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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that until 9 pm speeches are restricted to 10 minutes.
7.4 pm
Mr. David Congdon (Croydon, North-East): I was pleased to listen to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), because in 1993 I served with him on the Committee considering the Education Bill. He referred to the provisions of that Bill as being in chaos and confusion. I am pleased that he has graduated from that, and is now referring to chaos and division. Perhaps he has changed his views on education since then and is now more enlightened.
The Bill is about raising standards. This country must have a well-educated work force if it is to compete in the global economy, about which we heard so much when the Foreign Secretary introduced his White Paper earlier. The education system must ensure that all youngsters reach their full potential, and that when they leave school, they are able to do not only what one expects an education system to enable them to do--read, write and add up--but more than that. It is crucial that they are able to communicate with other people and use information technology so that they are employable. It is a tragedy that too many children leave school and are not employable,
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Much has been done to raise education standards, and I am delighted that the record of improvement at GCSE and A-level has been sustained. The number of children with five or more A to C grades has increased from 24 per cent. in 1979 to 43 per cent. in 1995, and the number with two or more A-levels is up from 14 per cent. in 1979 to 29 per cent. That is a great achievement, but there is more to be done.
That improvement has been achieved by the introduction of an element of competition into the education system through the publication of examination results. That was shunned by Opposition Members--we heard that view again just now. When he was Prime Minister, Lord Callaghan said that it was about time that we opened up the forbidden garden of education. What a fight that has been. It has been a fight over the dead bodies of Labour-controlled local education authorities up and down the country in the 1980s. They did everything possible to thwart the publication of results.
I regret to say that even today attempts are made deliberately to ensure that people are not provided with information about what goes on in the schools in their area. I read with great interest the recent article in The Daily Telegraph by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). All he was trying to do was to find out what was going on in the schools of Berkshire. Only a limited number of schools responded positively: most of them resisted.
I welcome the proposals in the White Paper on base line testing. That is important, but I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State to resist the siren voices of Opposition Members who say that the results of examinations and tests should be massaged by taking account of socio-economic factors. By all means publish those results alongside the basic figures, but I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that we publish the base figures for all the test results this summer of children aged 11 on a school-by-school basis, and that we resist attempts by the unions and head teachers to prevent their publication.
I also welcome the proposals in the Bill on inspections. I pay tribute to Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector, for what he has done to reform the inspectorate. He has had the courage to speak out about standards, and to take on the education establishment. I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that he gets full backing. I would like to see the Leader of the Opposition give a commitment to ensure that the chief inspector stays in post, and is not replaced by a weak-livered liberal who will do the education establishment's bidding.
The chief inspector is right to insist that primary schools concentrate on phonics to ensure that children are able to read. We must be careful to ensure that the inspectorate guarantees the delivery of good-quality education. Too often in the past, inspectors have undermined good-quality education.
A key part of the Bill deals with choice and diversity. I have always supported the case for a full range of schools, from comprehensives to grammar schools. In Croydon, I supported the establishment of a city technology college at the Harris school in Upper Norwood. It was interesting to note the way in which
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Before it became a CTC, the school could attract only just over 40 first-choice applications from Croydon parents. It is now massively oversubscribed. Moreover, it selects not on the basis of ability, but across the ability range, and has a dyslexia unit. It deserves much praise for having introduced diversity.
I also welcome the proposals to allow schools to select more pupils on the basis of ability or aptitude. I do not believe that that constitutes the reintroduction of the 11-plus through the back door. Indeed, I would not support the reintroduction of the 11-plus, for a variety of reasons. It was too rigid. [Interruption.] It does not constitute the reintroduction of the 11-plus through the back door, in any shape or form--or through the front door. What it does is give schools the opportunity to decide whether they wish to select on the basis of ability or aptitude--and parents will have a choice. As was said just now, one of the problems is that under the current system, choice depends crucially on where people live.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) mentioned Edenham school, in my constituency. It is a fact that, under the current arrangements, there are two very good grant-maintained schools in Shirley. They are massively oversubscribed--and good luck to them: they do a first-class job. Because they are so oversubscribed, however, parents in south Norwood and Woodside do not get a look in. Their choice is diminished. My reason for welcoming the decision of both those schools to select 15 per cent. of pupils on the basis of ability or aptitude is that it gives children in south Norwood and Woodside the chance of a place.
When Opposition Members talk about selection, we never hear about the damage that was wrought in inner London by the destruction of the grammar schools. I had the opportunity to go to a London county council primary school in what would be regarded today as a very deprived part of inner London. I went to Bellenden junior mixed infants school--which, I regret to say, is no longer a school. It is instructive to note that at that time there were four forms of entry, with 40 pupils in each class. There were no complaints then about the pupil-teacher ratio; no so-called alibis for failure there. A total of 160 children were admitted, and that school managed to get one whole form of entry--40 pupils--to grammar school. I happened to be one of the lucky ones: I managed to pass.
