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Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North): The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about "this country", but the Bill deals with two countries, England and Wales.
The situation that he describes in England does not apply to Wales. We do not have such a divide. His analysis is irrelevant to Wales, as is the Bill.
Mr. Walden: I am prepared to take the hon. Gentleman's assurance on that. I still think it is possible to talk about the majority of the people of this country, who happen to live in England, great, as a half-Scotsman, as is my respect for the people at the top and at the side--the Scots and the Welsh.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann): What about us?
Mr. Walden: And the people on the other side of the water. If the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) does not mind, I shall stick to the big picture, because most people in the British Isles happen to be English.
Mr. Spearing: The answer to the last point may lie in the different attitude to and culture of education in the different countries. From his hard work on the matter, in which he says that there is no bridge between the sectors, can the hon. Gentleman say whether the full cost per pupil in a school with assisted places is significantly greater than that in the true community sector? Does he agree that, if people want those schools, they should ensure that the facilities, opportunities and standard of education available at them are available to all? Is not that the big criticism of the philosophy of the assisted places scheme?
Mr. Walden: I know what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but, despite some signs to the contrary, I am a realist. There is no prospect that any Government will raise spending in the state sector to the level of that in the private sector. Let us be frank. My book is called "We Should Know Better", for those hon. Members with £9.99 after our recent increases. My proposals start from the situation as it is. I do not start from some planet Mars where we can bring up state spending to private school levels. No one will do that.
Instead of Conservative Members sometimes having--I am sorry to use the word--a hypocritical attitude to what I call the great divide, which, in a negative sense, conditions so much of the under-achievement in Britain, and instead of the Opposition's evasive or punitive attitude to private schools, we should start from where we are. We should be realistic and ask how the hell we can open up the privileged sector. It must be done voluntarily; let us have none of the old nonsense about abolishing private schools or having envious attitudes to them. We need a positive and gradual policy. I could go on for some time--for 230 pages--but that would be very boring for me, not to speak of other hon. Members.
Curiously, I consider the matter very politically. I was surprised when the Daily Mail serialised my book, because I thought that it might be a bit radical for it. It is not a left-wing newspaper. No doubt some of my hon. Friends think that I am a screaming lefty from the way that I talk. I was trying to work out why it had serialised the book, when I realised that it is read by the middle, middle, middle classes. That is why the Leader of the Opposition reads it carefully. The middle, middle, middle classes are not resentful about private schools, and nor am I. They just want to get into them.
It was interesting to receive a telephone call from the Leader of the Opposition's chief of staff. I was told, "Tony Blair has read your book; could you come and talk to us about it?" I had two choices. First, I could say, "I don't talk to snivelling socialists like yourself." Secondly, I could say, "Yes, obviously." I said, "Yes, obviously," and obviously I talked to the Leader of the Opposition. I said that I would make the matter public because I did not want any trivial, primitive nonsense about underhand contacts, defection and all the rest of it. I made the matter public, and, as no one was interested, perhaps no one noticed. It is conceivable, however, that someone noticed, because a few weeks later I was assured personally by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that he, too, would read my book.
I was genuinely surprised by the amount of, not cross-party--I do not like that term, because it assumes a permanent divide--but different ranges of, reaction to what I had to say. I was the more surprised because people seemed to think that what I was saying was new. It seems self-evident--it stares at us rather like a big nose or carbuncle on someone's face--that I am talking about the fundamental education problem. If we do not face it and think--
Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden):
There are other problems.
Mr. Walden:
If my hon. Friend thinks for a second and considers how any society, remembering that education is not a mechanism but a culture, can solve its problems in dealing with education in the absence of any interest being taken by its most powerful members, he will understand that, although we can and do improve things, there will be a ceiling on how far we can go. We face a limiting factor that is not present in other continental countries. I shall not talk about America, which is sui generis.
I am not basing myself on consideration of class. I am trying to push that behind us. Our problem is class first, education second. Let us put education first. Let us admit that private schools are overwhelmingly educationally superior. That is a fact. Before I hear predictable interventions, I suggest to Opposition Members that they read Mr. Will Hutton's frank acknowledgement in his book that the superiority of the private sector is part of the problem.
Mr. Maxton:
In a sense, the hon. Gentleman is right. At one level, the independent sector has superior facilities. One of the major problems, however, is that the independent sector's approach to education is so traditional that it colours the way in which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the administrative class thinks. One of the problems with many of our state schools is that they try to ape what happens in the independent sector instead of trying to find a better way forward for education provision.
Mr. Walden:
It is the hon. Gentleman's attitude that is traditional. I beg him to read one page in my book where I try to correct the old-fashioned, left-wing attitude that he has taken up. The traditional teaching to which he refers is not taking place in private schools nowadays. For example, 35 per cent. of private school graduates who move to university study science and technology. I understand that 25 per cent. study the arts. Only 2 per cent. study Latin.
Let us put behind us an old-fashioned social attitude to private schools and think about what they are achieving academically, which is becoming better and better as girls' private schools come on. That, curiously, exacerbates the divide in achievement between the private and state sectors.
Mr. Trimble
: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the superiority of private schools in England. It is the assumption that that is connected in some way with the greater resources that the private sector enjoys compared with provision for the state sector. Will he take into account the fact that the achievement of private schools in England is matched, and in many instances more than matched, by state schools and voluntary schools in Northern Ireland, which have exactly the same level of resource, by and large, as schools in England, Wales and Scotland?
As the hon. Gentleman said earlier, the difference between the private sector and the state sector may have more to do with cultural factors. In Ulster and Scotland, where we have much the same cultural attitude to education, we have a different approach to education and a different approach in the classroom from that adopted elsewhere.
Mr. Walden:
I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Indeed, I have no alternative but to accept it. I do not know enough about Northern Ireland to challenge him. I did not go deeply into the matter in my research, because I was told on reliable hearsay that the situation was different in Northern Ireland and therefore not typical of the United Kingdom as a whole.
Mr. Maxton:
What about Scotland?
Mr. Walden:
I note what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) says. It seems rather typical of our communally evasive approach to the problem that, as soon as it is raised, 90 per cent. of those around us start what we used to describe as pushing on the periphery. They say, "What about Scotland, what about this and what about that?" They will do anything but face the central problem that, at least in this part of the United Kingdom where I speak, which I believe contains about 50 million people, we have what I consider, and what I know those on the Opposition Front Bench consider, a damaging system of education division, which no other country in Europe has, and which will hold us back.
I bore myself, and I will not be boring hon. Members for long, because I will not be in this place for very much longer, but I have one other criticism of selection. Given our primitive education culture, we have yet another primitive debate about selection. I am hesitant about the Government's selection policy.
Once again, it is common sense to recognise that there is an element of political provocation in the timing and nature of the Government's proposals. Selection is a dangerous area in which to play that game. To say, "Let us have grammar schools in every town," is, both intellectually and practically, a vulgar proposal. How can one possibly say that without being aware of the different circumstances of every town?
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