House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 Nov 1992

Sir Wyn Roberts : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Davies : Let me give another example first : it relates directly to the Minister of State, and he may wish to respond. About 12 months ago, I had a conversation with the Minister--not a confidential conversation-- about a school in my constituency, Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni. It is a Welsh- medium school. The building is very old ; the comprehensive school had moved out, and the building had become surplus to requirements. It was sub- standard accommodation, decrepit and with holes in the roof. Mid Glamorgan county council, however, is striving bravely to provide Welsh-medium education there.

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I said to the Minister, informally, "Wyn, we really do have a problem at Ysgol Gyfun. The building is dilapidated and outdated, and the form of education provided there is unacceptable in the 20th century." The Minister replied, "Tell it to opt out." Of course, in the Minister's eyes, that made absolute sense. Tell the school to opt out ; then it will go to the top of the list. It will receive preferential treatment, priority treatment.

That is all very well for Ysgol Gyfun, in which I have a particular and passionate interest, but what about the other schools that will be prejudiced as a result of such priority treatment? The example of Ysgol Gyfun illustrates very well the fact that some individuals in my constituency stand to benefit, while other schools in Mid Glamorgan will lose resources and suffer as a result. Moreover, if the Minister gives Ysgol Gyfun additional resources, the peculiar way in which our local education authorities are financed--education resources are not hypothecated, as they are in England--means that Mid Glamorgan's social services, such as provision for children and the elderly, will be cut.

Sir Wyn Roberts : It is precisely because schools under local authority control do not receive all the resources that they could receive- -in terms of both revenue and capital--that I recommended such a course. As for Cwmcarn, a grant-maintained school, it is the constituency of the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock). If that school should have closed, why did the right hon. Gentleman--then Leader of the Opposition--put the strongest possible case for its retention?

Mr. Davies : I know where Cwmcarn school is. I taught a couple of miles up the road at Newbridge school. I know, too, that that school is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn, who was then the leader of the Labour party. If that school had not been in the Islwyn constituency, I also know that it would not have been granted permission to opt out. That decision had nothing to do with the educational merits of Cwmcarn school. It was an act of deliberate malice to try to embarrass the leader of the Labour party.

The Minister of State properly referred to the question of funding. Let me take this opportunity to put a direct question both to him and to the Under -Secretary of State for Schools, who is to reply to the debate. Can the Minister of State give a guarantee that any funds that are made available for schools such as Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni will be additional to the expenditure currently being made available to Mid Glamorgan county council? Is that new money? Can the Minister answer that question?

Sir Wyn Roberts : I cannot do so.

Mr. Davies : I know that the right hon. Gentleman cannot do so. That is why I asked him the question.

Sir Wyn Roberts : The hon. Gentleman knows very well that I cannot anticipate the statement that we are to hear on Thursday.

Mr. Davies : I think that we shall all find that Thursday is a day for bad news.

The Minister is encouraging schools to opt out. He knows that money is not available and that the additional resources, which will be accelerated by means of the Bill,

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will be taken away from people who are already underfunded. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Schools who is to reply to the debate will deal with a subject that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers). It has been the subject of considerable press speculation. I understand that 65 local education authorities in England are overspending on the basis of their standard spending assessments to the tune of about £524 million. In addition, 43 local education authorities are spending £311 million below their SSAs. Can we have a clear and unequivocal statement that

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Eric Forth) : No, the hon. Gentleman cannot have it

Mr. Davies : I got an answer even before I asked the question. The Minister shows himself to be a man of considerable talents. If we cannot have the answer, how on earth can the Government give the assurance that they give at the moment, which is that schools stand to benefit financially if they opt out? Notwithstanding Thursday's proposals, the Minister tells us that the Government can give no guarantees.

For those local authorities that are spending above their SSAs, the problem is that the calculation that will be used to provide schools with additional resources will be based not on the SSA but on the current expenditure of the local education authority. That means that it will have more money than if the calculation had been based on the SSA. We are told, however, that in two years' time the formula will revert to the SSA. That must provide a clear warning signal to any school that is considering opting out that it will be offered a financial inducement and a bribe now, but in two years' time, however, it will find that the promised money is not forthcoming. That is before the cuts that we know will be announced on Thursday. The Minister cannot give an answer.

