Orders of the Day — Education (Capital Projects)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 3 August 1965.

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Photo of Sir Edward Boyle Sir Edward Boyle , Birmingham Handsworth 12:00, 3 August 1965

I accept that. We should remember that we are dealing overwhelmingly with the pressure of demand for new places.

Now I pass to the colleges of education which, as we all know, are doing remarkably good work. I can tell the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) that the expansion of the colleges has gone on steadily—and indeed dramatically—for a number of years. Since 1958 there has been a steady expansion—larger building programmes being used by the colleges to take in larger numbers than one would have dared to hope a few years ago. When I first become Minister in 1962, winding up a debate somewhat analogous to this but not at this late hour, we were pleased that there were nearly 50,000 at those colleges. Now we are looking forward to 70,000, which is an outstanding achievement.

A circular has gone out asking that the colleges should step up their productivity. The six months postponement will come to them as a great shock. It is very much harder to expect people to crowd up and adopt proposals like box and cox—and even to consider one or two others which I shall not be so tactless as to mention now, if one is then going to say that plans will be held up. This decision will come as a great shock to a number of college principals and staffs and to a number of local authorities.

There is an aspect which has not been referred to in this debate. I recognise that we are ahead of the Robbins target, but the National Advisory Council has wanted us to go further still and to reach the Robbins target of 122,000 by about 1971. This is not a matter on which we have pressed the Government very hard. It was a considerable request. None the less, I do not think we should take a step which will make it impossible to do this. It is a matter on which the Government of the day should reserve their freedom of action. This postponement will make it very much harder to achieve the figure of 122,000 as early as many would like.

Those are some of the reasons, and I could cite others, why we on this side feel extremely anxious about these decisions that have been taken. I quite agree with the Minister of State that we do not want to be alarmist, that we do not want to exaggerate here. Maybe the hon. Member for Middlesbrough West (Dr. Bray) was exaggerating just a little in estimating the shortfall of places threatened as being as great as 10,000. I only say that because, as the Minister of State pointed out, quite fairly, we are ahead of Robbins so far as degree courses at the technical colleges are concerned.

The number of those doing degree level courses in the technical colleges are higher than Robbins pictured at this moment, and I hope that the short-fall will not be as high as 10,000. None the less there is the risk of quite a considerable shortfall here, and I think that one cannot help wondering whether these were the right measures to take, assuming that economies had to be made.

I agree with the my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) that, in general, there is very much to be said, both on educational and economic grounds, for considering economies in consumer spending and recurrent expenditure, rather than in capital expenditure. The hon. Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Walden) in his remarkable speech in last night's debate spoke, most courageously, on this topic and I am bound to say that I think that this is the right approach.

We have expressed cur doubts about the Government's decision. I think that the whole House has had a thoroughly useful debate and all I can say is that we, on this side, strongly hope that the expansion of higher education, and further education and of the colleges of education will not be too severely handicapped by these postponements. We are bound to say that we have very considerable doubts whether the priorities here are right or wise, and we think that it is right that our anxieties and criticisms should be expressed.