House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Jan 1992

Mr. Hardy : I will illustrate the case from personal experience. In the 1960s, when I was teaching in a large secondary school in South Yorkshire, I did some research work and wrote articles in Education about the teaching of reading. Perhaps irresponsibly, I divided a large part of one year into three groups and tried three different methods of teaching reading. I said that I was a rather old-fashioned schoolmaster. I found that one group did particularly well. It was taught by the methods which, as an old-fashioned schoolmaster, I supported. I wrote an article in Education that cut across one of the fashions that prevailed in educational practice in my county. The director of education telephoned my headmaster and said that he was not happy about the article that I had written. I was not greatly worried because at that point I was a prospective parliamentary candidate and I had decided to enter the House rather than become a headmaster.

I was greatly helped by the inspector who came to see the work and who was most supportive. I heard no more from the director of education, particularly after I told the inspector that I thought it distasteful that anyone should tell people what to write in educational journals. The fact remains, however, that the inspector was supportive and honourable, but what will happen with the commercial inspector who has his eye on the next contract or on getting the contract to inspect the school round the corner?

Mr. John McFall (Dumbarton) : Like my hon. Friend, I am a former teacher, and I visited every school in my constituency during the summer. Perhaps the kernel of the argument is that the Secretary of State is a barrister who is mainly interested in winning cases and less concerned

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about learning, in schools. If he were concerned about learning he would be on our side. As the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) said, we want to take issues forward. Privatisation of the inspectorate will not take issues forward one whit. I say that from personal experience, but the press at the weekend supported that view. An article in The Observer said :

"On a typical inspection day in Knottingley, West Yorkshire, last week, heads and inspectors alike agreed that schools will be tempted to award contracts to private experts' willing to give a good report."

We are seeing Tammany hall politics in education. Undercutting, collusion and sharp practice could occur.

Immediately before I entered the House, my school was the subject of an inspection by Her Majesty's inspectorate in Scotland. The inspectorate did not give us any warning of the visit. They did not send a letter to say that it was coming in two weeks' time. The inspectors spent three weeks combing the school and talking to teachers and senior teachers. They made a report which we had to go over with the local authority. Instead of going forward--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. That is quite enough for an intervention. I remind the House that we are not in Committee. Interventions must be brief. I call Mr. Hardy.

Mr. McFall rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker : No, I call Mr. Hardy.

Mr. Hardy : My hon. Friend makes a serious point. A few moments ago I said that the proposed inspectorate would be a commercial inspectorate. It will be in business. Some Conservative Members have more connection with business than ever I had. I thought that people in business sought profit, growth, more orders, more contracts and to maximise their returns. It would look for such a level of business as could be obtained only by making sure that the customers got what they wanted.

The schools will not pay for bad reports ; they will pay for good ones. They may be prepared to pay a little more for an inspector who will give a good report than for one who will give them a bad one. That is a serious danger, especially with the weakening and diminution of Her Majesty's inspectorate. The commercial inspectorate may justify the Dickensian conditions referred to by the hon. Member

Mr. Straw : My hon. Friend is right, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), to be so critical of the proposal. As The Observer said, the proposal will secure the fixing of private inspections. But may I take my hon. Friend back to standards ? We will leave aside the fact that the Secretary of State had to invent Labour's policy in order in a rather mediocre way to attack it. We shall deal with that later. My hon. Friend is right to say that standards rose, although not fast enough and not factually. As the primary report says, there is incontrovertible evidence of a marked decline in the past three years in reading standards at the age of seven. Woodhead, Rose and Alexander, the authors of the report, attributed that decline in part to "considerable disturbance"--I use the exact phrase--in the primary curriculum. The consequence is that, every month that the Secretary of State has been in office, reading standards among seven-year-olds have fallen. If the Bill is passed, they are likely to fall even further.

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Mr. Hardy : That is the main reason for my participation in the debate. I seriously believe--I am not making a party point--that what has happened in the past three or four years has been harmful to children and has not been conducive to promoting and maintaining high standards in education. I firmly believe that what we are about today is harmful to good educational practice. I deeply regret that the teaching profession, some people in higher education who are charged with education, and in particular teachers in large schools are so demoralised and frustrated that the vast proportion of them cannot wait to get out because they are sick and tired of what has been happening.

The weekend before last, I spoke to a friend in my home town who had just retired. He had been a distinguished headmaster in primary education in my constituency. I said that I was sorry that he had retired so soon because he could have continued to work for another four years and he loved his job. He said, "I got out, Peter, because I had had enough. I am sick and tired of what is happening and of what has been done to education." He loved his job and was a fine primary school headmaster. If he makes such a comment it should be taken seriously.

