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Mr. Brady: Does my hon. Friend agree that the idea is particularly illogical in the case of grant-maintained schools, which were desperate to get away from their LEAs in the first place?
Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point to which, if he will forgive me, I shall allude further later, because it concerns one of the key differences between Conservative and Labour Members.
Another major concern is that the White Paper will result in more bureaucracy. That is clear beyond peradventure. It is littered with references to plans: school plans, local education authority plans, Department for Education and Employment plans, early years forums plans--plans, plans, plans. I am concerned that the end result will be a profusion of paperwork and a paucity of practical work that is of benefit to the schools that are at the heart of our debate. Clearly, plans involve costs--opportunity, time, staff and governor costs--and parental involvement is required. My anxiety is that we should have a good education service, not a high-quality bureaucracy with jobs for the boys and girls.
I am also concerned that the Department and the Secretary of State will be afforded greater powers that are not justified. A massive centralisation is proposed, involving an unjustified arrogation of new authority to the Secretary of State. It appears on initial inspection that the standards task force is to be largely a talking shop, but there is also to be a standards and effectiveness unit. That rings alarm bells in the heads of Conservative Members, because it is not clear what resources that body will have, how many staff it will employ or to what extent, if at all, it will be able to interfere in individual schools' affairs.
There is a reference to the Government's desire to create a national database with individual identification numbers for every pupil in the country. That worries me, and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me. It is not clear to me why that amount and specificity of information should be required centrally. That has an Orwellian ring about it and it is not justified in any way. It leaves schools and local education authorities both dependent upon and vulnerable to the whim of the Executive power.
One of the gravest defects of the White Paper is the scant attention paid to the intended treatment of grammar schools and grant-maintained schools. I speak with particular interest in both. I have an excellent grammar school in my Buckingham constituency, the Royal Latin school, where 98 per cent. of the children score grades A to C in five GCSEs. It has a superb head teacher, quality governors, motivated staff and assiduous pupils. That school is achieving and I say to the Under-Secretary of State in all candour that I hope that that it is not the intention of the Government to interfere with or detract from the autonomy of that school. If that is what is intended by the Government--the subject is to be farmed out to some subsequent consultation paper--Ministers will discover that those schools will not lightly give up the freedom or the excellence which they have secured for themselves.
If the Government are genuinely interested in the creation of a new consensus in education they must respect the autonomy of those institutions and appreciate their importance. The same goes for grant-maintained schools. There are a number of extremely competent ones
in my constituency, for example, the Waddesdon Church of England school. Since it became grant maintained, it has built a new science block and, to its credit, 58 per cent. of its pupils scored grades A to C in five GCSEs. That is an excellent record. Similarly, Brookmead combined school in the eastern part of my constituency has an excellent record. Since becoming grant maintained, it has built a science block and a swimming pool and has secured excellent results at key stage two. A situation to be admired--72 per cent. of its pupils score to the accepted standard in English, 78 per cent. in mathematics and 81 per cent. in science.
The final example of a grant-maintained school is that of Overstone school, with which I am particularly familiar, and which I have visited. It is an excellent institution with a superb headmaster and an excellent chairman of governors. It, too, has not only improved its facilities since becoming grant maintained, but its pupils have secured far better results than the national average at key stage two--68 per cent. of its pupils score to the accepted standard in English; 66 per cent. in mathematics; and 68 per cent. in science.
The Under-Secretary of State and her colleagues consistently emphasise that their preoccupation is with standards and not with structure. I suggest to my right hon. and hon. Friends that there is a problem between what they say and what the reality demonstrates. They cannot conceivably be objecting to the standards that those schools are delivering: rather, the objection is to their structure, and it is with their structure that the Government wish and intend to interfere. The Government are talking about replacing them with foundation schools and about fiddling around with the funding formula.
The hon. Member for Barking sniggered and sneered about grant-maintained schools throughout the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady). That is not justified. Even changing the name means new notepaper, additional costs, a greater burden and a diversion of time and resources away from the important subject of delivering quality education on to the needless frippery of educational administration. All because of Government decisions. I hope that Ministers will reflect upon that.
I welcome the fact that in the White Paper the Government have embraced the cause of the reform of teacher training. That is to their credit. I hope that it will work effectively in practice. It is, however, worth reminding ourselves of the background to the situation in which we now find ourselves. Within the "psycho-semiotic framework", the shared reading lesson is viewed as an "ideological construct" where events are layed out and children must learn to position themselves in three interlocking contexts. The Under-Secretary of State will be relieved to know that those are not my words, and I do not for one moment suggest that they are hers or those of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister: they are the words spewed forth from the pen of Kimberley, Meek and Miller, three practitioners in teacher training.
It is precisely that sort of unintelligible jargon, combined with growing evidence that a significant minority of children were underperforming in the three Rs, that provoked national alarm at the beginning of the 1990s. The former Secretary of State for Education and
Employment, my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), responded to that concern. The former Government established the Teacher Training Agency. Earlier this year, she made proposals for a core curriculum for teacher training. It appears that the Government intend to build on that. I welcome that decision, but I regret the delay in implementation of the curriculum.
I strongly counsel Ministers to ensure that the huge number of failing and inadequate Labour local education authorities, which are addicted to the egalitarian nostrums of the trendy teaching of the 1960s, do not get their hands on the process and prevent the use of the most effective methods of teaching, especially of the three Rs, in our schools. If they can implement the proposed reform of teacher training in the way that we would hope, there should be a consensus, which will be welcomed.
Several hon. Members mentioned the debate on class sizes on which I need touch for only a few moments. It seems clear--there has been a signal to that effect--that in Scotland at least, the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) recognises that it will not be possible to deliver on reducing class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds. Whether that will apply to England and Wales remains to be seen, but it is important that Ministers avoid two pitfalls.
First, we do not want increased central direction of admissions policy, which would mean that individual parental choices are no longer respected. Secondly, and this is especially applicable to hon. Members who serve rural constituencies, we do not want a forced exodus of pupils from popular but often small and overcrowded village schools to urban institutions that neither they nor their parents want. If that is what is afoot, and the Government think that the likely existence of surplus places will allow them to fulfil their general election pledge at the expense of the education opportunities and life chances of many children in rural areas, they are running a big risk.
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