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6.17 pm
Mr. Don Foster (Bath): The past half hour in the Chamber has been fascinating. First, we had an excellent speech by the hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) and then we had a speech by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). He is always a persuasive speaker and several times he had the House spellbound and beginning to support some of his proposals.
The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth talked persuasively about the importance of transparency in our system of education funding, and he noted the fact that I agreed with him. He will be aware that the all-party Education and Employment Select Committee has frequently made a plea for greater transparency. He omitted to remind the House, however, that the Government introduced the funding mechanism which he criticised, and which he supported.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke persuasively about the importance of development plans after Ofsted inspections and said that it was vital that they be taken seriously. I entirely agree with him. I was beginning to be persuaded by his argument that such plans should be debated in the House, until his subsequent remarks reminded me that that would mean that a serious education plan would be debated in the House by hon. Members like the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth who tell the House, and believe it, that class size does not matter. It would worry me enormously that hon. Members discussing a serious education plan held that view despite all the evidence to the contrary. Even the Government proudly boasted in their election manifestos of 1982 and 1987 that they had managed to reduce class sizes. At that time they obviously thought that it was important.
There is a great deal of good in our education service, but I doubt whether anyone on either side of the Chamber would disagree with the view that further improvements are desperately needed if Britain is to succeed in the increasingly global market.
There are three possible ways forward. The first calls for a return to the golden era. I hope that most hon. Members present would agree that there never was a golden era that provided excellence for all. Perhaps there was a golden era that provided excellence for a few, but not for all. The second option, which my party and I would support, would ensure a high-quality education service that was properly resourced and was based on the key principles that underpin the Education Act 1944--partnership and co-operation.
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The third way forward, which the Government seem to favour, is epitomised by the Bill and represents the belief that roughly everything is okay in the education service--it just needs a little tweaking here and there, and a further dose of market forces in the form of competition. The problem with that approach is that it fails to reflect what competition means. In a competitive system based on market forces, there are winners, of course, but there are also losers. I want an education service in which there are no losers and everyone is a winner.
I have been in the House for a relatively short time, but I have already got used to the ritual of the annual education Bill, even though the Government told us two years ago that there would be no further education Bills. The one difference between this Bill and those that I have seen through the House is that the present Bill is rather like the curate's egg. Unlike the other Bills, in which almost everything was bad, this Bill is a mixture of good and bad. I am pleased that it contains some helpful elements, which my party and I would be prepared to support.
It is right, for example, that the Bill proposes measures to improve careers support for students and pupils. It is right to amalgamate the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority with the National Council for Vocational Qualifications--I proposed that back in 1992. It is right to define the start of the compulsory school age. It is right that agency teachers should be brought within the current teacher requirements--for example, that they should meet medical fitness requirements and that they could be barred for misconduct.
The Bill contains further measures that might be good, depending on the details, which will no doubt be enunciated in Committee. I support in principle, at least, base line testing, the setting of targets by schools, and the inspection of the work of local education authorities by Ofsted. Those three measures, however, involve the setting of targets, hurdles or standards. Many in the world of education want support to enable them to reach those targets and standards, and to get over those hurdles.
Other measures in the Bill are more controversial. No one who speaks in the debate would oppose the introduction of measures to improve discipline in our schools. Some of the measures proposed may be helpful and may be supported by parents, teachers and governors. The proposal in relation to detention, for example, would ensure that no one treated the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) illegally, and would allow schools to keep pupils back for detention, having notified parents, even if parents did not support the idea. That, I believe, is the right way forward.
Increased flexibility in relation to exclusions would be welcomed by schools. I merely point out that the Secretary of State herself a year ago removed some of the flexibility that existed.
In response to the comments of the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, I hope that the House will not view the reintroduction of corporal punishment as a helpful means of reducing levels of indiscipline in our schools. I have already stated my fundamental opposition to it. There is no evidence that a return to corporal punishment will help in the battle against indiscipline in our schools. I repeat that, at a time when we are trying to
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Mr. Dafis:
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) for allowing me to share some of my experience with him and with the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). I was a teacher for 32 years. During that time I used what might be called corporal interventions--that is, I did use corporal punishment at times. What I learnt with time was that, whereas that method worked with basically well-adjusted but mischievous and lively pupils, with the alienated it was very damaging. Of course it would be impossible for a teacher to make a decision to use corporal punishment with the decent but mischievous pupil, but not with the seriously alienated pupil. In those circumstances it must not be used at all.
Mr. Foster:
I entirely support the hon. Gentleman's view. He, like me, may have been amused by the letter that appeared in The Guardian last week, which I share with the House in case other hon. Members did not see it. It was from a gentleman from New York who was visiting London. He wrote:
Another problem related to measures dealing with discipline is the proposal for home-school contracts. We would all accept that it is vital for school and home to work together to assist all children's educational development. The question is how best to create the hone-school partnership. The mere signing of a contract will not achieve that. The critical factor is the process of the home and the school working together to reach agreement about rights and responsibilities. I do not understand how a system which proposes that contracts must be signed before the child even enters the school can possibly work. There will have been no time to develop the process of working together. Furthermore, there is a real problem for parents who know that they cannot control their child. Do they sign the contract just to get the child into the school, knowing that they do not mean what they are signing, or do they honestly refuse to sign it, in which case there is no possibility of their child going to the school? That is yet another form of pernicious selection. In the current formulation by both the Government and the Opposition, my party will oppose such moves.
Perhaps the worst elements of the Bill are those to which hon. Members have devoted most of their remarks: the increase in selection and in support for grant-maintained status. I fundamentally oppose both measures. I am particularly worried that the selection proposals will allow some schools to increase selection and change their characters significantly without the need for standard statutory requirements. Various proposals for significant change were advanced under existing statutory requirements, some of which the Secretary of State turned
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I have already said that increased selection reduces choice because it is no longer a case of parents selecting schools but a case of schools selecting pupils. The Secretary of State could not respond to that point. She must be aware that there is no real desire for increased selection in this country. Very few grant-maintained schools that have the power to increase selection exercise that option. Opinion polls--such as the Gallup poll, which was mentioned earlier--show that 77 per cent. of British people are opposed to increased selection in our schools. Increased selection makes a mockery of any attempt at strategic planning in the education service.
"As an American I could not comprehend your controversy over corporal punishment--until I visited some of your telephone booths. Mrs. Shephard's proposal to permit caning is clearly part of a plan to expand sex education to your schools."
There is a need to improve discipline in our schools. Some of the measures will be helpful, but corporal punishment certainly will not.
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