PRESS RELEASE

16 May 2003

OTTAWAY CALLS ON MALYAN TO APOLOGISE TO CROYDON

Education Secretary condemns Croydon's education budget

When challenged by Richard Ottaway, Conservative MP for Croydon South, on the inadequacy of Croydon's education budget, the Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke, said that Croydon should be passporting much more than the present 90.2% of the increase in government funding to schools. (see Hansard extract below).

Richard Ottaway says:-

"This confirms what I have always believed that the Department for Education does not accept that Croydon Council should passport only 90.2% of the increase in education funding into the schools budget."

"The Council has siphoned off £1.7 million to social services in defiance of the Government's wishes. I call on the Council to review their budget and restore the missing millions."

"At the special council meeting held on 28th April, Council Leader Hugh Malyan said every pound available for education had been passed to Croydon's schools. This has now been demonstrated to be manifestly untrue and I call on Cllr Malyan to apologise to the full Council and the people of Croydon for misleading them."

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House of Commons Hansard - Thursday 15th May
Column 499

Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend is right. I shall come to Buckinghamshire in a moment, as it illustrates the point that she makes to articulately. I hope that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will make clear their positions on these issues, as I have done. Conservative Westminster has passported only 73.8 per cent. of its budget. Conservative Wandsworth, which the hon. Member for Ashford favoured, has passed on only 92.9 per cent. of its increase. It is a bit of a nerve to cite Marylebone school when it is his own Tory friends in Westminster who are not providing the funds for Marylebone schools. I hope that the Lib Dems will explain why Liverpool city council has passported only 94.9 per cent. of its budget through.

My position is clear. I urge all authorities to passport 100 per cent. of their money. My challenge to the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is for them to commit themselves to the same approach in relation to their political colleagues. With reference to Westminster and Wandsworth, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the band D council tax for Wandsworth is £584, and for Westminster it is £570, compared with £1,082 for Lewisham and £1,034 for Southwark, but still they will not passport the money to fund the schools properly in their areas.

Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South): May I draw the Secretary of State's attention to a press release from Labour-controlled Croydon council entitled "Education Secretary-Climbdown on Croydon Passporting"? It states that he accepted Croydon's proposal for the schools budget, which allowed a 90.2 per cent. level of passporting. That is an acknowledgement that he agreed to £1.7 million being taken out of the schools budget and used on social services and other things.

Mr. Clarke: I have directly intimated to Croydon that I believe that it should be passporting much more than 90.2 per cent. I acknowledge the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. In my opinion, Croydon, which is Labour-controlled, as he said, should be passporting in the same way as others. However, my challenge to the Conservative party and Liberal Democrat leadership is to ask whether they prepared to join me in saying that the money should be passported in that way.