Orders of the Day — Self-Governing Schools etc. (Scotland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 6:58 pm on 6 March 1989.

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Photo of Mr Hector Monro Mr Hector Monro , Dumfries 6:58, 6 March 1989

With my past involvement in education I welcome education debates. It is rather sad, however, that we have before us a Bill which provides for opting out. It is rare for me to disagree with party policy, though I did so last year when the Government introduced what is now the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, and it is not so many years ago that I shared a disagreement with my party over devolution with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), who is now the Secretary of State for Scotland. My right hon. and learned Friend knows that I would fail to support him only if I had a strong feeling of conscience.

I felt during the last general election that the major piece of education legislation ahead of us was the introduction of school boards. I am glad that the original plan was modified following consultation, and that the plan, as modified, eventually became warmly acceptable. I am pleased, too, that the Dumfries and Galloway pilot scheme has been so successful. I know that those who are involved in it welcome the support of Ministers for their initiatives in that direction. It has been a much more expensive policy than my ministerial colleagues were prepared to accept when the School Boards (Scotland) Bill was being considered in Committee. I forecast a cost of about £600,000 for Dumfries and Galloway, and that is what it has turned out to be.

I am extremely pleased that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has set his sights on improving the quality of education. A major plank in that policy has been the involvement of parents and the introduction of parental choice. Parents are interested particularly in good examination results, order and discipline, choice of subjects, better buildings and an opportunity for their children to develop character. All these issues are being looked after ably by the policies of my right hon. and learned Friend.

As my right hon. and learned Friend rightly said when he opened the debate, we are proud of our education in Scotland and proud of its breadth. Five highers in Scotland constitute a much better qualification than three A-levels in England. In addition, there is the extra year at universities in Scotland. All that is good for Scotland, and it is only right that we are proud of the quality of education that we provide.

In saying how pleased I am with the current developments, I recall where we were 15 to 20 years ago, when we were fighting for money to provide roofs over heads. That was a common expression at the time. We were trying to increase the supply of teachers, almost at any cost. All that belongs to the past and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State can take credit for the major achievement that he recorded in solving the problem of teachers' salaries and the introduction of the new curriculum more recently.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) said, there is so much going on that education is suffering from indigestion. It is calling out for time to put into practice the new policies and legislation, but we are now embarking on another major change for which there is no enthusiasm among our people. It is certainly not an election promise. When the matter was raised during the general election, I was on to Central Office in Scotland as quick as a knife to find out what it was all about. I was assured that what I had heard did not apply to Scotland. I conveyed that assurance to my local press and it was widely reported in the local newspapers. That is one of the reasons why I feel that I could not let down my constituents by supporting the Bill.

One of my many concerns is about timing. The opting-out proposals in part I would come into effect on Royal Assent. Give or take a month or two, that could be July or October. By then we shall hardly have implemented the school boards legislation. That will come into force only in the autumn. In theory, we could set up a board of management to opt out before a school board had been established. I find that an astonishing procedure. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), the Under-Secretary of State, to consider a two-year moratorium so that school boards can at least consider all the issues before opting out becomes a possibility.

We have a good structure of education in Scotland. At a time when quality is improving we do not want to embark on an issue that could cause a great deal of confrontation. It is not the moment to take that course. We need more time to consolidate our policies. Now is not the time to introduce an additional policy that might cause a great deal of harm. The National Consumer Council states in a well-argued document that it feels that time is required before the new policy is introduced. The pace of change is extremely important, as is the priority of each individual part of our overall policy.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has not said how many schools he thinks will opt out. I appreciate that it is a difficult figure to assess. There are about 2,800 schools in Scotland. If about 10 per cent. decided to opt out, the 300 schools would cause a great deal of chaos within the school structure. My right hon. and learned Friend and everyone else accepts that there is opposition within local authorities and among teachers. The differing attitudes of education authorities should be emphasised, whether we talk of authorities in the north-east or the south-west. Some authorities are strongly Socialist, some are independent and others are of a mixed variety. The generality feel that the Bill will not assist them in providing quality education. It has been said already that we shall set parent against parent over a highly confrontational issue. We may end up politicising school boards, with one group of parents being against another and with teachers being against parents. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will bear in mind what the National Consumer Council had to say about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) was probably right when he said that he had received 1,500 letters in support of opting out. He should have highlighted, however, that that was very much relative to Paisley. I have had only two letters in support, and both have come from Paisley. We can read into a statistic almost anything that we want.

I am concerned that opting out will become important in dodging the school closure issue. I know that there are safeguards in the Bill that theoretically should stop that, but I do not think that they will do so in practice. I have always been disappointed that in 1980 the then Secretary of State for Scotland relinquished his veto on school closures. The Secretary of State now has an involvement only with denominational schools and remote, rural schools. When he had the veto he could take a broad view.

School closures are becoming more frequent because of the decline in the number of pupils, which means that opting out will become extremely prominent. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) referred to the 37 schools that have voted on opting out in England. I understand that only 10 voted on self-management and that 27 voted to opt out because they faced closure. I believe that opting out will become a prominent issue when the Bill comes into effect in Scotland. My right hon. and learned Friend will be left in a strange position. He will appreciate the need for rationalisation as a result of falling school rolls and the need for closures, but he will have to accept votes in favour of opting out. He will have to pay the cost of running such a school within the state system. During my time in Parliament I have always argued against rural school closures. I have sought always to prevent them. I do not want to see any more closures for whatever reason.

We must also consider the structure. We all accept that there are many common services including meals, guidance, careers, psychology, in-service training, sport and recreation and so on. It will be very difficult to resolve many of the anomalies which will arise between schools which are trying to use the same facilities, even if the opting out school has to pay the education authority for the services that it wants to purchase. If we were considering a school or authority that had opted out willingly, so be it. However, I do not think that that will ever happen. The education authority will feel resentment and there will be no co-operation even if safeguards are written into the Bill. The structure of education in the state system will he weakened.

I am also worried about the teachers. At the very moment that parents invoke opting out, the teachers' position will be frozen. A teacher will not be able to move in or out of that position and that situation might last for six months or a year. That is unfair and must be considered very carefully in Committee.

I am also concerned about a teacher's career. I cannot see that it will be easy for a teacher in an opted-out school. whether he wanted to be part of that school or not, to receive promotion—for example, a head teachership—in the state sector. I know that such schools are broadly in the state sector, but I believe there will be divisions between schools that have opted out and those that have not.

We must accept what my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has said, that all the mounting controversy is about permissive legislation, even though he has taken power for himself through legislation no fewer than 28 times. I am glad that he has accepted the point that there is a right to opt in. I cannot see a warm welcome for a school wishing to opt in, though the major change in Dumfries and Galloway has involved the opting-in of St. Joseph's college, a very fine Roman Catholic school, which is now in the state sector in Dumfries and has a very high quality of education.

It is very sad that we must face this confrontation when it is not really necessary and when there is so much good happening that can be continued by my right hon. and learned Friend's administrative action. Parts II and III of the Bill contain good points about technology, further education, testing in primary schools, teacher appraisal and performance and assessment. The heart of the Bill is perfectly acceptable to me. However, in total I am most disappointed that the Bill concentrates on opting out and on things which I believe should not matter in Scottish education today. We should not be creating divisiveness. We should be aiming for harmony, quality, discipline and achievement.