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Alan Drew: Double the number of prison places

Alan Drew is a lecturer and research physicist at a Swiss university. He has recently begun a project to push forward the agenda that prisons work on the website www.prisonworks.org.

> Policy summary

Increasing the likelihood of being caught and incarcerated reduces crime. Doubling the number of prison places will allow the policy of early release to cease, and encourage the criminal justice system to incarcerate criminals guilty of serious crime more often and for longer.

> Policy explanation

The U.S. robbery rate was nearly double England and Wales' rate in 1981, but in 1995 the English and Welsh robbery rate was 1.4 times America's.

The U.S. burglary rate was more than double England and Wales' rate in 1981, but in 1995 the English and Welsh burglary rate was nearly double America's.

The U.S. rape rate was 17 times England and Wales’ rate in 1981 but 3 times in 1996.

The U.S. murder rate was 8.7 times England and Wales' in 1981 but 5.7 times in 1996.

Between 1981 and 1996 we find that, on average, US crime rates have reduced significantly but English crime rates have increased. So what’s going on?

Two of the four main factors of the reduction in US crime are increased police numbers and a rising prison population, with increasing prison numbers accounting for 27% of the overall reduction in crime. The total US prison population grew from 123 prisoners per 100,000 people in 1980, to 400 in 1996. In 1996, we imprisoned just 102 per 100,000.

Indeed, despite the rhetoric about short-sharp-shocks, during the 1980s the Tory Government pursued an overall anti-prison policy. The prison population was actually cut by nearly 10% between 1988 and 1993, even with a rocketing crime rate. The crime rate reached an historic peak soon after and towards the end of 1993 the policy was reversed by Home Secretary, Michael Howard. Within 2 years of reversing the anti-prison policy, Michael Howard witnessed a sharp reduction in crime rates. In his own words, “prison works”.

There tends to be the argument that the UK is a country with a high population of prisoners, yet we still have a relatively high crime rate. Despite this misleading rhetoric produced by the anti-prison lobby, our prison population is not large in comparison to other European countries. Yes - we have a large absolute prison population - but this is small compared to the number of crimes. Comparing absolute numbers of prisoners is a very misleading way of representing the statistics.

Even now, with an expanding prison population courtesy of Mr. Blair’s administration, just 12 people are imprisoned for every 1,000 recorded crimes. In Spain, the number is 48. Spain's crime rate is roughly one quarter of ours.

Prisons are not perfect: they are next to useless if we have an ineffective, inefficient police force; reoffending rates are tremendously high, although in a lot of cases lower than non-custodial sentences; prisons mop up the failures of the care and education system; and there is a large drug problem in our prisons.

These issues need to be addressed. But prisons do one thing – and do one thing well – they reduce crime. And that has to be the first and foremost criminal justice policy. This policy is simple: in the first term of government, the Conservative Party must double the number of prison places.

One final point – increasing the number of prison places has other, less obvious effects. As a whole, the prison system has been overcrowded every year since 1994, although they are considered safe. At the end of January 2006, 53% of prisons were overcrowded. Overcrowding has significant effects on the whole of the criminal justice system. For example, as a direct result of overcrowding, an increasing number of prisoners are being held a significant distance from their home towns. This costs the taxpayer millions of pounds in transportation costs and in delays to the criminal justice system, as a result of late arrivals for court appearances. It also jeopardises family relationships and the chances of successful re-integration back into the community on release; two of the most important factors in reducing re-offending.

So not only will doubling prison places reduce crime directly, it will reduce it indirectly, by increasing the effectiveness of the prisons we already have.

> Political risks and opportunities

The Conservative Party is traditionally the party of law and order - there was a time when people looked to the Conservative party for ‘tougher’ action on crime. Let us not forget our roots – we must keep the public’s faith in our party to deliver lower crime rates and a fairer society. But we must be careful – we must ensure that we don’t fall foul of the classic Labour attack. They will want to brand us as unchanged and they will want to bring back memories of past glories, and failures. So not only must we build more prisons, we must make them work better.

> Questions for ConservativeHome readers

61% of all prisoners released in 2001 were reconvicted within two years. How do we address this?

Almost a third or prisoners spent time as children in care and the prison population as a whole has a frighteningly high rate of mental illness. How should the prison service deal with this? Is it the job of the prison service to deal with it?

