§ Mr. Hillasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children are educated outside the State education system; and what would be the cost to the Exchequer if they were educated within the State system.
§ Dr. BoysonThere were about 527,000 pupils in independent schools in England in January 1981. The average recurrent cost of educating that number of pupils in maintained schools is nearly £400 million a year at current prices. There would also be the initial capital costs of providing additional school places: depending on the geographical distribution of the pupils concerned and the extent to which currently surplus school places could be used, those could amount to around £2,000 million.