Clause 13 - Power of Secretary of State and National Assembly for Wales to give financial assistance for purposes related to education or childcare
Education Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)
I apologise to the Committee for not being here this morning.
Amendments Nos. 211 and 212 should be considered together, because 211 is consequential on 212. Once we start to examine the clauses in part 2, we see that, like many other clauses, they are extremely significant. I must congratulate the Government on the way in which the Bill has been presented. They have hidden many things that we cannot understand until we start to get under the skin of the Bill.
There is a seduction about the title of part 2, which is ''Financial assistance for education and childcare''. The clauses were sold on the need for more imaginative funding arrangements for childcare and its providers, which the Liberal Democrats accept and support. Our amendments try to curtail the powers of the Secretary of State. If we take the clause literally, it says that the Secretary of State can, by sleight of hand, switch some £23 billion or £24 billion that is currently spent by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to the Department for Education and Skills. That is the reality of the powers provided by the clause. Although clause 17 contains some provisions for giving up powers, including specific examples, clause 13 gives the Secretary of State the power to fund education from her office.
It may be that that is the Government's intention and that, with the reform of local government funding, it wants to ring-fence education funding and send it directly from Sanctuary house. If that is the case, it is a legitimate objective for which they can argue their case. To be fair to the Government—I always try to be fair—it was the Conservatives' policy at the previous election to fund education directly from the centre, with local authorities having no responsibility. The free schools proposal would have done exactly that, and the Conservatives may want to support these proposals.
From 1958 onwards when the revenue support grant was introduced, an important principle was established. Through various Departments, which have now become the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, the Government have distributed a block grant, so that local authorities can mix and match funding raised locally with that of the grant to provide services, including education. That has worked reasonably well; even after the reforms of 1974 and the introduction of standard spending assessments, that has not been attacked other than by the charge capping of the previous Government and the increased ring fencing of the present one.
The clause gives powers to the Secretary of State, who does not have to be accountable for the way in which he or she distributes the grant. The amendment would allow the Secretary of State those greater powers, but he or she would be accountable for the
way in which the grant was distributed. The amendment would establish a process, through an affirmative resolution of both Houses, whereby the Secretary of State was held to account for the large sums of money distributed. If my Machiavellian thoughts on the clause are wrong, the Minister will accept these simple amendments in the spirit in which they are offered, and I will go home a happy man.