§ Mr. SteinbergTo ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make it his policy to ring fence funding for books in the allocation of resources to local education authorities.
§ Mr. ForthNo. It remains our policy that it is for local authorities to decide what expenditure, within the resources available to them, to devote to the services for which they are responsible; and for schools under delegated management to decide how to deploy their budgets among teaching costs, other staff costs, and non-pay costs such as books.