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Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings): I want to dwell on the timing aspect of the amendments. Had the Government gone in for calmer and wiser reflection, the Bill would not have been rushed in as a wholly negative piece of legislation. The fact that the first education legislation proposed by the new Government contains such a negative and pernicious set of proposals will be judged harshly by historians and, I dare say, regretted in the fulness of time by many Labour Members.
The Government should have taken the assisted places scheme, built on it and developed it. It is entirely natural and acceptable that a new Government should have a different perspective--that is in the nature of the democratic process. A new Government will arrive with fresh ideas and a new approach; but to abandon the scheme completely seems most undesirable. Indeed, it is not worthy of the Labour party or the House.
Our country has a long tradition of scholarships, bursaries and assisted places--in short, an approach that has allowed poor children from working-class families to enjoy an education that they would not have had without financial assistance. That tradition is embodied in my own home. I happen to live in a house that used to be part of a grammar school that was founded in the first Elizabethan age on the principle of giving poor children a better education. It is a principle with which I would expect many socialists and Labour party members to have some sympathy, but these proposals pay no heed to that long and noble tradition.
The Bill is a class sizes Bill. Abolishing assisted places has been seen as a way of facilitating the smaller classes that were a key part of the proposals that the Labour party put to the electorate. The proposal certainly found some resonance with the electorate: people bought the argument lock, stock and barrel. They believed that classes needed reducing and that the Labour party would bring that about.
This approach has three problems. First, smaller classes have been presented as a panacea that will deliver automatic short-term benefits. I notice Labour Members shaking their heads at that suggestion. It may not have been explicitly presented in that way, but it has certainly been presented in that way by allusion, suggestion and implication. That in turn has raised expectations that cannot be met.
There will be no automatic or direct benefit solely from reducing class sizes. Quite apart from the logistical problems, even if classes are reduced in the way suggested by the Labour Government there will be no immediate tangible benefits of the kind that many people have been led to expect. That is the problem with raising expectations that cannot be fulfilled.
Secondly, the concentration on smaller classes has eradicated from public consciousness all the other factors that affect children's performance at school. As I said on Second Reading, many of those factors are just as important as class size and some may be even more important--the jury is still out. There is a paucity of empirical information, but it is certainly arguable that many other factors are just as important as class size. I shall not go through them this evening, but we all know what they are. Relegating all these other issues to the sidelines and concentrating on class size as the panacea for delivering enhanced teaching and pupil performance has had a misleading effect.
Thirdly, class size is usually debated in the context of a didactic pedagogic model. People think of a teacher standing in front of a class, teaching by exposition and instruction. These days, however, most teaching in schools is not like that. It is more of an exchange between the teacher and the taught; the relationship between the teacher and the taught is changing, as is the role of the teacher.
I could take hon. Members to any one of 50 schools in Britain where class size in the traditional sense is not an issue because of changing group organisation and because of changes in the manipulation and use of information. It
is easy to forget, when concentrating on class size, that teachers and learners are interacting differently. Schools operate differently, and the way people gather, exchange and use information is different, too. A range of technologies has changed our gathering, exchange and use of information in education, in the House and in the world of work. If we fail to grasp that fact and take advantage of it, we shall sacrifice one means of improving the education process. We shall also fail to prepare children adequately for the world of work.
Several of my hon. Friends have already made a point that perhaps needs amplifying. It concerns--time is critical in this context too--the impact of abolition of the assisted places scheme on other schools. We have only limited published information so far on the mechanisms by which these children are to be absorbed into other schools, and that information is unclear and rather dubious. The costs, too, are unclear. Several of my hon. Friends have asked questions about the arithmetic governing the process.
For me, the most important point concerns the effect on the schools. The National Association of Head Teachers has not always been particularly friendly to the Conservative party, but even that body acknowledges that this move will inevitably limit choice. To keep class sizes down, popular schools will have to restrict admissions. Moreover, in some areas--this will differ from region to region--a large number of children will have to be absorbed into state schools.
As a result, a child who currently expects an assisted place will not get their first choice, because that would have been the assisted places scheme school. They probably will not even get their second choice, because that will be the popular school that now cannot admit them because its admission level has had to be lowered to keep class sizes down. They may end up with their third or fourth choice of school. That may be one of the many unpopular schools, where there has not been essential rationalisation of provision by the LEA--I think of my LEA in that respect--which has numerous surplus places.
The Bill will therefore be used as a way to soak up surplus places in unpopular schools. That is a serious implication. The Government have not fully explored it and they certainly have not fully justified it. Popular schools will be obliged to admit fewer children, private schools will no longer be able to offer an assisted place, and less popular schools will soak up the children who do not want to be there and whose parents have had their options limited.
Mr. Colvin:
That point is clearly made in the Institute of Public Finance report. On page 2, in a paragraph headed, "Eliminating Infant Classes over 30", it says:
My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the fact that we will return to those "bad old days" as a direct consequence of this proposal. Obviously the consequence is not being headlined by the Government because it will be deeply unpopular with the many children who will be affected.
Mr. Hayes:
It may be old Labour; I would not want to suggest it. It could be old Labour resurfacing.
The private schools will be affected. I am a grammar school boy, so I have no vested interest in private education, but it seems to me that the private schools that will be affected are bound to be detrimentally affected. It is an open point whether they will be financially damaged, and I do not have the expertise to offer a view. Some have said that it will affect some of the smaller schools and may impact on their future; others have said that they will be able to make up the difference and that it will not be a problem.
Whatever happens, the Bill will change the character of private schools' admissions and limit the diversity of pupils. That is unhealthy and undesirable, and it flies in the face of the tradition of a range of people being educated in one school, with all the social and cultural benefits that accrue from such an experience. In that sense, the Bill will damage those schools.
When people think of private schools, they always think of the "Tom Brown's Schooldays" type of school--the grand public schools, the great schools. They do not remember that many of the most radical schools in the education system could have flourished only in the private sector. Would A. S. Neill's Summerhill or the Rudolf Steiner schools have existed under an LEA? Of course not. We should have a broader, more wide-ranging view about the impact that the Bill might have on the private sector and the relationship between the private sector and new ideas and the evolution and development of education.
"Where there is no local shortage of places, and schools are reasonably close, the change could be implemented simply by re-distributing admissions from schools with larger classes to schools with smaller classes. No new teachers or classes would be needed."
5 Jun 1997 : Column 588
However, to bring that about, we would have to return to the bad old days of direction, which we had under previous Labour Governments. People would be told, "Because you live in this area, your children will attend that school," and there would be no question of choice.
Mr. Hayes:
My hon. Friend highlights the history of admissions. Hon. Members will remember that the previous Government freed up admissions. That did not mean that everyone got their first choice--Labour Members said that, as everyone did not get their first choice, no one should have a choice--but it meant that, as schools were able to expand to take in more pupils, many more got their first choice of school than did under the previous Labour Government. Under Labour, admission limits were set rigidly, in a way that frustrated choice, propped up bad schools and limited the flexibility of heads and governors in admissions.
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