> Costs

The anti-prison lobby often cite how expensive prisons are, as an argument against building more of them. However, they fail to take into account the cost of crime in their calculations. Doubling the number of prison places would cost around £7bn, yet in 2000, the Home Office estimated the cost of crime at £60bn. Taking inflation into account, that's £3,000 pa for every household. Considering the average wage is only £18,961 (median) or £23,400 (mean), that accounts for a 16 pence (median) or 13 pence (mean) increase in income tax. And it would only take a little over a 10% reduction in crime, from double the number of prisoners, to make the project self-funding.

Next week on 100policies.com

Monday: Westminster representation for Britain's overseas territories (David T Breaker)

Tuesday: Fund political parties through a flat rate levy per elector with the recipient chosen via a tick box on the tax return (David Simpson)

Wednesday: Police officers should not usually patrol in pairs (Victoria Borwick)

Thursday: Fines to discourage speeding, not generate revenue (Owen Meredith)

Friday: A national domestic waste strategy (Dominic de Mariveles)

John Hayward: More international aid should be channelled through civil society organisations

John Hayward has worked in international development since 1995, living for much of that time in former Soviet Central Asia.  He is Political Deputy Chairman of Tonbridge & Malling Conservative Association and is on the Party's list of approved candidates.

> Policy summary

A much greater proportion of British international aid should be channelled through charities and other non-government organisations rather than handing over to foreign governments and intergovernmental bodies both vast sums of British taxpayers money and, with it, our international responsibilities.

> Policy explanation

The British public gives more money to international aid agencies than to any other charitable cause.  Yet, of more than £4.8 billion of our taxes that the Government spent through the Department for International Development (DFID) last year, less than £233 million was channelled through such civil society organisations - not even half of what the public gave.

Instead, working to a very different set of priorities, more than half of DFID's expenditure went to foreign governments, while another quarter went to the European Community's Development Programme, the World Bank and the United Nations, each of which has questions of financial probity and efficiency to answer.  ActionAid claims that 29% of DFID expenditure is wasted on "phantom" aid.  Indeed, even the Government admits the quality of EC assistance is poor, yet it persists in squandering our taxes on their programmes.  Such government-to-government and multilateral funding often fails to target aid at the countries we should be helping most, forces developing countries to privatise essential services in the public sector, and exacerbates problems of corruption, oppression, dependency, and environmental degradation.  Without fundamental changes in how our aid is invested, much of it will continue to be lost, pocketed by unreliable officials or poured into inefficient and inappropriate projects.

As Conservatives, we believe in small government and in empowering individuals to contribute creatively to their own communities.  We should therefore develop person-to-person aid and support community-to-community links, using non-governmental organisations to a far greater extent than we do at present.  DFID funds could be used to finance British citizens to help develop skills overseas through locally-managed, community-based development programmes providing individual care.  Equally, the Government could follow the public's concern by matching public giving to international aid agencies from DFID's budget.  Increasing national control over our international aid spending would help promote good governance abroad, empower those most disenfranchised across the developing world, and encourage greater awareness of global issues here in the UK.

> Political risks and opportunities

At the last election the under-35s mostly didn't vote and, when they did vote, they didn't vote for us.  Yet, contrary to popular myth, this is not a generation that does not engage with politics - this is the Live8 wristband generation.  If they are even to consider a traditional political party such as ourselves as being of relevance to their concerns, we need to apply our Conservative principles to the global challenges of the 21-st century and develop long-term policies that will help foster a safer, fairer world.

Calling for reform of or even reducing our commitments to global giants such as the European Community, United Nations or World Bank is not a course to be undertaken lightly ... but if not now, when?  If not by us, by whom?

> Questions for ConservativeHome readers

• What are our international obligations in today's global village?  Do we have a greater obligation to countries with which we have historical links, such as those in the commonwealth, than to other developing nations?
• Are the two criteria defined in the International Development Act that all UK development assistance is required to fulfil - namely, that aid should contribute to poverty reduction and should be provided for sustainable development or improving the welfare of the poor - sufficient or should additional criteria be added?
• In what ways can or should we help improve the failings of multilateral bodies?

> Costs

Government-to-government funding typically deals in much larger sums than NGOs require and giving smaller sums to a larger number of benefactors would thus require more administration to ensure effective monitoring.  However, the increased administrative costs would be more than outweighed by the increased effectiveness of every pound invested in individuals serving organisations working within local communities.  Any change in how we give would not require any change in the amount that we give.

 

Robert McIlveen: Legalise prostitution

Robert McIlveen lives in Sheffield and is doing his PhD there on the Conservative party, its organisation and electoral strategy.

