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parents successfully getting their first choice of school has fallen, and in areas with large numbers of schools which have already opted out, the anarchy predicted by The Daily Telegraph has already occurred. In the Tory borough of Bromley in London, where eight schools have opted out, 225 pupils and their parents have thus far had no choice of school because it has been impossible to offer them a choice under that authority due to the multiple applications to the opted-out schools now outside the authority's control. As The Times commented in an editorial,

"to pretend that the selective opt-out structure emerging as government policy has anything to do with parental choice is a deception".

Then there is the issue of the future administration of secondary schools. Opting out will result in the nationalisation of the school system--in its central takeover by Whitehall. But schools are not islands ; their provision must be planned and financed and if not by local authorities, then by whom? Are we to expect under the terms of the much promised White Paper that Whitehall officials will administer the whole school system, or are we to expect appointed boards packed with Conservative place men and women, as happened with health authorities and NHS trusts? The Secretary of State had better tell us in his wind-up speech.

Lastly, the largest question of all : what is the purpose of the journey into the unknown that mass opting out will entail? For Labour, the only test of any education policy is whether it will increase choice and opportunity and raise the standards of education for every child. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend pointed out, there is no evidence that the opting out that has occurred so far has led to higher standards.

Her Majesty's inspectors have spent 300 days on greater and more intensive inspection of grant-maintained schools in their four years of existence than any local authority schools have ever enjoyed. Yet, despite more than three years' intensive HMI attention, not one report has been published by HMI on grant-maintained schools. If those HMI visits and reports spelled out that opting out was leading to higher standards than would otherwise be the case, one can bet that the Government would have published those reports. They have shrouded those reports in secrecy, because they know the truth--that opting out has led to no discernible improvement in education standards. Nor can it. What it has done is to lead to a divided system, a two-tier system, and selection by the back door. One point on which we should all agree is that standards of education in Britain for many children are not so high as they are in many comparable countries and not so high as they could and should be. Where the Government's policies are likely to lead to an increase in standards and an increase in choice and opportunities for every child, those policies will have our support. But where those policies seek to create a future out of a discredited past, they will have our relentless opposition.

In the article in The Spectator entitled

"There is a choice--good or evil",

the Secretary of State opened with the touching words : "I believe in God. I worry about Him. I think that He probably worries about me."

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The Secretary of State is not the only one, and he had better understand that his actions will be judged not only by the Almighty in the world to come, but by parents, teaches, governors and pupils in this world who want an end to underfunding, an end to pay-as-you- learn, and an end to double standards, and who want instead real investment and the choice and opportunity which come from delivering the highest standards of education to every child. 9.41 pm

The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten) : I rise in what I understand in footballing parlance is called injury time, with 19 minutes to go to reply to the debate.

During the afternoon, Madam Speaker, your ears must have been burning while hon. Member after hon. Member paid you compliments in your absence. They will all be there in Hansard tomorrow for you to read at breakfast.

We have had a remarkable number of maiden speeches of extremely high quality. The debate started off as a bit of a heritage trail around Britain's historic cities, kicked off by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Ms. Campbell), followed by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and completed by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth)--a sort of Baedeker tour of the tourist spots of the United Kingdom.

I greatly appreciated the graceful remarks made by the hon. Member for Cambridge about Sir Robert Rhodes James, as I am sure did others. The hon. Members for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) and for Coventry, South- East (Mr. Cunningham), neither of whom would claim a major part in the tourist guides for their constituencies-- [Interruption.] --no, not because of the damage caused to the Baedeker guides but because of the damage that the Baedeker raids did to Coventry during the second world war. Both hon. Members spoke with great feeling about their constituencies and I congratulate them on what they said.

The hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Dr. Wright) made some exceptionally interesting remarks, including showing a bit of independence, saying that he supported some of the Government's education legislation. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) was extremely generous about his predecessor, Hugo Summerson. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms. Morris) was equally generous about David Gilroy Bevan and the victor in Stockport over the Liberals was very generous-- [Interruption.] - -over the Conservatives : we lost the seat. That was a deliberate mistake put in to ensure that hon. Members are learning the constituencies. We shall miss Tony Favell very much indeed. The hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) has come here with a reputation for being a bit of a left-winger, so my north-eastern spies tell me. Such people are to be cherished in these revisionist times.

After the hon. Member for Bath, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester, who comes to the House with a reputation for humour, and he sustained it in his excellent maiden speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) spoke fluently without notes--a talent that was explained by his fellow countryman, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid- Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), as owing to the fact that he is Scottish.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring was followed by another Scot, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who spoke fluently and warmly about his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) paid tribute not only to Sir Neil Macfarlane but to two remarkable residents of Cheam-- the legendary Tony Hancock and Harry Secombe.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), who scored a famous victory--and I will get it right this time--over the Liberals, also spoke without notes, showing that Welsh Members of Parliament can do that as well as Scottish right hon. and hon. Members who come south of the border.

