Education Capital Programmes (Coventry)

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this debate. Like the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), he is no stranger to education provision in the Coventry area. He has assiduously raised the difficulties faced by schools in his area through questions and a number of debates in the House, and he and his colleagues met the Secretary of State last July.

I fully understand the difficulties in Coventry both in providing sufficient primary pupil places and in ensuring that repairs and desperately needed capital improvements are carried out in schools such as Richard Lee primary, which is again in the news because of maintenance problems. That school is in not the hon. Gentleman’s constituency but that of the right hon. Member for Coventry North East, who secured a debate on the subject on 15 March this year.

The Government are fully aware of the pressures that many local authorities face in the light of the very tight spending review capital settlement for the Department, but we must not forget why we find ourselves in this difficult position and why we have had to make difficult decisions. Because of the size of the budget deficit and the increasing caution of the capital markets to fund sovereign debt, our top priority in the medium term has to be to reduce the country’s budget deficit, which means that we need to prioritise a diminished level of capital funding for school projects, on the basis of need, primary places and deprivation.

In the context of what we are currently spending on debt interest payments alone, the action that we are taking is essential. Those interest payments could have been used to rebuild or refurbish 10 schools every single day of the year, but despite the difficulties we have been able to secure capital spending of £15.9 billion over the four years of the spending review period. We know only too well that there are schools in desperate need of refurbishment that have missed out on previous Governments’ capital programmes, and we fully appreciate that some people will feel that they have been treated unfairly, particularly if they fall just on the wrong side of the dividing line that had to be drawn. Despite the austerity of the capital programme, we will continue to spend significant capital on the school estate, at an average of almost £4 billion a year.

I know that schools and local authorities will experience difficulty in adjusting to these lower levels of funding. Nevertheless, they are historically high levels and, taking a wider perspective, they are still higher on average that those experienced in the 1997-98 and 2004-05 periods. Even when funding is tight, it is essential that buildings and equipment are properly maintained, to ensure that health and safety standards are met and to prevent an ever-increasing backlog of decaying buildings that will be difficult and more expensive to address in the long term.

By stopping the wasteful and bureaucratic Building Schools for the Future project, which the hon. Member for Coventry North West referred to as cumbersome and taking too long, we have been able to allocate £1.3 billion for capital maintenance for schools, with more than £1 billion being allocated to local authorities to prioritise their local maintenance needs. We have also been able to allocate £195 million directly to schools for their own capital repairs. It is clear that rising birth rates mean increased demand and pressure on primary places, with more parents unhappy with the lack of choice open to them. The education system has rationed places in good schools for too long, which is why our reforms are designed to allow more children to go to the best schools and to drive up standards in the weakest performers.

We are encouraging scores of new free schools to be set up, run by groups of teachers or educational charities, in places where parents want them, particularly in areas that have been failed educationally for generations.

[Mr Robinson]

I tried to intervene on the Minister when he mentioned BSF, but unfortunately I did not manage to catch his eye. I directly criticised BSF myself to the then Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood. One thing that happens whenever a big programme of that kind gets into the hands of civil servants and others who want to control it to the nth degree is criticism, which is fair enough. However, nobody recommended bringing BSF to a screeching halt, which has been to the great detriment of Coventry. We have two schools at the moment where there are problems. We have Woodlands school, where the scaffolding itself is falling down and there is a danger that it will bring the whole building down with it. We also have Richard Lee school. The Minister must have seen reports on that school. There are gaping holes in that school that people might fall through. These are urgent matters. What will he do about them?

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a good point, which I am about to come on to. We have allocated £800 million of basic need funding for 2011-12, which is actually twice the previous annual level of funding, to support the provision of increased places, particularly in primary schools, as a result of the increasing birth rate. In addition, we expect similar levels of funding to be allocated from 2012-13 until 2014-15, which will address some of the concerns that he has raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

We took a decision about how we allocate scarce resources to schools and local authorities. It was our judgment that, because of the cut in the capital budget, it is better to allocate the bulk of the capital to local authorities for them to decide where the greatest need exists in their area, rather than to allocate more of that money down to the school level, because there are many schools that do not have the same need as Richard Lee school. It is better to divert that money to the local authority, which can allocate it to those schools, such as Richard Lee school, that are in greatest need.

