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6.32 pm

Mr. Bob Dunn (Dartford): Listening to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), I was reminded of the political faction that existed in America towards the end of the 19th century. They were called "mug wumps" because they faced two directions at once: they sat on the fence with their mug on one side and their wump on the other. We have seen a good example of that today. If hon. Members do not know what a "wump" is, they should ask Roy Jenkins.

The Liberal Democrat spokesman opposes grammar schools, city technology colleges, the assisted places scheme, private education, the Bill and everything that the Government have done. What does he support? He favours the comprehensivisation of our education system--that is the ineluctable conclusion that we must draw from his heartfelt and sincere contribution. This is a good Bill which contains much that I can support, and I shall help my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) to see it augmented to include corporal punishment.

Let me state the obvious for the first time in my life: the Government do not run a single school in this country. Governments have not done so since the 1890s, the 1930s, the Education Act 1944 and certainly not under the

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measures that we have passed over 17 years. Local education authorities run schools but Governments can indirectly influence and shame local education authorities into achieving better performances.

There are black spots in education provision in this country--no hon. Member would deny that. Where are those black spots and what are their historical origins? They occur mainly in inner London and in our major cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Bradford. Those areas were run by Labour and embraced trendy, philosophical education ideas. Strangely, the Labour party's current policies would affect those people whom it claims to represent: the Labour voters. I shall give reasons for my claims. I have a list of the 10 worst local education authorities in the country. The standard table shows the number of children who obtain five or more passes at GCSE grades A to C. According to that table, Islington has 17.4 per cent.--[Hon. Members: "Labour."] Knowsley has 19.2 per cent., Tower Hamlets 21.7 per cent.--[Hon. Members: "Labour."] I am not sure whether Tower Hamlets is still controlled by Labour. According to the table, Southwark has 22.2 per cent., Manchester has 22.5 per cent.--

Hon. Members: Labour.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We do not need sedentary comments as to who controls every borough that the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) mentions in the Chamber.

Mr. Dunn: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was so deafened by my hon. Friends' comments that I could not hear myself speak. Newham has 23.7 per cent., Hackney 23.9 per cent., Liverpool 26.1 per cent. and Sandwell 26.9 per cent. That compares with an English average of 43.5 per cent. It is no wonder that, when faced with the prospect of education provision in Islington, the Leader of the Opposition chose to send his child outside the borough. It is no wonder that the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) sends her child to a school outside her district, or that the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) abandoned the schools in Southwark to become a refugee in Conservative-controlled Bromley.

Mr. Kilfoyle: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether the research that he mentions refers to the socio-economic background of the areas concerned?

Mr. Dunn: I shall come to that point in due course. Islington is a gentrified area--it must be if the hon. Lady lives there.

I think that all hon. Members would agree that the Ridings school in Calderdale suffered from over-exposure in the media: there was too much media involvement. Equally, many of my constituents are incredulous that one 10-year-old boy can close a school in Worksop. That school also suffered as a result of media exposure. Successful schools are succeeding because of the channelling and adapting of parental pressure that is applied to schools and local authorities and the freedom afforded by grant-maintained status.

I am of an age to remember when comprehensivisation was the fashion.

Mr. Jacques Arnold: It still is.

Mr. Dunn: I agree with my hon. Friend. Comprehensivisation meant that children attended the

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comprehensive school situated in their local area. A line was drawn around the school, it had a catchment area and pupils had no choice but to attend that comprehensive school. If families lived in an area that was affluent, middle class and supportive, academic results were often quite good. However, if families lived at the wrong end of town where parents were not so supportive or there were problems attaining a working school-parent relationship--to which the hon. Member for Bath referred--results were often poor. Such schools usually became sink schools. I know that because I was an 11-plus failure and come from a blue-collar worker family in industrial Lancashire. No one need lecture me about the problems associated with deprivation or about the aspirations of working-class folk. Working-class folk in so many parts of the country, represented by Labour Members, have been abandoned, neglected and denied the opportunity that bright working-class children should have.