We were fortunate this afternoon to hear maiden speeches of such quality.

I cannot refer in the short amount of injury time available to me to all the other interventions, but they included some frightening words from my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) about the future of Select Committees. I guess that wiser persons than myself listened with some trembling to his remarks. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) said clearly that the Opposition were out of touch in their opposition to grant-maintained schools--and so they are. That view was echoed in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway).

We heard a couple of notable and thought-provoking interventions by my hon. Friends the Members for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) and for Buckingham (Mr. Walden). I imagine that I will be debating with them a great deal in the coming years.

Before turning to Labour's contribution to the debate, I shall refer briefly to the Liberal Democrats. It might be worth dwelling for a moment or two on the lamentable condition of their party, which, having been rebuffed by the British electorate, is now making advances to the poor old Labour party. Labour needs the amorous advances of the Liberal Democrats like a vegetarian needs a plate of raw meat. I suspect that if there is ever a coming together, it will be the Liberals who are gobbled up.

I have nothing against individual Liberal Members of Parliament. Some of them are rather nice. I am surprised that many of them remain in the Liberal party. For many months, I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), with his cutaway collars and striped shirts, was a member of the Conservative party, and I bought him a number of drinks on that basis.

There is also that nice teenage president of the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy). I would like the party's deputy leader to pass on to that hon. Gentleman the information that if he chooses to cross the Floor of the House, I am authorised to offer him a job as my assistant Parliamentary Private Secretary. I have nothing against any Liberal Members of Parliament, and certainly not against our newcomer, the hon. Member for Bath. The general election campaign did, however, provide one service to the public : it revealed for the first time to a wider audience the true face--and a very disagreeable face it is too, being unpleasant, personal and vindictive--of the more extreme Liberal activists in this country. It is a very ugly face indeed. They tormented my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr.

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Dickens) with personal attacks of a most shameful kind. My hon. Friend is a big enough man to deal with them, but he is still suffering--he is unable to be here this evening.

Those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who went to Cheltenham during the campaign came back reporting the insidious drip, drip of innuendo. "Vote for the local man," the Liberals said. Then there were the disgraceful scenes in Bath. I am sure that the new Member for Bath--whom I congratulate on his election victory--dissociates himself completely from those. There was organised chanting, and organised shouting down of our former right hon. Friend Christopher Patten. That was a blot on the whole election campaign.

Madam Speaker : Order. I should like to hear more about the amendment now.

Mr. Patten : You know what it is like with inexperienced Secretaries of State, Madam Speaker. I shall now deal with the amendment, but I hope that my hon. Friends will remember what I have said.

The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) was very cheerful. I appreciated his speech : it was an extremely good speech, with some good jokes. That is perhaps all the more remarkable because at present it cannot be much fun being a Labour party member concerned with Labour education or environmental policy.

Whoever wins the great Labour leadership battle, there may well be a reshuffle of responsibilities. I am sure that the hon. Member for Blackburn will play a starring role whatever happens ; it is the question of who may succeed as Opposition education spokesman that worries me. I have heard ugly rumours that it may be the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). That would be a serious matter.

Certainly, we shall not know for a long time what Labour's three Rs are. Will the Labour party be attracted by reading, writing and retrenchment, under the austere hand of the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) ; or by the reading, writing and radicalism of the deeply dangerous hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)? We shall have to wait and see. All I know is that the Labour party has been spared the reading, writing and revolution promised by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone).

Whatever the direction in which the new leader of the party takes Labour's education policies, it will presumably be a case of a new set of three Rs. It will be "retreat, retreat, retreat" from every radical Labour policy on to Conservative ground. That will happen time after time. As experience has shown us over the past 13 years, what is outrageously conservative one year in education policy is Labour party policy in the next manifesto. That has happened time and again.

The hon. Member for Blackburn talks of the Conservative party's record on education. I am very happy to talk about our record. Our schools are being transformed : the facts speak for themselves. The national curriculum is transforming pupils' expectations and ensuring that all children have the core education that they deeply deserve. That is true equality of opportunity--Conservative equality of opportunity.

Examination results are getting better and better. Record numbers of our young people--this point should not be diminished by Opposition Members-- are now staying on after the age of 16. Record numbers of people

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are now training to become teachers, and local management of schools is liberating schools up and down the country. I do not know of a single school with LMS, let alone grant-maintained status, that wishes to return to the bad old days of local authority domination. Choice and diversity have now become a reality for increasing numbers of parents and their children, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth predicted all those years ago. Grant-maintained schools are a hit with parents. A revolution is beginning to sweep across the education landscape of the country. I should be happy to arrange a visit to any grant-maintained school in the country for the hon. Member for Blackburn and his Front-Bench team : it is clear that they need to be educated in excellence, which is what Conservative party policy is about.

