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Mr. Byers: Try using another example.
Mrs. Laing: I defend the right of the Prime Minister and some of his colleagues, as I defend that of thousands of parents throughout the country, to choose which school to send their children to. I shall continue to defend that right, but will the Minister defend it?
Can parents who currently send their children to grant-maintained schools outside their area or who exercise other choices in education, which they were given by our policies, continue to do so? If they have one child in a grant-maintained school outside their area, will parents be able to exercise that choice in future for the child's younger siblings? I believe that the Minister is not listening; perhaps he is not interested in my question. I defend not only the Prime Minister's right to choose,
but that of hundreds of thousands of parents throughout the country. It would be interesting to know this afternoon whether parents will continue to have that right.
I have another question to ask about admissions policy. Heads and governors may be quite happy with a class of, let us say, 32 or 33 pupils. Will the LEA or the Department for Education and Employment tell the heads and governors of a grant-maintained school that they may not keep 32 or 33 pupils in a class? I do not believe that the matter will arise in practice, because I do not believe that the funding will be available to produce the additional teachers and classrooms that will be necessary. However, if, in theory, the funding were to become available, would heads and governors be told that two or three children must leave the school because a class contained more than 30 pupils?
It is nonsense to say that the quality of education depends on the number of children in a class. Hon. Members of my generation should think back to their own childhood. I was taught in a class of 40 from the age of five to the age of 10, and there was nothing wrong with the way in which I was taught or what I was taught. Many who were in that class with me have gone on to be extremely bright and high-achieving people. It did them no harm to be taught in a class of 40. There is too much emphasis on such bureaucracy.
The White Paper is full of fine platitudes and vivid pictures. It is full of words such as "crusade", "pledge" and "passion", but it says nothing that will lead to higher standards, apart from the fact that, as I pointed out earlier, there are certain policies that started off as our policies and which have been given different names. They are still the same policies, however, and I do not blame the Government for taking them forward, but I condemn the Government's hypocrisy. For 18 years, they criticised us for doing the very things that they now want to do.
We also see in the White Paper plenty of old Labour--many of the principles that have always been in Labour's education policies. What the White Paper really says is that if all children cannot have the very best of education, no children should have it. That is what it is saying by ignoring parental choice and grant-maintained schools, and by ignoring particular instances and always speaking about the generality.
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow):
The White Paper is an attempt to bring a more level playing field to our children. I hesitate to talk about playing fields, however, because in Tower Hamlets in my constituency, not one single school has a playing field, never mind a level one. The disparities at every level in the education system are great and must be overcome. That is what the White Paper sets out to do.
My mother was a teacher who taught in inner London for more than 20 years. She often lamented the fact that many children arrive at school unteachable. We have
heard much talk about fitting school leavers for society, but less talk of making our society fit to educate our children.
William Blake's dictum that we become what we behold is as probable as it is chilling. That is why we must acknowledge that responsibility for education goes beyond the school gates--and, indeed, beyond the front door. Heaping all the blame on the education system, as Conservative Members often do, is analogous to blaming the current deficit in the water supply on that liquid's malicious tendency to find its own level, rather than on the water companies' failure to mend their own pipes.
I applaud the Government's commitment to raising educational aspirations and to placing education at the heart of society's agenda. My generation wants training and high-quality education to equip us for the skills revolution that is already taking place. The rate and the speed of change is phenomenal. My generation has the weight of history on our shoulders and the light of the next millennium in our eyes, but we need the force and the strength of government behind us. That is why I am grateful to the Government for putting education at the top of the agenda. Let us make no mistake: we can deliver for Britain only if Britain delivers for us. That means an education system for the many, not the few, which involves the many, not the few.
That is what we have done in Tower Hamlets: we have reached out to a wide range of companies and City institutions and to families and parents, because we realise that it is everyone's responsibility. Improvements can be seen everywhere in my constituency in terms of staying-on rates, the number of children passing examinations, nursery education and school attendance rates. The number of 16-year-olds with five or more GCSEs has trebled in Tower Hamlets since 1989. We also have the highest level of nursery provision of any London borough.
We are doing what we can, but it is unfair that we must still battle against the vagaries of inner-city deprivation that set back so many of our children. I have some experience of the difficulties facing children in those schools, because I am the only Member present in the Chamber who endured the Thatcherite experiment in education in the mid-1980s. You--I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker--Conservative Members have talked about how wonderful that experiment was. I suffered through it. My school saw class sizes increase and teacher numbers cut. I could choose from a diminished number of subjects. It is no good Conservative Members telling me that that did not affect my education--it did. I believe that you--if I do that once more, I am sure that I shall receive a severe reprimand. You are being exceptionally indulgent, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am most grateful.
My point is that my state comprehensive gave me a good education in spite of--not because of--the Government's actions at the time. That is why we must bolster and modernise the comprehensive principle. That is exactly what the White Paper does: it sets the goal of raising standards for everyone, which means equal opportunities for everyone. That brings me back to the question of level playing fields, or lack thereof.
It costs more to deliver education in Tower Hamlets. For example, the children in our classrooms speak 79 different languages, and a large proportion speak English as a second
language. Can we imagine teachers in Surrey having to deal with those problems? No, we cannot, because they do not. One in three children in my constituency come from a family where no one is in work. There is no culture of learning, which makes it more difficult for teachers.
This White Paper will find the political will to bring excellence to all our schools. I have learnt one lesson from my more senior colleagues. Most hon. Members on both sides of the House begin each 20-minute speech by declaring their sincere intention to be brief. I, too, shall be brief. I conclude by quoting the 19th-century French historian, Jules Michelet. In 1846, he said:
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome):
I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King), not only for being my Member of Parliament in London but for meaning it when she said that she would be brief.
