretary of State for Wales is the Secretary of State and, as the noble Lord, Lord Walker, once told me
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when he came to that position, he is able to do anything within his devolved responsibility. So there is no reason why the Welsh Office cannot undertake policy changes in this area even at this late stage.
The Government simply need to move their own amendment at Report or Third Reading. I shall give them the wording if they would like it. I could take it from a series of measures on education that apply to Wales and to grant-maintained schools. There exists on statute something called the Schools Funding Council for Wales. I am not aware that it has even met because so few schools decided to opt out that the power resides with the Welsh Office, the department funds it and there is no such body. But that body could exist by order of the Secretary of State. Similarly, with this scheme, the Welsh Office, and Mr. Evans in particular, can recognise the strength of the opposition to the scheme and its redundant nature in Wales as regards four year-olds. They could recognise that even at this late stage. The Government could draft a clause which would ensure that the nursery voucher scheme for four year-olds in Wales will proceed only by order of the Secretary of State. That would give the department and the Government the opportunity to proceed with the scheme if there appeared to be a consensus in favour of it following the proposal on the face of the Bill for a pilot scheme. If that is not the case, the Government would be going with the grain of education and parental opinion in the Principality.
This is my final point. This is a very important constitutional issue. When legislating in this House and in another place on primary legislation for Wales, it is important that any government must go with the grain of opinion in that country, otherwise there will be an increasingly legitimate demand for primary legislation for Wales to be removed to Wales itself. The Labour Party has such a policy for Scotland and the Liberal Democratic Party has such a policy for Scotland and Wales. Therefore, the Government must realise that when they play around with Welsh education and try to run Welsh education through unitary primary legislation, they are digging their own grave. If they are interested in maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom they have to recognise that that unity is in diversity. I beg to move.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Hooson: I very much support this amendment although, left to my own devices, I would have gone for a much stronger one. As I listened to the enthusiastic speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on an earlier amendment today, it occurred to me that she obviously believes that the intention of the Bill is to improve access to nursery education in the country generally. But its effect as far as Wales is concerned will be entirely retrograde.
I do not normally intervene in debates on education, but in my 17 years in Parliament I have never had such a postbag as I have had on this issue. I have stripped it of all the enclosures. Many of the letters are hand written and have been very carefully drafted by parents

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and concerned people in Wales. For example, I had considerable correspondence on the subject of BSE, but that pales into insignificance beside this subject.
People representing all shades of political opinion have written to me about this matter because they are tremendously concerned about education generally or education for their own children. There was an absence of ideology in most of the letters I received, with people taking an entirely pragmatic view. I suggest, therefore, that this matter should be probed very carefully with a view to the Government thinking again.
The position of nursery education in Wales reflects priorities held by people of all political opinions, including parents and education authorities. Do the Government accept that, on the figures provided by the 1994 review which are the latest figures available to us, 92 per cent. of four year-olds to five year-olds in Wales receive nursery education, which is 92 per cent. of those available to take it? Do they also accept that 73 per cent. have full-time education and only 18 per cent. part-time education? As a matter of interest, on my calculations, whereas the LEA schools take the vast majority of these students, only 545 are in private schools. Do the Government equally accept that on the same figures the majority of three to four year-olds in Wales receive part-time education? Of the total number of children in that age group of just over 38,000, 51 per cent. go to school, of whom 13 per cent. are in full-time education while 38 per cent. are in part-time education. So, in so far as it affects Wales, the Government's scheme is a backward step.
The more that I have read those parents' letters, the more I am convinced that their fears are well founded. The solution that the Government have put forward for the country generally is a solution for areas of the country which are without a solid commitment to pre-five education. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, referred to the fact that in the old Flintshire there was 101 per cent. attendance by four to five year-olds. That is easily explained because children come over from Cheshire where there is little state provision of nursery education. That happens all along the Welsh border. As a number of my correspondents have pointed out, children come over from Herefordshire and Shropshire to have state nursery education in Wales.
The financial implications of the scheme are worrying an awful lot of people. As I understand the position—I should be grateful if the Minister could deal with this point in detail—the Welsh Office proposes to deduct from the local government revenue settlement most of what the LEAs now spend from their own resources on providing full-time education for all four year-olds in Wales. I understand that it is intended to redistribute that money, through a private company contracted for the purpose, to the parents of the same 38,000 or so children each year by means of vouchers with which they can purchase—I now quote the words of the consultation document:
"three terms at least of part-time, high quality pre-school education in the year before compulsory schooling begins".
Given the provision that is already made by LEAs in Wales, the proposed scheme is clearly a retrograde step. Most of the children are in full-time education, not
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part-time education. How will vouchers pay for that, even with the preference given to Wales in the allocation per head under the formula that was dealt with in Amendment No. 86?
Parents in Wales are very content with state nursery education at the moment, but all that is being threatened by the Government's scheme. It appears to me that the Government are abandoning their obligation to give children in Wales full-time education from the age of four and part-time nursery education from the age of three, and are shifting their responsibility to a private, profit-making company. Nobody on the Government's side can lecture me on the benefits of private enterprise because I happen to have been chairman of two of the most successful private enterprise companies connected with Wales. However, there is a sphere for private enterprise, where the object is to have the maximum return on the money invested, and there is a sphere where that should not apply—and the prime motive here should be the well-being of the children.
When the Prime Minister made a public commitment to provide a pre-school place for every four year-old whose parents wished to take it up, he was expressing a sentiment with which we can all agree, but, even when it was made, that commitment had in Wales not only been fulfilled, but exceeded. It had been exceeded by a system almost wholly provided by the local education authorities. It seems to me that to go backwards and to abandon that pragmatic approach in favour of what seems to be an ideological approach is wrong. I hate people with excessively ideological approaches—whether in the Labour Party in the old days (I hope that the Opposition have grown out of that by now) or in the present Government who seem to be hooked entirely on their ideological approach. What possible justification is there for this Government to threaten a system of nursery education in Wales which is working well? If similar provisions existed in England, there would be much more opposition to the Bill. I do not pretend to be able to speak on the merits of the Bill so far as England is concerned, but I think that it is entirely unacceptable that the Government should take this course with regard to Wales.
I have supported the amendment because the very least that the Government could do, given the satisfactory nature of nursery education in Wales at present, is to have pilot schemes in Wales to see how the new scheme will affect the present set-up. No such scheme has been carried out in Wales, so why on earth should the people of Wales accept the system? If the Government do not do that, I think that they will be surprised at what some of their own supporters in Wales think about it. The Government would be very wise to have another look at this.
Lord Prys-Davies: It is relevant to raise the question of the application of this Bill to Wales as there is an enormous desire in the Principality that the present nursery provision should not be imperilled. I have today received a petition signed by 200 parents from Carmarthen expressing their strong opposition to the application of the Bill to Wales.

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I do not propose to go over the ground which I covered on Second Reading, but would like to express my thanks to the Minister for his letter of 12th June commenting on the matters which I raised on Second Reading. Nevertheless, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who is relying on the advice of the Welsh Office, that I am not satisfied with what the letter says—and neither are my colleagues from Wales who have seen it. With the greatest respect, I do not believe that the Minister or the Welsh Office advisers have understood the Welsh point of view as developed by the noble Lords, Lord Elis-Thomas and Lord Hooson, in this Committee.
First, the Minister claims in his letter that there is parental misunderstanding in Wales of the voucher scheme. That claim requires considerable amplification, if not correction. Although some parents and organisations may still be unclear about the issue and the redemption of the voucher—I can fully understand that—there is no misunderstanding of the adverse effects of the scheme.
In his letter the Minister acknowledges that Welsh LEAs have a good record in nursery education. Indeed, he said earlier that there was far higher provision in Wales and less variation than in England. Undoubtedly, there are areas in Wales (possibly some rural areas) where the LEAs may not as yet have achieved the 90 per cent. level of provision which is the Welsh average—just as there are other parts of Wales that have exceeded that 90 per cent. level. The Minister will be aware that there are transport difficulties in many isolated and remote villages.
The Minister claims that the quality of the provision could be improved in certain parts of Wales. The Welsh LEAs have always stressed the importance of improving the quality. It seems to me that the Minister has failed in his letter to provide good reasons for imposing in Wales an untested scheme which puts the whole nursery system, which is of good quality, at the risk of being seriously impaired.
For years we have been told repeatedly by this Government that additional resources, when available, should be targeted on those areas of greatest need. Wales is a small country. Surely it should be possible for the Welsh Office to address local problems in the provision of nursery education where they exist without the need for the extreme and potentially damaging solution proposed by the Bill.
I believe that the Government's principal aim in Wales is the expansion of parents' choice. That was one of the chief points raised by the Minister in his speech at Second Reading, and he returned to it repeatedly in his letter of 12th June. We have not been given evidence of dissatisfaction with the present system on the part of parents in Wales; we have not been given evidence of a demand for an alternative provision. Nor have we been given an estimate of how many parents are likely to opt-out of the LEA provision and how that might affect existing services. The Government simply insist on the principle that there must be room for choice. There is another principle which matters in a free society. The
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exercise of choice by the few should not imperil existing provision for the many provided that provision works well. That is not a matter of fact but a matter of values. Our fear is that the Government under-estimate the capacity of the Bill to cause grave damage to existing nursery provision of high standard while they over-estimate its capacity to produce lasting benefits.
This is a simple amendment. This afternoon there was debate as to whether an amendment was a wrecking amendment. This is a compromise. If the compromise is acceptable to the Government it will go a long way to establish whether or not our fears are justified. It requires the Welsh Secretary to proceed carefully and to undertake the experimental scheme to evaluate the impact of the voucher scheme on existing provision. For all of the organisations and parents in Wales with a special interest in nursery education that evaluation is very important. It will show whether our fears are justified. If so, it will be hard for any government to ignore the warning.
I very much trust that the Minister will be open minded, take seriously on board the principle of the amendment and take it back to the Welsh Office and ask it to think further about its merits.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: I support this amendment, which is not a wrecking amendment. In its relevant part, it is a wrecking Bill. As my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies and the noble Lords, Lord Hooson and Elis-Thomas, have pointed out, there is general satisfaction in Wales with the scheme as it is presently operated. Earlier I listened to the words of the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley. He said that it might be of benefit—I respectfully concur—if we proceeded in these matters on a substratum of measurable facts. We know the measurable facts. The noble Lords, Lord Elis-Thomas and Lord Hooson, and I do not always agree on everything. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and I always agree on everything. The one thing that is known by everyone who has any connection with the education system in Wales is that at the moment the public provision is extremely popular. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that this was a marvellous scheme and it would prove to be immensely popular. We have an immensely popular scheme at the moment.
I am not normally the recipient of unsolicited correspondence, but I have had an enormous postbag of petitions and individual letters, which are not the usual mimeographed letters nor single letters written in red ink and underlined in green. They are sensible letters from people who know what they are talking about and who are passionately concerned about the nursery education of their children. The figures have been given by the noble Lords, Lord Elis-Thomas and Lord Hooson. They provide extremely powerful ammunition.
I regret to say that we are faced with the triumph of dogma, or a kind of unreconstructed Stalinism, which implies that the centre always knows best. This is not a party political argument. The fact is that there are six Conservative Members of Parliament in Wales at the moment who have majorities which range from 19 to

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just over 6,000. There are very few local government councillors in Wales who bear the Tory flag. The overwhelming voice of public opinion in Wales indicates full confidence in the present system. That is not to say that the system cannot be improved. But this amendment will bring about such improvements as may be necessary by means of a measured and measurable scheme; in other words, we may have a reasonable substratum of measurable evidence.
8.45 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We on these Benches support the amendment. I plead with the Minister to take away and consider the need to work with the brand new local education authorities in Wales. What better example can the Minister have of an opportunity to work co-operatively with those new authorities? The Minister referred to the fact that authorities had not come forward. There was an enormous upheaval in Wales. Why not extend the spirit of partnership and co-operation?
Lord Henley: I start by assuring the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, that we keep in close touch with colleagues in the Welsh Office. Colleagues in the Welsh Office were actively involved in the Bill. The noble Lord will be aware that when the Bill was introduced in another place my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales was one of those whose name was attached to that Bill. The Welsh dimension has always been important. I also assure the noble Lord that we will continue to discuss these matters very closely where they relate to Wales or to Welsh matters. I assure him that my right honourable and honourable friends in the Welsh Office will read very carefully all that has been said on this occasion and take note of it.
I do not argue that any of the amendments debated this afternoon have been wrecking amendments. I said that one was partially wrecking, and that it was only partially wrecking for those with children who would be four next year. Nor do I believe that this is a wrecking Bill. We have no desire whatever to damage good provision in any way. We very much hope that we will not damage good provision. We simply wish to extend choice. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, I believe that we can extend choice without undermining the collective rights of those Who do not wish to make use of that choice.
What we have before us this evening in this amendment is a call for the scheme to operate in Wales on a trial basis first. The Welsh Affairs Committee made a similar recommendation. However, I do not believe that there is a need for this. The initial phase in four authorities in England is testing the mechanics and the administrative arrangements. There will be a full evaluation which will include consideration of the effectiveness of the operational arrangements and so on, as we discussed earlier this afternoon. Clearly, that evaluation will inform the scheme in Wales as well as the scheme in England. I believe that a separate experimental phase would only serve to duplicate. The Welsh Affairs Committee
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acknowledged that, with regard to the mechanics of the scheme, the Welsh Office might be right in considering that it could learn enough from pilot studies in England. I said during Second Reading that there had been no volunteers in Wales for a Welsh pilot. The Welsh Office said that it would consider any interest put forward. As the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, stated, it has been through an upheaval as part of the local government organisation. However, the same is true in Scotland but volunteers still came forward for the pilot scheme there.
The Welsh Affairs Committee indicated that the absence of a Welsh pilot phase is seen by many as symptomatic of a lack of regard for the distinctiveness of education in Wales. As I stated in my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davis, the Welsh dimension is not being ignored. Far from it. It will be taken fully into account. The Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales (ACAC) has given quite separate advice on desirable educational outcomes in Wales. Its advice is being considered by Welsh Ministers but the consultation document was well received. There will be bilingual vouchers and a specific helpline for parents in Wales.
The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, asked me to expand on the funding arrangements for deductions for local authorities in Wales. The total cost of the scheme in Wales is expected to be £43 million and will be funded from a mixture of additional provision and the deduction from local authorities. Final decisions on the level of funding and the amount of additional provision in Wales will be taken in the light of public expenditure discussions in Wales. Local authority funding arrangements are different in Wales and there is no hypothecation of resources to particular services as there is in England. There is no specific SSA for education in Wales. Accordingly and recognising the higher level of nursery provision in Wales, my colleagues in the Welsh Office have decided there will be a transfer from local authorities at the all-Wales level and before distribution of local revenue settlement to individual authorities.
It would be invidious now for the Welsh Office to hypothecate funding in respect of education for four year-olds and there is no justification for setting aside longstanding arrangements which have been agreed with local authorities. The authorities that responded to the consultation paper issued by the Welsh Office favoured the all-Wales approach. That approach should ensure that authorities with a high level of discretionary spending are not disadvantaged. The precise sums to be transferred have yet to be decided but colleagues in the Welsh Office have given an assurance that it will not exceed the value of a voucher for a four year-old in a maintained school and, therefore, they should not lose out.
Lord Hooson: I do not think that the noble Lord has allayed the fears of parents because the document sets out that the voucher would provide for high quality part-time education. As most children in this age group are in full-time high quality nursery education, how will the difference be provided for?
Lord Henley: I hope to be able to allay those fears. The Government will deduct from the local authority settlement in Wales no more than the number of four year-olds in the schools multiplied by the voucher value. That will not necessarily be all that the local authorities are currently spending. That will be left with the local authorities and they will be able to spend to provide full-time education if they wish.
I have acknowledged that there is a distinctiveness to the Welsh educational scene. However, it is difficult to envisage what gain could be expected from an experimental phase in at least two authorities in Wales and what aspects of the Welsh dimension it could cover that are not currently being considered. It would delay giving parents throughout the Principality the choice in the provision they want to make for their four year-olds and provision of at least half-time education for a full three terms. All parents in England, subject to Parliament, will have those benefits from April next year. We do not think it desirable to treat parents in Wales any less favourably. I hope that on this occasion therefore the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Elis-Thomas: If the Minister were trying to persuade me not to divide, he would not conclude on that note. The issue that concerns us is that where Wales has decided through its democratically elected local education authorities to make provision in a way which has consensus support, it is not for Parliament or Westminster to intervene, in a way which may be appropriate for some authorities in England, and to disrupt an established public sector scene in Wales which functions effectively and has popular support.
We shall return to this issue, maybe on stronger grounds, during later discussion of the Bill. We will take advantage of the opportunity between this debate and the final stages to talk to the Welsh Office again to give it, and particularly the new Minister, the opportunity to return to the issue.
I refer to a typical authority which, were it in England would no doubt be nearly under Conservative control, and that is Denbighshire. The new Denbighshire County Council has led Wales in campaigning on the issue of nursery vouchers. That has been done very ably by Mr. Edgar Lewis, director of education, who was previously working in Clwyd. That authority is made up in the following way. The largest group is the independent group which, in the English context, would probably be Conservative; the next largest group is the Labour group; and then there is the significant Plaid Cymru group. All the councillors in that authority, all the parents I have met at meetings and all the material I have received from parents, indicate complete support for what Denbighshire is providing, carrying on from what Clwyd is providing.
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The Government are setting their faces against the consensus of nursery providers and parents in Wales. I warn the Government that they do that at their electoral peril. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
8.57 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 8) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 57; Not-Contents, 59.

