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6.20 pm
Mr. James Pawsey (Rugby and Kenilworth): The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) referred to grammar schools and to secondary moderns. He drew the conclusion that, because of the inequality of existing resources, grammar schools should be abolished. With the utmost respect to the hon. Gentleman, I believe that he has got it wrong. Grammar schools should be retained and the others--whatever they are called--should be better resourced. That is the solution.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss standards in education, but I am surprised that the motion was moved by the Opposition. The House should recall that hon. Members on both the Liberal and the Labour Benches have consistently opposed the Government's efforts to improve the quality and the standard of state education. For example, Opposition Members argued against the national curriculum and testing, grant-maintained schools, the introduction of the Office of Standards in Education, league tables, greater parental involvement, and the introduction of vouchers for nursery education. Opposition Members have consistently opposed the measures that the Government have introduced to improve the nation's education system.
I appreciate that an approaching general election concentrates minds--especially the minds of those who have been in opposition for 17 years. Labour Members are clearly anxious to exchange the sackcloth and ashes of Opposition for the Red Boxes and the ministerial Rovers. They want to get their hands on the levers of power. Therefore, they are prepared to say anything and to ditch any principle in order to ensure that they get a majority at the next general election, whenever it is called.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside(Mr. Blunkett) told head teachers at their conference that they could not duck their responsibility for the
I do not have the slightest doubt that the hon. Gentleman will discover next the need for discipline in the classroom. The hon. Member for Blackburn(Mr. Straw)--who is a former education spokesman--has already made that startling and original discovery, and he talks about introducing a curfew for children.
Perhaps the next thing on Labour's education shopping list--after streaming--will be the introduction of a form of grammar school. Of course, Labour Members will not call it a "grammar school", but it will provide good, sound selective education. Perhaps it will be known as a British local academic institution reformed--a BLAIR for short, but not for long, if the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) has his way. He would set up Prescotts, which would be old-style comprehensives in the socialist republics in south Yorkshire and inner London.
No doubt the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris)--I am sorry that she is not in her place--would espouse Estelles, which would be schools for the daughters of distressed members of the National Union of Teachers. I say that because the NUT will certainly be distressed by new Labour's wholesale adoption of the Conservative agenda for quality in education.
The fact is that, one by one, the education shibboleths are being abandoned. The benchmarks that have guided Labour's education thinking for so long are being jettisoned like so many outdated textbooks. I welcome the Government's efforts to improve teaching in schools. I am pleased that we had the courage to dismantle Her Majesty's inspectorate and to put Ofsted in its place. Ofsted and Chris Woodhead are now revealing the problems and the shortcomings in primary education, for example.
Ofsted revealed the problems in London schools. Its inquiry into the teaching of reading in primary schools in the Labour-controlled London boroughs of Islington, Southwark and Tower Hamlets raised serious doubts about standards in primary schools. Ofsted made it clear that a lack of resources was not the problem. Its report entitled "The Teaching of Reading in 45 London Primary Schools", which was published on 7 May this year, said that under-achievement in reading is a threat to pupils' education. That is hardly surprising when one remembers that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, nine out of 10 of the worst-performing local authorities are Labour controlled.
The Secretary of State has announced that she intends to publish primary school performance tables. I deeply regret the fact that that is opposed by some misguided trade unions, to the extent that they are seeking to persuade school governing bodies to act illegally and not make their school results available to the Department for publication. I deplore that action, and I hope that second thoughts will prevail. Standards may be raised by ensuring that parents are able to exercise reasoned judgment when deciding between schools. That laudable objective is already meeting with success in the secondary sector: parents like it, and they want it.
I am intrigued that Opposition Members are consistent only in their inconsistency--what they oppose today will be tomorrow's soundbite and next year's policy statement. Therefore, I urge the House to reject the motion.
6.26 pm
Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton):
The Secretary of State's speech was in some ways characteristicof the Government's position. However, it was uncharacteristically flat, in view of the fact that she is believed to be at war with the chairman of her party. I shall return to that point later.