> Policy Summary

Prostitution should be legalised under a regulatory framework with the aims of hampering the trade in trafficked women, improving public health and cutting off an income source for organised crime.

> Policy Explanation

There are an estimated 80,000 prostitutes working in the UK, with large numbers of women trafficked from abroad and effectively enslaved. While prostitution itself is technically legal, advertising, soliciting and other aspects of it are not. While this policy does not necessarily imply approval of prostitution itself, a pragmatic policy offers benefits. Bringing in licensing and regulation, something Conservatives would usually seek to reduce, has been done in several other countries, such as the Netherlands and Germany, which seek to protect the women and men working as prostitutes while hitting traffickers, pimps and kerb-crawlers. This policy views many sex workers as victims of crime, and by regularising the ‘industry’ to alleviate this.

The scheme should involve the registration of prostitutes, licensing of brothels (with suitable caveats about location, hours etc up to local councils) and regular health checks on prostitutes, with condom use mandatory. STD infections are sky-high in this country at present, with unprotected sex with prostitutes becoming more common, especially with trafficked and enslaved women.

Combining the regularisation of prostitution with a crackdown on pimps, traffickers and kerb-crawlers would mean that we could attack prostitution as a source of income for organised crime and more effectively tackle human trafficking.

> Political Risks and Opportunities

The obvious risk is that most Conservatives will instinctively oppose ‘condoning’ prostitution. There would also be condemnation from some feminist groups. A typical response would be that we should crack down on prostitution, not encourage it. These  would have to be countered by arguments from pragmatism and principle. Pragmatically, prostitution has always existed, including in much less tolerant states than our own. Ending it is impossible, so making the best of an unfortunate reality is the right thing to do. From a Gordon Brown perspective, it would also bring in tax revenue, although this is very much a side-benefit. Legalising prostitution would enable the police to focus on the more important criminals behind the industry, including those involved in child prostitution, rather than its principal victims and enable prostitutes to access legal and employment rights they are currently denied. Paying national insurance an receiving targeted health checks are among the positive benefits for the workers.

The opportunities in this are less obvious, but real. This is not the sort of thing the public would expect from the Conservatives, in much the same vein as IDS’s Centre for Social Justice  would counterbalance traditional Tory themes on Law and Order without contradicting them. This policy represents an attractive blend of compassion and pragmatism with a moral virtue of liberating victims of enslavement. If adopted it is defensible both in terms of pragmatism and principle.

As a policy it might have something of the Liberal Democrat conference floor about it, yet this perhaps is a positive. If we can demonstrate our caring compassionate side on an unlikely subject we will grab the attention of voters who have convinced themselves that we do not care about the vulnerable in society and change their minds. Taking the hard edge off the party has been a core achievement of David Cameron since his leadership: this would be an extension of that attitude.

> Questions for ConservativeHome readers

• How can we counter a Daily Mail style condemnation of this idea?
• Can we sell a policy on pragmatism alone?
• Legally, what would a regulatory framework look like?

> Costs

Bureaucracy costs money, but in this case tax revenues would also increase, probably producing a small net gain for the Exchequer.

Karen Bradley: Single measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines to be available through the NHS

Karen Bradley was recently selected for Staffordshire Moorlands.

> Policy summary

Single measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines to be available through the NHS.  Labour’s policy of forcing the combined MMR vaccine onto parents and doctors puts children at unnecessary risk.

> Explanation of policy

This is not a medical argument, but an argument of principle and responsibility.

To protect their children from measles, parents have three choices;

• a combined MMR vaccine free through the NHS,
• three single vaccines paid for privately or
• not have their children vaccinated. 

Parents’ lack of confidence in MMR means that many are leaving their children unvaccinated – take-up rates declined from 92% in 1995 to 84% in 2002 – leaving them at risk of contracting measles. 

I must declare an interest – I have decided that I do not want my two young sons to have MMR.  Despite the arguments in favour, I do not want to inject them unnecessarily with Rubella before they are 15 months old.  But I can afford to pay for my sons to be vaccinated privately.  Many parents are not so lucky.

Before MMR was introduced in 1988, there was a single measles vaccine, at about 15 months, and then girls had a rubella vaccine at age 11 – I clearly remember standing in line at school to be given mine.  Mumps vaccine was not generally given.  From 1988 to 1999, parents were given the choice of the combined or single vaccines on the NHS.

Then, Labour took away the choice and made MMR the only option.  They said that many parents had failed to give their children all the single vaccines. 

