Education (Expenditure)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 28 January 1974.

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Photo of Mr Roy Hattersley Mr Roy Hattersley , Birmingham Sparkbrook 12:00, 28 January 1974

I beg to move, That this House deplores the cuts in the education service which will result from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement on 17th December last. The Opposition intend to debate not the theory but the practice of Government cuts. I do not propose to contest with the Under-Secretary of State whether the cuts are worse than those made in 1926 and 1931, nor do I propose to argue about the interesting concept of cuts in education which provide special savings in the fuel supply. I want to talk about reality—what happens to real children in real schools in the real world.

However, before describing the effects of the cuts, I wish to say a few words about what, if past behaviour is to be our guide, will be the burden of the Government's defence. In almost every previous education debate in this Parliament the Government have subjected us to defence by bogus comparison. I put aside the intellectual unacceptability of comparing the problems of a Government who inherited a record balance of payments deficit with a Government who inherited a record balance of payments surplus and then dissipated it. I refer simply to the intellectually disreputable practice of comparing what the Labour Party achieved in the mid-1960s with what the Government promise but seem increasingly unlikely to deliver in the early 1980s.

The obvious example of that practice is central to the cuts which we are de- bating.For 14 months the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State has been projected as the author of a national nursery programme. In fact, the major part of that national nursery programme has seen one development since 6th December 1972, when it was announced—and that is its postponement until July 1974.

Equally important in this area for which the Secretary of State claims so much is the effects which the cuts we are debating will have on her general pre-school policy and aspects of that policy which fall outside the major development she prophesies will eventually begin in July next year. Rising fives in primary schools, the use of empty primary school classrooms for nursery classes and the encouragement of the creation of playgroups are all supplementary parts of the right hon. Lady's nursery programme and urged on local education authorities in her White Paper on nursery education.

Yet in all those areas of pre-school education there is a desperate risk that they will be affected deeply and perhaps permanently by the revenue cuts we are debating. Indeed, some local education authorities have already chosen to make savings in exactly these areas. What is more, the best, most enthusiastic and most progressive local education authorities which have had the temerity to admit under fives more freely than was recommended in the White Paper were told by the Under-Secretary of State 10 days ago that they should cut the number of under fives they are admitting to their schools.

I hope that, looking at the reality of the Secretary of State's achievement in nursery education, we shall today hear a little less of what she plans to do and a good deal more about what she has done, not least because her plans so often go awry. The Chairman of the University Grants Committee told the universities last week that …we have to be prepared for the possibility that the economic situation may require further economies in subsequent years. I hope that the Secretary of State's nursery plans survive the next Budget, but we must all be sceptical about that. No doubt the right hon. Lady will assure us that they are safe, but on 13th November last year I was told, in rather tart terms, that the building embargo would end completely on 1st January 1974. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not allow that to happen for most of the building programme. We know very well that when he nerves himself for the Budget the nursery programme even in its present truncated form may not survive.

But, having hoped that we shall hear a little less about what might happen and a good deal more about what has been done, I turn to the subject of the cuts themselves. By any standards, they are massive—£119 million from capital and £63 million from revenue. Many of the cuts, on both accounts, fall on higher education.

I have always made plain my belief that in times of financial stringency higher education should stand further back in the resources queue than schools, and I reiterate that belief. But the Secretary of State proposes a massive reduction in higher education spending and deeply damaging cuts in schools. We now understand that the estimates for student admission—the targets for 1976–77—may be cut by between 40,000 and 50,000. I hope that the Secretary of State will try to justify that reduction. Indeed, I hope she will do more. I hope that she will say clearly whether the Government have abandoned the Robbins principle that courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attaintment to pursue them and who wish to do so". I should like to say a few words about the phrase "who wish to do so". I know that the number of applications to universities and colleges fell by 6,500 last year. The level and pattern of student grants is now becoming a severe and genuine deterrent to potential working-class students. In fact, the Government are depressing the demand for university places. It would be inexcusable if today we were told that university places were being cut because demand was falling when, in fact, demand was falling because the Government were depressing it. That is all I wish to say about higher education, for I hope that we shall debate the matter in greater detail on some future occasion.

I want to deal chiefly in this debate with schools, pre-school education and the problems which local education authorities are facing. I deal first with their problems on revenue account. These problems did not begin on 17th December. Local authorities, in the same way as the rest of us, face unremitting and unaparelleled inflation. Indeed, their association has estimated that a 20 per cent. increase in capitation and book allowances would be necessary to keep provision simply up to last year's level. Local authorities—and, indeed, all local government bodies—are facing problems consequent upon the Government's three-stage reduction in the rate support grant. Education committees have been provided with £45 million less than they believe they need simply to sustain services to carry out approved policies. The statement of 17th December on savings came on top of all that.