For every man or woman who is saying that in my constituency one can find scores, if not hundreds, in every constituency. It is time that we made an attempt to re-establish some stability in education. The destabilisation of the past three or four years will result in disadvantages for a long time to come.

Sir Peter Hordern (Horsham) : The new clause is about information-- the information which should be available to parents. I cannot understand why the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) should object to school governors being given a choice of inspectors, whether commercial, independent inspectors or those from local authorities, which carry out inspections at present.

From what my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellet-Bowman) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State have said, it is clear that there are marked differences in standards of inspection from one part of the country to another. I was shocked to hear my hon. Friend say that there is virtually no inspection worthy of the name in Lancashire. What protection can be provided for parents--especially those living in Lancashire--if school governors do not even have the right to insist that inspections take place? That case is made : as far as I can tell, there can be no valid objection to the principle that school governors should be able to insist on proper inspections of their schools. I am surprised that the Labour party appears to object to that.

I must move away from Lancashire to another authority, West Sussex, where, far from having no inspections worthy of the name, every school is inspected every year. It is difficult for West Sussex education authority to explain to parents of children in its schools that it is not proposed that there should be inspections only once every four years, because they have been used to a high standard of inspection. They get plenty of information. Reports are available to all schools about pupils' progress and they will shortly be made available to all children.

I wish that the standards that have been set in West Sussex had been more generally applied and were available throughout the country. I dare say that it would be difficult to arrange yearly inspections at once, but it is certainly an

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objective worth striving for. I hope that, when my right hon. and learned Friend replies, he will tackle that problem. He will know that I and my right hon. and hon. Friends in West Sussex find it difficult to explain to our constituents why we should support the Government's proposal of inspections once every four years, when we have an inspection every year.

I see no reason why school governors should not opt for an independent inspection, as proposed. It is a good safeguard. However, I hope that the education authority will be able to enter schools to respond to any criticisms which may be made, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will also deal with that.

I am especially worried about what might happen if the Audit Commission were to report on the standard of schools in an education authority. The authority is directly responsible to the Audit Commission. The commission cannot criticise anyone else, only the education authority. Therefore, a statutory problem exists because if the Audit Commission is to make a valid criticism of an education authority it must have the right to deal with it, and to enter schools and respond to criticisms as best it may. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will also tackle that statutory issue. 5.15 pm

As my right hon. and learned Friend will know, because I have spoken to him recently about the matter, standards in West Sussex primary schools are the second best in the country. He will also know, because he was good enough to tell me, that standards of inspection are among the top 10. Those standards ought to be repeated throughout the country and should not be confined to West Sussex. Therefore, the Bill is capable of improvement. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will say in his reply that sensible and progressive evolution will bring the Government towards the high standards that are available to us in West Sussex, but which are regrettably not apparent within the limited ambition of the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend will tackle that issue, which so concerns parents in West Sussex that considerable numbers have written to me and to my hon. Friends.

Mr. McFall : My apologies for taking too long in an intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Given that your patience has run out with me, I shall try to be brief.

The hon. Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) said that the Labour party objects to inspections. That is the last thing that we object to. We are for higher educational standards, but will the inspection regime proposed by the Secretary of State achieve them? Our answer is no, and for many reasons.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) mentioned visiting his schools in the summer. I did the same and the information that I got from teachers was that they were overloaded because of what is happening in schools--the national curriculum, reading attainment, testing from five to 14, league tables and truancy rates. The system is overloaded and teachers need more time to implement the curriculum so that children can learn more.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : The hon. Gentleman appears to go to schools only in the summer. I go all the year round. It is now some considerable time since the summer, and I have found that my schools are getting their teeth into those things. They are delighted that the local management of schools is giving them vastly better

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surroundings and equipment. I agree that some time ago we had legislative indigestion, but that is now past. When summer comes, if the hon. Members for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) and for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) are still here and if they visit their schools, they will find that there has been a vast change, as I have found when I go round mine. I shall do so again on Friday.

Mr. McFall : The last time that I was in a school was on Monday, before I came here, and the next time will be next Monday. Like the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman), I go round schools all the time.

I have found that teachers are demoralised. Last week I was in Kent, and was given the same message. Kent is a Tory authority. They questioned the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister about taking the practical aspect away from the GCSE in English. The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are wrong. If they go to Tory authorities such as Kent they will get the message, and then perhaps they will do something for our children's learning.