Division No. 3

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Hooson, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Lockwood, B.

Berkeley, L.

McNally, L.

Borrie, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Carter, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Dahrendorf, L.

Monkswell, L.

David, B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Davies, L. [Teller.]

Nicol, B.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Ogmore, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Palmer, L.

Desai, L.

Perry of Walton, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Dubs,L.

Richard, L.

Elis-Thomas, L. [Teller.]

Seear, B.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Ewing of Kirkford, L.

Serota, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Sewel, L.

Geraint, L.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Greenway, L.

Tope, L.

Grey, E.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hamwee, B.

Warnock, B.

Haskel, L.

White, B.

Hayman, B.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Wise, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Harris of Peckham, L.

Balfour, E.

Henley, L.

Blatch, B.

HolmPatrick, L.

Boardman, L.

Howe, E.

Bowness, L.

Inglewood, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Bridgeman, V.

James of Holland Park, B.

Bruntisfield, L.

Kingsland, L.

Burnham, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Lindsay, E.

Carnock, L.

Lucas, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Chesham, L. [Teller.]

Clark of Kempston, L.

Lyell, L

Cochrane of Cults, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Courtown, E.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Dean of Harptree, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Mackay of Drumadoon, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Marlesford, L.

Downshire, M.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Feldman, L.

Northesk, E

Ferrers, E.

Gage, V.

O'Cathain, B.

Glenarthur, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

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Rankeillour, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller]

Rennell, L.

Seccombe, B.

Trumpington, B.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Vivian, L.

Skidelsky, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L

Slim, V.

Wynford, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
9.5 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 1, line 8, after second ("education") insert ("that is appropriate to the age of the child and is").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 9 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 12, 51 and 61. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the curriculum delivered in response to vouchers is of the right type for the children involved and that there is some legislative protection as to its quality. By definition, anything that is properly education will be conducted according to a curriculum, which is the sum total of experiences which contribute to the learning of an individual. It includes planned intervention by educators as well as the outcome of self-directed or guided activity on the part of the learner. An appropriate curriculum for the nursery phase of education was well described in the report, Starting with Quality, published in 1990 by the committee chaired by Angela Rumbold, the then Minister of State at the Home Office. I can do no better than commend that document to your Lordships in the hope that you will read it, mark it, learn it and inwardly digest it.
Currently, nursery education, as it is properly understood, covers the period from the third birthday to the entry into the reception class at rising five. In our view, the proposed nursery voucher scheme cuts across those arrangements by neglecting three year-olds but invading the funding of older children who are already moving beyond the true nursery phase. The aim of the amendment is an attempt to relocate the application of the Bill towards activity that can properly be understood as nursery education and provide legislative protection to the quality of provision which that term implies.
The amendment received a very cold wind from the Government in another place. We hope that noble Lords speaking for the Government today will give serious consideration to the appropriateness of education funded through vouchers.
Perhaps I may say a few words about Amendment No. 51. Its purpose is to bring the obligation on nursery providers in line with the Education Act 1988 by ensuring that the chief inspector has the duty to inform the Secretary of State on the "physical" and "intellectual" development of children as well as on their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We prefer the word "intellectual" to the word "mental" from the Latin mentalis—mens mentis, the mind—meaning also "chin" or "pertaining to the chin" from the Latin mentum. I believe that the arguments which will follow any quotation from me in that learned tongue will be none the weaker for it. Therefore, for the purpose of the amendment, I prefer the word "intellectual".
A list of "desirable achievements" or "outcome statements" such as has been put forward in SCAA's document, Desirable Outcomes for Children's Learning is not in our view an acceptable or adequate way of describing a nursery curriculum. While such a list facilitates the production of a simple check list for those children reaching statutory school age, it would dominate and narrow the curriculum for the under-fives. In addition, it is likely to ignore the development of individual children and their educational needs.
How much more appropriate the ACAC's "desirable outcome" consultation document for Wales which begins with Gerallt Lloyd Owen's opening lines of his epic poem "Afon":
"Pan feddwn dalent plentyn, I weld Ilais a chlywed Hun".
I shall translate that for your Lordships:
"When I had a child's talent to see a voice and hear an image".
That is what that kind of curriculum should introduce. I say it in all seriousness. I beg to move.
Lord Northbourne: My name is attached to Amendment No. 12 and also to Amendment No. 61. I should, therefore, like to say a few words about them. As I understand it, the Government propose to define nursery education in accordance with the category of child, the type of institution and, in regulations, the way in which grants are calculated. I am not entirely sure that that is quite enough. Surely we want some mention of the kind of nursery education about which we are talking.
Nursery education could, perhaps under a different Minister and a different Secretary of State, mean almost anything from strict three Rs to the other extreme where, perhaps under pressure from single interest groups, it might become little more than childminding, so that it could be extended for longer periods; for example, to suit mothers who want to go to work.
Surely there should be three elements in nursery education. The first is the preparation for academic education; the second—and most important in my view—is the social development, because unless children have the necessary social development they will not fit into primary school and they will go down and down. The third, is language skills which are most important for those who do not have them so that, again, they can fit into primary school at a later stage. All those elements must be within the framework of children being well cared for.
Amendments Nos. 9, 12, and 51 suggest forms of wording for the Bill. Amendment No. 61 suggests a way of linking the Bill with the "desirable outcomes" mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Morris. The Minister kindly wrote to me about the matter on 10th June, and said:
"All providers will he required to work towards the desirable outcomes for children's learning".
That is fine; but who says so? I absolutely accept the noble Lord's word that that is his intention. However, in a few years he may no longer be in that position as,

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indeed, may well be the case with the Secretary of State. Surely we must have something written down as to Parliament's intention on these matters.
Baroness Seear: I, too, have attached my name to Amendment No. 12. I shall be very brief. I want to emphasise something to which the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, referred; namely, the important scope and range that nursery education should have. It should at least cover—it clearly should do so—both care of the youngster and his or her educational development. The point I should like to add is that if you are going to do that properly it will be expensive. There is very little chance that you will get the full range of care and education provision when people are thinking in terms of £1,100 a year. Indeed, proper, good nursery education as is being provided in some places at present in both the public and private sector costs a good deal more than that.
I know that the Minister will say that we are talking about additional money. However, once the figure has been named and people are allowed to take it and run their own schemes, there is surely a very real danger that what is provided will become narrower and less satisfactory; and, indeed, will not provide what is required on both the care and the educational front. That is a real danger. I hope that the Minister will take that fully into account.
Baroness Warnock: I, too, attached my name to Amendment No. 12. I believe that the effect of the voucher scheme will be to obscure the line between playgroup and nursery school. Therefore, it is all the more important that there should be some account on the face of the Bill of what nursery education actually should be. I also believe that the emphasis on language is extremely important. Language is the route by which the relation between a child and his world is formed. It is only through language that he can learn to communicate with other people; to accept conversation from other people, and to enter into dialogue with other people.
An enormous number of children enter playgroup or nursery school without the concept of conversation and dialogue. They think of grown-up people as people who do not want to talk to them and who put them in front of the television and want them out of the way. It is therefore incredibly important that teachers involved in all forms of nursery provision should be seen by children to be grown-up people who communicate. That is why I place such strong emphasis on language. As I say, that is all the more important if the dividing line between playgroup and nursery school is becoming somewhat fudged by the application of vouchers. I feel strongly about this amendment.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Henley: When the noble Lord, Lord Morris, introduced his amendment he said that in another place the Government poured cold water over these amendments. I hope that I shall not pour cold water over them but explain why I think they are unnecessary,
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although we are sympathetic to much of what has been said, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, on the importance of language and developments in that field.
As I said, we believe that these amendments are unnecessary. All providers need to agree to provide education appropriate to a set of desirable learning outcomes on entering compulsory education which has been developed by SCAA as a requirement of grant. This will ensure that all providers are offering education appropriate to the age of the child and of a consistently high standard.
The SCAA desirable outcomes break down into six areas of learning, one of which covers personal and social development. Another covers language and literacy. I believe that that more than covers Amendment No. 12, and for that matter Amendment No. 9. Inspectors will consider the extent to which providers are working towards each of the outcomes. Where provision is not satisfactory in a particular area of learning inspectors will highlight that in the inspection report and appropriate action—
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I hope he can clarify something. As regards the suggestion that the inspector should add to his duties an inspection of the physical and intellectual progress of children, the Minister has more or less made the argument for including that on the face of the Bill, as that is one of the outcomes, some of which are mentioned in paragraph 3 of the schedule, and some of which are not. It seems rather curious that some of the outcomes are mentioned but not others.
Lord Henley: I do not believe that I am doing that. I was discussing Amendments Nos. 9 and 12; I had not yet moved on to the others. We do not believe that they are necessary because we can, by means of a requirement of grant, make sure that any of the voucher redeeming institutions work towards those desirable learning outcomes as developed by SCAA. It will be for inspectors to consider the extent to which providers are working towards each of those outcomes, as I said. That is a matter which can be dealt with in the appropriate way.
The provisions sought in Amendments Nos. 9 and 12 may be provided for as requirements of grant as the Bill stands. Indeed such requirements are already in place under the Phase I arrangements. I therefore see no particular value in prescribing such detail on the face of the Bill. That relates to some of the discussion we had on the first amendment that was before the Committee this afternoon. I also think it is unnecessary to prescribe the scope of the chief inspector's duty to report to the Secretary of State, or the scope of inspections, in any greater detail than the Bill already does. Paragraph 3 (a) of Schedule 1—I think that was what the noble Baroness referred to—requires the chief inspector to keep the Secretary of State informed about the quality and standards of funded nursery education.
Paragraph 7 requires inspectors to report on the quality and standards of nursery education provided. These provisions are the same as for the 1992 Act. They

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will of course embrace the physical and intellectual development of children. Such aspects of quality, and many others, are already covered by the draft framework of inspection which is closely linked to the SCAA outcomes. The nursery education inspections will make sure that all early years staff and all institutions are offering the good quality education that we believe it is desirable to offer to all children. I hope therefore that the noble Lord, Lord Morris, will feel that on this occasion we have not poured cold water over his amendments but that they are unnecessary.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: On a warm evening like this, a little cold water might not be a bad thing.
"Desirable outcomes" are generally felt to be well below nursery education standard. Some people, doubtless of a sceptical persuasion, suspect that this is provided deliberately to attract low level providers from the private sector into entering into this area of education, which would lower the standards that pre-school education should set for itself. It is an unworthy thought, I have no doubt, but one which from time to time, like all sin, obtrudes into the human mind.
As regards the weight of responsibility to be placed on the chief inspector, at this stage we have stated our positions and we must be content to disagree. We can return to that matter at a later stage. I am content to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 1, line 8, at end insert ("by a qualified teacher and other appropriately trained staff").
The noble Baroness said: The Title of the Bill refers to nursery education. All that the Government say with regard to the Bill is misleading unless it refers to a consistently high quality of provision.
This group of amendments deals with staff qualification and training. There is the appropriate training of staff as teachers and non-teaching staff. Those are complementary roles, and it is critically important that both sectors have had full benefit of the training.
We are dealing with educational provision for very young children, some of whom may have obvious, clearly defined, special educational needs. Others may have the more difficult to detect early signs of later difficulties; or they may have moderate learning difficulties. But help is needed if those learning difficulties are to be overcome and those children are to achieve the highest levels not only in their educational development but also in their social personal skills among their peer group. Amendment No. 10 refers to the importance of a qualified teacher. It is extremely important that this issue is taken seriously.
Among those who have had no contact with children with special needs, with very young children, or with different types of early years provision, there is a belief that any woman—usually the speaker is a man and the staff referred to are women—who has had children of her own can provide nursery education; after all, they
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are mothers. A great many mothers pride themselves on their ability to work with very young children. Few would have the temerity to claim that they equal those qualified in nursery education, or provide the same background and environment for a child.
In the DFE publications on good quality and early years education the Government recognise the importance of nursery education scoring higher in level of support and in the opportunities that it offers to children than do other forms of education.
Before I am accused again by the Minister of seeking rigid, imposed, central planning, or a lack of choice for parents, perhaps I may say that some parents choose not to place their children in nursery education. Some parents choose not to be concerned about qualifications. Many, like myself, have children who benefited from pre-school education, the quality of and training for which is often of a consistently very high standard. There are different aspects of nursery education. I for one welcome an approach to verifying qualifications that includes a recognition of the value of Montessori training, to cite just one example. There are many aspects to providing high quality nursery education.
I am interested to see whether the Minister is even prepared to consider adopting a target, a phasing-in of a move, towards ensuring that all nursery education funded through public money will be provided by staff who are properly trained. It is extremely important. Children are very vulnerable, and we want the best for our children.
A recurring theme of this group of amendments is the complementary nature of different forms of training. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will be prepared to support clearly, publicly and openly the need for staff working with young children to have the proper qualifications and training. The Minister may argue that it is not possible to achieve that immediately. There would be enormous popularity in the Government setting a target date and co-operating with all parties concerned to try to ensure that nursery education is provided by those who have had full training. I beg to move.
Baroness Seear: I strongly support the amendment. It follows on from my remark a few moments ago in relation to Amendment No. 12. I referred to the very real danger of skimping on provision through lack of money. If we are to have properly qualified teachers, it will cost more. We have to face that. Without properly qualified teachers, we run the risk of developing a whole grade of sub-standard nursery education. At its worst that can be very much less good than no education at all.
Baroness David: I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, is absent tonight. He spoke at Second Reading. If the Minister is listening, I want to give one quotation from a document from the National Commission on Education, Learning to Succeed. The commission states:
"Teaching very young children is a complex task demanding a high level of skill and understanding. The committee supports graduate level training".

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I totally support all the requests for qualified teachers and a great deal of teaching knowledge for such children. It is said over and over again how important this is. The Government should be prepared to agree to this very straightforward amendment in the very first clause of the Bill.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: As someone who spent some years in the classroom, I wish to reinforce the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington. One might think that the children who are really difficult to cope with are those at scholarship level. In my experience, they are the easy ones. They simply sail away. You can put anything in front of them and they can more or less do it. The further down the scale you go, the more difficult it gets. It is therefore of prime importance that, in the earliest years of all, children have the highest qualified teachers to lead them into the national curriculum at the age of five and try to make, if possible, a seamless transition between nursery and primary education. At that stage, contrary to popular myth, it is extremely important to have highly qualified staff. I support the amendment.
Lord Northbourne: I accept the importance of qualifications. I know about the deprived children and the seriously damaged and disadvantaged children. I hoped these amendments would not be used to squeeze out the participation and involvement of parents, or indeed what have been called "streetwise grannies", as supporters.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Skidelsky: I urge my noble friend the Minister to resist this set of amendments. They strike me as being much too prescriptive and every permissive clause is turned into a prescriptive clause. Running through the debate is a conflict of opinion. On one side—and that is the side I am on—we support maximum choice and minimum regulation. The other side seems to support maximum regulation and minimum choice. We counter that all the way through and I hope that my noble friend sticks to his guns.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I wish to make a few comments in support of these amendments. First, to start with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, this is not a question of regulation. It is a question of ensuring that the most vulnerable children in school are being looked after and their studies directed by somebody who is qualified to do both those things. That is the main point of this series of amendments: to ensure that people who are qualified recognise the child who has particular needs—particular learning needs, personality needs or gifts, and so on.
So often our primary schools are taking children who already, at the age of five, are desocialised, with whom it is almost impossible to deal. As a school governor, I have frequently come across this difficulty. We must ensure that those who guide the people in charge of classes are qualified teachers who have been trained to recognise these difficulties or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said, a child's special gifts. If that happened
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we would be making an important contribution to the quality of education of young children which, after all, as far as I am concerned, is the whole point of the Bill. We are talking about the prospects for young children. Experience and research in the United States showed that early years education made children higher achievers and better socialisers. That was one of the factors which was prayed in aid by the Minister when he introduced the Bill. So it is difficult to understand how that attitude ties in with a resistance to ensuring that there are qualified teachers. I do not think that anybody supporting these amendments has any wish to exclude parents from their proper role in this particular process.
I would like to emphasise the point about Montessori teachers. We are not talking necessarily of an identical qualification for every person who takes this lead role in a class. The Montessori Foundation has been involved in pre-school education for over 90 years, amd probably knows as much about it as anybody. I would certainly wish to ensure, through these amendments—and I rather hope the Minister will be able to respond on this matter—that its qualifications, which are very high and growing all the time, would be recognisable under the processes we are suggesting or even without those processes.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I would like to comment on Amendments Nos. 38 and 45. Amendment No. 38 has been the subject of advice which we have received from the Special Education Consortium and which I find particularly persuasive. They have very special knowledge and understanding of the needs of children with special educational needs. It is at that stage of the whole process of formal education that they perhaps should command our greatest weight of respect. Amendment No. 38 is there to ensure that levels of qualification that are acceptable are set out in regulations and that those regulations are regularly reviewed.
In the Next Steps document and the debates that we have had so far on this matter, there has been repeated insistence from the Government that the current proposals are indeed intended to promote the development of high quality education for four year-olds. But one question to which we seldom seem to address ourselves is the question of what quality really means. I have said before in this Chamber that in many respects the English language is degenerating rapidly. One can point to particular words of which that is true and "quality" is one.
"Quality" is a noun which has become an adjective and quality has become synonymous with good quality—high quality. It has become a hooray word and not a boo word. That is imprecise thinking and dangerously imprecise thinking in what we do. People talk now about quality goods, without saying whether they are high quality or low quality goods. But I must confess that the height of absurdity came when the Welsh Rugby Football Union, which in recent years has not been notably successful in producing teams which win matches, held a debate in which one famous Welsh three-quarter said that the trouble lay with the forwards because, "We backs cannot win if we don't get quality

