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The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers): The reason we sought the Adjournment of the House last Thursday was that an agreement had been reached with Conservative Members that today's proceedings would be timetabled and completed at 10 pm.

Mr. Maude: I have no knowledge of any agreements made through the usual channels. If the Minister is threatening another guillotine motion so that the Government can again railroad the Committee, that is a different matter. I had hoped that he was pursuing the course of honour and reconsidering the Government's dishonourable position of seeking to break a pre-election pledge.

I return to my theme. In opposition, the Labour party threatened to abolish the whole scheme. Those engaged in the independent junior sector wrote, as is their entitlement, to the then Labour spokesman to inquire how that would apply to children in independent junior schools who had the benefit of assisted places. The answer they got in the first instance was unclear.

Cautiously and sensibly, the chairman of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools sought and got clarification. It is not as though the letter that I shall cite was poorly drafted, or dashed off on the back of an envelope. It was a considered letter sent by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), which makes a very specific pledge.

The pledge was essentially that any child in an independent junior school with the benefit of an assisted place would continue to have the benefit of it until the normal age of transfer out of independent junior schools, which is typically 13. For greater accuracy and the avoidance of doubt, I quote the letter, which states:

"Much will obviously depend on the school to which the child has been admitted. If a child has a place at a school which runs to age 13, then that place will be honoured through to 13."

I have examined the letter carefully to find whether there are any clues as to why that pledge should not be honoured in the legislation. I found no clues; it is a clear pledge. The only possible clue is that the letter is dated 1 April. The Government may mount the defence that it was an April fool and never meant to be taken seriously.

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): Does my right hon. Friend think that the fact that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) was not appointed to a ministerial position in the Department for Education and Employment suggests that the Government thought that they could, by that sleight-of-hand, slide out of the commitment that he had made on behalf of the Labour party and, therefore, one would assume, the Government? Does my right hon. Friend think that that washes as an excuse?

Mr. Maude: It is not for me to give an explanation. The only inference that we can draw is that the

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hon. Member for Walton gave a public pledge, in honour, and that the Government cynically, knowing that the pledge was to be dishonoured, chose to sideline him into the murky depths of the Cabinet Office, where he co-exists with the Minister without Portfolio.

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): On Second Reading, I made it clear on behalf of the Government that we would use discretion if circumstances were appropriate, but that we could not give a carte blanche on the primary or prep school assisted places scheme, which will be introduced from September. We could not say that it would apply universally to people who, presumably before this year's tranche of assisted places, could take up the scheme only from the secondary school point of entry. The hot air that is being described this afternoon and was described into the early hours of last Friday morning is, frankly, bizarre given the key pledges that we have made, on the record, about protecting the interests of those children who were in assisted places--I stress the word "were"--through to this summer.

Mr. Maude: I will come to that, because I intend to deal with what the right hon. Gentleman said on Second Reading. It is important and demands to be considered in detail.

Mrs. Gillian Shephard (South-West Norfolk): Clearly, this is a matter of concern. The Secretary of State said that discretion would be used. I wonder whether he has any comment on a letter that I have here from the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Trickett) to a Mrs. Brookes in connection with the education of her son, aged 10. This letter is dated 27 February and states:

"You were rightly concerned about possible disruption to your child's education. David Blunkett's office have confirmed that Labour will honour those existing places which have already been given. Your child will not be forced to move school."

I assume that that is one child in respect of whom discretion has already been exercised.

Mr. Maude: Time will tell. It is important for the Committee to hear the different ways in which the pledge has already been given, so that it can judge the extent of the breach of trust that we are talking about.

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): Before the Secretary of State gets too far away with trying to fudge that pledge, may I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to what is said in the letter that was sent out to head teachers about the extent of the discretion to which the Secretary of State referred? That letter states:

"There is provision for the Secretary of State to exercise limited discretion to extend support under the scheme in exceptional circumstances."

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is not much of a fig leaf there?

