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Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham): On that point, can the Secretary of State give an assurance to the parents in the four areas selected for the experiment that if they choose, for whatever reason, not to take the £1,000, their children will not be excluded from the experiment?

Mrs. Shephard: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the debate. It is good to see him--he has missed the debate so far. I am not absolutely clear what he means by his question, but if he would like to write to me, I should be delighted to reassure him.

Schedule 3 contains a number of consequential amendments. Paragraph 2 introduces a useful relaxation in the existing powers of local education authorities to direct schools as to the times when children can start school. Paragraph 9 provides for necessary adjustments to the legislation in the capping of local authority budgets.

Clause 6 lifts the statutory bar on grant-maintained schools' power to borrow other than from the Funding Agency for Schools and the bar on charging assets in

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connection with such loans, subject to the Secretary of State's consent. Schedule 3(10) provides that the Secretary of State may by order delegate to the Funding Agency for Schools the power to consent to such loans and the charging of assets. Clauses 7 to 10 and schedule 4 are technical and supplementary.

The Bill concerns the education system in England and Wales. The Education (Scotland) Bill now in Committee in another place contains comparable provisions introducing a similar regime for nursery education in Scotland. The Government intend to introduce appropriate legislation to provide for a similar system for nursery education in Northern Ireland.

The Bill puts the Opposition on the spot. Will they oppose it? Opposition Members may put forward some interesting technical points, which we can look at, but I do not see how--given the fact that they support education for under-fives and some of them support grant-maintained schools--they can do anything but support the Bill.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order,Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will know that Mystic Meg has tipped that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment will be Prime Minister by November. While I understand that the Secretary of State wants to give a good presentation of her abilities to the House, is it fair that she has been on her feet for almost one hour? Is that reasonable, and can something be done about it?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): That is not a question for the Chair. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) knows that individual Front Benchers have the discretion to decide how long to speak about a particular Bill.

Mrs. Shephard: Mr. Deputy Speaker--

Ms Hilary Armstrong (North-West Durham): Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Shephard: No, I shall not take an intervention at the moment. The fact that I have taken 25 interventions--there have also been seven points of order--may account for the time that I have spent presenting this Second Reading speech. I shall take no more interventions.

As I was saying, given that Opposition Members support education for under-fives and some of them support grant-maintained schools, how can they do other than support the Bill? Furthermore, given the fact that some of them appear to enjoy choice and diversity when it comes to their children, can we look for their support? Given the deep division and complete confusion that is Labour party policy, I advise my right hon. andhon. Friends not to hold their breath.

The two measures will increase choice, opportunity and flexibility in their sectors. They will increase the share of individuals in their education. What will the Labour party do? Will it support the measures in the interests of individuals, or oppose them because they are not designed to further the cause of institutional uniformity? For it is institutions and organisations that are Labour's stakeholders--especially their paymasters, the Trades Union Congress. Will the Opposition for once declare for choice, diversity and opportunity--the real measures that

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enrich society--or will they oppose the measures and remain faithful to their socialist tradition of collective uniformity?

On the Conservative Benches, we have acted on abiding principles. We have extended benefits in which all can share. The beneficiaries include: parents, to whom we offer choice and diversity of education provision; governors, to whom we offer flexibility and the means of expanding education; schools, to which we offer ever wider opportunities; and the nation, to which we offer the prospect of an even sounder educational foundation. Above all, we are offering vastly increased opportunities to children--for whose benefit our education system is designed--to enter and to benefit from the world of learning. I commend the Bill to the House.

4.33 pm

Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside): I begin this afternoon by wishing the Secretary of State a very happy birthday--I sincerely hope that it improves from here on.

The Government's legislative programme is in tatters: their education plans have been either abandoned or shelved, and where the Government continue to implement them they do so without conviction. Two thirds of the proposals that were announced last year as the predicted legislative programme for the coming Session have now been either abandoned or shelved. The Education (Student Loans) Bill turned out to be a fiasco. The Government's proposals to extend grant-maintained status, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said, have already bitten the dust.

The Secretary of State has turned into a Norfolk market gardener, walking behind the Prime Minister like someone following a rag and bone man with a diarrhoeic horse, shovelling up the mess that follows every idea about education that the Prime Minister comes out with.

Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Blunkett: It must have been the term "diarrhoeic horse" that got the hon. Gentleman to his feet. Before I give way, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook mentioned the Prime Minister, I shall enlighten the Secretary of State in her belief that the Prime Minister did not commit the Government to a massive extension of grant-maintained status in his speech on12 September 1995. If the hon. Member for Teignbridge(Mr. Nicholls) will forgive me, I shall read parts of the Prime Minister's speech.

The Prime Minister said:

"All state schools should gain the benefits of becoming self-governing independent schools".

[Interruption.] "Quite right," Conservative Members say. "Where are the proposals for all state schools to become GM?"

Sir Donald Thompson (Calder Valley): Where are they?

Mr. Blunkett: The Prime Minister said:

"Many Church schools have already become grant-maintained"--

which is not strictly true, as the Church schools will tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. He said:

"More want to."

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Actually, more do not want to, and they have made it abundantly clear.

The Prime Minister said:

"Gillian Shephard will next month be consulting about the options",

and the options were:

"a fast track route to full self-governing status".

He continued:

"If a school's governors, with the prime interests of parents at heart, and the trustees representing the Churches' interests, agree on self-government, then they should be able to take that step simply and quickly."

Mr. Dunn: That was consulting.

Sir Donald Thompson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Blunkett: I will in a moment.

The Prime Minister said:

"Nor is today's instalment"--

that was 12 September--

"anything like the final word in the moves towards full self-government for our schools".

Apart from the self-evident fact that all six options that the Prime Minister promised on 12 September have been set aside by a Secretary of State who does not agree with him, who did not agree with him and who never does agree with him, the churches rejected all the nonsense about forcing those schools to become grant-maintained because, like Labour Members, they believe that real diversity, real choice, does not involve making all state schools become grant-maintained so that there is only one status and one option.

That is the difference between Labour Members--plus the Secretary of State--and a Prime Minister who knows nothing about education and illustrates it every time he gets to his feet. The voucher system and the minimal extension of the powers of grant-maintained schools link in admirably with the whole Government programme, which has been about dividing one school against another, dividing parents against one another and fragmenting the education service.

Several hon. Members rose--

Mr. Blunkett: I give way to the Minister.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire): The hon. Gentleman--no doubt because he wants to disguise splits in other matters--is making a meal of reiterating two of the things that he said and adding a third. First, he says that the Prime Minister spoke about the option of a fast track; we agree. Secondly, the Prime Minister said that the proposals were subject to consultation; we agree. The difference between Labour and the Government is that we listen to consultation. When the hon. Gentleman's party produced its proposals for church schools last year, it did not consult even the churches.

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