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ball." "Quality ball"—I invite the Committee to speculate on how that use of the language can possibly make sense. We know what it means but how can it make sense?
The Special Education Consortium believes that high quality education for young children with special educational needs means precisely this: it means being taught by staff who are themselves trained in curriculum, trained in child development, have an understanding of how children learn and can adapt curricula to meet those children's needs. A recent survey of provision in Wales compared provision for the under-fives in playgroups and in maintained schools. In schools, teachers observed, assessed and planned work for children in a way that matched the children's abilities and achievements; whereas playgroup staff, however willing they were, were not sufficiently well informed to recognise children's educational needs and abilities and make decisions about progression in learning. They themselves had not been taught that skill. They worked by instinct—flying by the seat of their pants. Without teachers, it is unlikely that young children with special educational needs could possibly receive an education appropriately matched to their needs.
The argument that the SEC has advanced to date is that significant additional money is going into playgroups, day nurseries and the private and voluntary sectors. The SEC feels that that money ought to be used to buy in trained teachers. However, it has become clear that the Government intend to proceed with the scheme without specifying qualifications and there would be a shortfall of teachers if all settings were to try to employ teachers.
I invite noble Lords opposite and the Minister in particular to speculate about a possible compromise, which, again, the SEC put forward. It is a pragmatic compromise. This amendment promotes an approach which would gradually increase the levels of training and qualifications expected within the voucher scheme. Ministers may say that it is not necessary to specify qualifications and that anyone who says that he can deliver the desirable outcomes in the SCAA document can be allowed to teach four year-olds. We profoundly doubt that. I need go no further than the reference that has been made to the Government's aim. Whereas we should not normally wish to suggest that one registered childminder would be capable of coming into this voucher scheme perfectly happily, if there were a small group of them who could get together and think out some kind of desirable scheme, we should certainly be willing to consider it. And then presumably we would accept what that group said on its self-assessment form without inspecting it before it began to accept vouchers—inspecting it any time up to one year after that. If that was a disastrous inspection result, we would give it nearly a year to mend its fences and its ways before it would be refused permission to continue. Where children with special educational needs are concerned that seems to us to be profoundly dangerous and undesirable.
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While the amendment does not achieve what the Special Education Consortium would wish in the here and now, it provides a mechanism for achieving a more skilled and better qualified workforce in the longer term. I hope therefore that it will be considered appropriate on those grounds. It is a compromise.
I hope that Members of the Committee will forgive my devotion to the Holy scriptures; it is simply that with a good Welsh Baptist upbringing phrases keep returning to mind. An appropriate one in regard to Amendment No. 45 is that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over 90 and nine just men that need no repentance. The Minister may recall that in previous education Bills I was not convinced of the virtue of the Teacher Training Agency. I confess that I was extremely sceptical about it. I thought that it was a bad thing; that we should not have it; and that, in so far as we had it, we would regret it. I was wrong.
I visited the Teacher Training Agency at its request. I was taken round for the best part of a day and was allowed to ask questions of any of the people I met without their superiors being present—and I did. My mind was changed. Although the TTA has a long way to go and a great deal to do, it certainly proved the case that, young as it is, it is making a valuable contribution to the training of teachers. I just wish people would leave it alone.
The idea of reforming the TTA and getting it to do something else—to teach teachers about discipline and all that kind of thing—seems to me to be piling Pelion on Ossa. It is a good little outfit doing a good job. It is hardly out of the nursery stage, but it is doing something that universities cannot do. Amendment No. 45 seems to me sensible in that it introduces a requirement for the Teacher Training Agency to assess the qualifications and training needs of institutions prior to initial registration under the arrangements. I hope that the agency has been asked and I hope that it feels that it comes within its remit. It obviously asks for vastly more resources and a huge new grant from wherever the grant comes from, but if it can be persuaded, it would be very apt.
The amendment links the TTA properly into the Government's new initiative. It also introduces a new stage, prior to initial registration under the voucher scheme, of requiring the qualifications and training needs of the providers to be assessed. That gives much greater quality assurance for parents, which we consider to be an important part of the whole scheme, and a better guarantee of value for public money.
At present the arrangements we have heard described suggest that an unsuitable provider (let us call it a "cowboy") could be registered and, failing an inspection, operate for two or, in some cases, three years—I shall be grateful if the Minister can say how long it is—before being necessarily struck off; and, of course, a lot of children can have an impoverished opportunity in that time.
The arrangements under the Bill are for the provision of funded nursery education; not simply care, not simply training, but education. Many new or existing providers may not necessarily have "education" as their focus.

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Under current arrangements providers have no guarantees that the experience and qualifications of their staff are sufficient to teach to the SCAA's "desirable outcomes", which to a lot of people sound rather like motherhood and apple pie and are very difficult to translate into any kind of practical application that can be described and quantified, let alone provide a broad and balanced curriculum appropriate to nursery age children. We think that providers should be required to take advice from the TTA both for their own benefit and for the security of parents.
In the absence of a requirement for new providers to be inspected prior to registration, this link with the TTA would at least provide a basic assurance for parents that the provision chosen for their child has had to take good, top, professional advice on this matter. Without such a guarantee, the claim of a new provider that it will be working towards the "desirable outcomes" is not very much more than a pious hope and a statement of faith and is not really worth the paper on which it might be written.
9.45 p.m.
Baroness Hayman: I wish to say a few words on the issue of the training and qualification of staff and to support what has been said earlier about the challenge to trained and qualified staff of teaching the youngest children within the education system and the children with the greatest needs among that cohort of very young children. In making these remarks, I have no intention of undermining the contribution that can be made and the support that can be given by parents or grandparents within that set-up. My remarks come rather from the experience of having been a parent and of helping at all stages, through playgroup, nursery education and primary school, and seeing how much more difficult and skilful a task it is to make sure that high quality education is delivered to the youngest children than to the oldest children.
One of the mistakes we have made in education has been in not focusing enough on, and not giving enough attention to, the highly skilled task of teaching the youngest children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said, there is an important reason for doing that beyond the altruism of wanting to give the highest quality of education to those children. The reason is that more and more in our primary schools we see troubled and disadvantaged children in respect of whom, by the time they have reached a large reception class, we have lost our opportunity effectively to intervene to help them.
I saw in the primary school of which I was a governor for many years how effective that help could be if the nursery class had the resources in terms of teachers and skilled personnel to, if necessary, withdraw those children from the class in order to give them the special help and support they needed. The investment in those children, which starts with the identification of need and goes on to the meeting of that need, paid tremendous dividends throughout the rest of their primary school career. Therefore, I think it is of enormous importance that, in looking at the variety of settings in which
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nursery education is offered to children, we are equally firm in determining that training and qualifications are of the highest standard.
Baroness Seear: Perhaps I may briefly underline and develop the point that was made by my noble friend Lady Thomas as regards special needs. We always talk about them as though they were always for people with learning difficulties. But there are special needs among the gifted. If they are neglected in their early years they can often turn into very difficult people. Identifying the gifted and giving them the right opportunities early on can be just as important as dealing with people with learning difficulties. Gifted people can be extremely troublesome and develop very badly if they are not allowed to develop the gifts with which they are born.
Lord Henley: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for his dissertation on the corruption of the English language in his brief intervention, but I wonder whether it was quite relevant, particularly in view of the time that this debate is taking. Perhaps I may also say that I am grateful for the news of his conversion on the road to Damascus over the Teacher Training Agency. I look forward to witnessing many more such conversions.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was worried that an amendment of this sort could squeeze out parents. Others have expressed the view that it could certainly squeeze out playgroups. I shall resist amendments of this sort very strongly, partly for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Skidelsky.
I can see what the noble Baroness is aiming for in her amendments. I shall speak first to the qualification side and later to the training side. I cannot see why we should have only qualified teachers providing education for voucher-bearing children. It is important to recognise that many four year-olds are already in settings in the private and voluntary sectors where there is no qualified teacher. Excluding such settings from the voucher scheme would do nothing for the quality of educational experience for these children, but by allowing such settings to take part in the voucher scheme, new money is injected, educational inspections begin, and, over time, quality is improved. It is vital to acknowledge that that is where we start from in the field.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that if an inspector revealed a totally unsatisfactory level of education provision—no doubt we shall come back to this later—the provider could be struck off immediately. There are no "ifs" or "buts" about that. But the situation is often not quite as black and white as it might appear. Our proposals allow for continuing development of the provider's ability to provide good quality nursery education. But there is no reason why, under the conditions of grant and that kind of provision, we could not strike that provider off immediately. I make that absolutely clear.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I am delighted at what I believe I have just heard and so much so that I would like to hear it again. As I understand it, a provider may set up on a self-assessment scheme and be in operation

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without being inspected for up to 12 months. Am I now learning that on that first inspection during the 12 months, providers can be struck off immediately? Do they have any appeal? If they appeal, do they get an automatic further 12 months or is there a time specified? I shall be most grateful if I can be helped on that.
Lord Henley: I prefer to write to the noble Lord in greater detail on those points unless we come to them later. I am not going to waste the time of the Committee by repeating my precise words. I was trying to make it clear to the noble Lord that if the provider is providing something which is totally unsatisfactory, there would be provision to strike the provider off.
I said that it is vital to acknowledge where we start from in the field. That is why I was trying to stress that there are already many four year-olds who are in settings where there are not qualified teachers. Neither do I see why the Secretary of State should be required to prescribe annually the qualifications required of staff. The Bill already gives her the power to set requirements of grant as she sees fit. Our Next Steps document published in January, sets out the staff qualifications that we will expect from voucher-redeeming institutions. We will keep that situation under review.
Amendment No. 34 seeks to provide that requirements of grant should be set out in regulations. The new powers enable the Secretary of State to impose any requirements that she feels necessary, including a requirement to repay grant in specified circumstances. Providers will have to comply with whatever requirements we put in place. If they breach any, they will stop receiving additional grant, may be liable to repay any grant they have already received and may be removed from participating in the scheme.
In fact, the flexibility of setting requirements through grant arrangements rather than in regulations provides greater control over the use of grant because it ensures that the requirements in place can always be appropriate to the circumstances at the time.
Turning to the training aspects of this group of amendments, I do not believe we need a specific power to enable the Secretary of State to make grants to nursery providers specifically for the training of teaching and non-teaching staff. The value of the voucher assumes an element for training and staff development. It will be for individual institutions to use the resources to meet their specific training needs.
In the current financial year (1996–97), grants will also be available through the school effectiveness grant for the first time to support in-service training for early years teachers. Our support for the PLA's extensive training infrastructure will continue.
The amendment suggests that all non-maintained providers should have to seek advice on training and qualifications from the TTA before they can redeem their vouchers. I see no need to write into statute any rules about how and from whom providers of nursery education should seek advice on their staffing. We shall be imposing and inspecting requirements about outcomes. The staffing necessary to achieve those outcomes is quite properly for the judgment of
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individual providers. I hope therefore that the noble Baroness will see fit not to press her amendment. I can assure her that if she wishes to press it, I shall resist it.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: It is sometimes very difficult to follow the detail of the Minister's replies. I shall certainly read Hansard with great interest to see the exact words that he chose not to repeat—because of time, he said—regarding the training element of the voucher. I shall also need to read one or two other aspects of his reply. Are the very same Government, at education and training meetings across Europe, supporting the European Union in the International Year of Life-Long Learning and encouraging people to go into training for life? How can the Government say that they support the principle of life-long learning and claim that they recognise the importance of young people gaining qualifications and then suggest to young people leaving school that were they to take up a nursery nurse qualification it would be of little value and the Government are not even prepared to be involved in assessing the institutions that will provide that qualification?
It is important to understand that nothing said from these Benches undermines the role of parents. Far from it. Good nursery education training now concentrates heavily on the importance of working with parents. The hospital service works with parents, recognising that a young child in hospital will recover most effectively if the parent can stay with him or her. But it does not ask the parent to remove the tonsils. Under the guise of supporting parents, the Minister is now behaving as though the only added value is the involvement of parents, the added value of qualifications and training by teachers and non-teaching staff being somehow an irrelevance.
The Minister could have said, "Yes, we are prepared to consider this, but we would like to see it phased in". He could have said, "Yes, the Government can see merit in this, but would like to move towards it over a two to three-year period". The Government could have asked, "What about accreditation for prior experience and the consideration of new modes of qualification?" However, the Government have behaved as though the whole field of education has ceased to be a profession and become an occupation. This Government encourage young people who may work in Sainsbury or other shops, or as hairdresser trainees, or in any field—I wholeheartedly approve of this—to gain qualifications and undergo training. Yet, when dealing with the care of all children, for some of whom parents may have no choice, the Government say that they are not prepared to look at the issue of qualifications.
The Government fail to understand the logic of the position they adopt on one subject and the position they adopt on another. It is ridiculous. The Government find themselves in an unacceptable position. I have no intention of dividing the House at this time, but I am sure that these matters will be returned to at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10 p.m.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 1, line 10, leave out ("their fifth birthday") and insert ("they have attained the age of five years").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 11 is a purely technical amendment which seeks to ensure that the definition of nursery education with regard to the upper limit of children who may be covered is consistent with the commencement of compulsory schooling. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: This has all the appearance of being a drafting amendment. I confess that in considering it we were more than a little puzzled as to how it came to be here and why it had to stay. If I understand the Minister correctly, it concerns the definition of the age range for nursery education; that is, education before the first school term starting after a child's fifth birthday. It appeared to us that it sought purely to alter the terminology without altering the meaning in any particular way. We are strongly in favour of making every possible improvement to this Bill, especially in any area which gets us through the interminable thickets of the language of the parliamentary draftsman. Perhaps the noble Lord can assure us that what we understand it to mean is what it means, neither more nor less. It is hardly among the highest of our priorities, but we have no particular objection to it.
Lord Henley: As currently drafted, Clause 1 defines the upper limit as education provided before the start of the first term beginning after a child's fifth birthday. This would include education provided for children whose fifth birthday fell on the first day of term. However, such children would be of compulsory school age and be children for whom a full-time primary school place must be provided, and should not therefore be eligible for nursery education grant.
The noble Lord will see that the amendment affects only one in 365 children, or three in 365 children; that is, those children whose birthdays happen to fall on a certain day. I am afraid that my mathematics may not be up to it. However, it affects only a relatively small number.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. I believe that the correct figure is three in 365. Since we on these Benches and the Labour Party as a whole—new Labour, old Labour or Labour of any sort—are resolute defenders of minorities, especially those around the age of five, we have no objection to this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 12 not moved.]
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 1, line 14, at end insert—
("(2A) No arrangements may be made under subsection (1) above in respect of grants payable under this Act on or after 1 April 1997 before the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament an
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evaluation of the operation over a period of twelve months of any grants for nursery education in the area of any local education authority made during the financial year 1996/7.").
10.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 13) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 92; Not-Contents, 58.

Division No. 4

CONTENTS

Addington, L. [Teller.]

Judd, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Avebury, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Lockwood, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Berkeley, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Blackstone, B.

McNally, L.

Borrie, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Mayhew, L.

Carter, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Meston, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Methuen, L.

Craigavon, V.

Mishcon, L.

Dahrendorf, L.

Monkswell, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

David, B.

Nicol, B.

Davies, L.

Ogmore, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Palmer, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Perry of Walton, L.

Desai, L.

Peston, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Donoughue, L.

Rea, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Redesdale, L.

Dubs, L.

Richard, L.

Eatwell, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Ewing of Kirkford, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Ezra, L.

Russell, E.

Falkland, V.

Seear, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Gallacher, L.

Serota, B.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Sewel, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Shepherd, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Southwell, Bp.

Grey, E.

Strabolgi, L.

Hamwee, B.

Taverne, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Haskel, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Hayman, B.

Thurso, V.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Tope, L.

Hollick, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Varley, L.