Mr. Maude: Again, I will discuss the way in which the Secretary of State sought on Second Reading and today to justify that breach of trust. My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. The terms in which that pledge was put in a letter shows that the discretion will not be wide ranging. The fact that it will be used in "exceptional circumstances" shows exactly the reverse.

Mr. Blunkett: I object strongly to the notion that there has already been a breach of trust when the measure has not

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yet been implemented. I must make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have some respect, that the pledges on the incoming prep and primary school assisted places, which the outgoing Government forced through the House, and the old secondary school places, which assured people--perfectly reasonably in my view--that we would not take away their places under that pre-dated scheme, are being combined.

The two are being put together, and hon. Members are trying to make an intellectual case that anyone taking up a place from September, prior to the age of 11 and going through to 13, should automatically be able to carry it forward. One cannot have it both ways--one cannot retrospectively pick up a pre-11 situation that did not exist and apply it to the secondary school level.

3.45 pm

Mr. Maude: This will not do. The Secretary of State has spoken kindly of me and I shall return the compliment. I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman is a dishonourable man, and I do not believe that he would deliberately put his reputation as a man of honour at stake. I urge him, even at this stage, to take the provision away to think about it. I regret to have to tell the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman is wriggling; he is seeking to disentangle himself from a pledge made in the clearest possible terms.

The Government did not have to make that pledge; they could have justified their position by saying, "No, we are sorry. If your child has an assisted place at a junior school, it must finish at 11; we do not care if that causes you hardship or if it disrupts plans that you as parents have made--that is just tough." That would have been a harsh decision, but it would have been an honourable position to have taken. It is dishonourable to have made the pledge in such specific terms and then to break it.

I urge the Secretary of State to turn his mind to the matter. The words are not capable of misinterpretation. The pledge was made in the plainest terms and, in the plainest terms, the legislation breaches it.

I shall return in a moment to the way in which the Secretary of State unsuccessfully sought to disentangle himself from the pledge on Second Reading.

Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): Does my right hon. Friend agree that what we are seeing is proof positive that the Labour party was prepared to promise anything and to tell people what they wanted to hear before the election, only to break the promises within a few weeks? We could not trust what the Labour party said before the election; in government, they are breaking their promises very quickly.

Mr. Maude: We Conservatives raise the issue much more in sorrow than in anger, although anger is amply justified. I shall return to the general point that my hon. Friend raised, as it is important and goes to the heart of the basis on which the Government were elected.

I shall now turn to the way in which the Secretary of State sought to extricate himself on Second Reading. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) asked a question that went to the core of the debate and the amendments. He said:

"Why is the Secretary of State going back on that pledge in clause 2 and finishing education at the age of 11? Is it not the clearest example of a breach of promise?"

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The Secretary of State replied using terms similar to those that he has used today. He said:


"I am very clear, and so is the Bill, that assisted places will remain in primary education up to the normal age of transfer at 11. Where an alternative transfer age applies in that area, the Secretary of State will have discretion, and my ministerial team and I will use it wisely to ensure that we do not have a situation where 500,000 youngsters transfer at 11, but other people think that they can transfer at 13, even if 13 is not the normal transferable age in that locality."--[Official Report, 2 June 1997; Vol. 295, c. 27.]

It is abundantly clear from what the Secretary of State said then, from what he has said today and from the letter that the Department has sent out and from which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere quoted a little earlier, that the Government have no intention of using the discretion contained in the Bill to give effect to the pledge made before the election.

If there is an interpretation to be put on what the Secretary of State said, it is that, where the state system of education in a particular locality allows for the transfer of children aged 12 from a middle school to a secondary school, as happens in some areas, discretion may be used to allow the assisted place to continue until age 12. We welcome that measure, which we think is a good one, but we think that it should not be left to discretion. The Secretary of State and his team invite us to place our trust in their wisdom and discretion. The Secretary of State may ask us to trust him, but we may not feel as disposed to do so as we did before this legislation.

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