Brighton City Technology College And Mr Ivor Revere

EDM number 924 in 1989-90, proposed by Jack Straw on 30/04/1990.

That this House, notes that in an Answer of 30th April the Secretary of State for Education and Science discloses that the principal donor to the proposed Brighton City Technology College, Mr Ivor Revere, a director of Greenleaf Planters Ltd., purchased in September 1989 the site of the proposed CTC at the former Fitzherbert School, for the sum of ú2.3 million but sold it to the CTC Trust at a cost of ú2.5 million, making a secret commission for himself from public funds of ú200,000 which was hidden from the CTC Trust until December 1989; further notes that in an Answer of 24th April, Official Report, column 146, the Education Secretary recorded that Mr Revere had undertaken to donate ú1 million in support of the CTC but had withdrawn from his original undertaking without having made any payment; is deeply concerned that financial and other controls at the CTC Trust and within the Department of Education and Science were evidently so slack that an ostensible donor to a CTC was able to become a beneficiary; is disturbed that the Secretary of State failed to offer a disclosure of these facts when asked on 24th April, Official Report, column 146, for a statement on the Brighton CTC; calls for confirmation by the Secretary of State that a police investigation has now been mounted into Mr Revere and his activities; and calls for a special independent audit of the CTC Trust and for the suspension meanwhile of the wasteful and disreputable CTC programme.

This motion has been signed by a total of 21 MPs.