About that time a report was published suggesting a possible link between MMR and autism and Crohn’s disease.  Together with general concern about giving such young babies so many vaccines in one go, this has led to the reduced take up in childhood vaccination.

Watching this reduction, a pragmatic government – one that was not so anxious about losing face – would re-license single vaccines on the NHS.  Instead, Labour has continued, in its authoritarian way, to insist that only MMR can be given and take-up continues to be low.

> Political risks and opportunities

There is little inherently wrong with MMR.  I do not propose that it should no longer be available.  But Labour’s approach is symptomatic of so many of its policies – we know best, people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, but it won’t affect us because we can afford to buy our way out of the problem. 

Restoring choice would be popular with parents who feel that they are forced into giving their children a vaccine that they don’t really trust.  It would also show that Conservatives trust parents and doctors to decide what is best for their children and patients.

Questions for ConservativeHome readers

• At what age should the single vaccines be administered?  Pre-school?  Or older?  Rubella vaccine was historically given to girls at age 11/12, should it be given at a younger age?  Measles itself is potentially fatal, so all children should be vaccinated against it at 15 months.
• Should boys be given the rubella vaccine at all?  The argument is that as a country we have decided that we want to eradicate rubella completely and this can only be done with a minimum 95% vaccination programme (WHO guidance).  But as rubella is not dangerous to boys, do they need it so soon, or at all??

> Cost

There is an additional cost in the single vaccines compared to the combined one.  But the cost of Labour’s current policy is that children are running the risk of catching potentially fatal measles merely because Labour does not want to lose face.

Alex Morton: Make headteachers and teachers free yet accountable

Alex Morton is a Research Assistant to Peter Lilley MP.  However, these thoughts are entirely his own and are not connected to the Public Services Improvement Policy Group.  His mother, aunt, uncle and grandmother are all teachers. 

> Policy summary

Teachers’ wages are to be set by the head teacher of each school from a block wage grant and should be easier to remove. Head teachers pay increase is to be subject to a vote at the end of each school year by parents or the Board of Governors (with their pay coming from the block wage grant) and they are also to become easier to remove. In return, the administrative burden on head teachers and teachers would be lessened.

> Policy Explanation

There is an increasing shortage of quality teachers in certain subjects - the sciences, economics, mathematics. In some subjects there is an increasing shortage of teachers full stop.  A degree in economics is estimated to raise the lucky recipient’s lifetime earnings by an average of 25% - unless, of course, they go into teaching.

And of course it would be simplistic to reduce any subject premium to a block mentality - the alternative earnings of a good economics teacher are much higher than a bad one, so the better the teacher, the more likely they are to leave the profession overall, and the least likely they are to be found in an inner London comprehensive. 

This is an issue of ‘social justice’ in that the shortage of decent teachers in key areas is particularly affecting inner city schools, where the non-financial stresses caused by poor discipline, family breakdown and children who don’t speak English as a first language are most acutely felt.  It is a typical example of the failure of the current state model to help those at the bottom of the pile.

The Government has responded to the problem by introducing a plethora of standards, which if the teacher is assessed as having come up to allows them to receive additional increments or separate pay allowances – the Advanced Skills Teacher standards, the Excellent Teacher Standards and the Fast Track Teacher Standards.  They have also produced various Blairite gimmicks such as the “golden hellos” now given to maths teachers (who often leave after a few years having pocketed the golden hello!) 

Yet the standards frameworks are often hidebound in regulation, and still largely require adherence to set guidelines from the DfES – freedom on a tight Whitehall leash.  More importantly, head teachers are often reluctant to use these schemes because of the dogmatic opposition of the unions, and because teachers are used to being paid the same.  Union leaders have said that such schemes divide staff – but this is because such schemes so obviously go against the grain of the way teachers’ salaries are normally awarded that they mark out those who are being paid more through them as ‘special’, implying equal average pay should be the norm.   

This unhelpful anti-meritocratic culture which pervades the teaching system needs to be removed.  The idea that a small or medium enterprise would pay its staff roughly similar wages based almost exclusively on seniority is laughable - yet this is expected in our education system.  Imagine a world where accountants received the same salary as marketing staff based on how long they had been around, and imagine what it would do to private enterprise.  Yet we put up with it in education, a critical public service.

