§ Mr. Nicholas BrownTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will provide an estimate of the revenue costs of making the provision of nursery education in England a statutory responsibility of local authorities.
§ Mr. EggarThe cost would depend on the terms of the statutory responsibility imposed. A broad extrapolation from the estimated cost per pupil for all forms of provision made by local education authorities for the under-fives1 suggests an annual recurrent cost—for full-time provision for all three and four-year-olds in England—of the order of £1.8 billion at 1990–91 prices. In addition there would be a substantial capital cost; and costs would also be incurred in training or retraining the additional teaching and ancillary staff who would be needed.
1 Tables 11.2 and 11.6, DES Departmental Report "The Government's Expenditure Plans 1991–92 to 1993–94", Cm 1511.
§ Mr. StrawTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science, pursuant to the answer of the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar)Official Report, 21 May, column 765, what was the basis of the calculation, including the estimate of the capital cost per full-time nursery place, which he used.
§ Mr. EggarI used the costing per place adopted by the hon. Member when he announced to the press on 15 April his party's proposal to transfer £150 million over three years from the city technology colleges programme to nursery education. Contrary to the hon. Member's statement at the time, only £40 million out of the total —little over quarter—were capital funds potentially available for other uses. These would, therefore, produce about 5,000 part-time nursery places a year—or 50 per authority—as compared with the 20,000 he had envisaged.