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Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I add my words of welcome and wish him success in his important task. He talks about dogma. Does he realise that most damage has been inflicted on education in this country over the past 20 or 30 years by the imposition of socialist dogma by local education authorities?
Mr. Blunkett: After six and a half weeks of trailing round the country, I had hoped that we had finished with all that. I should like a new beginning from this afternoon, getting rid of the tired rhetoric of the past and instead giving people a sense of purpose and some hope and belief that not only the Government but Parliament might address the real issues that face our country: young people without jobs; the long-term unemployed who want hope; lifelong learning to equip our nation with the tools that it needs to succeed in a new century. Instead, we get the same old questions and the same old dry, doctrinaire dogma from the Conservatives. They have switched seats, but they have not switched the jargon or rhetoric one iota.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blunkett: No, I am going to make some progress in the spirit that I indicated at the beginning of my speech--setting targets and establishing some momentum for that change. We have already established the standards and effectiveness unit in the Department for Education and Employment under Professor Michael Barber. We have already established a new relationship with schools and colleges. We have already changed the style as well as the substance of the Department's approach.
We have talked to staff in London and we will be talking to staff in Sheffield, in Runcorn and in Darlington as quickly as possible. I was due to be in Sheffield doing just that now, but this afternoon's debate was arranged.
We will ensure that, through the White Paper and the legislation we will introduce, there will be a new beginning. There will be a general teaching council, the establishment of advanced skill teacher posts, and a new relationship and a new job description for local education authorities. Parents will work with schools, and schools will work with authorities. We are a Government determined to use the tools available to us to encourage, to support, and to bring pressure and support together to do the job.
I recall and pay tribute to Laurie Lee, who died yesterday. I knew Laurie Lee and I had the privilege of undertaking a Radio 4 programme about Laurie Lee and
the village of Slad. I interviewed him in his home and in The Woolpack. I had the privilege of talking to him about one of my favourite books, "Cider with Rosie". I also talked to him about the golden nails he described when he talked about knocking in the knowledge and information necessary to give children the tools to be able to read, to write, to spell and to do tables--those little golden nails that make the difference to children's lives. The Laurie Lees of this world, who bring alive our literature and give children a love of learning and a love of reading, are the people whom we should hold in high esteem. We should remember them with affection and thank them for their contribution to making learning something which all of us can be proud of and enjoy throughout our lives.
By working with the professions--working with teachers and heads--we can do the job. I am proud to announce the first steps since the new Government took over. The Teacher Training Agency has put forward a new qualification for headship. Aspiring as well as existing heads will be fast-tracked to take on the new qualifications that will become mandatory under legislation. In time, all heads will have the leadership skills and management qualifications to enable them to do the job. They will not only receive academic qualifications, but gain experience from the new headship qualification. The course will ensure that best practice is established and spread from one school to another so that we can ensure that the crucial task of leadership is available in the 24,000 schools in our country, thereby giving every child a chance.
We will build on the work of governors throughout the country. There will be new parenting skills in school and there will be the opportunity for lifelong learning from the moment a child is born. That is the task we face. Over the next couple of weeks, I will make announcements about a new beginning for early years education, sweeping away the dogma and the market forces that the previous Government espoused.
Let us be clear. The agenda of the future is one of equality of opportunity, in terms of gender, race and disability. [Hon. Members: "Cliches."] I do not think that there is anything cliched about equality of opportunity for women, for ethnic minorities or for disabled people. I pay tribute to the Minister of State, Department of National Heritage, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke), who did such sterling work in opposition in terms of disability rights. With the Minister for Employment and Disability Rights, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), and the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), he will review the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. They will work with and meet groups representing disabled people to ensure that we carry that work forward in the years ahead.
So many of our young people who are out of work have special needs of one sort or another. So many of them are in difficulty. It is our task to ensure that, through the new deal, we can enhance the life chances of people who have particular needs or have been out of work for more than six months. We must ensure that their hope is restored and that the cynicism that results from exclusion and alienation from our communities is set aside by the investment of the new deal money from the privatised utilities to give those young people the chance of a life. We must give them the chance to earn, to build their own
families and to establish their belief in themselves in the community and help them set aside the desperation that results from feeling that society has rejected them and that they have been spat out by the communities in which they were brought up.
We must provide hope for a new generation and qualifications that will offer a passport to lifelong learning for all, reducing the divide in our society and removing the stigma of exclusion. That is the task of the new Labour Government working with the people. The Government cannot do it alone. We must work with everyone who is prepared and willing to put our objectives and priorities into practice.
Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden):
I begin by conveying the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment who, as she put it, is temporarily suffering from antibiotics. She will shortly be back in the House.
I convey my sincere congratulations to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), on his appointment to the Cabinet. I am sure that he will fill his post with great distinction. I say that not as a mere formality: before the election, I was asked on a radio programme whom I most admired on the Labour Benches and I immediately mentioned his name. [Interruption.] I will not continue in that vein or he may think that I am soliciting his vote, but I wish him and his team well--and, indeed, the social security team who do not seem to be present in force today.
I wish the Government team well, despite our party differences, because their responsibilities are of crucial importance. Failure in education would blight the future of a generation and social security exists to help vulnerable people at times of greatest hardship. During my period of office at the Department of Social Security, I always sought to focus help on those who needed it most. If the Government fail, I know that disabled, sick, unemployed and elderly people will suffer most. In opposition, as in government, their interests will be our prime concern.
The Queen's Speech comes in the wake of a severe defeat for my party. There are crucial lessons that we have to learn from that defeat. I have discussed those issues elsewhere, and they are not the subject of today's debate, but one point is relevant. We have to have the humility to recognise an unpalatable truth about the verdict of the voters. It may even be unpalatable to Labour Members. It was the Conservative party that lost the election, not the Labour party that won it. It was a chastening rejection of a
divided Conservative party; it was certainly not a ringing endorsement of the Labour party. Labour Members know only too well that there was little enthusiasm for them on the doorsteps and they ended up with fewer votes than my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) secured in 1992.
Our failings not only damaged us, but allowed Labour to be elected on a bogus prospectus. Labour was able to raise expectations of what it can deliver way beyond what it can afford if it is to honour our spending and tax plans, which it adopted wholesale. Labour appetites will not be satisfied on a healthy Conservative diet and our task in opposition is to expose the inconsistencies, the shortcomings, the damaging consequences of Labour's programme.
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