One of my constituents wrote to the Secretary of State for Education on 20 August. She had been a school governor. She is a parent and is very much involved in her local community. She urged caution on the Government and pleaded with them to think of the implications and to consult widely before introducing these reforms. She received a reply from the Department for Education on 18 September. It said :

"Dear Mrs. Davies"--

She is no relation--

"Thank you for your letter"

concerning the White Paper "Choice and Diversity : A New Framework for Schools"

"of 20 August to the Secretary of State about the above. This is, however, a matter for the Welsh Office and I have passed your letter to them to reply to you direct."

My constituent had not received a reply from the Welsh Office by 19 October, so she contacted me and asked me to take up the matter with the Welsh Office, which I did straight away. A few weeks later I had a reply from the Secretary of State for Wales, which said : "Dear Ron, Thank you for your letter of 19 October on behalf of Mrs. Davies I am sorry that Mrs. Davies has had to wait so long for a reply. We do not, however, have any record of her letter being received from the Department of Education."

That is a fairly good illustration of the extent to which the Welsh Office is involved in decision making--that an individual who makes a formal submission to the Secretary of State for Education urging caution in response to the consultation document has the courtesy of

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a reply from the Secretary of State for Education but does not even receive an acknowledgement from the Secretary of State for Wales. Apparently, the Welsh Office cannot even find her letter. Even better is to come. The Secretary of State for Wales tried to reassure Mrs. Davies by saying :

"Within these arrangements"--

regarding grant-maintained schools--

"there is nothing to prevent LEAs continuing to provide advice and services to all schools, even those that have decided to become grant maintained."

That is a completely misleading and dishonest statement. As grant- maintained schools opt out of local education authority control, the ability of LEAs to provide a central core of services will be diminished by each and every opt out. Apart from the local education authorities being subverted, the whole capital expenditure programme will be subverted. There will be top slicing. The cream will be taken off. The ability of local authorities to deliver their statutory requirements, in terms of attendance and transport, will be undermined.

As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) made clear last night, the ability of local education authorities to make provision for special needs will be undermined. Their ability to maintain establishments for outdoor activities will also be undermined. The provision of peripatetic teachers for services that cannot be provided in all schools will be undermined as schools opt out. The advisory service that seeks to improve and maintain the quality of teaching in the classroom, will be undermined because of the undermining of local education authorities.

Welsh-medium education in Wales will be undermined, too. I shall give the Minister two examples. I have already referred to Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni. If that school were to decide to opt out, parents in the Rhymney valley who wish their children to have a Welsh-medium education will have no option. They will be able to send their children to an opted-out school or they will be denied Welsh-medium education. That is no choice. I know that the Minister of State has actively encouraged Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni to opt out. If it does, the provision of Welsh-medium education in Mid Glamorgan will be undermined.

I know that my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in Gwynedd are concerned about the way in which the opting out of schools will undermine and destroy the cohesive fabric of Welsh education as it has developed in the county of Gwynedd.

Mr. Gerry Steinberg (City of Durham) : My hon. Friend is making an absolutely excellent speech-- [Interruption.] --far superior to the speech that we heard yesterday from the Secretary of State for Education. Does my hon. Friend agree that the educational psychology service will also be undermined? As schools opt out, local authorities will need fewer educational psychologists and therefore will be unable to provide that service to opted-out schools. Special educational needs will be affected by opting out.

Mr. Davies : My hon. Friend is correct. That is why parents are voting increasingly against the proposals--most dramatically in the case of Gowerton in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell). Recently they voted against the proposals by about three and a half or four to one. There was no bribery or persuasion. The information was presented to the parents and they came to a balanced judgment.

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Mr. Gareth Wardell (Gower) : My hon. Friend perhaps underestimates the fact that, when local authorities find themselves in this dilemma, as did West Glamorgan county council in the case of Gowerton comprehensive school, they sometimes shift towards delegating a much larger proportion of their budget to local schools that are not grant-maintained. The threshold for the retention of core services could be diminished so much that their retention, which is so important if the family of schools is to be retained, is fundamentally undermined. Local education authorities must ensure that they do not delegate too much of their budget to

non-grant-maintained schools, or that will happen.