There is too much in the curriculum and teachers need time to plan and to make progress on the proposals which the Secretary of State has put forward.

There is no doubt that reading standards have improved tremendously since the end of the second world war. The number of children leaving school with qualifications has increased. Since 1971, in Scotland, the number of children leaving with three or more highers has increased from 17 to 22 per cent. We have a good inspection team in Scotland. I suggest that the Secretary of State should do a case study on it.

Before I was elected to the House, the school at which I was deputy head was subject to the inspection regime. The inspectors did not contact the school beforehand ; nor did we have an opportunity to go over everything with the local education authority. Those inspectors were in the school for three weeks and they spoke to senior staff such as myself, the teachers and departmental heads. They then came back for a further week and, after that, consulted the LEA. They then published their report, which was made public. However, we were given an opportunity before publication to iron out any problems with the inspectors. That is what I call public inspection.

Those inspectors were not in hock to the local education authority or to the school. The regime that the Secretary of State intends to put in place will mean that the team leader alone is validated by the Department of Education and Science. That does not happen in Scotland, where everyone is validated. Under the proposals, governors or head teachers will be able to have a cosy relationship with the team leader. The report produced will be to the liking of that team leader and the school, because the team leader will want more contracts from that school, while the school will want a good report.

How does one prevent such corruption? How does one prevent the head teachers of Knottingley and elsewhere in West Yorkshire from colluding with the team leaders and undertaking other sharp practices? The Secretary of State has not paid sufficient attention to the proposals. They represent a step backwards in terms of the education spectrum. The change is proposed not in the name of improving education, but because the Secretary of State wants to cut the budget for education.

Why are the Government cutting the national inspectorate from 500 to 150? That is what the head

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teachers of West Yorkshire and elsewhere want to know. Above all, how will the Secretary of State prevent the corruption which the Bill will promote? The Bill is a retrograde step in terms of education, as it will not improve children's learning.

Sir Timothy Raison (Aylesbury) : The debate, quite rightly, is about quality in education and, in particular, about the quality of inspection under the proposed scheme of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. It is right that our debates should now focus almost entirely on the question of quality, because that is one thing that we have learnt in the past decade.

I listened, as always, with great interest to my rather Cassandra-like hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden). He reminded us, as always, that the gap between current standards and what we should like to achieve is still large. International comparisons are sometimes tiresome, but they are necessary. By temperament I am slightly less gloomy than my hon. Friend about what goes on in our schools. Our constituencies lie side by side in the county of Buckinghamshire, which has produced the highest level of GCE passes of any of the shire counties in England, and the second highest of any of the English local authorities. I am sure that my hon. Friend will tell me that that is nothing like good enough, and I will not necessarily dissent.

Does it make sense to have a system under which the governors of schools commission inspection reports? I must tell my right hon. and learned Friend that I still need a bit of persuading on that score. There are qualms about the system because it seems a little odd that an obsessive left-wing body of governors, or perhaps a right-wing one--it is more likely to be left- wing--should be able to commission from a left-wing inspection team a report on what is going on in their school. My right hon. and learned Friend has said that the Bill contains the necessary safeguards against that and, to an extent, the debate hinges on their quality.

I accept that one important safeguard is the insistence on far more information. Even the Labour party has come to accept the need for that. The way in which league tables have become a required part of the scene is all to the good. I do not necessarily want to see different schools rated in order of precedence, but it is important that the right facts are available upon which to make a judgment. The other validation for a loony inspection team--if I may put it like that--is Her Majesty's chief inspector of education, who is a central figure in the Bill. I had hoped to have a debate of my own on this subject, because some important questions have not been properly discussed. I am interested to know whether the chief inspector will be able to provide the kind of validation that seems to be such a keynote of the scheme that the Government have introduced. I am struck by the fact that clause 2(5) states :

"In exercising his functions the Chief Inspector for England shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct."

That gives the Secretary of State a great deal of power to tell the chief inspector what to do and what not to do in the realm of policy, which is a sensitive area. If we postulate the undesirable and probably improbable spectre of a Labour Government with left-wing tendencies, one can imagine the Secretary of State saying to the chief inspector, "What you must do is to pay close regard to the

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Government's commitment to absolutely no screening being undertaken in schools and ensure that comprehensive education is the norm." I do not believe that that will happen, because I do not believe that the Labour party will win the election, but we must recognise that the Acts of Parliament are designed for all Governments. It would be helpful to learn how Ministers believe the provision will work. Why is it necessary to have clause 2(5)? Why can we not accept that someone who is appointed as the chief inspector is an independent person? Time and again, my right hon. and learned Friend has said that it is his intention that the inspectorate should be more independent than it has ever been. If so, why is it necessary to have such a swingeing provision in the Bill under which the Government can tell the chief inspector what policy he must follow?