I will now turn directly to the difficulties encountered by the Richard Lee primary school.

[Mr Robinson]

This issue is not about the devolution of the budget, which is entirely up to the Government. The point is that £9,000 will not go anywhere, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East has said.

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that, but £13 million, which is the amount of capital allocated to Coventry, is a very significant sum. It is not as high as we would like it to be, or indeed as high as it has been in recent years, but it is high historically compared with spending in other Parliaments in recent times. We face a difficult budget deficit, and we want to ensure that any capital available is spent where the greatest need exists. That applies to schools such as Richard Lee primary school in Coventry. That case is a classic example of how we are trying to target the funding at the schools that need it most.

Education Expenditure (Coventry)

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Nick Gibb

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. If he will be patient for a few minutes I will come to exactly that point.

Just 103 schools have been completely rebuilt under BSF. The budget bulged from £45 billion to £55 billion for a variety of reasons, some of which were legitimate, but the projected time scale rose from 10 years to 18. Of the £250 million spent before building began, £60 million was spent on consultants or advisory costs. In short, because of its structure and the way in which it was put together, BSF became a vast and confusing edifice of process within process and cost upon cost. It represented poor value for money. No one comes into politics to cut public spending, but the Government were faced with a £156 billion deficit, and it is our responsibility, difficult and painful as it may be, to tackle that problem lest we delay our economic recovery and cause further economic problems. We announced that the BSF programme is ending, but that does not mean the end of capital spending on schools.

I come now to the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Coventry South. When determining which projects would go ahead and which would cease, the Government developed a single set of criteria and applied them nationally. Those school projects that were part of the initial BSF schemes and had reached financial close would go ahead. Of the so-called sample projects that were part of an area’s initial BSF schemes and where financial close had not been reached—the sample schools to which the hon. Gentleman referred—only those with a selected bidder after close of competitive dialogue in the relevant local authority went ahead. Coventry had not reached close of dialogue in those sample schools. Some planned school projects, in addition to a local authority's initial scheme, were all allowed to continue. Unfortunately, the BSF projects in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and in Coventry as a whole, were not additional projects, had not appointed a preferred bidder, and had not reached financial close. As none of the criteria applied, the projects in question could not go ahead, with the exception of the Sidney Stringer academy.

In a meeting during the summer with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, the Secretary of State indicated that he is keen for the Department to learn from Coventry's experience with BSF, and capital spending outside that review. The Secretary of State has made it clear that the end of BSF does not mean the end of capital spending on schools. Money will, of course, be invested in school buildings in the future, particularly with a rising birth rate and increasing demand for school places, but it is imperative that money is spent on buildings and not on process. To that end, a group headed by Sebastian James, and with other professionals, began a comprehensive review of all capital investment in schools—early years, colleges and sixth forms—and will consider how best to meet parental demand, to make design and procurement cost-effective and efficient, and to overhaul the allocation and targeting of capital.

The hon. Gentleman will know that officials working for the review team visited Coventry on 26 August and explored in depth the capital needs of the city's schools and the plans for tackling those needs. A further visit is planned for later this month when the capital review team will meet councillors, representatives of schools and city council officers to discuss the needs of the city’s schools including, in particular, the requirements of the city's special schools. I have taken on board the comments of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West about the state of those schools, particularly issues such as scaffolding holding up a building’s roof. Such issues will be taken into account by the capital review team, and I assure both hon. Members that the Department will continue to make capital allocations on the basis of need, particularly based on dilapidations and levels of deprivation. However, I am sure that both hon. Gentlemen will understand that I am unable to make any commitments today about how much money will be allocated, or exactly when. That will depend on the outcome of the spending review and the capital review.

[Mr Robinson]

I understand that the Minister cannot give a commitment, but will he at least say that by the comprehensive spending review on 20 October we will have a decision about those projects that have priority and can proceed, and to what extent?

[Mr Gibb]

The capital review will report by the end of December, so it will not coincide exactly with the end of the spending review. The hon. Gentleman will have to be a little more patient. There will be an interim review before that, but the answers to his specific question will not be available by that specific date.