---

Mr. Blunkett: The energy that I felt came from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst(Mr. Forth), who broke into the school because I was there. He even tried to persuade the press to join him, although the head and the governors had banned him from the school.

Mrs. May: I am not certain that that intervention added anything to the debate. It merely suggests that the Secretary of State always runs away when he sees my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).

However, I am not surprised that the Secretary of State wants to change the subject, because he gets a little nervous when we talk about selection. Under the Labour Government, specialist schools can select pupils by aptitude. Under the right hon. Gentleman's excellence in cities programme, schools can select between 5 and 10 per cent. of their pupils by ability. That is the man who said, at a Labour party conference in 1995:

"watch my lips: no selection by examination or interview".

The right hon. Gentleman was pressed on that matter in an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, who pointed out that the excellence in cities programme states that selection

"will be based in significant measure on the results of National Curriculum tests, public examinations and other available tests data".

The right hon. Gentleman replied:

"Well they self-select so it's not a selection process based on a one-off examination . . . This is not about saying a small elite must be selected, must be educated well and, and, and".

He trailed off, because he had failed to understand that, under the excellence in cities programme, he accepts selection in schools, but that he denies some schools the opportunity to continue to be selective.

At present, a ballot for grammar schools is taking place in Ripon. Parents are working not only to save a grammar school, but to protect the school system in that town. Ripon grammar school and Ripon college have both served that town well for a long time. One of the greatest problems faced by parents is uncertainty, because of the disruption that will be caused if the school structure is changed, should the vote go against the grammar school.

The Government have failed on so many of their pledges. They have failed on their class size pledge: average class sizes are going up and the proportion of

21 Feb 2000 : Column 1261

pupils in classes of more than 31 is going up. Tell Bob Bushell, up at Northfold county primary school in Cleveleys, that class sizes are falling; he has to teach a class of 41. Yet again, we see the Government failing to deliver on their pledges in education.

The Government promised that their priority would be education, education, education. They have failed to deliver on their pledge to support grammar schools. They have failed to deliver on their pledge to let grant- maintained schools prosper. Class sizes are rising, bureaucracy is burgeoning and spending per pupil and spending per--

Mr. Vernon Coaker (Gedling): Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. May: Too late. I am sorry; I am just coming to the conclusion.

Jacqui Smith: This is the climax.

Mrs. May: I am just coming to the--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady. I really have heard enough from the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith). That is not the way to behave on the Front Bench.

Mrs. May: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The Government have failed to deliver on their pledge to support grammar schools. They have failed to let grant-maintained schools prosper. Class sizes are rising. Bureaucracy is burgeoning. The Government have failed to deliver on their funding pledges. It is little wonder that one teacher has told us:

"Look, I have never voted Conservative before, but there is one thing that might make me do so next time--this current Government."

Instead of education, education, education, we have had spin, trickery, betrayal. Labour is letting our children down. This country needs the common-sense policies that will give freedom to schools, allow parents to choose, trust the professionals, raise standards, provide the education that is right for every child and lead to excellence in education--common-sense policies that will be delivered only by a Conservative Government.

4.51 pm

The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"welcomes the Government's commitment to raising standards and achieving excellence for all from the early years to life-long learning after 18 years of neglect; recognises that education spending will rise as a share of national income over the course of this Parliament, in contrast to a decline of 0.3 per cent. between 1991-92 and1996-97; recognises the early success in lowering class sizes in the early years and the achievement of introducing the literacy and numeracy strategies which, with the hard work and commitment of teachers, have raised standards; supports the promotion of diversity which will deliver excellence for the many and not the few; recognises the role of specialist schools and the importance of

21 Feb 2000 : Column 1262

excellence in cities; supports the drive to raise standards in secondary schools through the extension of the literacy and numeracy strategies and an expanded programme of summer schools; recognises the value of teachers and supports the new proposals for performance-related promotion; recognises the role of school leaders; notes the increase of £1.8 billion in funding for schools and Local Education Authorities in England for the coming year and the role of the fair funding framework in tackling excessive bureaucracy and ensuring that increased funding benefits classroom services; notes the increased resources made available to expand access and improve quality in further and higher education; and supports the Government's determination to build a socially inclusive knowledge economy in which learning and skills are the foundation of success and prosperity.".

I wish to address the motion in a way that the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) failed to do. She spent two thirds of her speech advocating that more money be spent on education. No Conservative spokesman could display greater cheek than the hon. Lady does in lecturing us on education spending. Over the period of the last Conservative regime, spending was slashed in real terms. In 1995, as the Conservatives started to slash education spending, governors, parents and teachers took to the streets even of market towns--even in places such as Maidenhead, which the hon. Lady represents--to march. They did so because they could feel the impact, in terms of what was happening in the classroom, what was happening to teachers and what was happening to the buildings around them.

If we examine just a little of what the hon. Lady is saying in the light of what happened to education under Conservative Governments and what is happening under ours, we shall obtain a better picture of the real legacy that she and her colleagues bequeathed to us.

Back in 1995, people were demanding on the streets an end to the retrenchment that had led to schools without books, to crumbling classrooms, to a total failure to introduce any policy on information and communication technology, to a failure to implement any form of literacy and numeracy strategy, to a lack of any form of programme to reward teachers, and to the absence of any method of relaxing the curriculum to allow teachers--in the language of the Conservative motion--the freedom to determine for themselves how to set about the task.

Although the hon. Lady did not mention the fact, the motion speaks of the

"obsession with targets and diversion of funds to meet political goals".

Well, I plead entirely guilty to that. Those political goals are absolutely clear. We made a class size pledge. In infant schools, there were 485,000 youngsters in classes of over 30; now there are 171,000, and the number is falling. In primary education, for 10 years, class sizes increased year on year; for the first time, we have stabilised and reduced them. Average class sizes and pupil:teacher ratios are falling for the first time in 10 years.

Yes, we have made a commitment to introduce sure start programmes to invest in the foundations of children's education and development. Yes, we have used ring-fenced money, which did not go into the revenue support grant, specifically to introduce new provision for the early years, to ensure that all four-year-olds have the choice of a nursery place, if their parents wish it, and to double the places available for three-year-olds. There was no programme; there was simply a voucher system for four-year-olds. That is what we inherited. We have

21 Feb 2000 : Column 1263

insisted that there should be an improvement in the adult:pupil ratio in our schools; so, over the next two and a half years, 20,000 teaching assistants--directly paid for with ring-fenced money--will be available.

The hon. Lady mentioned Sheffield. Through excellence in cities, we have now ensured that match funding does not have to be found in the six major conurbations to which the earmarked, specialist funding is provided. We will therefore be able to transform the life chances of children in our major cities and we will do what the previous Conservative Government never did--target resources where they are really needed.

---