Mr. Davies : My hon. Friend makes his case very powerfully and persuasively, and in so doing raises a further point. I wish that the Minister of State, Welsh Office would consult the Under-Secretary of State for Education and give us an answer. Hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies are concerned about the local government reorganisation. I am aware of the delays that might result from the reorganisation in England, but the Secretary of State for Wales has told us that there will not be a commission for Wales or any delay because the Government will move immediately to a pattern of unitary authorities. That has peculiar circumstances and consequences in Wales, because the central debate is about what form of local authority will be best equipped to pick up the residual responsibility that is now discharged by the local education authority. As yet, we do not know.

We have the prospect of the Bill going through Parliament, but at the same time the Secretary of State is sitting on the proposals that will determine the form of local government in Wales that will have to operate it. It is a nightmare for those involved in local authority planning, especially local education authority services. I plead with the Minister of State, Welsh Office to consider that matter and the enormous worry that is being felt by those in local government in Wales and to ensure that when the Under- Secretary of State for Schools replies he will be in a position to give a considered answer to the point.

Mr. Forth : Does not the hon. Gentleman see that it is his rather pathetic and craven adherence to the thought that only an LEA or local authority monopoly provider can possibly make any education provision that has got him into the box that he is in? The more flexible people are prepared to be and the more that schools are prepared to look beyond their LEAs for the provision of services, the more flexible and certain that provision is likely to be. That applies as much, or more, in Wales as anywhere else.

Mr. Davies : Let me concede straight away that the Government won the last election, have a majority in the House and have every right to put this legislation through the House. I question their right to legislate for Wales, but I shall concede that point for a moment. The Minister must recognise that the number of schools that have opted out in Wales can be counted on one hand. He said that local government reorganisation will take effect from 1995. The prospect of anything more than a dozen or a couple of dozen schools opting out will not be a reality for four or five years.

Mr. Forman : No.

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Mr. Davies : All the experience tells us that, and the Minister should consider it.

In the meantime, those who plan local education authority services must decide what to do next year. Those who are considering how the new local authorities will operate after 1995 must know on what basis they will discharge services, or does the Under-Secretary think that that can be put to one side--"Local authorities are redundant so we need not worry and, hopefully, a trust will come along, organise a ballot and do it themselves"? That was implicit in the casual, dismissive attitude of the Under-Secretary.

Education in Wales is now endangered. It is doubly endangered by the Bill and the spectre of local government reorganisation, which the Government are making a hash of, and they are refusing to tell the Welsh people what will happen.

Mr. Forth rose --

Mr. Davies : The Under-Secretary cannot add anything ; I have made the point. I ask him to consult the Minister of State, Welsh Office, who is clearly on unsure ground with local government in Wales. Perhaps when the Under-Secretary replies to the debate he will give a more balanced reply.

Mr. Patten : Why will the hon. Gentleman not let the

Under-Secretary respond? He is frightened.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. The class is getting too restless.

Mr. Davies : If there is one hon. Member at whom the Secretary of State cannot throw that accusation, it is me. If, however, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, deem it appropriate to allow him to rise to the Dispatch Box, I clearly must accept it.

I want some answers from the Minister that will allow those responsible for planning education in Wales to carry out their task on a reasonable and coherent basis. The Secretary of State for Education and his cohorts are interested only in making cheap education points, and I am afraid that it will not wash.

Let me come to my final point--

Mr. John Marshall : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the beginning of the debate, you asked for speeches to be kept relatively brief. We are now hearing the final point after 40 minutes.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman was not listening carefully enough : I was referring to interventions.

Mr. Davies : I know that the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) has some difficulty with his attention span, but he was the first hon. Member to whom I gave way. Perhaps he should bear that in mind.

The Bill has been presented as a reforming measure which will offer choice and diversity in our education system. It will do nothing of the sort. It will lead to divisiveness and competition and will set school against school, community against community and provider against provider. That is of no benefit to parents, children or the proper development of education in this country. To many Conservative Members, that will be an unpalatable truth. It will become increasingly clear that it is the truth as the Bill proceeds and as our education service

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degenerates into chaos. I am convinced that it will not be too long before that chaos is reversed, either by a Government U-turn or by a Labour Government.

5.49 pm

Sir Malcolm Thornton (Crosby) : I shall try to set an example of brevity, because many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. In common with many colleagues on both sides of the House, I spent many years in local government. I do not share the enthusiasm of those who seek to condemn it for all that is ill in the education system. For a period in my career, I was privileged to be chairman of the Convention of Local Education Authorities, and I would defend much of what local education authorities were able to achieve. In fact, much of the innovation in education came from them. One must recognise that time has moved on, and that things that perhaps were possible in slightly happier days when there was much more consensus between local and national government are now no longer possible. It would be foolish of anyone to refuse to accept that that change has taken place.