Mr. Walden : I shall not try to answer for the Government ; that is their job. However, perhaps some of the answer lies in the following question. How far does my right hon. Friend believe that independent bodies, such as the Plowden committee, created a climate of acceptance of low expectations in British education? Given that the inspectorate is part of the educational establishment, or has become so, that climate has helped to create the problem in primary schools, which the Government are trying to attack today. The problem is that one has an inspectorate that is infected--that is not too strong a word--with the same fallacious philosophy that the Plowden report helped to disseminate. I am conscious of my right hon. Friend's special knowledge of that report. I am not being a Cassandra ; I am being realistic about this. The Plowden report is why we are where we are today with all our problems.

Sir Timothy Raison : My hon. Friend has raised an interesting question. I spent about three and a half years on the Plowden committee ; to try to encapsulate a reply to my hon. Friend's question in a time tolerable to the House would not be particularly easy.

Mr. Walden : I am patient ; why not try?

Sir Timothy Raison : That may be so, but I am not sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although a patient man, would be so on this occasion.

In certain respects, the Plowden committee was swept along by the zeitgeist and I do not believe that that report was right in all regards. I do not believe for one minute that the deviationist aspects of the Plowden report, which my hon. Friend and others have analysed with such gusto, would have been cured by an injunction from the Secretary of State of the day to the chief inspector to say that he should not allow that sort of thing to happen. I am sure that, whoever was the Secretary of State, from whatever side of the House, we would have given a fair wind to what was going on then. In that respect, my hon. Friend's arguments do not hold water. I had better not say any more about the Plowden committee.

The question that I am asking my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State is serious. He said that one of the safeguards for the quality of inspections under the scheme is the role of the chief inspector. I understand that, but why is it necessary to diminish the

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chief inspector's independence by giving Ministers a power which would be used benignly and sensibly by my right hon. Friends, but which might be used harmfully by a Minister of a different persuasion?

5.30 pm

Mr. James Pawsey (Rugby and Kenilworth) : I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir T. Raison) will forgive me if I do not follow his particular line of argument. Instead, I first refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), who spoke about the pace of change. I understand why he did so, but he should understand that the reason why the pace of change is so great is that we want to improve the quality and standards of state education as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) and, to some extent, the hon. Member for Dumbarton, commented on the need for stability, which was also touched on by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) in a recent radio interview. Opposition Members call for stability, but that call is difficult to reconcile with their proposals were they to be elected to government. They are pledged to abolish grammar schools, grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges, the assisted places scheme, and even the tax concessions that enable the independent sector to remain. Those pledges will not result in much stability for the thousands of children who are involved in those schools, or for the schools themselves. Indeed, they will result in total instability.

Under the Bill, schools will have more full inspections and 25 per cent. of all schools will be inspected each year. That is a substantial improvement on the present system, in which only about 150 schools benefit from a full inspection by Her Majesty's inspectorate. It has been argued that some-- only some--local education authorities, also have an inspection system. As my right hon. and learned Friend said in an earlier intervention, following the publication of the Bill local education authorities have suddenly come up with inspection programmes. It may be pure coincidence, but I think that it is rather more than that.

The fact remains that not all LEAs undertake thorough inspections, which means that some schools in some areas have had nothing that remotely resembles a full inspection. The Bill changes that and ensures that all schools will be fully inspected. Indeed, it takes the wraps off schools.

Local education authorities, advisers will still visit schools and be able to provide help and advice. Interestingly, if an inspection report or a complaint from a parent reveals serious weaknesses in a school, the local authority can draw those shortcomings to the attention of the school governing body, which now bears the main responsibility for what takes place in its school. If the governors accept that they need help to resolve the problem, the LEA is free to provide it. That help can include the analysis of weaknesses that have been identified and the provision of training to tackle those weaknesses. I appreciate that that is not an inspection, but the effect could be broadly the same. If governors want help from their LEA, the absence of a specific power to inspect does not prevent it from being offered.

It should be remembered that, thanks to the Education Reform Act 1988, which was strenuously opposed by the Opposition, school governing bodies are now increasingly composed of parents. Those parents, like any others, want

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the best for their children. If they believe that there are serious shortcomings in the school where their children are being educated, they will want those shortcomings exposed and put right as soon as possible. That is enlightened self-interest.