Some savings required from 17th December are, I understand, believed by the Government to be possible—I quote the Under-Secretary of State's words— without damage to the standards of the service ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th January 1974; Vol. 867, c. 609.] I suppose that depends whether one's standards are the standards of the best local education authorities or the standards of the Secretary of State.

I hope that when the right hon. Lady hears some of the cuts which have been reported to us, she will explain how they can be accomplished without standards being diminished. But most of the revenue services which are to be cut—and this applies to most of the savings to be made—come from what the Department of Education and Science calls "procurables", or part of non-teaching costs. Some of these non-teaching costs are specifically recommended for exemption from savings. I refer to rent and rates, food in school meals, discretionary grants and direct grant school fees. I ask no questions about the exceptions—except one. Why are the direct grant schools to get more when all other schools are to get less? I do not draw any conclusions from that, but I shall look forward to the right hon. Lady's explanation.

None of the exceptions is mandatory, and the advice is, to say the least, confusing. In column 610 of HANSARD on 16th January the Under-Secretary said that books were not exempted, whereas in the next column he said that he hoped they would not be cut. I am sure he would agree that that is not the clearest of advice to local authorities. While that is the case, it does not matter very much that the distinction is blurred, because unfortunately the distinction between the exempted categories and savings and the non-exempted categories is bound to be meaningless. Inflation, the cut in the rate support grant, and the 17th December budget make it impossible to confine the education cuts to the rather simple areas specified by the Department.

Let me give an example from one of my favourite local education authorities—"favourite" not in terms of what it does but of what it demonstrates. I refer to Essex County Council. Tomorrow the Essex County Council Finance Committee will consider cuts in the county's education budget. The right hon. Lady must tell the House how those cuts will fit into the interesting concept enshrined in the Government's amendment embraced by the words "essential educational priorities".

The cuts contemplated by Essex County Council are as follows. They will save £500,000 on capital account because of a postponed nursery programme. They intend to save £126,000 on revenue from postponement of developments in the much-vaunted nursery programme—money which would have been expended in respect of developments in advance of capital programmes. I hope that the right hon. Lady will say whether she approves of that cut. Essex County Council will make some cuts in approved areas. For example, the county council will reduce cleaning costs and also will cut repairs and maintenance by 8½ per cent. in schools and by 15 per cent. in technical colleges. It will reduce provision of furniture and equipment in technical colleges by 15 per cent.

That is only a beginning of what the Essex County Council intends to do. It intends to slow down special school improvement plans. We were promised that this would not happen. The county council will slow down teacher recruitment substantially. That authority intended next year to improve the basic—not the average—staff-pupil ratio in primary schools from 1: 36 to 1: 34. The improvement is now to be limited to a basic 1: 35. The county council intend next year to recruit 50 teachers to Southend Secondary School. It now intends to recruit only 25 more teachers. It intended next year to employ 40 additional technical college teachers. That plan is now abandoned. All this is happening in a county which is at the bottom of the county league table of teacher provision in primary schools and near to the bottom of the table in teacher provision in secondary schools.

The right hon. Lady and also the Minister of State, who represents part of that county, have given advice and have issued constant Press statements saying that the level of teacher recruitment will not be affected by cuts. Clearly Essex needs advice and guidance from the Department. It needs to be told what is the reduction in costs and the relationship to the teaching profession. Does all the trumpeting about teach recruitment not being affected simply mean that nobody will be sacked, or that extra teachers can be recruited? Is there a tacit moratorium on the size of the teaching force? Is this one of the ways in which the right hon. Lady plans to meet the situation?

Essex is not the only county that is behaving in this way. I am advised that Lincolnshire intended to recruit 163 additional teachers next September. Now it will recruit only 25. I am also advised that every county and borough has recently been supplied with new figures on the teaching quota and each will have to decide whether it should recruit the extra teachers. Many authorities are not recruiting them because of the cuts for which the right hon. Lady is responsible. We should be told in this debate whether that was her intention and, if it was not, what advice about that policy she intends to give to local authorities.

The cuts fall so widely across the education services—far more widely than the Press handouts suggest. It is not possible to confine cuts to the areas which the Government have specified. Let me take a simple example. In Sheffield—an excellent authority—the local education authority, simply to keep expenditure at the anticipated level and to maintain the standstill position without aspiring to any expansion, must cut £600,000 from its budget. That is not possible simply by reducing transport and minimising repairs, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

I turn to the capital cuts. Twenty per cent of expenditure is to be cut from the building programme. In fact, that may amount to a cut of 60 per cent in building starts anticipated for next year. We are assured that money remains available for special schools, and we applaud that decision. Money also remains available for basic needs, for "roofs over heads", or so at first it seems—at least so the right hon. Lady says. However, two caveats must be entered to that assurance. The first is that 10 days ago we were told that there needed to be a "closer scrutiny of need." This was one of those Delphic and therefore slightly sinister statements, written by civil servants and read by junior Ministers. I hope that the Secretary of State will explain in simple language what the Dhrase means.