Ms Ann Coffey (Stockport)

I congratulate you on your new position, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and thank you for calling me.

My constituency, Stockport, forms part of the wider metropolitan borough of the same name. It was created after the boundary changes in 1983. My predecessor was Tony Favell, a man of strong beliefs and uncompromising principles. He had, I know, a great deal of affection for Stockport, and his constituents wish him well.

Stockport is a town with a strong sense of community responsibility. Many people give their time, in a voluntary capacity, raise funds for and run the numerous clubs that exist for the elderly and the disabled, and also youth organisations and sports clubs. The Council for Voluntary Service, the citizens advice bureaux, Age Concern and Victim Support co-ordinate the work of hundreds of volunteers who provide a valuable service for the town. Charnwood nursery, a charitable trust which has been in operation for 20 years, offers children with special needs and normal children the opportunity to learn and to co-operate with each other from an early age. It is an excellent example of integration which, sadly, has not been replicated elsewhere.

Stockport has a very vocal local press. Papers such as the Stockport Express Advertiser, the Stockport Times, the Stockport Messenger, the Heaton Guardian, Down Your Way and the District Advertiser (Stockport) tackle issues of local interest with enthusiasm. Stockport also has an excellent football team, Stockport County, which was promoted last season, and is fighting its way to further promotion this season.

In recent years, the education system has experienced a period of rapid change with the introduction of local management of schools, the national curriculum, and assessment and appraisal. The national curriculum itself has changed several times. I have a daughter at a local state school, and I recently attended a parents evening to be given information about the GCSE courses that would help her to choose her options. I was informed by the school that the GCSE was to be altered to place less emphasis on course assessment and more on exams. The staff, however, could give me no information about what that actually meant for the individual courses, as they themselves had no information. Parents attending that meeting felt very confused and anxious. Now parents face the possibility of chaos.

Are the schools of Stockport to remain with the local education authority? Will some or all of them opt out? Who knows'? If schools apply for opt-out status, which schools will be given that status? What are the criteria? No one knows. We know the situation this week, but what of next week, next month, next year? This makes nonsense of stability. Will the opt-outs lead to a centralised bureaucracy? The Department of Education must know something, because it is apparently planning to move to a new building called Sanctuary house.

In 1986, Stockport underwent a reorganisation—with all-party support—of its secondary schools for 11 to 18-year-olds, and that has just been completed. It followed the Government's advice to take out spare places. Two schools were closed and three sixth-form colleges were created, one for each area of the town, to reflect local needs and diversity. As Stockport has taken out spare places, parental choice is of necessity limited by available accommodation. If all the schools opt out, set their own criteria for selection, and extend their catchment areas, where does that leave parents? What do they do? Do they apply to their first-choice school and hope that their children get in, apply to their second choice because their children have a better chance of getting into that, or apply to all the schools and hope for the best? It is a nightmare scenario for parents and children alike.

Will the Government allow opted-out schools to borrow extra capital to build? Or will the schools be into "cramming"? Shall we have huge schools with more than 2,000 pupils sending children home for private study because there is no room for them to be taught? Will some schools have shiny new buildings and new mobiles in the grounds, while others struggle to mend their roofs and provide books? That is an obscenity.

Stockport has taken a key role in strategic planning for its post-16 education. Since the three sixth-form colleges were created, the staying-on rate has risen to 75 per cent. What will happen now? If one of the secondary schools opts out and returns to an 11-to-18 intake, will that lead to the closure of one of the sixth-form colleges with consequent loss to the local community? Community groups will be dispossessed, and there will be nowhere for adult education classes to take place.

Who will make the decision? Will it be some distant regional funding council with no local knowledge? What will happen to non-vocational adult education'? How will that be funded? Will it be funded at all? Evening and day classes provide the community with an opportunity to take part in an enormous range of interesting and satisfying opportunities. It is part of a long-standing tradition. The loss of non-vocational adult education will be deeply felt.

These are genuine concerns of my constituents. They want stability and an end to the endless stress of change. I urge the Government to listen to those concerns.

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