I intend to be rather positive about the White Paper throughout, but I start with a note that is a little less positive. I received a letter yesterday from the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, which in normal circumstances would have been extremely welcome, but in this circumstance suggests that perhaps he has a sense of irony that I had not suspected, because he invited me last night to go to the Department to talk about the future of education in my constituency.
I had to reply to the right hon. Gentleman to say that I was afraid that I could not do so, because I would be in the Chamber discussing the capping order for Somerset, which will result in the loss of 90 teachers and in our class sizes going up, and will do immense damage to the education of children in Somerset. I speak with some passion about this, as a former leader of Somerset county council and former chairman of education in Somerset, and, indeed, having children now in Somerset schools. It seems an odd way to start the Government's mission to improve education standards, that their first executive action is to cut education in Somerset and thereby maintain the eighth year of real-terms cuts in the education service in the county.
That is the negative point. Now I move to the positive, because there is much in the White Paper to be commended. Indeed, much of it picks up points that came from people in my own area, when we launched a little consultation exercise in Somerset last year, which we called--not very imaginatively--2000 and beyond. It sought to put the local education authority in the context of the new millennium, and to look at what was happening in our schools, at people's aspirations for the education service in Somerset and at how we could meet those aspirations and find better ways of providing an education service.
Much of what is highlighted in the White Paper picks up on themes that were suggested in that consultation process. We heard the notion expressed this afternoon that class sizes do not matter. I have to say that they do. Of course, it is possible to have good teaching in a large
class, just as it is possible to have poor teaching in a small class, but, on the whole, smaller class sizes mean more attention for the individual child and a better standard of teaching.
To bring down class sizes, a variety of measures will need to be taken--not just revenue should be available to employ teachers, but capital should be available to provide classrooms. That is a big problem in much of the country. In Somerset, we currently have 900 temporary classrooms, which is a ridiculous state of affairs. No one would run a commercial estate in that way, yet that is what Somerset is required to do. The capital that is needed to provide smaller classes and high-quality teaching is an essential element.
There is a call to address better the issues of citizenship, parenting and life skills. Those points came from parents, teachers and other people who are interested. The dissemination of good practice is another vital point. So often we seem to find LEAs and individual schools busy developing their own theory and practice without exchanging ideas and best practice. Surely the Department and LEAs play a vital role in ensuring that good practice is disseminated more freely.
I was so pleased to hear a Minister say a good word about teachers. It has been a long time coming in recent years. Teachers, by and large--with a few exceptions, of course--do an excellent job. Unless we say that every now and again, it will be hard to maintain the morale that is so essential if we are to have excellence in our teaching community.
I am pleased to see the progress--although, as I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), it is limited--that is being made on early years education. Like many other people, I am convinced from my own experience that the quality of early years education is essential to the rest of the educative process. We must put the investment in at that point--but properly, not through the voucher scheme, which not only failed to create a single extra place for four-year-olds in Somerset, but put into reverse the existing process of providing specialist nursery classes. If we can provide quality nursery education, we shall be making the investment that this country so desperately needs.
I am pleased to see that there is to be some reinforcement of the role of local education authorities. I believe that they have an important role to play, not in terms of controlling and managing what happens in schools, but in providing quality assurance, support and advocacy not only for the process of education, important though that is, but for the individual child within the school. That is the role of the LEA, and that is what good local education authorities are already doing. Let us see that buttressed by Government support.
I was pleased to hear so many hon. Members on both sides of the House warn against complacency in our schools. The Minister for School Standards concentrated on that in his speech. Standards must be raised in all schools, however well they may be achieving already.
It is easy to identify failing schools and to say that those are the ones that need the attention. However, it is more difficult to tell a school that is doing well--a school that may have a predominantly middle-class clientele and sail through its Ofsted inspection with a satisfactory report--"You, too, should be doing better, because, with the assets and skills that you have, you could get more out of each individual child." It is essential that that should happen.
I hope that the Minister will take proper account of the Audit Commission report, "Trading Places", in whose production I played a part, as I was member of the Audit Commission at the time. The policy gridlock described in the report is still in place and I see nothing in the White Paper to remove it. Indeed, there is a possibility that the reduction of class sizes will make things worse by adding to that gridlock. I do not know quite how one adds to a gridlock--perhaps by putting roadworks in the way. None the less, there is an added dimension there, which Ministers need to address.
I shall finish soon, because I am aware that the time is approaching when the debate must be summed up, but first I should like to say a word about education in rural areas--a topic which touches on some of the points made by, among others, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench.
Much of what we see in education policy, as in so many other areas of social policy in recent years, is based on a suburban model, which assumes that there is a choice of schools within easy walking distance and that there is social interaction between different education communities. It also assumes that unit costs are largely comparable across the whole of a local education authority's area and that transport costs are not a major element within an authority's costings.
In rural areas, none of those assumptions applies. In rural areas, we have what are effectively monopoly suppliers, in the form of secondary schools that may cover a hinterland with a radius of 10 or 15 miles. That means that there is no easy option, no easy choice.
Specialist provision is more difficult, too. We have small village schools, which I value enormously both in Somerset and elsewhere, because small schools are often excellent. None the less, they have their own problems. Small secondary schools serving areas of low population have their problems too, especially for the sixth form. How are they to provide the width of curriculum adequately to cater for the education of their children? That is an area in which IT may play an additional part. The introduction of extensive IT could help provide children with a wider range of curricular experience and opportunity. As of yet, that opportunity is not available.
"What is the first part of politics? Education. What is the second? Education. And the third? Education."
I am delighted that, 150 years later, this White Paper is putting those ideas into practice.
1.48 pm
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