When a school governing body selects an inspection team for its school and its children, it will go not for the soft option or the cheap option but for the best, in order that problems at the school, which directly affect their children, will be identified and put right. Parents have no interest in sweeping school problems or shortcomings under the carpet--the contrary is true.

That answers the point made by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) when she introduced the new clause. She forgets the power that is now in the hands of parents. The HMI team leader will be registered and will be directly responsible for his team members. The inspector's team will have to meet the Bill's requirements and the conditions set down by Her Majesty's chief inspector. The team need not include only those with specific experience in teaching but can include people who are not qualified teachers.

If we were to exclude all those who are not qualified teachers, we would exclude those with knowledge of administration is education and those with knowledge in research. It is important that additional expertise should be brought into the inspection teams, although I fully agree that, in the main, the inspection teams will be composed of people with teaching experience.

Ms. Armstrong : Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that not every member of the inspection team will be approved by Her Majesty's chief inspector--that only the registered inspection team leader will be approved? I do not want the House to be under any misapprehension about that. The Secretary of State said earlier that every inspector would be registered.

Mr. Pawsey : The hon. Lady laboured that point at substantial length in Committee. I am not sure why she chooses to do so again now.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : Is not that point covered by clause 10? It states :

"No person shall conduct an inspection of any school in England under section 9(1) unless he is registered as an inspector in a register kept by the Chief Inspector for England for the purposes of this Act."

Mr. Pawsey : I am sure that the hon. Member for Durham, North-West has heard clearly what my hon. Friend has just said. Mr. Straw rose --

Mr. Pawsey : I am delighted to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Straw : I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has such delight when I stand up. He must be aware that, in an interview last year, the Secretary of State referred to

"inspectors, all of whom will have to be registered with HMI and all of whom will have to have a little lion stamp of quality given to them by a central Her Majesty's Inspectorate".

That simply was not true and the hon. Gentleman who, unlike the Secretary of State, served on the Standing Committee, knows that it is not true. There will be at least 3,000 to 4,000 inspectors and only some 600 of those can conceivably be registered by HMI.

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Mr. Pawsey : I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He apparently did not listen to the debate that took place in Committee, where the point was thoroughly aired by his hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West. The hon. Gentleman has already had the answer.

Opposition Members have said that we are privatising the education service. My understanding is that privatisation occurs when something is transferred from national or quasi-Government control to the private sector and private enterprise. Clearly, that has not happened in this instance. Opposition Members' claims about privatisation are pure scare mongering. They are similar to the claims made by Opposition Members about the privatisation of the health service. In both cases, I deeply resent those unfounded allegations.

It seems that Labour Members are failing to win the argument and are simply trying to scare patients and parents into voting Labour. There is no reason for the electorate to vote Labour other than being scared into doing so by the scaremongering tactics of Labour Members.

Ms. Armstrong : This is an important moment. The hon. Member is declaring his opposition to privatisation. We welcome that.

Mr. Pawsey : I wish that just occasionally the hon. Lady would listen. She fails to do so because she is only interested in what she has to say. I can understand that, but it would be helpful were she sometimes to listen to what is said by others.

I should like to hark back to the so-called golden age of LEA inspection. Let us remember who the inspectors are. They are frequently the colleagues of the very teachers they are now called upon to inspect. That answers the point raised by the hon. Member for Dumbarton on corruption. The teams of inspections proposed in the Bill will result in less corruption.

Mr. McFall : I should correct the hon. Gentleman. I mentioned a case study in Scotland involving Her Majesty's inspectors who were not members of the local education authority and not colleagues of the teachers. The very point that I was trying to make was that they were independent.

Mr. Pawsey : I take the hon. Gentleman's point.

I close by quoting a leading article in The Daily Telegraph of Friday 24 January :

"The report on primary schools by Mr. Kenneth Clarke's Three Wise Men draws a thick black line under the post-Plowden experiment in progressive education whose chief legacy has been an almost unprecedented decline in children's literacy and numeracy. Why was it allowed to go on for 25 years?"

The leader continued :

"Furthermore, so pervasive was the ideology being peddled by the training colleges, so Stalinist the influence of local education authorities and advisors, so approving the reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors--the dogs that did not bark as night closed in--that anyone who dissented from the approbation of happy children being kept noisily busy in decorative classrooms risked dismissal as a crank." That extract from The Daily Telegraph leader contains the reason for the Bill's introduction. It sums up the reasons why we need to change HMI and why we have selected the system that we have.