Why was that school able to achieve such success in those days? Because it ran a tough education system. It was determined to achieve high education standards, and it used discipline. What happens in such areas now does not compare with that. The Labour party has much to answer for, given the destruction of the inner London education system for which it was responsible. It has caused more social divisiveness in London, by forcing many parents to move into outer London.
Whether my hon. Friends want to consider corporal punishment is a separate issue, but I believe that we should look into the discipline that is available to staff in
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Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I call the next speaker.
Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth):
The speech of the hon. Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) lacked logic. He cannot be in favour of both selection and comprehensive education; that would not be educationally digestible. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the publication of results. I am in favour of an open education system, but my last two visits to education establishments in my constituency made me very angry about one aspect of the point that he made.
I visited Swinton special school for children with severe learning difficulties--a wonderful school, which I believe was mentioned in The Times Educational Supplement. It is a very happy school, with a splendid staff--a caring school--and the children do achieve, but they are of limited intellectual ability. In an earlier intervention, I said that it was too easy to label children. I find it rather sad that that school's results are published each year, and that each year it has no GCSE successes. The children would not be there if they were going to succeed at GCSE, so why on earth publish results for schools of that kind? It can have only a negative effect.
The other establishment that I visited was the Red Barn project, operated by the local authority and Barnardos. It deals with teenagers who have been expelled from school. The only reason that I mention that splendid project is that it demonstrates the cost of the Government's failure. While concentrating on children who may come from a middle-class background and an affluent area, who have job prospects and excellent environmental opportunities, and who can succeed, we forget the label that the Government place on the 50 per cent. who do not fall into that class. We tell them that they are stupid and unemployable. The hon. Member for Croydon, North-East referred to that. We tell them that they are members of an underclass. We are creating enormous problems by not providing adequate opportunities for our young people.
I was a schoolmaster for a long time. I started teaching at a secondary modern. There were 49 pupils in my first class. The hon. Member for Croydon, North-East said that people did not worry about classes of 40, but he probably did not realise that a good deal was being said by those teaching such classes. When I had been at the school for only about a year, I was the third most senior member of staff. In those days, it was possible to get rapid promotion.
For two years, I taught at a primary school to gain experience. I spent one of those years with a class of 40 but no classroom: we had more classes than rooms. When the weather was fine, that was all right, because I could go out into the sunshine, but when it rained the children were either in the school hall or the boys' cloakroom, seated under wet mackintoshes. I learnt a great deal about how to maintain order in school.
I find it repulsive that the reaction of Conservative Members--or a certain proportion of them--is to flog children. That is the same sort of reaction that we see from the authorities in Brazil, where the police
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I will not identify any child--although you know what I am talking about, Mr. Deputy Speaker--but I have had a great deal of experience with a number of difficult children. One, whom I know very well, was tortured and abused in the most foul way. I believe that that is one reason why the Government allow video evidence in court. The abuse of that child was described as a monstrous event but, because of the care that he received, despite all his likely prospects, at the age of 20 he has now entered management and probably has many years of success in front of him. That boy would have been ruined if he had received further maltreatment. Much more sympathetic treatment is needed than some perverse Conservative Members would suggest.
In the early 1960s, after I was convinced of the case for comprehensive education, I fought for a change at a fine school in my area--a school that I attended, and beside which I still live. I refer to Wath upon Dearne grammar school. I led the fight for it to become a comprehensive. There was a terrific battle in the community. The headmaster, for whom I had enormous respect, was uneasy. I suggested that we should keep the 11-plus for a time and for some years we made special arrangements for that examination.
In 1971, in my first year in the House, the headmaster invited me to be the guest speaker on speech day. I wondered what he would say, because he could be sardonic and I thought that he might repay me for the battle that we had won to make that school a comprehensive. The audience knew about the battle and that we had forced the measure through. I was delighted when he said that he had not been enthusiastic but that, as a result of the decision, 92 young people who had failed the 11-plus had entered or were entering higher education. I felt vindicated.
If the Secretary of State for Wales sat the 11-plus at that time, he probably passed it. I noticed that he did not listen to the nonsense spoken by Conservative Members. The school that I am speaking about is his old school. It is a fine comprehensive. There is, however, great anxiety there because the provision for local government education is grossly inadequate. The Government have been consistent in providing ever more resources for the minority and ever fewer for the majority.
In areas such as mine, in inner cities and in the industrial parts of England, children see no opportunities, and local authorities are starved of the resources that could provide for our youth services, which are working on a shoestring. The provision of challenges and motivation is being grossly ignored. I fear that the local government financial settlement next year will apply so much pressure that local authorities will start to sell school playing fields and distribute the resources to avoid adding burdens.
The Government should think again about discipline, which is related to the response of children and their families. We ought to give more priority to teachers who can actively and positively relate to parents, especially
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