Hooson, L.

Warnock, B.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Winston, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Balfour, E.

Chesham, L. [Teller.]

Blatch, B.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Boardman, L.

Courtown, E.

Bowness, L.

Cox, B.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Cranborne, V. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Bridgeman, V.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Bruntisfield, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Burnham, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Downshire, M.

Carnock, L.

Elton, L.

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Feldman, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Ferrers, E.

Gage, V.

Mackay of Drumadoon, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Marlesford, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Harris of Peckham, L.

Northbourne, L.

Henley, L.

Northesk, E.

HolmPatrick, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Howe, E.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

Inglewood, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Rennell, L.

James of Holland Park, B.

Seccombe, B.

Kingsland, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Lindsay, E.

Skidelsky, L.

Lucas, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller.]

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Lyell, L.

Trumpington, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Vivian, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Wynford, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
10.13 p.m.
Lord Tope Lord Tope moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 1, line 14, at end insert—
("( ) Education falling within subsection (2) above shall be given in premises conforming to such common standards as to space and facilities as the Secretary of State shall by regulations specify and such standards shall accord no less indoor or outdoor space or levels of facilities than would have been required if the Education (Premises) Regulations 1981 had been in force.").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is to require the setting of common space standards indoors and outdoors at no less than the 1981 regulation levels. The Education (School Premises) Regulations 1991 prescribed that:
"there shall be teaching and play-room accommodation of a total minimum net area of 2.3m2 for each pupil of the nursery school, or as the case may be, in the nursery classes".
Similar guidance issued by the Department of Health under the Children Act 1989 also recommended that an allocation of 2.3 square metres is a desirable standard for accommodating nursery school children of three to five years of age. That still stands, but the Government announced their intention to deregulate school premises in July 1995 and did so when they laid the statutory instrument just before Easter at the closing stages of the consideration of this Bill in the other House.
I cannot believe that the actual requirement, not the legal requirement, for space standards can have changed so quickly. That requirement still exists because parents expect that their children will have adequate space provision in schools. All children need adequate space in which to learn, move and play. However, confined teaching space and a lack of requirements for recreation areas will impact directly on the education for children under five. Dispensing with those regulations could have a significant detrimental impact on the social, physical and academic development of three and four year-olds with the effects for some children—depending on the nature of the facilities—remaining well into their school lives.
When parents send their children for pre-school education they expect to receive those basic minimum standards. That is the purpose of the amendment. We
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believe that it is important because if quality is to be maintained we need strong protection and statutory backing for clear and appropriate quality standards for the premises used for young children. Setting the voucher value at less than the notional cost of provision immediately creates a pressure for providers to cut costs in order to minimise the top-up fee that parents must be charged. Compromising on the standard and quality of premises is clearly a way of saving money. If that is to be avoided and a level playing field of high quality established for all providers, space and quality standards must be clear, unambiguous and universally applied.
The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that all premises offering funded nursery education comply with the minimum standards as laid down in the 1981 regulations. Where necessary, it would ensure that standards are improved before inclusion in the voucher scheme. Although the amendment has been moved just after a fairly important Division has taken place, it is, nevertheless, important. I hope that the Government will feel able to accept it without the need for Members of the Committee to go through the process of another Division in a few minutes' time. I beg to move.
Lord Skidelsky: I should like to make a few comments on the amendment. Once again, it exemplifies the Opposition's passion for over-regulation which has run right through all the amendments that they have proposed tonight. We all know that good education can take place in poor premises and that very bad education can take place in excellent premises. What conclusions do we draw from that? Well, governments should not be over-zealous in specifying standards as to space and facilities; and, indeed, not strike down good schools which do not have very good premises. But, no, the Opposition wants to specify standards in minute regulation. Therefore, we are back again to the motto that I suggested earlier: maximum regulation always means minimum choice. That is what the Opposition have been arguing for all evening.
It is no use saying that that is a political remark because this is an intensely political debate. We approach such problems from different positions. We want more choice and light regulation but noble Lords opposite want a great deal of regulation and very little choice. I very much hope my noble friend the Minister will resist the amendment.
Baroness David: All we are asking is that we should go back to the regulations that the Government already have in place; we are not asking for new regulations. Indeed, those regulations have been in place for a considerable time. We do not want relaxation so that much worse conditions will prevail than was the case before.
Lord Dixon-Smith: There is one small point that bears on the matter of regulation. In the good old, bad old days when there was a great deal of regulation, the concomitant effect was equally present; namely, that there was relatively low provision because the regulation inhibited it. Surely provision, even under what some people might

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consider less than adequate standards, is better than no provision at all. Indeed, provision is better than regulation in that respect.
Lord Elton: I would not altogether follow my noble friend because obviously one wants what provision there is to be of a suitable standard. However, I am not at all convinced that this is the way of securing that objective given first of all that there is already a matrix of requirements under health and safety regulations and fire regulations. I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell us what they are because it seems to me absurd to bring in one set of regulations in order merely to double bank another. Of course if they were to be in conflict with each other then confusion would become worse confounded.
To illustrate the point, I turn for a moment to Italy. The cheese makers in Italy are under a requirement to tile their cheesemaking rooms by the health and safety at work people and under an interdict against tiling their cheesemaking rooms by the heritage authorities of that country. That is a good illustration of what I have in mind. I hope my noble friend will be able to tell us what are the requirements at present under these other statutes, and also to bear in mind the general welcome there has been in this Chamber for the deregulating offensive—I think I can call it that—of Her Majesty's Government, which has resulted in the giving of work to the Select Committee on Delegated Powers to invigilate the process. It seems to me that if with one hand we do that and with the other we start laying on more regulations, we are creating a further round of deregulation for our own sub-committee. That would be a great waste of the time of this Chamber, as I suspect is this amendment. I hope my noble friend will resist it, but in the terms which I have described.
Baroness Seear: I must take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, as regards the introduction of a great deal of regulation. Of course we do not want the matter over regulated. We are only suggesting the reintroduction of regulations which were drawn up by this Government. I think back to the child minding arrangements which we entered into years ago. I think it was originally a Labour government who introduced those measures, but I forget which government introduced them. The lack of regulation in that area led to some horrid situations. We want a minimum of regulation which will ensure that we never see the kind of situation which we witnessed in those times—no one denies that—which arose because of the absence of regulation on child minding.
Lord Elton: Have the noble Baroness and her noble friends considered whether legislation by reference to a defunct regulation is a proper procedure, and whether they ought not to be considering reintroducing the regulations which have lapsed? It seems to me that it is difficult to refer to a ghost as it were and say, "Do it like him" because these are now ghostly regulations which are no longer in force.
Baroness Seear: That is a technical point which we can well look into. The whole point is that we do not want over regulation. We must not allow this debate to turn into a discussion of whether this area is regulated or not
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regulated. We want to ensure decent standards in which good education can be conducted. There have been regulations which have laid down those standards. It is that kind of regulation—not necessarily precisely those regulations—which we require at the present time. That is all we are talking about. There is a determined attempt to suggest that we are regulators; we on these Benches are far from being over-regulators.
Lord Elton: I am attempting to be helpful. Have the noble Baroness and the noble Lord considered whether the Education (Premises) Regulations 1981 were amended at any stage, because if they were, in law it will not be known whether the regulations referred to here are the unamended or the amended version. This is legislation, not a parlour game. It is important that anything we put on the statute book will work. It seems to me that this measure is defective in that respect.
Lord Tope: These regulations provide the space requirements which I certainly feel are adequate and appropriate. I do not wish to lose the point of this debate in an argument about the technicality of legal drafting for which, frankly, I am not qualified. If the Minister is prepared to say that he accepts the intention and the spirit of this amendment, and that at Report stage he will bring forward a better drafted Government amendment to achieve the same effect, I should be content to accept his assurance on that point. If, on the other hand, he does not say that, we shall have to consider the matter further.
Lord Henley: I was waiting for our colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench to intervene. However, they seem to have developed a strange reticence since the earlier stage of the Bill. I was awaiting another dissertation on the decline of the English language—on "quality ball", which noble Lords' colleagues in the Principality use: a form of words which I imagine could be interpreted in a completely different manner in other parts of the world. However, we need not go into that.
Baroness Seear: Is the noble Lord aware that ten past ten has passed?
Lord Henley: I am not clear why the noble Baroness refers to ten past ten or, for that matter, any other hour. We shall be here for considerably longer discussing the many amendments before us. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, will wish to discuss them at considerable length, as he always does; and I look forward to that. I look forward to discussing the amendments well after the 'witching hour and I look forward to coming back tomorrow on other business bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Whether that is true of noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench is a matter for them. I do not know whether they have the resilience that we on these Benches have.
I do not believe that it makes sense to require voucher redeeming institutions to meet standards laid down in regulations that have now been superseded. New regulations will come into force later in the year. That issue has been through Parliament. It has been discussed in another place. To be tied to such regulations would be folly.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will know perfectly well, following extensive consultation—the noble Lord knows just how extensive the consultation can be in the Department for Education and Employment—we decided to revoke those regulations. New regulations—the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1996—were laid in another place in February and will come into force on 1st September. That again was discussed in another place.
All maintained schools, including those which offer nursery education, will be required to comply with the new regulations. These retain and even strengthen the health and safety requirements of the 1981 regulations.
But we are deregulating the minimum requirements for teaching accommodation and recreation area because we believe that governors and LEAs are in the best position to decide how to administer their school premises. We shall, however, be publishing guidance later this year to help schools and LEAs make informed decisions.
My noble friend Lord Elton raised a number of questions about other regulations which will protect children. Playgroups and other institutions registered under the Children Act will still have to adhere to the guidance under that Act. As a condition of registration under the Children Act, providers' premises must comply with a range of health and safety requirements, that, like the School Premises Regulations, ensure the safety of children.
In discussing a number of issues including Italian cheeses, my noble friend asked me to give greater detail of the effects of those health and safety regulations—what they do and how they protect the interests of children. I regret that owing to pressure of time I cannot go into quite the detail that my noble friend wishes. However, I can assure him that, while not being burdensome in the way that my noble friend Lord Skidelsky views many amendments—he is right to worry about excessive regulations—they adequately ensure the health and safety of the children attending such institutions.
The revised School Premises Regulations, and the relevant Children Act guidance, both contain important requirements for essential areas of health and safety like washing and toilet facilities and fire safety.
Our policies thus address fully the issue of premises standards for institutions that will be in a position to redeem nursery vouchers.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked why, when we had had the regulations for so long, we did not keep them. They date from as far back as 1981. A great deal has changed since then. We have seen quite a revolution in the world of education. The many changes were, as always, opposed by the party opposite, none more loud than the noble Baroness herself. But many of them are now warmly welcomed. We heard only today about the Damascene conversion of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, on the subject of the TTA.
Baroness David: These regulations were made in 1981. That was not by a Labour government.
Lord Henley: I did not say it was by a Labour government. The noble Baroness is right to remind us that
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we were lucky enough, even as far back as 1981, to have a Conservative government. They were made by a Conservative government on that occasion. Much has changed since then in the world of education. Perhaps I may give just one—
Lord Tope: I thank the Minister for giving way. I accept that much has changed in the education world, as elsewhere, since 1981. But will the Minister tell us what exactly has changed that means that a child in 1996 or 1997 requires less space than he or she did in 1981? What changes is he referring to that mean we should have more crowded conditions for our children?
10.30 p.m.
Lord Henley: Put very simply, the changes we have seen since 1981, which, I hope, as we continue this process of Damascene conversions, we shall see the noble Lord, Lord Morris, and others welcoming, are, for example, LMS and grant-maintained schools—changes that allow much more to be devolved through the schools themselves. As I said, if the noble Lord was listening to me, we believe it right that the governors and the LEAs are in the best position to make appropriate decisions, and decisions in relation to school premises. That does not mean, as again I made clear, that we shall not be publishing guidance. However, it does mean that they should make those decisions. That was not necessarily the case in 1981.
Having said all that, I hope that the noble Lord will now accept that his proposals are not necessary on this occasion. I therefore ask him to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Tope: I am less than convinced by the Minister's arguments. I am a strong supporter of LMS, if not GMS. But I really do not see how that means that children require less space then they did in 1981. What the Minister is saying is that, in the Government's view—
Lord Henley: If the noble Lord will bear with me, at no point did I say that children require less space than they did in 1981. What I said was that it was more appropriate that decisions of this sort should be made without being over-regulatory, as my noble friend Lord Skidelsky put it. I said that these decisions could, and should, be made by the schools and the LEAs themselves and there was no need for a central diktat from government of the sort that the noble Lord and the party opposite seek. On this occasion we have not heard from the official spokesmen of the party opposite. A strange silence seems to have crept over them which I fail to understand. We now feel that it is appropriate that the schools and the LEAs make decisions—with guidance, yes, but not as a result of government diktat.
Lord Tope: I understand what the Minister is saying. He is saying it is no longer appropriate to set minimum standards and that, if a provider can get away with providing less space than would have been required had the 1981 regulations been in effect, then so be it.
The point I made earlier was that because the value of the voucher is less than the cost of the provision in many cases the pressure upon a provider to reduce space

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in order to maximise the value to that provider of the voucher will be all the greater. It seems that the talk about LMS and GMS is a smokescreen. The need for minimum standards—not maximum standards, not a prescription or over-prescription, but simply minimum standards—is all the greater, not less, with the introduction of this scheme.
The Minister referred to the 1996 school premises regulations. In our view, they do not provide satisfactory standards of space and so on for young children. That is why we deliberately chose to go for the 1981 regulations—and we are immediately accused of being over-prescriptive and over-regulatory. The point has been made by my noble friend Lady Seear, among others, that these "terribly prescriptive, centralising" regulations were actually introduced by the same deregulating Government who are still in power, albeit for a short time to come.
The Minister has been far from convincing. I note what he says about the publishing of guidance. I believe that guidance is a lot less satisfactory than regulation, but we will certainly look at that guidance with interest and consider what he has had to say. For the time being at least, I will withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 1. line 14, at end insert—
("(2A) Nursery education falling within subsection (2) above includes educational provision by parents in their role as a child's first educator and arrangements made under this section may include grants for parenting education programmes which support parents in that role.").
The noble Lord said: The Committee will be surprised to hear that this is an important group of amendments. In rising to move Amendment No. 15, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 20 which is in my name.
These amendments are about the role of parents in the education of their children. The Bill as it stands makes no reference to the role of parents. I think it is generally agreed that one of the most important factors—perhaps the most important factor—in a child's success at school is parental support, encouragement and involvement. Some parents give this naturally. Some lack the confidence to give it, or the skill; and some are put off by schools which are unwelcoming. Parents from insecure and disadvantaged homes particularly need to be helped, involved and supported. This is a very worthwhile investment.
Troubled and damaged children who slip through the education net cost society very dear indeed in the end. A place at an EBD day school costs about £11,000 a year and at a boarding school £22,000; and we are told that these new secure units will cost £100,000 a year. If we compare that with the very low cost of keeping parents in the picture, interesting them in their children's education, empowering them with the confidence to become involved in helping their children and firing them with enthusiasm, any government who fail to make this small investment in parents will, in my view, be guilty of wasting a great deal of taxpayers' money later on.
Amendment No. 20 is designed to ensure that parents will not be excluded from being providers of nursery education just because they are parents, if they can provide education to the standards which are required in other ways. I beg to move Amendment No. 15.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We on these Benches support the importance of involvement of parents in the education provision for children and in particular the very important role of parents in early years education. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, even if one were merely to look at this in terms of the costs to society, the involvement of parents would be a valuable financial consideration.
Far more important than that is the quality of life. The quality of life of young children and the relationship between parents and children with regard to a child's educational future is often dependent on the fact that many parents experienced their own education within the context of seeing themselves as failing. There are many parents who are afraid of school. Their memory of school is of an environment in which they never felt they could succeed. The worst examples of extreme professionalism will have an environment in which parents' sense of inadequacy can actually be reinforced by the attitude of the educators, the professionals, who prevent parents from developing confidence in this new role.
During my contact with the education service, both in the playgroup sector and in particular in nursery schools, nursery units, reception classes and infant schools, I have seen excellent, outstanding examples of parental involvement projects being highly successful in terms of the confidence they have given to parents, and in terms of the confidence they give to the child, because as parents we all know that children tend to imitate rather than listen. If the child grows up in an environment where he or she observes that the parent is uneasy in the school environment, where he or she hears the parent saying, "We will not gain any benefit from this", it can undermine the child's first steps in education. But when the environment is good and the parents are involved right from the beginning, the child learns in a new environment and the parent benefits.
I consider this amendment to be one of the most important amendments that we are discussing tonight. It is critically important that we take seriously this area and this element. It gives me great pleasure to support Amendment No. 15.
Baroness David: My name is also to this amendment and I support very strongly what the noble Lord and my noble friend said. Parental involvement has been a theme to which I have returned time and again in this Chamber. We know that many parents are very much lacking in confidence. We also know of the excellent work that is going on in such places as the City Lit, where a great many parents of foreign extraction who do not speak English need to be given a great deal of confidence. If they are taken into the schools and helped, it does a great deal for the children's education.