Perhaps that is best exemplified by the way in which Secretaries of State of all political persuasions have fought with their Cabinet colleagues for their share of resources, so that what they see as the priorities for education expenditure are passed on to our schools. Increasingly, the argument has turned on whether the money fought for at national level is being properly targeted in our schools. I have concluded, somewhat reluctantly, that the drawing of a much clearer line between funding determined nationally and resources available to be deployed by individual schools is long overdue. I propose to confine my remarks, therefore, to what I regard as the logic of the Government's own position.

I share the reservations expressed by many bodies, including the National Association of Head Teachers, over the difficulties that will probably arise--let us be frank--in the difficult period of transition from local education authorities to funding councils. We should consider that matter extremely carefully.

It would be much better, and in the logic of the Government's position, if each school had a clearly defined sum of money. Rather than allowing a somewhat woolly withering on the vine, we should say that, at a certain point--perhaps when 50 per cent. of schools have become grant-maintained-- schools should go over to grant-maintained status completely. That would end the uncertainty once and for all. The transition could become unnecessarily expensive and unduly bureaucratic. I should not want my right hon. Friend's hard-fought battles for education expenditure to end in such a dissipation of funds. I want all the money that my right hon. Friend can wring out of the Treasury to be spent in our schools, and I ask him to consider those points carefully during the passage of the Bill, which I regard as an opportunity.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to special educational needs. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) and I are both members of the Select Committee, and share an interest in that subject. I have been heartened by the attention that has been paid by hon. Members on both sides of the House to that aspect of education, which is especially important.

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Like the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), I was a member of the Committee that considered the Education Act 1981, which became known as the Warnock Act. Members of that Committee attached a great deal of importance to special educational needs, and recognised the need to ensure that children with special education needs are dealt with properly and equitably within our system.

I warmly welcome the assurances given by the Minister in his opening speech. In the past, I have been critical of the Government for skating over the problem of special educational needs, and I believe that there were some deficiencies in the Education Reform Act 1988. I am therefore delighted that the Government are attacking the problem in the present Bill.

The Secretary of State knows that the Select Committee is considering a particular aspect of special educational needs, and I ask all hon. Members, including my ministerial colleagues, to accept that, as we discuss the new arrangements, we should not lose sight of the fundamental principles that were debated during the passage of the Warnock Act. Although we agreed that we should move much further towards integration--I welcome the figures that we have heard this afternoon--the Committee recognised the need, which we did not regard as one that would go away, for special centres of excellence to deal with the areas of greatest need.

Last Friday, I visited Rowan Park special school in my constituency and saw for myself the work that is being done with children whose need is so great that no one could realistically expect them to be integrated into mainstream schools. I talked to a teacher who told me that, that very day, one little boy with severe communication problems had said the word "duck" for the first time. Hon. Members may not think that that is a great achievement, but that child had previously been totally incapable of communicating, even by using eye contact, even though he could understand much of what was placed before him. When shown a farmyard scene, he volunteered the word "duck". The teacher said that it was the highlight of her week. Special needs arouse much emotion, but we should nevertheless consider the matter coldly and objectively, which means ensuring that schools have the resources to cope with special needs because they cannot be dealt with on the cheap.

On a more general and slightly philosophical note, I remind the House of what the Minister said in his opening speech about the Government's desire for quality in the classroom. That desire is shared by all hon. Members, regardless of their views on how best such quality can be achieved. We should be aware that the reforms--the national curriculum and the delegation of budgets to schools, which have been warmly welcomed by many in our education system--need to be constantly reviewed to establish whether what is being achieved in schools measures up to the Government's expectations. The Committee stage will present us with an opportunity to consider that. The Under-Secretary of State who will wind up the debate knows of my long-standing concern over the effects, in many our our schools, of formula funding. I welcome the assurance given to the Select Committee by the Secretary of State that, in their review of formula funding, the Government would consider all those

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important matters, because we cannot deliver an improvement in educational standards purely and simply by passing legislation. We must be aware that improvements in standards are delivered by teachers who stand in front of classes. I am delighted at the increasing emphasis that my right hon. Friend is placing on that concept, thus giving the lie to the suggestion that all Conservative Members do is knock the teaching profession. That profession alone is capable of implementing the Government's reforms.

