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Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West): The young people who are really trapped are those in Labour-controlled authorities such as Islington, Tower Hamlets and Southwark. The official evidence from those places has never been denied. The reading standards of more than half of 11-year-olds are at least two years behind what they should be. The only people who can get away from that are those with the wealth to get away. That is the selection that the hon. Gentleman is offering. People such as his colleagues are able, through their rich earning capacity, to get their children out of that system.
Mr. Blunkett: It is nothing to do with income. With one breath, the Government say that they have offered people choice, with the next they say that the choice is not there, and that they must extend it through further selection. They cannot have it both ways. Either the choice is there for parents and being exercised or it is not.
However, the House should not take my word for the divisive, corrosive nature of what the Government propose. Take instead the word of the Association of Grant Maintained and Aided Schools, not exactly a Labour-backed or Labour-supporting organisation. Its submission on the White Paper on selection states:
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blunkett:
I shall give way in a moment.
The association continues:
The Government have not just stumbled upon a Britain that is divided against itself. We are not talking of a Government who have had nothing to do with 18 years of right-wing radical change, of Thatcherism writ large. The Government are not an Administration who have had nothing to do with 10 million people experiencing unemployment since the Prime Minister took office. The Government carry direct responsibility for their own actions over the past 18 years, including the damage that they have brought to every community in every part of Britain.
The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Gillian Shephard):
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) began in unaccustomedly lively form. We all noticed, however, when the scriptwriter's text ran out. He conveniently ignored, in his new-found enthusiasm for standards and achievements, the fact that it is the Labour party which runs nine out of 10 local education authorities with the worst GCSE results. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) said, those are the LEAs where young people find themselves trapped.
The hon. Gentleman attempted to glide over the fact that it is his political colleagues in the town halls in Labour Nottinghamshire and Labour Calderdale who are demonstrating their inability to sort out problem schools and pupils. In his statement on Calderdale and the Ridings school, he ignored the fact that in Wiltshire, Bexley and Buckinghamshire, which all run selective systems, the results of the lowest-achieving schools are far higher than those of Calderdale. There is no comfort for the hon. Gentleman in his conclusions on selection in those areas.
The hon. Gentleman's statements about selection and choice to the effect that his party opposes them cannot sit alongside the actions of his right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), his hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) and others. We have had much preaching from the hon. Gentleman and it is about time that he put over his message to his right hon. and hon. Friends. He must surely understand that his party's position, which is one policy for his hon. Friends and another for the rest of the population, is a ludicrous hypocrisy.
Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax):
Has not the Secretary of State prejudged Her Majesty's inspectorate's report on the problems at the Ridings school? The right hon. Lady has
Mrs. Shephard:
I would not dream of prejudging the outcome of the inspector's report, but it is good leadership and sound help from the local education authority, not extra resources, that is required.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)
rose--
Mrs. Shephard:
I shall just finish this point, because I am answering the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon).
The hon. Lady, who has had the opportunity to observe the situation at the school at close hand--after all, we are talking about her constituents and their children--might well have taken some action before now instead of standing by, and now, apparently, wringing her hands. It is her political friends in the town hall who have the responsibility for this. But, of course, we must await the outcome of the inspector's report.
I give way to the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes).
Mrs. Mahon:
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Secretary of State is factually incorrect when she blames my political friends in the town hall. Her political friends pushed through--
Madam Speaker:
Order. I regret that that is not a point of order, but a point of argument. I very much hope that the hon. Lady will catch my eye early in the debate so that she can make her points known.
Mr. Foulkes:
The Secretary of State refers, as do many of her colleagues time and again, to two of my colleagues who send their children to local authority schools in London boroughs other than their own. Can she tell me--I should like a straight answer for once--which members of the Cabinet have enough faith in the local authority system to send their children to local authority schools? Once they do that, as I did, I shall pay some attention to what they have to say about the local authority system.
Mrs. Shephard:
The hon. Gentleman shows well the prejudices of the Labour party. His party is against choice, selection and diversity in education. The hon. Gentleman should look for the mote in the eyes of his hon. Friends.
Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw):
The Secretary of State is well aware of the situation at Manton junior school in Worksop in my constituency, where the teachers are on strike and there is total deadlock between the governors, who insist on a boy going to school, and the teachers, who have said that they will not teach while he is there. The right hon. Lady says that it is for the local authority to solve the problem, but it is her legislation that has handed total power over to the governors. They are
There is now a deadlock. I have asked the right hon. Lady to intervene and meet a delegation, but she will not. I have written to her and I have raised every possible avenue with the Office for Standards in Education and everybody else, but the strike looks like going ahead. Yet the right hon. Lady is simply blaming the local council, which has no powers whatever. What does she intend to do about the situation?
Mrs. Shephard:
The local education authority is in charge. I asked the hon. Gentleman whether, in the first instance, he would take his deputation to see the chairman of Nottinghamshire education committee. I hope that he has now visited the school. I understand that meetings are taking place today and tomorrow. But the simple fact is that there is a dispute--a breakdown of relationships--between the teachers, the head, the governors and the LEA, and that must be solved at local level. I had conversations with the hon. Gentleman earlier, but I am always happy to talk to him on those matters. However, I am firmly of the view that it is a matter for the LEA.
"This is an extremely divisive issue for the GM sector. Although many of our members are former Grammar Schools and some of those would like to return to their former role, the greater number are well established comprehensive schools which have been successful in raising academic standards and providing opportunities for the majority of their pupils. They would resent changes in the admission arrangements to neighbouring schools that would distort the current level playing field."
We cannot get anything much clearer than that, or can we?
"Raising standards"--
this is related directly to the crisis at the Ridings school--
"of a school with a low average ability serving an area of social deprivation has always been difficult. Creating what in parental perception is a grammar school nearby will make it virtually impossible."
That is the answer to Conservative Members. If we create division, undermine opportunity and deny teachers the support they need to do the job, we should not be
surprised if we end up with a fractured society, with a lack of cohesion and an inability to heal the wounds of the past two decades.
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