§ Mr. MacGregorasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated cost to local authorities, in both current and capital terms, if all direct grant schools decided to become part of the local authority education sector.
§ Miss Joan LestorNo firm estimate is possible, even on the hon. Member's simplified and highly unlikely hypothesis. If all the direct grant schools were to enter the maintained system as voluntary aided schools, as would be expected in most if not all cases, local education authorities would have no responsibility for capital expenditure on their premises. Any effect on current expenditure would depend mainly on (a) the size and age range of each school in its new role and (b) how many of its pupils were children who, if its status had remained unchanged would have attended it or other non-maintained schools at some expense to their parents. It is not possible to estimate these factors, which involve many thousands of separate decisions by local education authorities, schools and individual parents. The maximum increase in current public expenditure would be about £12 million. At the other end of the range of possibilities there could be a saving to local education authorities of £19 million or more and a total saving to public funds of at least £30 million when account is taken of central Government expenditure also.