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This is an extremely important amendment. I hope that the Government will see their way to accepting it.
Lord Elton: I hope that my noble friend, who is so accustomed to disagreeing with those opposite him, will not regard their support for this amendment as a cause for immediately brushing it aside. I recognise that it is not framed and indeed I do not suppose that what it asks for is achievable in the terms in which it asks for it. But the noble Baroness, Lady David, touched on a point which ought to be common ground between the parties; namely, the crucial importance of the involvement of parents in their children's education, and not all parents are equipped to deliver that involvement.
Only last week, in common with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, I heard that a parent who had been illiterate and unable to help her children in school had, as a result of the intervention of the school, learned to read. She had been enormously helpful to her children and quite changed their behaviour in the school. That is an extreme example. But it is the case that many parents are not adequate to give their children the help that they need. Sometimes it is simply because they find the school a very daunting place. If some of the effort and resources put into this Bill could be put into making the school less daunting and more amenable to the involvement of parents in the education of their children, it would be enormously to the advantage of the children and eventually society at large.
The effects are greatly underestimated. Some years ago, I and my committee drew attention to that matter in a report on discipline in schools. A great deal of work has been done on it since then and every piece of work has re-emphasised its importance.
I do not want to delay the Committee at this time of night. I merely want to ask my noble friend to keep that principle firmly in mind (even if he asks the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment) because it is crucial.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: From these Benches perhaps I may very briefly support this series of amendments. I also welcome the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, who said what I hoped would be said on this series of amendments; namely, that this issue had nothing whatever to do with party politics but with something rather more important on which we could agree across party barriers. That was part of the burden of his earlier remarks.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I could advise the noble Baroness not to use those terms. Having sat for many years in the seat now occupied by my noble friend, I came to recognise that every serious assault on the Government's position was preceded by the statement, "This is not a party matter". This one really is not.
10.45 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: I thank the noble Lord. He criticised me and confirmed that I was correct at the same time, so I am not quite sure on which side I am supposed to be standing.
I wanted to draw attention to Amendments Nos 52 and 60 which are like equivalent amendments in relation to the physical and intellectual progress aspect. In the
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interesting and excellent document, Desirable Outcomes, a whole page is devoted to the importance of parents as partners. It would be a great help in watching how the process developed if the inspectors could look at it and take on board whatever they find during their inspection, in respect of the involvement of parents in their children's education, whether or not it is encouraging.
I take seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Elton said. We are seeing in schools examples of parental violence. The pupil is criticised and the parent's reaction is to come to the school and thump somebody. That is often because parents do not know how to approach the school which seems, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, rightly said, to be a daunting institution surrounded by a hedge of rules and regulations. However much we try to keep the doors open—and most schools do—it would be useful in the context of early years education if inspectors were to be asked to pay attention to the development of care for parental involvement in nursery education.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I have not spoken during this Committee stage, but it is important for the Committee to remember that that is the whole point of vouchers. Parents will be very much less daunted by schools if the school's existence depends on their bringing their child. We must remember that. That is the whole point.
Lord Henley: I believe I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is aiming at. But these amendments in no way achieve what he desires. I find it rather peculiar that, despite knowing what his intentions were, having read it and seen what it did, the Opposition Front Bench and the Liberal Democrats signed up to an amendment which produces such inconsistency. The noble Baroness earlier accused the Government of inconsistency but this is inconsistency with a capital I; it is inconsistency on a major level.
An amendment such as this would allow the Secretary of State to treat parents as though they were a voucher-redeeming institution in themselves. The noble Baroness should have looked carefully at the amendment before signing up to it. I appreciate that that may not have been the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in his amendment, though it is his concern in Amendment No. 20 to which the noble Baroness has not signed up. The earlier amendment is defective and does not achieve what the noble Lord wants. It has much the same effect as Amendment No. 20 and we do not believe—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, does not believe it, if she wishes to be consistent—that individual parents should he eligible to redeem vouchers.
Having said that, I can assure the Committee that we expect parents to be closely involved with their children's nursery education. Inspectors will have to include in their report their assessment of the quality of information for both parents and carers, and the chances for parents to be involved in their children's learning. Furthermore, the inspection reports will be required to be available to both parents and prospective parents

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alongside other published information. That will ensure that parents have the opportunity to play an active role in their child's education.
Going back to the intentions behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I should remind him that one part of the Bill is specifically for the funding of education for four year-olds; it is not for parents. I therefore have some doubts as to whether we can accommodate what the noble Lord wishes to accommodate. Having said that, I shall be more than happy to have further discussions with him between now and Report stage as to whether it is possible to do anything. However, I must first make clear what the Bill is designed to do and therefore what are the constraints in terms of what the noble Lord is trying to achieve.
Lord Northbourne: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I understand, and I recognised when I drafted the amendment, that he has a problem there. However, it could well be argued that the cheapest and the best way to effect the beginnings of education for some children is to help their parents to give it.
With regard to the later amendment, I did mean to say in Amendment No. 20 that groups of parents who got together to form a playschool or a nursery school to provide a nursery education, if they could meet all the standards which were required by the inspection, should have the opportunity to do so. I am grateful for the noble Lord's invitation to come and talk about it and I shall certainly do so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 16 to 20 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Cox): In calling Amendment No. 21, I should point out that if it is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 22 because of pre-emption.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 1, line 20, leave out from ("or) to ("are") in line 21 and insert ("a grant made under arrangements under this section shall he determined in such manner as may be prescribed; and regulations may, in particular, provide for the determination to be made by reference to an amount (or amounts) specified for the purpose by the Secretary of State.
( ) The times at which, and the manner in which, grants made under arrangements under this section").
The noble Lord said: I referred to this amendment earlier today. The Committee will recall that during the Second Reading of the Bill I gave notice that, in the light of the views of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, the Government would be introducing an amendment dealing with the method of determining the amount of grant that is to be paid to providers.
I explained that our aim is to strike a sensible balance between providing appropriate parliamentary control and excluding administrative details from the face of the Bill. The Government's amendment achieves just that.
It provides for the method of calculating the amount of grant to be paid to providers to be set out in regulations, thus ensuring that a fundamental element of the arrangements of the voucher scheme is subject to
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parliamentary scrutiny. The Government intend this to be a per capita amount per term for each child for whom nursery education is provided in that term. But the amendment is framed to allow the Secretary of State the flexibility to determine, and thus to adjust, the per capita amount to be used or to adopt different amounts for different cases, as necessary.
In moving this amendment, I refer to the report of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee. It said that if the House agrees to the amendments the Government propose to bring forward,
"the delegated powers in the bill will be subject to appropriate parliamentary control; and that there is nothing further in the bill on which we invite the House to act".
I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: As the Minister said, the amendment responds to the recommendation of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, which is itself taking up the Government's suggestion in their evidence that an amendment of this type should be moved. It means that the method of determining the amount of grant in each year will be subject to regulations open to parliamentary scrutiny rather than being decided under arrangements.
The value of the grant in the pilot year is £1,100 and this corresponds to the value of vouchers given to parents, although it is not actually required so to correspond since there is no provision for vouchers in the legislation. By the same token, the deductions from the LEA are also set at £1,100 in the current year, and again these could vary in future years from the value of grants. The mechanism for the setting of the grant level is nonetheless the core around which the financial side of the system will operate. It is right that there should be proper scrutiny. The amendment does not actually give Parliament the right necessarily to agree the actual level as opposed to the means by which it should be determined. The second half of the amendment does give power for the regulations to prescribe a determination by reference to "an amount"—i.e., to name a figure—but that is not mandatory. The amendment which stands in my name and the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, Amendment No. 24, achieves that object, but that is a matter for separate consideration. We are perfectly happy to accept the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 23 not moved.]
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 1. line 22, leave out ("by the arrangements") and insert ("annually by order").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 85. The purpose of the amendment is to require an annual voucher value setting order which would be debatable. This amendment, along with one to Clause 7(3), will require an annual order laid under the negative resolution procedure to state the amount of grants. Let us see what the Minister thinks of that.
The Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee of this place reported on this Bill on 1st May 1996. The report recorded that the Secretary of State had agreed, at his committee's request, to table an amendment in this place so that
"the method of calculation of grant is set out in regulations subject to the negative procedure".
This amendment, along with the amendment to Clause 7(2) requires an order to be made annually on the amount of grant to be paid to nursery providers.
The issue which divides the amendment from the Government amendment is that there will have to be a statutory instrument each year giving the grant arrangements. The reason for that is that the Government have not stated how the grant arrangements will change from one year to the next. If they remain the same there will be no need for a further statutory instrument and therefore no parliamentary scrutiny through that avenue. The Government have not stated how the value of the voucher will vary from one year to the next. Will it be based on the retail prices index, or will it be related to education costs or earnings? It is a probing amendment to discover what the Government's intentions are on this matter.
Nursery education providers need to know the mechanism for receiving money, but they need also the protection of secondary legislation to know how much money they will receive. In our view the Government amendment does not quite fulfil that requirement, but our amendment, coupled with the amendments to lines 20 and 22, require that all the financial arrangements will be in regulations and that those must be reviewed annually by Parliament.
Amendment No. 85 corrects an earlier misreading of Clause 7 and secures the aim of the main amendment in the group headed by Amendment No. 21, that there should be a vote in Parliament on the order to set the voucher value. I beg to move.
Baroness David: Amendment No. 25 is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. It is grouped with this amendment. Amendment No. 25 would allow for the consideration of, and resourcing for, continuity and stability for children in educational terms. The current arrangements may jeopardise continuity between pre and post-five provision.
In A Framework for the Primary Curriculum (1989) the National Curriculum Council stressed the need to plan for progression and continuity in order to enable children to transfer smoothly from pre-statutory to statutory provision and from one phase of education to the next. It points out that in primary schools where there are nursery classes, continuity is eased where nursery class teachers are involved as full members of the primary team.
The HMI report A survey of provision for under-fives in the playgroup and maintained sectors in Wales: Inspected during Academic Year 1994-95 includes as a feature of good practice:
"There are close links with the next stage of education to promote continuity and progression."
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Children benefit from being taught by qualified teachers who are able to build the links between the individual knowledge and understanding of each pupil and the expectations of the national curriculum and the broader components of school life. In settings where curriculum provision is largely underdeveloped children are less likely to be able to cope with the educational demands at school.
The Rumbold Report Starting with Quality (1990) states:
"On current evidence we believe that continuity is likely to be better between nursery education and primary education than between other provision for the under fives and primary school."
Children also benefit from continuity of environment as well as that of the curriculum. In such terms, some settings are able to provide greater continuity and stability than others.
The Rumbold Report supports that statement and says,
"continuity is likely to be easier where the child moves from a nursery class to the same school's reception class than when there is a move between nursery school and primary school."
I hope that the Minister will pay attention to that point.
11 p.m.
Lord Henley: I always listen with the closest attention to everything the noble Baroness has to say. I do not think that the arrival of my noble friend the Chief Whip interrupted her thoughts one jot.
Amendment No. 24 would require the amount of grant, and the time and manner in which it was paid, to come before Parliament either in regulations or in an annual order. I believe that to be undesirable.
The Government propose that the amount of grant received by providers should depend on the number of voucher-bearing pupils they attract. The precise amount of grant payable to each provider will therefore differ in each case and be impossible to predict.
Under the Government's proposal, Parliament would scrutinise the method by which grant was to be determined and would be informed of the per capita amount to be used in determining grant and any changes to that amount. That seems to me a sensible and practical approach.
The noble Lord asked me to go further and explain how my right honourable friend will consider the matter and decide to uprate it. I am afraid that I cannot help the noble Lord. As with all public expenditure, the value needs to be considered in the light of the overall public expenditure round and is something that my right honourable friend will consider each year in the light of other pressures and demands in the world of education. The Government as a whole will consider such matters in the light of all the other demands on government expenditure. These amendments would require subordinate legislation to specify the amount of grant providers will receive. That seems unrealistic and unworkable.
I turn briefly to Amendment No. 25, to which the noble Baroness, Lady David, spoke. The Audit Commission report, Counting to Five, shows that

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the hourly rate implied by the voucher (if it is exchanged for a part-time place) is not far from expenditure in a variety of institutions. We have said that we will be looking at the value of the voucher across the country and will consider whether there is a need for regional variations in value.
However, I am not convinced that this is a workable amendment. The responsibility for assessing individual children's needs rests at a local level with the provider, not with central government. Children have differing needs and develop at their own pace. Therefore, the amount of time and money needed will vary from child to child. Providers are in the best place to reach a judgment on this and to manage their resources accordingly.
In some places the cost of a place will exceed the voucher value. But in local authority schools, the LEA will still retain funds, as at the moment, to do so—and budgets will be reduced by only the voucher value for each four year-old. In the private and voluntary sector it will be for parents to top up the voucher. The voucher will enable parents to choose which setting offers the most appropriate provision for their child. Therefore, I hope that amendment will not be pressed.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Amendment No. 24 was worth a try. I am not unduly surprised that the Minister is not terribly content with it and I thank him for the courtesy with which he explained his position. I appreciate the noble Lord's points about his right honourable friend. This is a matter on which we shall have to differ. We may return to it at a later stage; meanwhile I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 1, line 22, at end insert—
("(4A) Nothing shall be taken to prevent, or to afford any right of appeal against, a refusal by any authority or person to provide (or continue to provide) a child with a place for nursery education at a maintained school if the reason for the refusal is that a relevant condition has not been complied with in relation to the child; and this subsection applies even if the child has been provided with, or offered, a place at the school before the commencement of this subsection.
In this subsection—

(a) "a maintained school" means a school maintained by a local education authority, a grant-maintained school or a grant-maintained special school, and

(b) "a relevant condition" means a prescribed condition designed to facilitate the determination of the amount of grants payable under arrangements under this section.").

The noble Lord said: Again, I beg to move a technical amendment. It responds to views which have been expressed by a number of local education authorities and, I hope, will be welcomed by them.
In nursery schools and classes it is possible for admissions authorities—either LEAs or governing bodies—to place conditions on the places they offer to children. It may be therefore that an admissions authority offers a child a place in a nursery school with a condition that relates to the presentation of the nursery
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education voucher to the school. The law on admissions is not quite the same for reception classes in primary schools.
The purpose of the amendment is to clarify the position in reception classes and to ensure that reception classes, nursery schools and nursery classes are all on an equal footing. We propose giving admissions authorities a power to place conditions on the offer of reception class places. This is a power. It is entirely up to individual LEAs and governing bodies to decide whether or not to exercise that power.
Let me also make clear that this new power is very tightly drawn. There is no question of allowing admissions authorities to impose any sort of condition—only conditions that are prescribed and allow the amount of grant payable under this Bill to be determined.
Of course, all four year-olds are entitled to a nursery education voucher. Therefore, there is no reason why parents of eligible children should not get their vouchers or present them to schools. With that brief explanation I hope that the noble Lord is prepared to accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: This is an interesting and potentially helpful amendment. It gives an insight into the potential human cost of the voucher arrangements. The purpose of the amendment is to allow any person or authority to refuse to admit, or if in attendance to exclude, a child from nursery education in an LEA-maintained or grant-maintained school if the voucher is not produced. It seems to me that there is a flaw in the arrangements which this amendment has the potential to remedy. If a child is in a part-time maintained place in the morning but goes to a voluntary and private part-time place in the afternoon, because the morning place is free the parent can choose to use the voucher for the afternoon provision. This amendment gives legal sanction to excluding the child from the morning session if the parent has not produced the voucher.
However, the human cost of excluding a child—perhaps a three year-old—who has already settled into a nursery class ought not to be underestimated. The provision can also be used to exclude a child whose parents have not presented a voucher for any reason, no matter how genuine. The child may be a new immigrant whose parents are not in receipt of child benefit. There is also the prospect that grant-maintained schools, who are fully in charge of their own admission arrangements and finance, may wish to exclude children whose parents do not produce vouchers immediately, whereas an LEA school may take a more humane approach to the receipt of vouchers and give parents warning of the consequences of not producing it. It may increase the divide between LEA and grant-maintained primary schools.
I believe that there are two issues which need a little more probing. First, can the Minister define "any authority or person" in the second line of the amendment? Does it mean that the LEA can direct voluntary schools to refuse to continue to educate a child whose parents do not have a voucher? Can the head teacher of a maintained school exclude a child

