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Mr. Jamieson: In Committee, the Minister of State said that he felt that much of the legislation that had passed through the House in recent years had been concerned, not with raising the standards of children's education, but with tinkering with systems of education. We have before us tonight a proposal to introduce more selection in both primary and secondary schools--another example of the Government not finding ways to improve children's education, but tinkering with the system at the edges.

Mr. Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise for not raising the matter immediately, but I was taken by surprise. Is it not the custom of the House that when an amendment is moved, we receive an initial indication from the Government side of the House? Unless we do, some of the speeches that you may wish to hear from us will be bereft of the knowledge of the Government's point of view.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I cannot help that. It is entirely up to Ministers to attempt to catch my eye. If they do not do so, they do not get called.

Mr. Jamieson: Perhaps I may help my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). It would seem that, after the Division a few minutes ago, some of the steam has gone out of Ministers and there is a reluctance to speak about matters, except--

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Cheryl Gillan): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. To clarify the matter for the House and for yourself, I fully intend to speak towards the end of the debate, if I have the opportunity to catch your eye.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: There is the explanation.

Mr. Jamieson: I thought that my well-chosen comments might bring the Minister to her feet to explain her silence and her Trappist appearance on the Front Bench. We look forward to hearing the Minister answer the excellent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), but I noticed, during the passage of the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Act 1996, when the Bill before us was discussed in Committee, and in many debates, that the Minister is sometimes reluctant to expose her views to the debates that we have in such Committees. I am sad that we have not had the benefit of the Minister's thoughts on these important matters as a prelude to our discussions.

When the Bill was introduced, we understood that selection would apply to the secondary sector. I seem to remember that even the Secretary of State looked taken aback when it was suggested that the proposals in this legislation might also apply to primary schools.

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I suspect that many of the Members who are, sadly, absent from the Conservative Benches tonight--

Mr. Pawsey: We are here.

Mr. Jamieson: I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) is here. Perhaps later he might go and rally some of his troops and get them into the Lobby to vote on some of these matters. Very few Conservative Members are present, and we saw earlier that the Government could not even rally the troops for a vote on a vital clause. They have lost not once but twice. To lose a vote once is unfortunate, but twice is sheer carelessness. [Interruption.] I hope that the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, who is barracking from a sedentary position, will go and use his barrack-room tactics on some of his hon. Friends, who were not in the Lobby to vote on what was thought to be a vital clause for the Government.

Mr. John Gunnell (Morley and Leeds, South): In view of the clause being lost twice, it seems to me that the House has expressed its view on new clause 3 extremely firmly. It does not want it. It did not want it in Committee. The whole House does not want it. It cannot possibly be re-introduced in the Lords because we would then have the Government encouraging the Lords to overrule the Commons. Does my hon. Friend agree that that clearly would be completely out of order, constitutionally?

Mr. Pawsey: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your advice? You have heard what Labour Members have said. Would I, however, be right in saying that there would be no objection to that new clause being introduced in another place, and that if it were carried in another place it could be introduced in this place, under the general heading of Lords amendments?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): I am not going to rule on hypothetical suggestions.

Mr. Jamieson: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. With your usual wisdom, you put the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth firmly back in his place. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell) has raised an interesting constitutional issue. A vital part of a Bill has failed to pass through Committee and has failed to pass through the House tonight, and the Government may have to ask those in another place to amend something that we in this place have decided that we do not want. We look forward to that.

Mr. Pawsey rose--

Mr. Jamieson: I see that the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene. I look forward to his explanation on this important matter.

Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman mentioned constitutional reform. Am I not right in saying that the Labour party wished to reform the other place? Given the

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circumstances of today's debate, do I take it that he, at least, will no longer support the constitutional proposals being advanced by his leader?

Mr. Jamieson: Madam Deputy Speaker, if I answered the hon. Gentleman, you would rightly draw me to order for speaking out of order on new clause 9.

Mr. Pawsey: That is a hypothetical case; try.

Mr. Jamieson: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we shall have a reform in this place, and that will be that we shall shortly be sitting on the Government Benches, and those Conservative Members that are left--the rump, and possibly not the hon. Gentleman--will be sitting on the Opposition Benches.

Mr. David Evennett (Erith and Crayford): Keep dreaming.

Mr. Jamieson: There are various questions about selection which Conservative Members really must answer. The first concerns a point that emerged clearly when the Bill was given its Second Reading--it was made by a number of Conservative Members too. Let us consider an area where the secondary school serves a local population and there are no other schools nearby. What happens if that school is oversubscribed and then decides to select--in the case of an LEA school, up to 20 per cent. of its intake? Will large numbers of local children be rejected in favour of children from well outside the area whose parents can afford the transport?

Before Christmas, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment visited the excellent Tavistock college in Devon, where she saw the wonderful language unit and learned how popular the college is. It is a comprehensive school for 11 to 19-year-olds, and it achieves better results than were gained in the old days, when there were grammar schools and secondary moderns in the town. What would happen if a school like that, without consulting local people or the council, chose to run its own tests and set up a grammar stream? Could local parents be prevented from using their local school for their children? [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is deep in conversation with her ministerial colleagues on this vital point; I am glad that she is listening to their views.

The problem becomes even more serious in the context of primary schools. If an infant school operated some form of selection, that could have far reaching consequences for parents and children in the locality. It is quite reasonable to expect a child at secondary school to travel one or two miles--in rural areas, as much as 10 or 20 miles--but it would be outrageous if a primary school chose to go selective and ruled out a number of children from the neighbourhood.

How would the admissions criteria work when such a school decided to take some children via the selective procedure? What criteria would the school then use to turn down other children?

Listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Yardley it was clear to me that there is no enthusiasm on the part of parents for further selective education. The Minister may recall that, 15 years ago or thereabouts, there were attempts in Solihull to return to selection. When parents realised that their local comprehensives could suddenly

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again become grammar schools or secondary moderns, they spoke out loud and clear. Further selection was roundly turned down--[Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) has arrived in the Chamber. I hope that he will give us the benefit of his enormous wisdom and experience. He and I served on Solihull council together. In fact, everything he knows he learned at my feet. He sat just in front of me in the council chamber and used to turn to me for advice and assistance. Being the generous person that I am, I helped him a great deal--and look where he is today. He will remember how parents in the area reacted. The good people of Knowle and Dorridge--hardly socialist enclaves, although we may have got a few votes from them--rose up to a man, or woman, and rejected the idea of more selection. They had had a taste of the old system and they did not like it or want to return to it.

The hon. Member for Solihull will know of the excellent Arden school, and of my old school, Tudor Grange, which now gets better examination results as a comprehensive than it did as a grammar school. The hon. Gentleman will know that more than 80 per cent. of the children at those two schools achieve five or more GCSEs at A to C grades. Parents there do not want to return to selection.

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