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Mr. Lewis Stevens (Nuneaton) : I support the general interpretation of the Bill and the fact that the inspection of schools--which is to be in depth--will be a statutory requirement. Will my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State put my mind at rest on what may be a slight gap in the changes? Local education authorities such as mine in Warwickshire at present use a system of a basic minimum of three visits per annum by the general schools inspector with a rolling programme to follow up with visits on specific subjects. It seems that that policy will go under the proposed changes.

Can my right hon. and learned Friend give an assurance that, following the changes set out in the Bill, schools that may have to wait for three years for full inspections will still be able to have some inspections?

5.45 pm

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : The new clause has prompted a lengthy debate. I was pleased by one aspect of the speech of the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong)--the frequency with which she seemed to invoke the citizens charter and the principles that lie behind it. She was concerned about parents' right to complain and their right to have more information about the quality of the schools that their children attend. We are in the early days of what my right hon. and hon. Friends often describe as a 10-year programme of installing the principles of the citizens charter into the administration of public services in this country. If we have made such rapid progress in persuading an Opposition spokeswoman, who are moving in the right direction.

The new clause relates to complaints and the quality of inspection. I do not think that we require the formal procedures that it sets out. The most obvious way in which people will complain is by approaching Her Majesty's chief inspector, who will, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir T. Raison) said, play a crucial part in the process. The chief inspector will have the overwhelming duty to ensure that the integrity and quality of inspections is maintained.

I did not understand the point made by the hon. Member for Durham, North- West, which ran throughout the rest of the debate, about the form of the inspections. She seemed to make the curious assertion that our proposals might damage the information received by parents in order that they might be better informed about schools and their choice of schools--our intention under the parents charter. Under the parents charter, to which the Bill gives effect, we set out to give parents in this country far more information than they have been vouchsafed before on the performance of their children's school. In order to add to parents' understanding and ensure that the information is of good quality, we are introducing a system of quality assurance with a new regular inspection by independent people whose quality has been validated by HMI. That is a considerable step forward.

Having listened to the debates, I detect a sense that there is more agreement between the two sides on some of the principles than would be readily conceded. I suspect that it is difficult for Opposition Members in the run-up to an election. They keep saying that they thought of various aspects of Government policy first, which is not the strongest form of criticism to make.

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There seems to be universal recognition that, hitherto, the standards of local inspection of schools have been patchy and variable. Standards achieved by the different local authorities have ranged from the excellent standards of West Sussex referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) to the almost non- existent inspection system of Lancashire, where I do not think there are any designated inspectors.

Lancashire is by no means the only county to have fallen to such a low. From time to time, trade union general secretaries have drawn attention to the patchiness of inspections. We are all agreed that, hitherto, local inspections have been inadequate.

Mr. Straw : Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Clarke : I shall give way in a moment, but I wish to make progress as I think that we may have agreement on this.

We are also agreed that there has to be a national standard to ensure universal quality of inspection. I am not sure whether the Labour party agrees--I think that it might--that we need a regular cycle of inspection. I sense that the Labour party has been converted by the parents charter to the idea that, for the first time, parents should as of right receive unsolicited and directly the results of inspections of their children's schools.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) referred to Warwickshire. Inspection results in Warwickshire go not to parents or governing bodies but to heads. The West Sussex authority may be contemplating sending them to parents, but I do not think that it did until we suggested it.

It is a short time since we published the parents charter and announced a system of a national standard for regular inspection of schools with regular reporting back to the parents and a straightforward summary of what the inspection states. I think that all hon. Members who have participated in the debate agree with everything that I have said so far. The only difference between us involves who carries out the inspection. We say that it could be the local education authority if it is up to Her Majesty's inspectorate standards, or an independent organisation. The governors should have the choice. If it is an independent organisation, it must be up to the national standard, which Her Majesty's inspectorate should regulate.

The Labour party says that local authorities, and only they, should inspect their own schools. It says that outsiders should not be able to carry out inspections. In effect, it says that only the local authority that manages a school should provide inspectors. It says that there must be national standards, but we are to have a commission and a committee. It will not be Her Majesty's inspectorate that imposes national standards. After cutting through all the guff that we all know arises from hon. Members on both sides of the House during a political debate, there is only one issue that comes between us. As usual, the Labour party has no education policy worth the name. It has folded in and tried to get on the back of the best bits of our policy.

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