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whose parents have not been sent a voucher, even though the LEA may be prepared to wait for another couple of weeks for the voucher to be presented? Are these matters that can be dealt with within the confines of the LMS scheme?
Secondly, the amendment refers to "a relevant condition" as a condition to do with payment of grants, but the precise nature of any conditions will be subject to regulations. Can the Minister state what the regulations will prescribe? For instance, how much notice will a parent have before a child is excluded? Will children who are not on the child benefit database be excluded from the provision? It is worth noting that there is a retrospective provision in the amendment. A child can be excluded under the provision even though he or she has been admitted to school before the commencement of the provision. Can the Minister offer any help on those matters?
Lord Henley: I believe that at this time of night it would be rash of me to attempt to answer the detail of the noble Lord's questions. I prefer to write to the noble Lord in greater detail. It may help if I explain what would have happened without the amendment. That may give the noble Lord some idea why we felt it necessary to table the amendment. The objective of the amendment is to make a link between the voucher and place in the maintained school. It has been drawn to our attention in Phase 1 that there is room for clarification and giving equal treatment to nursery schools, nursery classes and reception classes. The consequence is to ensure that each school receives funding for the four year-olds that it takes. I believe that that is only right and proper. I believe that that will be welcomed by the LEAs who have brought it to our attention in Phase 1. If the noble Lord agrees, I prefer to write in greater detail to him.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 1, line 22, at end insert—
("( ) A grant made under arrangements under this section may be made to the governing body of an aided or special agreement school in respect of expenditure incurred by them in the provision or alteration of premises or equipment for the purpose of providing nursery education at the school, and such grants shall be made as if they were grants under section 281 of the Education Act 1993 (grants by Secretary of State in respect of aided and special agreement schools).").
The noble Baroness said: I move Amendment No.27 in the absence of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon. The amendment addresses the need of voluntary-aided primary schools to receive capital funding to extend or alter their premises to make new nursery education provision.
The amendment arises because of the desire of local education authorities to make provision for nursery classes in voluntary aided schools. As a member of the local education authority in England with the largest number of voluntary aided schools, I speak from personal experience when I say that the LEA is not responsible for the costs of this provision and may not make provision from the capital expenditure approvals.
The building costs have to be found by the schools' trustees, governors and dioceses, although 85 per cent of the cost is grant aided by the DfEE. Frequently however, the DfEE has refused to find the 85 per cent, and that has caused much frustration. In certain years the Government have advised voluntary aided school governors and diocesan authorities not to submit bids for funding of nursery provision. The reason is that the Treasury has been reducing education capital spending significantly over recent years and nursery education provision has not featured high on the list of urgent priorities in the voluntary aided school sector. The amendment attempts to address the imbalance.
I cite the example of a local authority of which I am a member, Lancashire County Council. In looking at the provision of nursery schools, classes and units, the authority has attempted to evaluate the areas of greatest need taking into account that the most appropriate need on the list of developments would be a voluntary aided school. That has often been thwarted by the actions of the DfEE. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: The amendment is intended to empower the Secretary of State to make capital grants under Clause I to the governing body of an aided or special agreement school. I can assure the noble Baroness, in her role as the right reverend Prelate—I welcome the fact that the Church of England is moving further forward - that grant will continue to be available to voluntary aided and special agreement schools under Section 281 of the 1993 Act as now, subject to the need to prioritise bids in the light of the need to ration scarce resources.
I understood that that was the kind of reassurance that the right reverend Prelate was seeking. I hope it is the sort of assurance that the noble Baroness, in her role as the right reverend Prelate, is also seeking. If that is the case, I hope that she will be able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I am very happy to take on this role. I hope that the Minister will not discuss whether or not enacting the policy he has referred to is dependent on his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment who may not share his view about welcoming me as a right reverend prelate. At this stage I shall not press the amendment. I look forward to reading Hansard. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 28.
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
NURSERY EDUCATION DUTY
(".—(1) A local authority shall secure the provision of nursery education within the meaning of section 1(2) above for children within its area.

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(2) The Secretary of State may, after consulting such persons as appear to him to be concerned, issue guidance to authorities as to the fulfilment of their duties under this section.").
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I beg to move Amendment No. 28. It is—
Lord Henley: We spent considerable time on securing groupings. We went through about four drafts. Amendment No. 28 was grouped with Amendment No. 7; we discussed it earlier. I see little to be gained by discussing it yet again unless we are to be here all night.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: All I was going to do was say, "Not moved".
[Amendment No. 28 not moved.]
11.15 p.m.
Clause 2 [Delegation]:
[Amendments Nos. 29 to 31 not moved.]
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Requirements]:
[Amendment No. 32 not moved.]
Lord Rix Lord Rix moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 2, line 10, after ("shall") insert ("have regard to any code of practice issued by the Secretary of State under section 157 of the Education Act 1993 and shall").
The noble Lord said: I wish to concentrate my few remarks on Amendments Nos. 33 and 88. In tabling the amendments, I and my noble friends Lady Warnock and Lord Northbourne seek to ensure that all voucher-redeeming institutions—I apologise for the jargon—have regard to the code of practice on special educational needs. No doubt other Members of the Committee will speak to Amendments Nos. 44, 47 and 73.
At the moment, the Bill does not require the private or voluntary sector to have regard to the code of practice. I believe that it is essential. The code of practice is based on good practice gathered from the maintained sector. I believe that it is flexible enough to be used by a variety of organisations.
I readily accept that not every section of the code will be relevant in all settings. However, having regard to the code gives enough scope to use only those parts of it which are relevant.
Although, as the Bill stands, all providers will have to publish policies on special educational needs, if those policies are developed without use of the code they may encourage and reinforce bad practice. I am sure that we are on common ground in wanting quality, and quality requires attention to principles and detail. I hope that the Minister can reassure me on those matters. I look forward to hearing his comments. I beg to move.
Baroness David: My name is to Amendment No. 47. The amendment would require all voucher-redeeming institutions to produce a written SEN policy. The code of practice states:
"as part of their statutory duties, governing bodies of all maintained schools must publish information about, and report on, the school's policy on special educational needs".
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The production of school SEN policies provides an opportunity to audit each school's needs in a systematic way. The Education (Special Educational Needs) (Information) Regulations 1994 prescribe the information which the school must make available. For example, the checklist contained in the SEN policy outlined in Regulation 2 and Schedule 1, and reproduced in the code of practice, includes the requirement for basic information to be published on,
"any special facilities which increase or assist access to the school by pupils with SEN".
This requirement to produce such comprehensive SEN policies has proved vitally important in terms of ensuring the identification, assessment and subsequent provision for children with SEN in maintained schools. The benefits of identifying and assessing the special needs of children as early as possible are obvious, and it is vital for these children that any subsequent provision is both adequate and appropriate.
The current Government and the Labour Party are both keen on baseline assessment as a focus or starting point for value-added measurement. The identification of a child's special educational needs at the age of four (or younger) would dramatically increase that child's chances of later success. Therefore it is extremely important that all forms of provision for four year-olds should be required to publish information about, and report on, their SEN policies with regard to the code of practice's SEN policy checklist. That is an extremely important requirement.
The DfEE next steps document lists the publication of SEN policies in the information that providers should be required, as a condition of the voucher grant, to provide annually for parents. However, it gives no indication of what form this SEN policy should take. The amendment would ensure that all providers follow the SEN policy checklist as outlined in the Education (Special Educational Needs) (Information) Regulations 1994. I hope that the Minister can see his way to accepting this group of amendments.
Lord Northbourne: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 44 and 73. Amendment No. 44 is a modest little compromise amendment about the identification of special educational needs. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, in moving Amendment No. 10, sought to require all providers to employ a qualified teacher. I presume that that means one person full-time. It seems to me that that may be a very exacting requirement in the case of a small nursery provider in, say, a remote area where there are only half a dozen children involved and where provision could adequately be made by a trained playschool leader, perhaps supported by mothers or grannies.
However, such staff might not have the skills to identify special educational needs, so it seems to me that the employment of a specialist teacher part-time for a minimum, as I have suggested in the amendment, of 15 hours a term would ensure that special educational needs were identified. If the principle of the amendment were to be accepted by the Government, I think it would probably need to be backed by a consequential amendment on Report which would require all schools

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to notify the social services of children with special educational needs so that some action can be taken to deal with the matter and help them.
Amendment No. 73 is, I admit, a slightly "rogue" amendment. I believe in vouchers but I do not really support this scheme because I believe that the value of vouchers ought to be related to the needs of the child and to the costs of fulfilling those needs. I tabled the amendment under what I believe now to be a misunderstanding about the Government's intentions. Perhaps the Minister will now confirm whether or not I am correct in believing the following. If a child with special educational needs is, at present, being educated in a state school and it is costing, say, £4,000, will the local authority lose £4,000 under the new scheme or will it lose £1,100 from the clawback? I believe I am right in saying that it will only lose £1,100 which it will then get back, in which case the importance of the amendment is not as great as it might otherwise have been.
However, it seems to me that there is a pot of money which could easily be available to help the children in most need. I simply cannot believe that any person who is wealthy enough to pay tax at 40 per cent. would not be prepared to accept a hand-out of £660, instead of a hand-out of £1,100, if he or she knew that the balance was going to help children in need.
Lord Addington: I should just like to express my support for the tenets of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. I also give my full support to Amendment No. 47 tabled in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady David. Early recognition is a great tool for anyone giving assistance in this field. If you identify a problem, you can then start to do something about it—or, at the very least, you can stop doing things which may aggravate that child's problems in the classroom. If we are starting to educate at the age of four, then there will be a slightly longer period during which teaching practices may compound problems. Early recognition and trying to get some statement of intent is vitally important to the whole system. I suggest that we cannot start early enough in the field.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I should like to support this group of amendments. I shall be brief, even though this is the first time that I have spoken tonight. Amendment No. 44 in the name of my noble friend Lord Northbourne would ensure that each establishment employs a teacher for at least 15 hours a term who could identify children with special educational needs. That seems to me to be a valuable and extremely modest requirement. I particularly support Amendment No. 33, so succinctly moved by the noble friend Lord Rix, which relates to the duty to,
"have regard to any code of practice issued by the Secretary of State",
which would bring the legislation into line with that for schools.
I also warmly support Amendment No. 47 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, which would ensure that "every authority" had a duty to make and maintain a statement
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of its special educational needs policy. That would be excellent. It would mean that we would have a duty right across the educational field with nursery schools, schools, further and higher education colleges, together with LEAs, providing further education. It would make for coherence and continuity in provision for pupils with special educational needs and students with learning difficulties. I very much hope, therefore, that the Minister will give an encouraging reply, not only to my noble friend Lord Rix but also to the noble Baroness, Lady David, and my noble friend Lord Northbourne.
Lord Henley: I hope that I can be encouraging on this occasion, though I cannot accept all the amendments, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, asked. However, I hope I can go some way down that track. I start by answering the point put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, when he asked about a figure of £4,000 and whether all that would be lost, or whether he was right in assuming that the figure is £1,100. I was trying to nod, but obviously nodding does not get onto the record. He was right in saying that only £1,100 pounds would be deducted for every child, regardless of the cost of the place.
I turn now to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, which he and I discussed at a meeting where a number of points were put before us. We thought the meeting might last some time, but because there was such agreement among us all, the meeting was over before the tea was cold or the chocolate biscuits finished. I am sure the noble Lord will be pleased to learn that having considered his amendment, and listened to the representations he and others made, we have decided to place on the face of the Bill a requirement that all voucher-redeeming institutions not already covered by the duty in Section 157 of the 1993 Act "have regard" to the SEN code of practice.
However, in placing such a requirement on the face of the Bill we need to build on the noble Lord's amendment. Therefore he will quite understand if we cannnot accept his amendment precisely as tabled. It is important not to forget that the code of practice was written primarily with local education authorities and maintained schools in mind. It was not drafted with playgroups and private nursery schools in mind. As such, a good deal of the code is not directly relevant to non-LEA providers.
We have therefore decided, in order to make the code more accessible to voucher-redeeming institutions in the private and voluntary sectors, that we will issue complementary guidance on the code. We envisage that that guidance will highlight the key principles of the code, and issues relevant to private and voluntary providers.
I see such guidance as essential in the short to medium term. We need to ensure that private and voluntary providers are aware of and comfortable with

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the requirements of the code. At such time as we revise the code, we shall see that its contents are suitable over the various settings in which the under-fives receive education with support from public funds.
I stress that that complementary guidance will be just that—complementary. It will complement the code by flagging up the key principles for those not familiar with them. It will not in any way dilute the standing of the code itself. The code will remain the point of reference. We shall be consulting shortly on the detailed content of this guidance. In bringing forward our amendment, we will expand on the noble Lord's amendment. The result will be that all voucher-redeeming institutions will have to have regard to the code, and to any complementary guidance issued alongside it.
I hope therefore the noble Lord will feel it unnecessary to press his amendment, and I hope other noble Lords will understand why, having gone that far, I am not prepared to go quite as far on some of the other amendments. I start with Amendment No. 44 from the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, which seeks to make it a requirement that all voucher-redeeming institutions employ for a minimum of 15 hours per week a person qualified to identify children with SEN—
Lord Northbourne: It is 15 hours per term.
Lord Henley: I apologise to the noble Lord. Of course he is right; it is 15 hours per term. I do not think that such a requirement is needed. I am confident that many of the staff who are working with the under-fives have the necessary skills and experience to work with children with SEN.
Moreover, I have already outlined the commitment we have made to children with SEN by requiring all voucher-redeeming institutions to have regard to the code of practice and to publish information about their SEN provision. We believe that those requirements will help ensure that the needs of SEN children are identified and addressed, and will help identify the training needs of staff. We have included an element for training within the voucher value and individual institutions could obviously use that according to their specific needs.
Turning to the request by the noble Baroness, Lady David, for a written statement of SEN policy, this clause seeks to place a duty on providers of nursery education to produce and keep an up-to-date written statement of their policy for making provision for children with SEN within the meaning of Section 156 of the Education Act 1993.
The availability of information for parents about an individual institution's policy on SEN is important to enable parents to make informed choices as to the most appropriate pre-school setting for their child. Again I argue that the noble Baroness's proposed new clause is unnecessary. We have made it clear that it will be a requirement of grant that all providers participating in the nursery education voucher scheme must publish on an annual basis information for parents which must include details of the provider's SEN policy. I shall not go into detail as to exactly what should be provided. I do not think that at this time of night the noble
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Baroness would wish me to continue at great length. However, in offering to write to the noble Baroness with further details, I hope that that will speed matters up.
The publication of SEN policies as a requirement of grant, together with a duty on all providers to have regard to the SEN code of practice, will enable parents to make appropriate, informed, considered and confident choices about the type of provision for their child.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, described his amendment as the rogue amendment. I am opposed to the amendment for two reasons. First, I do not believe that it would be desirable to make vouchers a taxable benefit; and even less desirable then to hypothecate the tax. The noble Lord will know that we are unwilling to hypothecate taxes. Secondly, we believe that resources for nursery education for children with special educational needs are already being provided. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will not feel it necessary to pursue that amendment further.
I hope that the concessions that I have announced for the noble Lord, Lord Rix, will go a considerable way towards allaying some of the concerns of other noble Lords who have spoken on the amendments.
Lord Rix: I am delighted with the Minister's response. It was certainly worth waiting these long hours to hear those words of comfort. I was also delighted with the response we received when we met the Minister last Thursday in the department to discuss Amendments Nos. 33 and 88. It was clear then that we were pushing at an open door. I hope that noble Lords who put forward Amendments Nos. 44, 47 and 73, will feel that they have not wasted their time this evening and that some form of favourable response will come from the Minister in due course.
I am grateful for such a short debate on the amendments and for the fact that, although the wording will not be precisely as tabled, in the fullness of time it will be similar. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 34 not moved.]
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 2, line 11, at end insert—
("( ) Requirements imposed under this section shall include a requirement to ensure that corporal punishment is not used in nursery education provided by an authority or other person to whom a grant is made under arrangements under section 1.").
The noble Baroness said: The Minister will not be altogether surprised that I have returned to a theme which I have followed for about 15 years—moving sometimes a little way and sometimes quite a long way. I hope that we can move a little way tonight.
The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that all children in institutions providing early years care and education are protected from institutional corporal punishment. We are talking here of four year-old and possibly three year-old children. Surely no one these days on either side of the House would seek to justify institutional corporal punishment for such children.
When I raised the issue at Second Reading, the Minister responded at col. 722 of the Official Report of 20th May that he believed that protecting voucher-bearing children was sufficient. In our view it is not. Surely there have been enough instances of abuse and ill-treatment of children in institutions to convince the Government that there must be no confusion whatever over teachers' and other carers' rights to hit children.
We appreciate that the Bill cannot be used to solve the problem properly by extending the existing prohibition on corporal punishment to cover all institutions, including those in the private sector. But it can and should be used to ensure at least that the very young children in all the institutions involved in the voucher scheme are protected.
Ministers in the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Employment know that educational organisations—those involved in early years care and education and child welfare, and child protection groups, including the NSPCC—all strongly oppose the use of corporal punishment. The National Early Years Network and the Law Reform for Children's Day Care Group strongly support this amendment.
Whatever the Government may say, the current proposals are a step backwards. The Department of Health has maintained for years that,
"Physical punishment has no place in the childcare environment".
Back in 1987, in answer to a parliamentary Question, Edwina Currie, then a junior Department of Health Minister, stated that,
"There are no circumstances in which corporal punishment would he appropriate for children attending local authority day nurseries or any premises registered under the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act 1948".
What has changed to lead the Government now to tolerate institutional corporal punishment of these young children?
The current proposals will not even implement the DfEE's limited policy that there must be no corporal punishment in publicly funded institutions or of state supported pupils. Children in maintained nursery schools and nursery classes are of course already protected. But day nurseries are fully publicly funded. Playgroups receive public funds. Yet, under these proposals non-voucher bearing children in those institutions will not be protected from corporal punishment.
The only adequate and humane solution within the scope of this Bill is to ensure that corporal punishment cannot be used in any voucher-redeeming institution. I appreciate that this amendment may not be the best way of achieving this. It can probably be achieved by regulations. But in moving the amendment, I am seeking an assurance that the Government will accept the need to protect from corporal punishment all children in all the institutions involved in the voucher scheme, and to do so through legislation. Guidance is not enough.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, regrets that he could not stay to support me in this amendment, but he wishes it to be said that he very strongly supports it. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: I know that the noble Baroness feels particularly strongly on this matter. I know her interest goes wider than this Bill and that she has pursued it for a number of years. The noble Baroness will remember that in answer to a Written Question earlier this year, I made it clear that it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to prohibit corporal punishment for all state-funded education.
Clearly, education provided in exchange for nursery education vouchers is "state-funded education" and as such we will ensure that no child receiving eduction by virtue of its use of a nursery education voucher is subjected to corporal punishment. We intend to do so through a condition of grant. I believe that is as clear a way of doing it as any.
I hope that the noble Baroness appreciates—I am not quite clear about the scope of her amendment—that this would not be the place for a wider debate on corporal punishment generally; this Bill relates only to children funded through the grant arrangements. Therefore we must confine ourselves to that group. I hope that the assurance I have given her, and gave again in a Written Answer on 12th February, will be sufficient. I make it quite plain that, through the conditions of grant, we intend to make it quite clear that no child receiving education by virtue of its use of a nursery education voucher is subjected to corporal punishment.
Baroness David: I thank the Minister for his reply. But I did say myself when I spoke that I did not look on this Bill as a way of preventing, or trying to prevent, corporal punishment in every private establishment. However, I am not quite clear from the Minister's answer whether the institutions where any government money is going will be prevented from using corporal punishment or only the children who have vouchers. It would seem to me a very odd situation if in any institutional educational establishment some children were able to be hit and not others. It would be perfectly ridiculous, rather like the ridiculous Bill that was brought forward by Keith Joseph which was ignominiously thrown out by this place. Could the Minister please make it clear.
Lord Henley: It is so unlikely that there would be an institution that allowed some children in receipt of vouchers not to be beaten but allowed others whose parents paid for facilities to be beaten. I do not think one would have an institution of that sort. There might be private sector institutions that would not become voucher-redeeming institutions which might, as with other private schools, wish to go on making use of corporal punishment. The assurance I am giving to the noble Baroness is that no child in receipt of vouchers will be subjected to corporal punishment and I do not

