MR. LLOYD'S £400 MILLION
MR. GEOFFREY LLOYD had worked hard to arouse enthusiasm in the Government's long-term plans for education by a series of speeches and interviews with political corre- spondents. The White Paper which appeared on Wednesday might well have been an anti-climax; but in the event the Government has gone a long way to satisfy the expectations' which he had raised, by announcing a £400 million five-year pro- gramme, directed mainly, though not exclusively, at the secondary schools. This will include a school-building programme averaging about £60 million a year for England and Wales between 1960 and 1965 (the 1959-60 programme, the last to be approved before this White Paper, amounts to £46 million). And as an immediate step, the limits on minor building jobs of up to £20,000 are going to be rai'sed, which means that many essential improvements can go forward before this five- year plan begins.
Politically, this may turn out to be one of the most important of the recent spate of policy White Papers. It is the Conservatives' reply to Learning to Live, seeking to embody the belief that by improving all secondary schools, and in • particular secondary modern schools, the sting can be taken out of selection and the eleven-plus bogey can be laid. It proposes to provide the buildings and most of the teachers (by the end of the period) to make it possible for all children to stay at school with profit to sixteen.
The White Paper naturally stresses the Oppor- tunity State motif which has figured in all Mr. Macmillan's major speeches on domestic policy. 'The key note,' it says, 'is opportunity. There must be opportunity for the individual boy or girl to go as far as his keenness and ability will take him. And the nation must grasp the opportunity to develop the educational system so that it can better fulfil its task of producing citizens who are 'fitted by character, knowledge and skill to play their full part in an increasingly educated and responsible, democratic society.' It sounds turgid in print, but it must be remembered that this was the sort of stuff with which Mr. Lloyd galvanised the Conservative Party Conference. Having spent a year as the dullest of Ministers, apparently unable to evince the slightest interest in any of his routine visits to schools and tech- nical colleges, Mr. Lloyd appeared suddenly to have become consumed with passion. He spoke at Blackpool, if not like a man with fire in his belly, at least like one who had sat on a blow- lamp. The result was rapturous applause and the compliments of some political correspondents. One even included Mr. Lloyd among those Ministers who had 'come on' most during the year. Others, though more sceptical, agreed he bad come on. It does seem as if he has suddenly realised how the Labour Party has thrown 'away its opportunities by doctrinaire wrangling over the organisation of secondary schools. The way, therefore, is open. for him to place educational opportunity at the centre of the Tories' domestic policy and achieve, in their public personality, that quality of 'generosity' which Lord Eustace Percy accused his pre-war Tory colleagues of having failed to cultivate.
Politically significant, also, is the decision in the White Paper to give more help to the Churches for school building. Lobbying has been going on apace; and now the Government has shown that it intends to get the credit, if credit there is going to be, while still in office. It is known that Labour feels distinctly sore about this; it would have liked some kind of all-party discussions with the Roman Catholics and Anglicans in order to lift denominational bargaining above politics. But naturally these things look different from the Opposition benches.
This White Paper has 'election manifesto' written all over it—it will, for one thing, cost the Government very little till well into 1960. But it is also an interesting experiment in long-term planning. True, no government can bind its suc- cessor; true, too, the Chancellor of the Exche- quer has also to retain annual budgeting con- trols. But at least this is an attempt to plan a large programme over a period of five years, and to let the local authorities know what is going to be required of them well in advance. In view of • the way in which the public investment pro- gramme has grown, this kind of forward planning is becoming increasingly necessary.
The real question is whether the local authorities Will spend the money sensibly and carry out the programme as efficiently as it deserves. And this leads back to the arguments about local government finance, which have not been resolved by the figures for the general grant published . by Mr. Henry Brooke last week. Critics of the general grant point out that it has already led authorities to cut back their estimates for 1959-60 and 1960-61' so that they show a smaller rate of growth than any of the past four years. Furthermore, the grant has been fixed for the two years ending March, 1961, on the basis of estimates prepared in the summer of 1958. If prices rise, as they are regrettably likely to do, either the ratepayers will be saddled with the whole cost of the programme or it will have to be cut back accordingly.
Such defects, however, are inherent in the method of finance which Parliament has devised for local government. Mr. Lloyd's White Paper, taken as a• whole, is potentially a valuable out- line plan for elducational expansion, a useful election manifesto and a sensible way of carrying the Education Act of 1944 another stage towards full operation.
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