Orders of the Day — Education

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 3 November 1978.

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Photo of Mr Chris Price Mr Chris Price , Lewisham West 12:00, 3 November 1978

When he spoke earlier I thought that the hon. Member was trying to offer parents a greater right than they have at present. The Secretary of State's proposals will prove to be the most significant advance in that area that we have seen so far.

I found the Opposition's response to the idea of planned operating capacities churlish and surly. Any Government would have to do something about the present situation. I suspect that if the Conservatives were in power they would be even more keen on planned operating capacities.

Local authorities must have the mechanism by which they can plan for the future. We must give local authorities the chance to tell parents roughly what the future situation will be. Each school must have a theoretical operating capacity which fills up the school, rather than a system which has some relationship to the school population in a particular area but under which some schools run down and the situation becomes impossible.

I would have thought that the problem about planned operating capacities was the sort of problem which traditionally in this country ever since 1944 has been dealt with with the co-operation of the Opposition. I can cite instances ever since the 1944 Act where that sort of co-operation has existed; for example, the Education Act 1968 and so on. The Opposition are now breaking with every tradition since 1944. This is an area where both local education authority associations agree that something needs to be done. The Opposition know full well that if they were in Government they would have to make this technical adjustment. However, they plan to represent it to the country as an enormous infringement of some sort simply for cheap short-term party political ends. It is clear to me, therefore, not only that the Conservatives have no idea of how they would run the education system if they had the chance but that they do not believe they have much chance and feel that they might as well put forward this sort of argument.

I believe that the arguments that we have heard in the specialist and general press about a common system of examination at 16-plus have missed the point. For five or six years substantial experiments have been continuing between, for example, the Joint Matriculation Board and the West Yorkshire and Lindsey regional examining board. So to describe a common system for examination as new, revolutionary or even experimental is wrong.

There has been co-operation between the CSE and GCE boards for many years. The GCE boards have realised for some time that they must rationalise. I do not think that whether the date is 1984, 1985 or 1986 is crucial. We must, however, take into consideration the experts' view about the pace of this change. I am certain that the common system has been coming for 10 or 15 years. Everyone in the education service realises that it is inevitable. Secondary school teachers are sick to death with the wretched apartheid that they have to operate on 13-year-old children between CSE and GCE scholars.

The teaching profession as a whole, from the extreme Right wing to the extreme Left wing, is determined not to go on operating the present system. However much the Opposition Front Bench may prate about it, it will find in the end that it will get no co-operation from the teachers if it insists, if it ever gets the chance, on continuing the present system. We know, of course, that if the Opposition did get the chance they would fall in with the advice of ministerial advisers and get on with it.

I wish to raise a technical point. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that the voluntary schools and the county schools should as far as possible be on a par in terms of representation of parents. She said that this might involve the voluntary bodies in having to bring parents in as school governors. Will my right hon. Friend tell us bow far she has got in her negotiations on this with the voluntary bodies?

The Churches are most anxious to cooperate. The trouble lies with one or two voluntary bodies which do not represent anyone. There are, for example, city livery companies in London which are lumbered with schools with which they have no connection and which have no connection with communities served by those schools, and which may be against this change. There is the Clothmakers Company, which prefers closing down the Mary Datchelor school near my constituency rather than allowing it to become comprehensive. That school was founded for the benefit of the community. Such voluntary bodies might be opposing this change. I should like an assurance from my hon. Friend the Minister of State that he will not be browbeaten by them and that anything the county schools will be asked to accept—quite properly, I believe—in terms of parental representation shall apply to the voluntary schools too.