I expect the revolution in our schools to gather pace in the years to come. I expect our schools, when all the reforms have been fully implemented, to be the envy of the western world. I want parents to be able to enjoy real choice, real diversity and higher expectations for their children. I expect them to play their part by helping their schools in many different ways. I certainly expect to see an ever-increasingly skilled and educated work force.

Above all else, however, as a result of our curriculum reforms and testing, I expect our children to do two things. I guess that the first will be laughed at by the Opposition, but I intend to explain what it is. I expect children to go to school throughout their school career and to stay there to be educated. I am simply not prepared to allow truancy levels to remain at the level at which they are now. What is the point of having good teachers, fine schools and all that public expenditure if children are not at school to enjoy that experience? Secondly, I expect our children to be taught to think for themselves, to read and to write properly, to spell and to do their sums--all the fundamental aims of a good education system. Further thoughts about the structure of education will be made clear in the White Paper that I am now writing, which will be brought before the House in due course. Undoubtedly, it will be opposed by the Labour party on publication date, but it will be Labour party policy 18 months later--as it always is. Every time that we have introduced constructive proposals to improve education, the Labour party has opposed them and then changed its mind.

Look at the Labour party's record. In 1987, Labour claimed that we wanted to introduce a national curriculum only in order to give us a monopoly of thought in education. A few years later the national curriculum is Labour party policy. Look at tests. The Labour party said that tests would lead to arrogance or failure. Now it wants them. Testing is part of Labour policy. Local management of schools was condemned during the fun-filled 1989 Labour party conference. Hands up any Labour Member who remembers that with pride. I cannot see anyone doing so. Now the Labour party supports it.

Then there is opting-out. Just five weeks ago the Labour party made a pledge to ditch all our education reforms. Grant-maintained schools, local management of schools and city technology colleges would all be thrown out of the window. Now, five weeks later, after the Labour party's fourth general election defeat, revisionism has set

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in. Its leading education adviser, Professor Tim Brighouse, Professor of Education at Keele university, says that Labour should ditch its traditional commitment to comprehensives, let state schools develop in their own way and fund an increasing number of assisted places. Just five weeks after the election! I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

I was not sure what the Labour party's official response would be, but one of the Labour party's spokesmen on schools was quoted yesterday in one of our great national newspapers as saying that Professor Brighouse's ideas were very sparky and deserved attention. There are a lot more sparky ideas coming from our side of the Chamber.

Because the Queen's Speech has been prepared by a Conservative Government, we have been spared the tired and reactionary programme that the Labour party would have given us. Had the Labour party been sitting on this side of the Chamber now, it would have been repealing the rates and beginning to renationalise industries such as the water industry that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment took so successfully into private ownership when he was Minister of State. The citizens charter would have been torn up on the first day of a Labour Government, with its commitment to public services of a high quality. Worst of all, the most important and fundamental social reforms of the last quarter of this century--our education and health reforms--would have been torn up and ditched. By the end of this Parliament, the British people, not the Conservative party, will have decided that those reforms are truly irreversible.

Question put, That the amendment be made :--

The House divided : Ayes 292, Noes 323.

Division No. 2] [9.59 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Adams, Mrs Irene

Ainger, Nicholas

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Allen, Graham

Alton, David

Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Anderson, Ms Janet

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashton, Joe

Austin-Walker, John

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Barnes, Harry

Barron, Kevin

Battle, John

Bayley, Hugh

Beckett, Margaret

Beggs, Roy

Beith, A. J.

Bell, Stuart

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Bennett, Andrew F.

Benton, Joe

Bermingham, Gerald

Berry, Roger

Betts, Clive

Blair, Tony

Blunkett, David

Boateng, Paul

Boyce, Jimmy

Boyes, Roland

Bradley, Keith

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Burden, Richard

Byers, Stephen

Caborn, Richard

Callaghan, Jim

Campbell, Ms Anne (C'bridge)

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Campbell, Ronald (Blyth V)

Cambell-Savours, D. N.

Canavan, Dennis

Cann, James

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

Chisholm, Malcolm

Clapham, Michael

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Coffey, Ms Ann

Cohen, Harry

Connarty, Michael

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Corbett, Robin

Corbyn, Jeremy

Corston, Ms Jean

Cousins, Jim

Cox, Tom

Cryer, Bob

Cummings, John

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

Cunningham, Dr John (C'p'l'nd)

Dafis, Cynog

Dalyell, Tam

Darling, Alistair

Davidson, Ian

Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)

Denham, John

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