We therefore cannot refuse to listen to the fears and suggestions for improvements that are being made by those eminently qualified practitioners. We are talking not about people who mismanage their budgets but about people who find themselves having to make decisions that go against the interests of the qualitative improvements that the Government seek. It would be quite wrong if we did not take the opportunity afforded by the Bill's passage through the House to consider those matters.

The Bill contains much of merit, and continues with reforms that many of us believe to have been long overdue. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to consider this, however : it sometimes pays to look at what is actually happening as a consequence of such reforms. We should not be afraid of saying that some changes are necessary, but that need not deflect us from our central purpose, which is to ensure that our children have the best education that we can give them.

Several Hon. Members rose --

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. Before I call the next hon. Member, I remind the House that there will be a 10-minute limit on speeches between6 pm and 8 pm.

5.59 pm

Mr. Edward O'Hara (Knowsley, South) : The press release which accompanied the publication of the Bill on 30 October boasted about its impressive vital statistics--200 pages, 252 clauses and 17 schedules. However, it did not point out the extremely short consultation period between the publication of the White Paper "Choice and Diversity : A New Framework for Schools" on 28 July and the publication of the Bill. That is surely one of the shortest consultation periods ever in relation to the significance claimed by many hon. Members for the Bill.

The White Paper had a remarkably short gestation period if it was to be, as was claimed, the crowning feature of more than a decade of Conservative education legislation. The White Paper never looked like a consultative document. The time scale and the features on the face of the Bill suggest that it was never intended to be such a document.

Therefore, the Bill bears the flaws evident throughout the White Paper. The aims of the White Paper--for the best education for every child--were blameless. Indeed, the Prime Minister put his name to those flawless aspirations. Unfortunately, the proposals that followed had little evident relevance to the achievement of those aims.

The White Paper had five great themes--quality, diversity, parental choice, autonomy and accountability. Of those, only the first has direct relevance to the aims set out in the foreword. The rest are, at the best, diversions.

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My first reaction to the White Paper on 28 July was that, if the Secretary of State truly sought to clothe his aims with substance, then the emperor had no clothes. After further reflection and reading of the White Paper, I changed that image. I imagined one of those naked men that we sometimes see in variety shows dancing on the stage with balloons concealing their nakedness. The balloons were the proposals which diverted the reader's attention from the original aims of the Bill.

Let us consider the themes of diversity, parental choice, autonomy and accountability and see how they relate to the delivery of quality education for every child. In itself, diversity does not guarantee quality. Diversity in an education market is predicated on variations of quality for the consumer to choose between. In the White Paper and the Bill, grant- maintained schools are regarded as superior institutions in that education market.

Diversity of the kind envisaged in the Bill is a narrow distortion. It is diversity of schools that vary within parameters that have been tightly drawn by the Secretary of State. Diversity does not guarantee parental choice. For example, some parents would like schools to offer an education different from the parameters laid down from the centre by the Secretary of State. Some parents would like teaching of reading, course work and activity learning of types proscribed by the Secretary of State. There is no parental choice for those parents. There is another way in which parents will not necessarily exercise their choice in an education market as envisaged in the Bill. If grant-maintained schools are over-subscribed, particularly if they become specialist schools--hon. Members have referred to that danger in the proposals--the choice will belong to the schools and not to parents. So much for parental choice.

Parental choice in itself will not guarantee quality. Parents differ, from being positively hostile to education, through apathy and incomprehension to being over-zealous in what they demand and expect from schools. If the Secretary of State stands by his statement in the White Paper that parents always know best, are parents always right? If they are not, when, how and by whom will that be determined?

Nor is autonomy a guarantee of quality. It is dangerous for grant- maintained schools to be subjected to such little regulatory control as is envisaged in the Bill. Similarly, the principle of accountability in the Bill is a sham. The funding agencies for England and Wales are accountable to no one but the Secretary of State.

There is no local accountability, but the agencies are to have sole responsibility, or shared responsibility with local education authorities, for provision, distribution and management of school places. That is a matter of intense local significance. It is difficult to see any connection between that and the delivery of quality education to every child in every school in an area. In short, there was a mismatch between the impeccable aims of the White Paper and its proposals. That mismatch is carried through into this deeply flawed Bill.