There is nothing more pernicious than the choice of school for a family being dependent on whether the father rents from the local authority or can afford to buy a house in the catchment area of the more fashionable and more successful school down the road.

Arguments about money are significant. We always hear Labour Members talking about money. The important issue is not the amount of money that is available but the way in which it is spent. If maximum expenditure were the key to success, why was not the Inner London education authority a great success? It was top in terms of expenditure and bottom when it came to results. That example defeats for all time the argument that money is the key to success.

There is, of course, more than that to education. There is the parent relationship, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Bath. There is the chemistry that is created by the head. There is the good and supportive governing body. There is also the commitment of parents, or parent when there is only one in the family. These are all important ingredients.

We must not make deprivation the excuse. I learnt as a Minister at the Department of Education and Science that every Member should have tattooed on his or her forehead the following: "The key to a child's success at school is the socio-economic background from which that child comes." Labour Members tried with their friends in local education authorities socially to engineer and to bus pupils. Labour was unfocused or wrongly focused and thus was missing the problem.

The real problem was that expectation was not high enough for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Excuses were made too often by indifferent teachers, who were more concerned about the politics of education than about education itself. For all time we must defend the right of ordinary parents to have preference for the education that they want for their children. If a form of education is good enough for the Leader of the Opposition, it is good enough for the people whom I represent.

A while back, Labour Members were talking about a quota system at university level to work against children who had attended public schools. How long will it be before they have a quota for those children who come from grammar schools, grant-maintained schools, Church

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schools or single-sex schools? Once there is a quota for one section of the child population, the system will spread like a cancer throughout the entire system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth talked ably about policies to be created by schools to ensure discipline. When the time comes in later debates, I shall be taking up my hon. Friend's remarks. This evening, however, I wish to read a passage that appears in a book published by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson), a long-standing friend. His book is entitled "Boyson on education". It is available at £12.95. It has been published by Peter Owen publishers.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North is a distinguished educationist. He served in the second world war, after which he was a teacher and a head teacher. He was a distinguished naval man and godfather to my son. If he wrote a book on cooking, he would out-Delia Delia. A passage on page 67 reads:

"I still think that overall the withdrawal of corporal punishment in 1984 has made the task of teachers, particularly amongst boys in secondary schools, more difficult. Corporal punishment certainly does not solve all problems, but the knowledge that it exists in the school and is used where necessary was certainly a constraint on pupil misbehaviour."

That must be the yardstick.

Mr. Rowe rose--

Mr. Dunn: I shall, of course, give way to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Rowe: I am not certain that I heard my hon. Friend correctly. Did he say that the book of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) was being flogged for £12.99?

Mr. Dunn: No, £12.95. I am sure that it can be obtained at a discount.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, I believe that corporal punishment should be available to school governing bodies. I believe also that parents should vote at annual meetings to decide whether governors should be required to adopt or adapt a policy of corporal punishment. Such a policy should be available only when it is the view of the head that a child or children should be so chastised.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North made a good point the other day when he said that no child should be administered punishment of the cane in the cold light of another day. In other words, the punishment must take place there and then, and the child must understand why the punishment is taking place. The alternative is exclusions.

I come from industrial Lancashire, and I can tell the House that no child was excluded in my day. Parents made sure that their children turned up for school. Society was much more disciplined. We accept that it is less disciplined these days. All that we do now is exclude the child. As the hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) said, the excluded child is given two hours of teaching a week, or four or six. That is not enough. Excluded children are abandoned and they go on to the streets of our cities or in

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other communities. They are subject to the preying instinct of those who do not have their interests at heart. More importantly, they join other youngsters and form gangs. They engage in anti-social, anti-establishment and anti-school behaviour. That becomes the norm. That cannot be right.

Against that background, I hope that the Bill can be amended--

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