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Mr. Blunkett: I hope that the right hon. Lady will take it the right way when I say that she is making a much better speech than she used to make when she was in government. Will she confirm that in only one of the three indicators used in the LSE study was the difference statistically significant? Therefore, there was no provable difference, despite the fact that enormous sums of money had been spent on those pupils.

Mrs. Shephard: No, I do not accept that. There is no question but that assisted places pupils do extremely well at GCSE and A-level. Contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman said, they achieved A-level results up to three grades higher than other pupils.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind compliment. It is his turn to be a touch patronising, but I dare say that it is because of the car and the building, and he will get over it.

Mr. Boswell: I promise that I shall not patronise my right hon. Friend: indeed, I would not patronise any hon. Member. Did she notice that the Secretary of State referred to his welcome readiness to work alongside the private sector in the interest of improving standards?

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Does she believe that the Bill will break the links between the private and the state sectors in education? How can it possibly contribute to forging those links?

Mrs. Shephard: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The provisions of the Bill and the indecent haste with which it has been introduced--it was published after the House had gone into recess, and we have only a meagre amount of time to prepare for Committee stage and Third Reading--show that the Government are perhaps a touch ashamed that they are destroying the scheme. I believe that the Bill will also destroy the good relations with the independent sector that some members of the Government claim they want to develop.

Ms Hodge: The right hon. Lady may find it a little difficult to have a Government who so swiftly keep to their pledges, which is what the Bill is all about. Will she explain why, during 18 years of Conservative government, no attempts were made to extend, beyond the assisted places scheme, the partnership between the public and private sectors? That might have broken down the divide that we have inherited as part of the legacy.

Mrs. Shephard: I hope to show how the Bill cannot deliver what it promises, despite the fact that the Labour party had 18 years in which to prepare it.

The Bill is driven by class-envy dogma. It restricts choice, the freedom to choose, and it destroys excellence. It fails to recognise the contribution that choice, variety of school and variety of route make to raising standards.

Mr. John Gunnell (Morley and Rothwell): The right hon. Lady says that we are restricting the choice of 38,000 children. The Bill that she lost at the end of the previous Session was proposed that schools could select up to 50 per cent. of pupils. What effect would that have had on parental choice? Would not it have affected the choice of many more parents than will be affected by the Bill?

Mrs. Shephard: I am happy to say to the hon. Gentleman that the nature and exercise of choice is well understood by some Government Front Benchers. It is a great pity that they do not choose to exercise that principle to benefit all parents. Of course, none of that should surprise us, because at local level Labour mounted street demonstrations, supported by Labour Members, against the setting up of city technology colleges. At local level, it would not allow pupils from grant-maintained schools to play games against pupils from maintained schools, and it forced grammar school pupils to pay for their own transport to school. Labour is hostile to choice and diversity.

Mr. Steen: When my right hon. Friend was Secretary of State for Education and Employment--and what a splendid job she did--she visited my former constituency of South Hams. She may remember that she visited two very good secondary schools. Can she say how 1,011 children currently on assisted places in Devon can be accommodated in the secondary schools in my constituency, which are full to capacity? As I understand

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it, the only way in which that could be done would be by increasing class sizes or building more schools. How does my right hon. Friend see that happening?

Mrs. Shephard: One of the joys of opposition is that I do not have to reply to such questions. However, the Government do have to respond, and I intend to ask them those questions later.

It is one thing, for reasons of class-envy driven dogma, to destroy choice, opportunity and excellence, but it is quite another to do that in the name of a reform which so far has not been costed or quantified, the timing of which cannot be predicted, the mechanism for which has not been devised and which in short, cannot and will not be delivered.

Under the heading "Financial effects of the Bill", it is claimed:

"The Bill's provisions . . . will be spent on reducing infant class sizes in the maintained sector."

We note that the compliance cost assessment has not been placed in the Library. Ten days ago, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment could not tell the House, because he did not know, the cost of educating assisted place pupils in the maintained sector if they are returned to it. It must be deduced that the Government's idea of the cost and the timetable for achieving class size reduction is at best hazy. That brings me to my third criterion, that of judging the effectiveness of the Bill--will it work? The Government cannot save enough money from abolishing the assisted places scheme to enable them to reduce primary class sizes, as they promised, during the lifetime of this Parliament. As the National Association of Head Teachers has said, even if the money were available, and it will not be, the policy could work only if the Government put in place measures to restrict admissions to primary schools, which would be yet another blow to choice.

The Secretary of State and the Government have some questions to answer during the disgracefully short passage of this destructive Bill. I noted that the right hon. Gentleman failed to answer the question about the pledge by the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service, who wrote to the chairman of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools, stating:

"If a child has a place at a school which runs through to age 13, then that place will be honoured through to 13."

The hon. Gentleman is not here today, adorning the Government Front Bench. He has been banished to the inner recesses of the Cabinet Office where, so we are told, he languishes unhappily. Fancy sending him to Lancaster just because he is going to break a promise.

As we have consistently pointed out--and here we are in the company of the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales, the Government's adviser on these matters, and the Institute of Public Finance--the sums do not add up. Both bodies agree that the annual cost of reducing primary school class sizes would amount to around £65 million. The IPF has also calculated that, by 1999-2000, the savings released from the abolition of the assisted places scheme would amount in total to only £34 million. In short, by the time the full assisted places savings are realised, there will be a shortfall to the public purse of £250 million.

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I noticed at oral questions that we are to be promised a White Paper and that the answers will be found in the White Paper. What a relief to us all, but the House is owed answers to some of these questions this afternoon. How will the financial shortfall be met? What is the timetable for the reduction of primary class sizes? What mechanisms will be used? What changes will be made to the standard numbers assessments, to the powers of admission authorities and to the appeals mechanism? How will parental choice will preserved?

The House is today being asked to agree the destruction of the centuries-old tradition of some of our most illustrious schools to provide for a full cross-section of pupils. It is being asked to agree to the destruction of choice and of the freedom to choose a different route for many thousands of children from less well-off families.

Mr. Gerry Steinberg (City of Durham): If the right hon. Lady is so concerned about private schools not taking in working-class children, does she think that private schools will offer free places to working-class children out of their own budgets to allow for that cross-section of society in those schools?

Mrs. Shephard: Some of those schools do, as the hon. Gentleman should understand, with his knowledge of education, but it must be obvious even to him that the assisted places scheme has extended that opportunity to many more pupils.

As I said, the House today is being asked to agree a destruction process--the destruction of those schools, of their policy of encouraging a cross-section of pupils, of choice and of the freedom to choose. It is, at best, grossly incompetent and, at worst, breathtakingly high-handed--even for this Government--for the House to be asked to agree the Bill before the consequent implications and costs can be laid before it.

I said at the outset that we shall support the Government where they introduce policies that are constructive and raise standards. I suggested three criteria by which their legislation should be judged: is it driven by dogma; does it restrict choice and the freedom to choose, thereby driving down standards; and can it work? Not a word about the way in which the changes would be achieved has been heard from the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. This mean-minded Bill fails all three tests. It is faithful to the old Labour dogma: if all cannot have, none should. It destroys choice and excellence in the name of improvements that are not costed, not tested, cannot be promised and will not be delivered. We oppose the Bill.

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