The White Paper and the Bill are all about administration, and contain nothing about delivery of quality. They contain nothing about funding except proposals for bureaucratic structures the funding for which is to be found from savings on surplus places in

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schools. If those savings could be found, the money would be better spent on resources and teachers to fill the schools that are delivering education to our children. There is nothing in the White Paper about teachers--the people who are to deliver that quality education. The White Paper and the Bill are an empty sham. I want to refer to the grant-maintained sector, because the expansion of that sector is central to the Bill's purpose. Every line of the Bill is based on the presumption that grant-maintained schools are superior, although there is no evidence yet to support that contention, but there is accumulating evidence of the problems into which such schools can run. It is all the more regrettable that, in default of that evidence, the Secretary of State is so determined to simplify, extend and accelerate the process of opting out. The removal of the second ballot would make it possible for ambush tactics to be used. A vote might be taken at a thinly attended meeting at the end of a long agenda, with no counter-balancing opportunity. It is reprehensible that that situation should be made possible. Important decisions like a ballot to opt out should be taken coolly, and ratified in the light of full and informed debate. There is scope for argument about the curbs on LEAs campaigning against opt-out proposals. We believe that the LEAs defend the legitimate interests of the community at large against a pressure group with selfish, narrow interests. The Government choose to view them differently, and to distort their purpose and practices. There may be some argument about that, but there is no argument about the inequality of curbing LEAs and at the same time supporting and encouraging governing bodies which want to campaign the other way. That is but one example of the more than even-handed treatment given to grant-maintained schools.

The Bill is weak in what it has to say on provision in grant-maintained schools for pupils with special educational needs. It now offers them the opportunity to apply for change of character at the point of opting out. I could recount a long list of more than even-handed enticements to schools that opt out, but I am aware of the time constraint.

I warn schools to beware, because there is the potential for discord and chaos in the suggestion that primary schools might opt out in clusters and that resources may be distributed inequitably between those clusters when those primary schools may still be in competition in the market.

We must also be aware of the big black hole of the future funding formula for grant-maintained and maintained schools to which my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) referred earlier. There is not adequate time to refer to the potential for chaos in the division of responsibilities between funding agencies and local education authorities. Funding agencies are weak bodies. They have no responsibility for quality control, unlike their counterparts created by the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. There is a potential for disputes and discord between funding agencies and local authorities. Such disputes must always be decided by the Secretary of State. We can guess which way the Secretary of State will make his decision in a dispute between funding agencies and local authorities.

This is a Bill of missed points and missed opportunities. The dangers in it --

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Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I am sorry, but the 10-minute rule is strict.

6.10 pm

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest) : My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton) has had experience on local education authorities. I spent 10 years on local education authorities and was on the Association of Metropolitan Authorities education committee. I agree with my hon. Friend that not all local authorities are bad. The Bill recognises--it is a difficulty that the Labour party does not seem to be able to address--that if standards in the classroom are to be raised, it will be done by encouraging the partnership of parents, teachers and pupils, on which all good education depends. The best way to encourage that partnership is to ensure that parents have a direct and intimate investment in their own schools. Grant-maintained schools and their popularity are all about that process of empowerment.

Mr. Stephen Byers (Wallsend) : Will the hon. Gentlemen give way ?

Mr. Coombs : I shall not give way because I have only 10 minutes. I welcome the streamlined procedures for grant-maintained schools in the Bill. I recognise the importance of education associations when things go wrong. I recognise that it is important for the Government to take action against truancy and to strengthen the moral curriculum of schools.

It is curious that the Labour party seems to have abandoned parents and parental choice. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday, on 10 June the previous Opposition spokesman on education, the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), appeared to move towards parents when he said that Labour must not appear to be in a position of opposition to those parents who would like greater control over their own schools.

It is curious that the Labour party should be against the parents and schools given that the last survey showed that 88 per cent. of grant- maintained schools had an increase in the number of pupils following the change to grant-maintained status and 82 per cent. had an increase in the books and equipment that they were able to produce for their children.

Graham Lock, the headmaster of Audenshaw high school, a grant-maintained school in Manchester, said :

"It is a bit of an insult for Labour to say to the same people who want to take power over these schools that they are entitled to vote for the Government but they are not fit to vote for the way they want these schools to be run."

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