So allow head teachers to set the wages of their staff from a block wage allowance and allow supply and demand to play their usual role - you would soon see certain subjects' wages (i.e. those with shortages) being bid up and others generally stagnating.  Allow head teachers to sack staff more easily.  You would see staff who are simply not up to scratch diminish in number, while those who are already doing well and are self motivated being rewarded for their efforts. If this system was implemented head teachers would be free to continue paying identical salaries to their staff - they wouldn't be forced to change - but I would be very surprised if, over time, they didn't move to a more variable system of wages

Head teachers must become directly accountable to parents, not the DfES.  Head teachers pay and conditions should be set by local parents, rather than a complicated system which few outside Whitehall know or understand.  They would be accountable to parents if results began to drop, year after year, and should be easier to sack.  This in turn would mean head teachers were more careful about their staffing policies, not just appointing staff on personal preference but on who gets results.

The whole idea you can have specialist schools, or even make a system of school choice work without this proposal (or something like it) I would argue is false.  Specialist schools need to pay the teachers who work in the subjects that they are specialising in substantially more than surrounding schools.

School choice, without pushing bad teachers out of the system by refusing to compensate them for their poor performance simply moves the bad teachers around (and those who live in the least well off areas who are most likely to end up with them).  Choice and accountability are empty words unless you erect a meaningful framework for them to be exercised in.  At present, we simply present people with a list of schools as ‘options’ and tell them they have choice.  But given that we know there are 100 children in area A and 100 school places in area A then can we really say we have much choice in our current school system?  When you cannot reward good teachers and head teachers nor penalise or remove bad ones can we really say you have accountability?

We reformed the ‘demand’ side of education by allowing parents to state which schools they wanted their children to go to, and by making funding follow the pupil.  But without reforming the ‘supply’ side of education we will not move forwards.  Schools cannot go ‘bust’, so we are currently faced with a system which is not responsive to parents needs.  In my view, is not desirable nor possible that schools go ‘bust’.  But given that it is bad teachers and head teachers who are often at least part of the problem of poor schools, bad teachers and bad head teachers need to be both financially penalised and face the threat of being removed if we are to drive up standards and improve the quality of education our children receive, and an individual teacher's pay needs to adequately reflect the alternate earnings that teacher could receive in the private sector.

As a positive side effect this reform will halt the spiral down in difficult yet valuable subjects by increasing the quality of teaching in them - which will have major knock on effects for university courses and our competitiveness.

In return for the two reforms above, a lot of the waffle sent from the DfES could be simply binned - parents and teachers know what is best for their children, not the man in Whitehall.  However, some examinations, (and hence the necessary minimum guidelines), for the purpose of benchmarks for parents to judge performance on, must be retained.

A final point – education debates in Tory circles often simply go round and round the issues of grammar schools and or school discipline.  I am in fact a traditionalist in both these areas, but we need to branch out in education – which is why I propose this policy.  There is much else that needs to be done in our school system to improve it, but those debates can wait...

> Political Risks and Opportunities

There are a lot of teachers who might lose from this proposal.  It is a big proposal, in the sense it would be a radical departure from what has gone before, and might scare voters.  The Guardian will be furious.  But I would question how many of these people, when push comes to shove, will actually vote for us.

It also will offend well heeled liberals who dislike the idea of paying arts teachers less than maths teachers.  Again I would question how many of these people would actually vote for us, and think this could be easily neutralised by pointing out that such liberals tend not to have to suffer the consequences of their mistakes.

Cameron has done a good job in making people listen to us with an open mind - for the first time in years. But if 'compassionate conservativism' is to mean anything we need to put some policy flesh on the words.  People will want to know how we will make public services better before they trust us on this issue.  This idea dovetails market incentives, democratic accountability and social justice.  This puts power in the hands of parents rather than strengthening local bureaucrats, as "localism" sometimes ends up doing.

It is simple, but effective.  People know that not all teachers are the same - why should they be treated as such?  It shows that we are modernising by applying traditional principles to new areas, not abandoning them.  By applying conservative values to education, an area that consistently comes in the top five issues of voter concern, we are broadening our appeal.   It is something which shows we are concerned about how all schools operate, that we are not in favour of simply providing ‘an escape route’ for a privileged few, and is something that is likely to go down well with swing medium income voters who cannot afford private schooling, as well as persuading voters that we are concerned with the less privileged. 

> Questions for ConservativeHome Readers

• How could we bring on board parts of the educational establishment?
• What should the mechanism to remove a head teacher be?
• How can we judge what is useful to retain in terms of examinations and guidelines while keeping such interference to a minimum?