The Secretary of State highlighted structure, which tells us a lot about the Government's attitude: they remain obsessed with structure when everyone else is talking about standards in education. The Secretary of State trotted out all the old shibboleths. She attacked local education authorities, but did not mention funding cuts and the deliberate confusion of setting with streaming.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Hall) raised an important issue in referring to Government waste. He highlighted the botched attempt to introduce a national curriculum at a cost of £750 million or £760 million. I was quite taken with the comments of the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) about his father. I do not doubt that he was a marvellous man, but I recall the right hon. Gentleman telling me that his father burned the results of his trial for Blackburn Rovers. There is a lesson to be learnt from that, and I would not believe everything he told me.
Sir Rhodes Boyson:
The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) is also a supporter of Blackburn Rovers. My father burned the results because that year the team was knocked out of the cup at an early stage.
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) spoke enough sense to warrant his description by Labour Members as a de facto Labour supporter in matters educational. He referred again to a penny on income tax, but he and his party have never explained how they would put that penny towards education and local authorities.
The hon. Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton), who chairs the Select Committee, has just resumed his seat. I welcomed his urging of caution--things do tend to ebb and flow in education, as in all contexts--but there was an element of looking backward in his references to the 1960s and 1970s. It is time that hon. Members from all parties put that time behind them, and began to prepare for the 21st century.
Sir Malcolm Thornton:
I apologise for missing the first few sentences of the hon. Gentleman's speech. Does he agree that the problem with education legislation and change is that, if such measures are poorly considered or poorly implemented, they behave like a time bomb, ticking away and then exploding in future generations? It is important to consider where developments began, before making too many judgments about where we are today.
Mr. Kilfoyle:
That is why the hon. Gentleman will probably agree with the well-considered proposals of the Labour party, and approve of our recognition that the whole nature of education is changing. It is becoming learning-centred, as opposed to teaching-centred.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire(Mr. Pickthall) admirably flagged up the gender gap--the alarming difference between the educational performances of young men and young women.
Last but not least, let me refer to the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). He obviously did not read or hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) had to say about discipline, truancy and pupil referral units some weeks ago, when he once again set the pace for the Government to follow. Incidentally, the hon. Gentleman said that we would come up with another name for good schools. We already have a name for them: comprehensive schools.
I pay tribute to all the teachers, parents, governors and members of local education authorities who ensure that the best interests of our children are pursued in schools throughout the country. Despite the Government's backward-looking obsession with structure--flagged up again by the Secretary of State--those people have fought against the odds to raise standards for all our children in all our schools. Raising standards is recognised on all sides as vital to economic prosperity and social cohesion, as the motion suggests.
If we are to match our global competitors--whether in Europe, in North America or on the Pacific rim--it is essential for our educational standards to be comparable to theirs. If we are to have a nation at ease with itself, where opportunity for self-improvement is available to all, an inclusive education system, offering excellence to everyone, is a sine qua non.
Sadly, the reality is rather different. After 17 years in government, and despite numerous legislative changes, the Conservative party is still failing large sections of our population in the quality of the education that is delivered, imperilling those twin objectives of economic prosperity and social cohesion. We have a Secretary of State who is at war with the Prime Minister's own policy unit. The chairman of the Conservative party wants her political head on a plate. She is supported on her right--literally--by the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), an Under-Secretary of State who is renowned for being sopping wet in Conservative party terms. In all fairness to him, he is joining the battle with the party's ideologues.
What is happening to the hawkish Minister of State, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth)? He seems to have been effectively "disappeared"--no, wonder of wonders, he has appeared. He is not often seen anywhere nowadays; he tends to be replaced by the ubiquitous but seemingly educationally and politically nondescript Lord Henley. Another Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), has failed to make any impact, while his colleague, the other Under-Secretary of State--the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who is not present--is so ignorant of her brief that until yesterday, when she was disabused on a radio programme, she thought that parents decided by ballot on selective status in schools. Is it any wonder that the public are heartily sick and tired of a failed Government and failing education policies?
"crisis in children's literacy and numeracy".
That is the first time that I can remember a Labour education spokesman attacking the sacred Plowden report. He said that, in the name of "child-centred" education, whole-class instruction has been abandoned in favour of some form of child self-discovery.
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