Building Schools for the Future

Rob Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg]

We need to get to the nub of the problem. We can go back and look at who was responsible for the economic crisis, the world crisis and so forth. The Conservative party keeps trying to suggest that somehow this problem is down to the way that the previous Government managed the economy.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Derek Twigg]

I have not yet answered the last question. The permanent secretary in the Department for Education wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) and clearly said that the money was there. He would have asked for a letter of direction if there had been any impropriety or problems with that, but he did not do so. That is the key point, and something that the Conservative party keeps trying to push, although it is plain wrong.

I would like to make some progress. It is self-evident that the quality of the built teaching and learning environment, which embraces school buildings and the state-of-the-art facilities that they should house, will have a bearing on pupil attainment and the quality of teaching.

--- Later in debate ---

[Derek Twigg]

The focus should be that our children have been robbed of state-of-the-art school buildings. The fact remains that the money was there to carry out the programme, but the coalition Government chose, for ideological reasons, to put it towards free schools. It was their choice.

I return to the importance of the changes in my constituency. In Halton and across the piece, I suspect, the reduction in the number of school sites would have led to reduced operational staffing and running costs, allowing more money to be spent on improving pupil attainment and ensuring the high-quality teaching that the Secretary of State purports to prioritise. Indeed, Halton council was commended by the previous Government for the manner in which it approached the proposed reorganisation of secondary school provision throughout the borough, not least for achieving value for money. In Halton, significant costs savings have been achieved since the inception of the programme through the establishment of a joint delivery team with Warrington borough council. That enabled both authorities to share procurement costs, staff, expertise and best practice. At each stage of the BSF programme, the authority met the key milestones and used the lessons learned to reduce the time scale and milestones for the Warrington wave 7 programme.

Another key point is that, whereas the Secretary of State says that the money is not there and that BSF was badly bureaucratic, Halton borough council has shown that it can be done and that there are benefits.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be living in a parallel universe in which no cuts would have been made under Labour. However, the former Education Secretary said in The Sunday Times that he would like to cut the number of heads and deputy heads by 3,000.

[Derek Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman is now quite an experienced Member and I respect him, but we have never said that there would have been no cuts. There would have been cuts. I put it to him that his Government said that they would not cut front-line education services, but what is more front-line than school buildings and the importance of improving them?

Going back to what was done by Halton borough council, the timeline for the programme has been reduced by 50% compared with the PFS standard. Efficiencies were also planned through the integration of multi-agency services within school facilities such as health, leisure and outreach services. A strategic approach to ensure that we moved away from a “patch and mend” model—the hallmark of the Conservative years—to an overarching model that considers condition, suitability and sufficiency is now in jeopardy.

The Secretary of State says that the Government remain committed to supporting capital spending in schools and has instituted a review aimed at ensuring that value for money is guaranteed through the process. However, he could not answer my written question of 12 July about when he expects the review to be completed. That is more evidence of a rushed decision. Investing in capital spending and culling BSF would appear to be an oxymoron of the highest order. I fear that, like their vague aspiration to replace the future jobs fund, the nation will be lumbered with another watered-down and ineffective alternative, published at a yet unspecified time.

Another feature of the ill thought out and rushed nature of the policy is the prospect hanging over local authorities of legal action by contractors following the termination of school building projects. Last week, I asked whether the Education Department intends to issue advice to councils that may face litigation. The Minister said that he would reply as soon as possible, so I ask him again whether he can provide me with an answer to that question. Again, it shows that this was a rushed, botched job.

As in the wider economy, the Government seem intent on choking growth and development, and the BSF cull will play its part. Although it is easy to recognise the physical benefits that will be lost due to the end of the building programme, added value benefits will also be lost that would have been a major boost for the local economy and would have addressed many of the social, economic and educational challenges faced by Halton and Warrington. Halton borough council has told me that a number of social, economic and regeneration initiatives had been developed within its BSF submissions. The management and ongoing development of those initiatives were fully costed and allocated within the local education partnership, and the generation of social and economic benefits would have given truly additional value. Some 500 jobs would have been created, whether directly or through the supply chain and so on. that would have been a most important factor in the process.

It is important to recognise how schools in my borough, such as Heath and St Chad schools, will be hit. They are expanding schools and would have had extra capacity, but that is now in jeopardy. Those schools will not be able to expand, despite their popularity, even though it is an important part of the Government’s policy to recognise and expand such schools. That is also the case with Bankfield school, my old school, which will now have difficulty in expanding. As a result, yet more children will have to be educated in mobile classrooms, which takes us back to the conditions of the 1980s and 1990s.

Wade Deacon high school, which had a 100% pass mark for grades A to C last year, serves both disadvantaged and more prosperous areas. When it amalgamates with Fairfield school, which has been closed, it will face a difficult job managing the two sites. The situation is far from ideal; there are busy roads to cross and it will be hard to manage teachers’ timetables. Under the BSF programme, the two schools would have been on one site. In another example, the Grange would have been an all-through school, catering for children between the ages of three and 16, with a number of schools coming together on one site. There will be major consequences if that school does not go ahead. There are significant public health and safety concerns—I mentioned Bankfield and the problems of moving between different school buildings—as well as a problem of insufficient capacity at other schools. Visiting schools in my constituency last week, I saw that profound impact of the decision on them.

Community access to schools has many advantages, not least in raising educational interest and encouraging adult involvement, which leads to the development of a better learning culture. In areas such as mine, where that culture has not always prevailed in many homes, community access provides a massive opportunity for improvement.