> Policy Costs

There would be some minimal administrative costs in the short term to set this system up.  In the long term, none, because this is changing structures and incentives not increasing spending.  The annual ballot of parents might involve some negligible cost, but you should be able to cut back on some of the DfES bureaucracy to pay for it.

Mike Christie: All secondary schools to become directly state-funded but independent trust schools

Mike Christie lives in Lancashire and has spent the last two years working as the IT manager in a state secondary school in Greater Manchester. Prior to this he was an IT contractor working for organisations as diverse as the European Commission and Tommy Hilfiger. He was recently appointed Deputy Chairman of his local constituency association.

> Policy summary

“All Secondary schools to be made directly state-funded independent trusts able to select pupils and courses appropriate to the individual school."

> Policy Explanation

The policy involves the complete overhaul of the education system which would involve replacing LEA managed comprehensive schools with independent schools with the ability to focus on certain groups of children. Schools could choose where to strike the balance between traditional academic and more vocational studies depending on their catchment area and the needs and wishes of the community. Heads of schools would have the final say on admissions in the vast majority of cases. Parents, pupils and primary heads would all have input into the process for selecting the appropriate secondary school.

The schools would be run by independent trusts. Local community trusts, faith groups, charities and other suitable bodies would be encouraged to establish schools. With employment of staff, admissions and many other tasks handled directly by schools, LEAs would take on a much reduced role. Schools would be encouraged to form partnerships with other local schools to pool resources and provide joint services like HR/ payroll.

Schools could range from the most academic traditional Grammar schools through to technical schools where maybe the only academic subjects taught were Maths, English and Citizenship/life skills, taught by teachers who were specially trained to teach the most academically challenged pupils. The aim would be to ensure that almost all pupils leave school with worthwhile qualifications and skills, also functionally literate, and with an understanding of the country's history and traditions coupled with the skills to survive in the modern world (personal financial management for example).

> Political Risks and Opportunities

“Same old Tories, banging on about Grammar schools” – This is NOT a return to the do-or-die of the 11-plus and the two-tier Grammar school system. Children who do not meet the criteria of the most academic schools will not be doomed to a second-class education in neglected institutions. Many schools would remain much as they are in terms of the courses delivered, offering a range of qualifications suitable for the majority of children. The selection process for a school would be one of discussion and choice involving parents and teachers. Rather than having Grammar school 'successes' and Technical school 'failures', the attitude would be fostered that every child was being given an education most appropriate to their abilities and ambitions.

“The unions” – The teaching unions would likely oppose this all the way. In making schools independent and able to negotiate salaries locally, the power base of the teaching unions would be massively undermined. Despite the fact that the overall effect would be to improve pay and conditions for good teachers, I would expect strong union opposition.

“The relationship with private education” – There is a thorny issue regarding how the funds ‘given’ to parents to spend on schooling would tally with private education. In a truly fair system, parents would be able to use the standard ‘allowance’ to pay a portion of the fees of a private education. However, this will be portrayed by our opponents as ordinary tax-payers subsidising places at Eton for the rich. A mechanism whereby all schools that wanted to accept the state allowance as part-payment for places had to accept a certain proportion of pupils at the allowance amount might mitigate this issue somewhat. This mechanism would also be needed to ensure that there were places available for the standard allowance in all types of school in wealthier parts of the country. This latter issue could also be addressed via terms set down in the constitution of each school’s trust.

“Fair and equal funding” – Whilst the “allowance” or voucher given to fund each child’s education would have a set nominal value there would have to be unequal levels of funding given to different types of school and schools in different locations. A technical and vocational school in the middle of London offering a range of practical courses might have much higher running costs than an academic school in the North of England.

> Questions for ConservativeHome Readers

• What risks have been missed?
• How might the issue of balanced appropriate funding be addressed?
• Are there any further thoughts on how to manage the relationship between state-funded and private-funded education in a system like this?
• Would the de-regulation and de-centralisation of teachers’ pay cause a ‘brain-drain’ of good teachers from one part of the country to another, and if so, how would this be addressed?

> Policy Costs

Unknown. It would depend on the amount of funding provided to schools, the administrative costs of setting everything up would be offset to a degree by the reduced costs of much-smaller LEAs.

However, the many benefits to the economy of having a robust education system catering to the needs of the vast majority of children include : producing young adults with worthwhile skills, reducing truancy through providing meaningful and interesting education to a wider-range of children, the probability that crime and benefit dependency in young people would also be decreased.