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think that any schools will have two classes of pupil dependent on whether they do or do not receive vouchers.
Baroness David: Will the Minister at least give guidance to that effect?
Lord Henley: There is a limit to how much guidance we can issue. The suggestion that there could be such a school is so beyond all ideas of reality that it is hardly necessary.
Baroness David: I agree it is ridiculous, but I would have liked a further assurance. However, I shall discuss the Minister's reply with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and see whether he is satisfied with what the Minister has said. I am not quite sure that I am, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 36 not moved.]
Lord Addington Lord Addington moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 2. line 12, at end insert—
("( ) shall require that an authority or person to whom grant is made under arrangements under section 1 is subject to the requirements of Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995,").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment, I think it is best that I start off with a question to the Minister. He has just said that special educational needs provision will be enhanced and brought forward with the Bill. Thus, does the provision address the type of school about which this amendment is talking? This amendment and Amendments Nos. 37 and 91 are about those children in non-maintained schools in receipt of vouchers who fall outside the Disability Discrimination Act and within the statutory requirement for education, which is designed for five year-olds, and which is expanded down. Therefore, there is an area where a child is vulnerable to discrimination. The problem is that there is a possibility that the state may fund a child in an educational programme where it is quite legal to discriminate against him because he is not defended. This is what lies behind both these amendments. If this has been corrected by what the Minister has just said, I will of course withdraw the amendment straight away. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: I suspect I missed an opportunity to make the noble Lord aware of the letter I wrote on the 4th June this year to David Grayson, the new Chairman of the National Disability Council. It is a letter that I showed to the noble Lord, Lord Rix, dealing with the very point about which the noble Lord is concerned. First, I want to make it quite clear that I will make a copy of the letter available to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and he might like to consider that in the light of what he does at a later stage. The first point I want to make is that the voucher redeeming institution will be a school and therefore will be excluded from Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act, along with other educational institutions. However, in the light of concerns raised by the NDC—and this is what I was writing to Mr. Grayson about—I wrote:
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"We have come to the conclusion that it would not be appropriate to extend the education exclusion to cover all services offered by providers who redeem nursery vouchers. We are very aware that many providers in the private and voluntary sectors who redeem nursery vouchers will also be offering other services for the under fives, notably child care services, and that it would be unacceptable for institutions to discriminate against disabled children whose parents may apply for such services".
What I am trying to say to the noble Lord—and again I ask that he looks at the letter in due course—is that, although the educational aspect will remain excluded following concerns raised by the NDC, the non-educational aspects will not be excluded from the Disability Discrimination Act.
Lord Addington: I thank the noble Lord for that response. I shall first read the letter and then consider his remarks. I shall possibly come back to the point.
But the fact remains that there is a hole that must be filled. I hope that what the noble Lord said has filled it, but it is a matter of concern. There have been cases in point. For example, a small girl had a facial disfigurement—a portwine stain on her face—and was undergoing reconstructive surgery for a hare lip. Other parents protested to the headmaster, who asked for the child to be removed. Something has to be done, if there is any possibility of such a child who is receiving state funding for education not having full protection.
Lord Henley: The noble Lord will remember better than I do the long debates that we had on the Disability Discrimination Bill. We decided to exclude education partly because there is the 1993 Act and the SEN code of practice. Obviously, as on the previous amendment, that will apply to the educational aspects of nursery provision. But the other, non-educational provision, will be covered by the Disability Discrimination Act.
Lord Addington: I thank the noble Lord for that little piece of clarification. I believe that he has covered the points that I wanted to raise, although I should like to think a little further on this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]
11.45 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 2, line 12, at end insert—
("( ) shall prescribe the staffing ratios required in respect of four-year old children in reception classes (having regard to the need for the Secretary of State to satisfy himself that adequate resources are available to providers for this purpose)").
The noble Baroness said: I shall move this amendment very briefly. There is quite clear educational evidence that those children who are designated as summer-born children perform right through to the age of 16 at a lower level of attainment than other children in the same year. It is equally true that the child who is barely four when it enters a reception class has very

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different educational needs from a child who has reached statutor school age. It is also true that the Government have no intention at the moment of putting any limit at all on reception class sizes. There will not even be a limit on the number of children who can be placed in a reception class on health and safety grounds. That is the current situation.
This amendment is necessary. Nursery education and primary school education are different. One obviously merges into the other. We are concerned to ensure that schools which take children as part of the nursery voucher scheme do so providing an appropriate education for children in that age group. The educational research shows that the child who is taken into a large reception class too young, where there is no proper training for or recognition of the needs of that young child, may be further disadvantaged. I beg to move.
Lord Northbourne: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 40, which also concerns staffing ratios but which varies significantly from the amendment of the noble Baroness, to which she has just spoken.
If one relies on market forces to provide satisfactory outcomes, then a level playing field must be provided. The key factor in the economic operation of an educational establishment is the staff to pupil ratio. If a situation is allowed in which one set of providers is submitted to fairly stringent, though probably very right, conditions in relation to staff-pupil ratios and other providers are allowed complete freedom, the natural economic tendency will be to fill up reception classes and provide the minimum of staffing to give a general impression that the establishment is doing its job. With a reception class of 25 or 30 children and perhaps one teacher and one assistant, as the noble Baroness said, the children will not receive the education they need. With the present economic pressures on schools and local authorities there will be a serious temptation to do that. It is not in the best interests of children, and it is not fair to the institutions which are providing quality education, to throw them into the marketplace and not provide a level playing field.
Lord Henley: I am afraid that I do not see a justification for either Amendment No. 39 or Amendment No. 40. The touchstone of quality in all settings will be whether the desirable learning outcomes are likely to be achieved. Defining any particular staff:child ratio will not guarantee the achievement of the outcomes. I am not sure why we should need to.
Where is the evidence to suggest that there is no good work going on, no good provision, in any reception class? Indeed, an Ofsted report on the standards and quality of education in reception classes published in 1993 found that the overall standards of work were satisfactory or better in nearly 80 per cent. of the reception classes seen. The HMCI report on provision for under-fives in Wales, published last December, reached similar conclusions.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, made clear, a teacher in a reception class is often supported by a classroom assistant. I hope therefore that we need not take that amendment any further. Perhaps I can deal with a further suggestion that was made.
Lord Northbourne: Before the Minister moves on—it is simpler to do it in this way—if he says that it is not important to specify staff:pupil ratios, why are they specified in nursery schools and similar establishments?
Lord Henley: I was coming on to the suggestion that reception classes would "unlevel" the playing field by cramming in pupils. I hope that that will respond to the point raised by the noble Lord.
I have no doubt that the LEAs and the governors will keep the number of children in reception, and indeed in all classes, to a reasonable, manageable and safe level, as they do at present. The revised School Premises Regulations strengthen the detailed health and safety standards to which schools must adhere, and we discussed that earlier.
We need also to recognise that once children have gained admittance to a school's reception class, they have a secure place until the age of seven, eight or II, depending on the type of school and the area they are in. So if a school were to cram children into its reception class—the unfairness the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, sees—that school would need to continue to provide for all those children throughout their time in the school. I cannot believe that any governing body or an LEA would think such a situation desirable.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The Minister has misunderstood. There are two aspects to the question of the number of children in a class. One is the physical constraints. In response to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the Minister seemed to imply that any constraint would involve teachers. Can the Minister confirm that the nursery staffing ratios recommended by the department are adult:child staff ratios? They are not solely teacher:pupil ratios. Part of the justification is the safety of very young children where there are insufficient adults. I speak from memory; I believe it is something like 13:1 for children in that age-group, but I may be wrong.
Lord Henley: I suspect the noble Baroness's memory is better than mine. I shall have to come back to her on the detail of that.
The point I was hoping to make reasonably clearly, though it is difficult at five minutes to midnight when we have much more to get on to, is that, first, it would not be in the interests of the school itself, in the case of reception classes, to cram in more children because they have to provide for those children later on, up to whatever may be the appropriate age. For nursery classes and other such institutions the case is different and that is why I set it out as I did. That is why I made it clear to the Committee when I started my response that the teacher in a reception class is often supported by a classroom assistant—the very point the noble Baroness was trying to make.

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Ultimately, though, these should be matters for parental choice. If, for whatever reason, schools do not offer the type of nursery provision that parents want, they will take their children elsewhere. So that the governors are totally clear about what is expected, we shall publish some fairly detailed guidance on school accommodation later this summer. I hope that that deals with the point made by the noble Lord and I trust that, at this hour of night, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Given the lateness of the hour and the need to read in detail the points raised by the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 40:
Page 2 line 12, at end insert—
("( ) shall prescribe the minimum staffing ratios in respect of four-year-old children in reception classes which shall not be less favourable than the minimum staffing ratios that apply to four-year-old children in other nursery classes,").
The noble Lord said: I shall not move the amendment because of the lateness of the hour. However, I am profoundly unhappy about what the Minister has said. I do not think that he has at all answered the questions which were raised in the debate.
[Amendment No. 40 not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 41 to 45 not moved.]
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 2, line 16. at end insert ("not").
The noble Lord said: I should welcome some clarification from the Minister. Clause 3(3) gives the Secretary of State power to reclaim grant from providers in certain circumstances. The circumstances in which this power might arise are expressed as where, "specific conditions are satisfied".
The amendment argues that a better formulation would be that the powers bite where the conditions are "not" satisfied. Perhaps I may give an example to illustrate my point. A condition of grant might be that the recipient should not abscond with the money. The recipient does not abscond. The condition has actually been satisfied and the grant could be reclaimed even though the recipient has done absolutely nothing wrong. Conversely, if he did abscond and went to Rio with the proceeds, there might be some doubt as to whether steps could be taken to recover it. Presumably, the drafting is intended to allow for both negative and positive requirements; that is, obligations, respectively, not to do and to do certain things. But the phraseology seems to me impenetrably intricate. I invite the Minister either to put me out of my misery or to take this amendment away and see whether he can help in some other way. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: I shall try. If my explanation fails to work, I shall take away the amendment and have a look
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at it. We were not quite clear what the noble Lord intended to achieve with the amendment and I am now even less clear.
We propose that the requirement of grant may specify circumstances in which a provider would be required to repay grant. These might include, for example, where a provider has not used the grant for the purpose of nursery education. What the noble Lord's amendment suggests is that the provider should be required to repay grant when circumstances specified for the repayment of grant are not met. I would suggest that that is the wrong way round. But, as I said, if I have still misunderstood what the noble Lord is getting at, I shall certainly have another look at what he had to say in moving the amendment.
Midnight
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am grateful to the noble Lord. This is no hour of the night to be bending our minds to this kind of thing. Let us see what we have both said tomorrow morning and come back to this matter at a later stage if we cannot satisfy ourselves between times. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Baroness David Baroness David had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 47:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause—
STATEMENTS OF SPECIAL NEEDS POLICIES
(" It shall be the duty of every authority or other person to whom a grant is made under arrangements under section 1 to make and keep up to date a separate written statement of their policy for making provision for special educational needs, within the meaning of section 156 of the Education Act 1993, with regard to children in receipt of nursery education.").
The noble Baroness said: I spoke to this amendment earlier. The Minister was good enough to say that he would write to me in response to it. I am very pleased to accept that from him and look forward to his letter.
[Amendment No. 47 not moved.]
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 48:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause—
"EARLY YEARS" STRATEGY
(" .—(1) An authority or person to whom a grant is made under arrangements under section I shall comply with such requirements as may he specified by the early years strategy prepared by the local authority under subsection (2).
(2) An early years strategy shall be prepared annually by each local authority to whom a grant is made under section 1 or in whose authority a person to whom a grant is made under section 1 has his premises, and shall specify requirements on providers of nursery education to whom this Act applies.
(3) In carrying out such a strategy each local authority shall consult any relevant body within its boundaries for the purposes of ensuring that children aged three and four within its boundaries shall have nursery education made available to them, with particular emphasis on children with the greatest need.
(4) In subsection (3) "relevant body" means—

(a) every health authority the whole or part of whose area lies within the area of the authority;

(b) every National Health Service trust which manages a hospital, establishment or facility in the authority's area;

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(c) any organisation which represents schools in the authority's area which are grant-maintained schools or grant-maintained special schools;
(d) the proprietors of every such school providing primary education in the authority's area which is not so represented under paragraph (c) above;
(e) such voluntary organisations as appear to the authority to represent the interests of people who use or are likely to use services as specified in paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989;
(f) any other persons to whom a grant is made under arrangements under section 1;
(g) such other persons as the Secretary of State may direct.
(5) In drawing up such a strategy, each local authority to which this section applies shall have regard to—

(a) the local authority's children's services plan, as specified in paragraph I of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989; and

(b) the local authority's review of daycare, childminding and out of school provision as specified by section 19 of the Children Act 1989.").

The noble Lord said: This amendment arises out of a curious situation. Attempts were made to table various amendments trying in some way to link together the provisions of the Children Act and those of this Bill. Unless some effort is made to co-ordinate the various services undoubtedly some children will fall through the net. The obligations of the local authority to provide for children in need and those at risk—I am talking now mainly about children in need—are not in any way meshed into this Bill. The example is the child about whom I spoke on an earlier amendment who is costing the local authority £4,000 at the moment to provide nursery education. Now there will be a provider who will get £1,100 from a voucher, but the obligation of the local authority to provide the other £2,900 will have to be meshed in with that. Questions arise as to whether this Bill will in any way relieve the local authority of its obligations. I do not want to go into details at this hour of the night. It is the kind of situation where it is particularly important that there should be co-ordination.
The proposal behind this amendment is that the local authority should be required to produce a strategic plan for the provision in its area. The arguments for it are particularly relevant in areas where there are very small numbers of clients; for example, in remote rural areas and where there are minority ethnic groups who may need special provision. It is probably an amendment that the noble Lord will not like. It may be one that we should discuss between now and Report stage if there is any hope of getting some sort of a solution. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: It is an amendment that I do not like. It proposes the development by the LEAs of an early years strategy. It looks to me very much like another attempt to put local authorities very much in the driving seat, to use a form of words I used in connection with earlier amendments. Unlike the amendments that we debated earlier concerning development plans and the suggestion of placing a new duty on local education authorities to provide nursery education, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, does at least recognise the important part that providers and agencies, other than the local authority, play in the provision of nursery education. It is certainly very good to see that
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local authorities will have to consult such a wide range of bodies in carrying out their early years strategy. Consultation with those other bodies does not require local authorities to take their views into account nor feature other sectors in the strategy as it is developed.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: The Minister would seriously benefit from visiting a wide range of local education authorities. He will find that they have co-ordinating committees on provision for under-fives on which health authorities are represented and on which the local education authority has its own representatives, including those of the voluntary sector and the pre-school playgroups. It is about time that the Government came down from their ivory tower and went out and visited local authorities. I see two former colleagues from local government circles, the noble Lords, Lord Bowness and Lord Dixon-Smith, on that side of the Chamber and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, on this side. I know that they can all tell the noble Lord that there is already co-operation. It is not something to which the Government have to keep referring.
Lord Henley: I am not quite sure of the point of that in relation to this amendment, but I can tell the noble Baroness that I am a former member of a local education authority—not, I appreciate, with the great distinction of the noble Baroness. I have nevertheless served for a number of years on a local education authority. I can also assure her that in the course of my work in the department I visit a number of local education authorities and see officers and members, and I intend to continue doing so.
The simple point that I was making is that I do not like the amendment, but I like it slightly more than the previous one moved by the noble Baroness. In effect, it puts LEAs in the driving seat and I can only repeat that the Government believe that the manner of the expansion of nursery education should be determined by parental choice, not by LEAs.
Lord Northbourne: The problem we are discussing highlights the fact that the responsibility for children and their families falls across no fewer than seven departments of state. That is the root of the problem. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 49 not moved.]
Clause 4 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Nursery education grants: inspections etc.]
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 4, line 33, after ("education") insert ("with particular reference to—

(i) qualifications and training of staff;

(ii) staff-child ratios; and

(iii) space regulations and guidance").

The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to give the chief inspector a duty to report to the Secretary of State on objective measures of inputs to quality listed in the amendment. This would help to

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develop a better defined and more robust inspection regime that makes specific reference to those indicators of quality—a little less of the light touch, a little more of the heavy hand.
The chief inspector's duty in the Bill to report on the strengths and weaknesses of early years education should refer directly to the inclusion of judgments on the qualifications and training of staff. The nursery voucher scheme will very suddenly plunge us into a new system where providers, who have previously been expected to do no more than fulfil Children Act requirements to satisfy the fit person requirement, are now expected to provide a curriculum that will lead to the SCAA desirable learning outcomes. In ensuring that the providers are "fit" persons, the local authority will only be required to "have regard" to a number of important considerations, among which is,
"qualifications and/or training in a relevant field such as child care, early years education, health visiting, nursing or other caring activities".
As the father of a nurse who is well qualified in health visiting, I can assure the Committee that she would not exactly welcome being stuck in a situation for which she would feel that she was not properly trained.
It is clear that there is no real qualification requirement. In what must be the most crucial indicator of quality the SCAA desirable outcomes for children's learning study found that the children who had attended LEA nurseries,
"engaged in more purposeful and complex activity in reception class than did the children who attended playgroup; they chose more 'demanding' educational activities. Nursery children were more likely than playgroup children to initiate contacts with the teacher that were 'learning orientated' while the playgroup children approached the teacher for help".
This begins to demonstrate the quality of the children's experience in playgroup by comparison with that in nursery education—a quality determined by the quality of staff in both environments.
That is complemented by a second study, carried out by Kathy Sylva at the Institute of Education, working with Siraj Blatchford and Johnson. The study found that the staff in the social services sector of nurseries had too little knowledge of the national curriculum to lay down firm foundations for it during the pre-school years. In contrast, teachers in the education sector were well informed about the national curriculum pertaining to primary school children and devised nursery school programmes based on assessing the educational needs of children and fostering learning tailored to individuals. Some recent evidence pertaining to the importance of qualifications in the teaching of this age group is contained within the Audit Commission's splendid little report, Counting to Five. That study examined 50 settings, and on page 25 the report states:
"The inspectors' reports did not highlight any single feature common to all the highest grade settings, but two were mentioned in relation to many of them, one of which was: staff trained specifically for working with young children".
If this is true, surely we should acknowledge this important facet of high quality provision by making certain that, above all, the chief inspector has it firmly in his sights.
Earlier amendments today have raised the issue of staff: child ratios and space regulations. This amendment simply suggests that the chief inspector should report on the national picture in those areas to assist in assessing progress and identifying and developing national trends.
Amendment No. 57 is intended to introduce a set of basic minimum standards against which all nursery providers are inspected. It would exert considerable pressure on the Secretary of State to establish those common criteria relating to staffing numbers and qualifications, training and experience as well as those relating to indoor and outdoor space regulations, which have been a sore point with us all along in consideration of the Bill. Such aspects are much more reliable and long-term indicators that basic standards are being met than any kind of half-day snapshot of a nursery teacher or any other staff can be. They are also quantifiable indicators by which parents can compare and thereby make more meaningful choices. We are all for choices but let us have meaningful ones.
Although in the new arrangements there is an apparent commitment to give Ofsted overall responsibility for inspecting all nursery providers, it remains distinctly possible that the criteria against which each provider is measured may be different for different kinds of institution: for example, maintained nursery classes as against play groups. Such differences would be unacceptable, and the amendment seeks to remedy that. We know that staff can be put on show for inspectors. What happens when the inspectors go is rather like the Sunday after "Songs of Praise" has visited a parish church. On television day the church is packed but the following Sunday the congregation comprises the usual three old ladies and one small child. Similarly, in these situations there can be an under-performance as a result of being inspected. However, more qualifiable aspects of standards, like child:staff ratios, cannot be changed for the day and they are not subject to human responses or judgments. We believe that the amendment would help by requiring inspectors to inspect those quantitative factors and to inform parents of how the situation with one provider compares with a national set of common criteria. If you like, it is a league table. It also allows greater feasibility for initial inspection prior to registration. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: After all that, I intend to respond briefly in the manner that I adopted in relation to earlier amendments. We believe that it is unnecessary to prescribe the scope of the chief inspector's duty to report to the Secretary of State, or the scope of the inspections, in any greater detail than that already provided for in the Bill. The Bill provides for that in some detail and in a manner very similar to other bits of legislation which have been before the House relating to inspectors. The provisions for the chief inspector and the inspector to consider the quality and standards of funded nursery education embrace the standard and suitability of teaching, alongside other aspects of quality. Having said that, I believe that it is unnecessary to go down the line that the noble Lord, Lord Morris,

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wishes us to pursue and further prescribe the scope of his duty. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: The remarks of the Minister are noted. I disagree with what he has said. Like General MacArthur in the Pacific in the Second World War, I shall return. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos.51 to 61 not moved.]
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 62:
Page 5. line 38, after ("a") insert ("public").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is to require the register of inspectors to be public. This is, by contrast, a gloriously simple amendment. There are no technicalities or complexities. It simply requires that the registers of nursery education inspectors established and maintained by chief inspectors for England and Wales be in the public domain.
The amendment is intended to promote public access to information contained in the registers. Parents and other members of the public with a legitimate interest in the quality and integrity of inspectors entering institutions for the purpose of carrying out inspections would be able to have access to the registers in order to satisfy themselves that those persons charged with the important responsibility of scrutinising the quality of education in such institutions are properly qualified and experienced to do so.
The amendment does not seek to prescribe the detail of any arrangements for providing access to the registers. By implication, that could quite properly be left to the chief inspectors for England and Wales. We do not see it as an invasion of personal or sensitive information which the chief inspectors may legitimately hold. Published information contained in the registers would include the lengths of the inspectors' registration and the nature of any conditions imposed by the chief inspector on registered inspectors as provided for elsewhere in the schedule.
Thus the public, if it wished, could be informed as to the experience and competence of registered inspectors. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: These amendments are unnecessary. The chief inspector already makes a register of inspectors available to the public under the 1992 Act. It has always been our intention to follow the same course of action for nursery education. I assure the noble Lord that the register will be available free of charge on request. There seems little to be gained from spelling that out on the face of the Bill, particularly if it is not spelt out on the face of the 1992 Act, and to have different provisions in different Acts. I suspect that that could lead to a different interpretation of the procedures
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in both Acts. Therefore I suggest that we follow the provision in the 1992 Act. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I am satisfied with what I have heard. I am grateful to the Minister for putting it on the record, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 63 to 72 not moved.]
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 73 not moved.]
Schedule 2 [Nursery education grants: disclosure of information]:
[Amendments Nos 74 and 75 not moved.]
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Power to borrow]:
[Amendment No. 76 not moved.]
Lord Skidelsky Lord Skidelsky moved Amendment No. 77:
Page 2, line 27, leave out from ("fit") to end of line 30 and insert ("subject to the provisions of the standard form contract under subsection (5) below, which is to be known as the School Standard Loan Contract").
The noble Lord said: I have been advised that Amendment No. 83 is out of order as being inconsistent with the long title of the Bill. I will therefore not move it or otherwise refer to it, except to say that the weakness of the Bill is, in my view, the artificial distinction it creates between the borrowing powers of the two maintained sectors—a distinction that my "out of order" amendment was designed to rectify.
The amendments to which I will speak may look a little complicated but they are designed to do two things. I am sorry that I must explain them at a little length, even though it is late. I shall try to keep my remarks as short and succinct as possible.
Amendment No. 77 is designed to create a level playing field for all GM schools. Clause 6 allows GM schools to borrow from the private sector but only on the security of surplus assets. This means that many GM schools will not be able to borrow at all. Whether or not they have inherited assets surplus to their current requirements is largely a matter of historical accident.
Moveover, if a surplus asset becomes the security for a loan it is no longer available for return to the local authority which first acquired or created it. So there is not just the inequality between the borrowing powers of GM schools but also a strong sense of inequity between the two maintained sectors. My amendment tries to get rid of the first inequality by allowing all GM schools to take unsecured loans, subject to a school standard loan contract, the terms of which are spelt out in Amendment No. 81.
The reason for getting the Secretary of State to introduce a standard contract is that the market for loans to schools will need a great deal of prompting. The transaction costs of arranging loans is extremely high as everyone will be playing unfamiliar roles. In addition,

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the standard contract can provide a convenient and simple vehicle for regulating the types and levels of borrowing allowed.
The amendment removes the discretionary veto power of the Secretary of State over the granting of loans and instead requires him to set out the rules of the game in the schools standard loan contract. I hope that one day this most basic principle of modern political economy will penetrate into the Department for Education and Employment; setting out the rules of the game rather than intervening in an anxious manner over every case.
The amendment suggests a basic framework of the standard contract. In essence, it should not specify the length, price or the maximum size of the loans permitted. These are matters to be filled in later by the parties to a specific loan. However, the contract will have to do several things. It will make clear that loans are not underwritten by the public authority; it will issue a standard procedure for what happens in the event of a school or bank ceasing to trade; and, in particular, what happens if the school fails the Ofsted inspection. It will also cap borrowing powers by forbidding schools to devote more than a set proportion of their cash income for servicing the loans.
Most importantly, the standard contract will deal with the issue of default with organised and pre-set arrangements. In particular, signatories will agree on a schedule of required resources for the school. These will simply be income and capital assets required for the school to meet its obligation to provide education. In the standard contract schools will have to service and repay loans as long as their resources year by year exceed their required resources. If resources dip below the required resources, schools will be permitted to default on their loans and carry on trading.
The aim is to ensure that the first liability of schools is to service their statutory obligation to the state. Banks will never be allowed to claim resources, income or capital if the school cannot then properly teach. The resources required to meet those obligations will be agreed in advance. Being part of the negotiation in signing a standard loan contract, they will be understood at the time the loan is made.
One advantage of this procedure is that it replaces the rather narrow notion of surplus assets which are difficult to define—the distinction between surplus and core assets is rather vague—with a far more general notion of required resources.
Thus the amendment sets in train procedures for unsecured as well as secured loans. The expectation is that most schools will require all their assets; that is, they will have no surplus assets and, consequently, they will be able to apply for unsecured loans only. On the other hand, if the loan is used to create a new separable asset like, for example, a new building, that could be recovered by the lender, as the new asset will not, by definition, have been required.
That is the end of the technical exposition. I move very swiftly to my conclusion. I believe that these amendments offer an elegant mechanism for enabling
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publicly funded institutions to borrow from the private sector, and is one which could be extended, if necessary, to other public sector institutions, such as local authority schools, hospitals, and so on. It would be far better to consider the borrowing problems of such institutions in a general way rather than on a case-by-case or sector-by-sector basis. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will consider this group of amendments in the light of the explanation that I have rather lengthily offered, and for which I apologise. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: I am grateful to my noble friend for his lengthy explanation of the terms of the amendment, for which he apologised. I should like to look at all the amendments tomorrow with considerable care when I have more time at my disposal. I do not wish to sound too hopeful to my noble friend. I must remind him that the amendments were only tabled last Friday and, therefore, we need slightly more time to study them.
Having said that, I should like to make a few brief comments on what my noble friend said. First, the Bill as drafted does allow unsecured borrowing for schools which have no non-core assets to offer as security. Therefore, he is not proposing anything extra. Secondly, we agree with my noble friend that grant-maintained schools should, subject to certain restrictions, be free to take out whatever loans they see fit. We also agree in general terms about what those restrictions should be. Borrowing by grant-maintained schools should not impair their ability to perform their main business—that is, educating children—nor should they place at risk assets that have been provided out of the public purse.
However, where I suspect my noble friend and the department differ is over the mechanism for applying those restrictions. Both of us believe that there should be as light a touch as is possible. My noble friend has argued that schools should not have to seek consent from the Secretary of State or the Funding Agency for Schools but that their borrowing should be circumscribed by the kind of statutory standard contract that he suggested. We prefer the other route because we believe that that provides more of the light touch that is necessary and that it leaves the grant-maintained schools to make their own arrangements. Having said that, I shall have a further look at my noble friend's amendments and give them the proper consideration that they deserve.
Lord Skidelsky: I thank my noble friend the Minister for that very helpful reply. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Burnham): I should inform Members of the Committee that I am advised that Amendment No. 78 has been incorrectly placed on the Marshalled List and that it should be called after Amendment No. 80.
Lord Tope moved Amendment No. 79:
Page 2, line 30, at end insert ("as may fall within the meaning of the "core assets" of the school as prescribed by regulations made under section (Core assets) of the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Act 1996").
The noble Lord said: The amendment and the suggested new clause in Amendment No. 82 are an attempt to insert on the face of the Bill some definition of "core assets" against which borrowing will not be allowed; that is, to insert some framework for agreeing a definition of that phrase against which borrowing will not be allowed. I hope that the Minister will accept the suggestion as I believe we need to have a clearer definition of exactly what is meant by "core assets" and a framework within which schools and the FAS need to be working.
I understand that the Secretary of State will be sending a remit letter to the FAS in due course. If the Minister is not inclined at this stage to accept the amendments, I hope he will at least give us some information on the content and status of that letter. Finally, and most particularly, before any further definition of "core assets" is produced, I hope that there will be full consultation with all interested parties, especially the representatives of local education authorities. I beg to move.
12.30 a.m.
Lord Henley: I start by pointing out that the noble Lord's amendment is technically flawed. I do so purely to be of assistance should he want to return to it later. It would explicitly allow GM schools to offer core assets-however they are defined-as collateral for loans. I take it that the noble Lord's intention is actually the same as the Government's—that it should not be possible for grant-maintained schools to mortgage essential assets. This was pointed out to the Opposition in another place but they seem to have tabled an identical amendment today.
An important part of our policy for grant-maintained borrowing is that vital publicly funded assets should not be placed at risk. To that end the Government are committed to proper and appropriate safeguards. I believe there is a good deal of agreement on this between this side of the Chamber and noble Lords opposite. We agree that schools should not be able to offer as collateral assets that are essential to their functioning. I think we also agree about what is and what is not likely to be considered essential. Where we differ from noble Lords opposite is whether there is any
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need to define core assets in legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, wants us to set this out in regulations. I believe that that is unnecessary and undesirable.
The difficulty with defining core assets in regulations is that the circumstances of individual schools vary so widely. The layout, size and quality of school buildings in different institutions may also vary. Whether particular buildings are essential to a school's functioning at any one time will depend on a wide variety of factors.
As regards consultation, I can give an assurance that the department consulted fully on the proposals and the remit letter will obviously be based on that. If the noble Lord would like me to write to him in greater detail on precisely what will be included I shall be more than happy to do so. If that would assist, I shall try to do so before the next stage. I hope therefore that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Tope: I am grateful to the Minister for those comments. It would be helpful if he could write to me in more detail as soon as he is able. I shall certainly consider what he says with great interest before we reach the next stage. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 80 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 78 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 81 not moved.]
Clause 6 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 82 and 83 not moved.]
Clause 7 [Orders and regulations]:
[Amendments Nos. 84 and 85 not moved.]
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clauses 8 and 9 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Consequential amendments]:
[Amendments Nos. 86 to 91 not moved.]
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Repeals]:
[Amendment No. 92 not moved.]
Schedule 4 agreed to. Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-four minutes before one o'clock.