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Mr. Curry: And no more successful.
Mr. Brady: Quite right. The Government do not appear to know how to offer people a genuinely free choice: rather than risk a decision that is openly taken, they stack the odds and rig the system.
To suggest in the ballot question on grammar schools that the effect would merely be to ensure that grammar schools are opened to admit all regardless of ability is nonsense, but there is a real danger that such a ruse will mislead parents. As if that were not enough, the ballot rules have been broken by Trinity Church of England high school in Hulme, which five months ago wrote to Trafford parents enclosing literature from the stop the 11-plus campaign. I complained four months ago about that clear breach of the ballot code, but it has taken until now for the Department to rule on the subject. In the Department's letter, the Secretary of State upholds the complaint, but takes no meaningful action; instead, he merely says that the school must write to the parents explaining why he has found that it did the wrong thing--not that the school must write setting out the opposing argument and thereby ensuring that the damage to the possibility of a fair and properly conducted ballot is undone.
Nothing in the Secretary of State's disciplinary action means that the false information given out will be balanced. Even though several parents have received campaigning literature that has been sent out at public expense and can be construed only as an attempt to influence the outcome of the ballot, the Secretary of State is "satisfied" that the school involved did not intend deliberately to breach the legislation, but is
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
This has been a fine debate, characterised by some outstanding contributions, principally those from my right hon. and hon. Friends.
My hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead(Mrs. May), the shadow Secretary of State, eloquently set the scene with a fearsome denunciation of the Government's failures in the past 33 months. She was followed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), who highlighted the inequity of the existing funding system and the need for change.
Subsequently, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), in a thoughtful and measured contribution, which will have commanded respect in all parts of the House, pointed to the success of existing provision in his part of the country and to the dangers of needlessly tinkering with that provision.
Not long afterwards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) gave a characteristically sparkling speech and an analysis of the education scene that was a veritable tour de force. In the course of that oration, my right hon. Friend pointed to the wisdom of the free schools policy and offered helpful advice for its development. He also explained to the House the benefit that he had derived from his education.
My right hon. Friend is renowned throughout the length and breadth of the land for his natural charm, courtesy and self-effacement, which prevented him from telling the House of the benefit that the country had derived from the magnificent education that he enjoyed. I need no such self-denying ordinance.
Sadly, the dismal failure in the debate was the truly risible speech from the Secretary of State, who sat arrogantly sniggering, sniffing and laughing at anyone who dared to disagree with a smidgen of what he had said or what he was doing. He showed himself guilty of the most gut-wrenching complacency, which will have appalled teachers, head teachers, parents, governors and pupils across the country, who are conscious of the besetting woes of our education system.
The Government's record is appalling. It is a litany of promises broken, trust betrayed and hopes destroyed. We saw once again this afternoon that the Government are insensitive to public concern and that their approach is characterised by shiftiness, a lack of principle and a simple incapacity to engage in straight dealing with regard to education.
Let us consider public expenditure on education. In Opposition, the then Leader of the Opposition said that over the course of the Parliament, Labour would raise the proportion of gross domestic product spent on education. The simple, irrefutable fact is that by the end of this
Parliament, that share will have declined from 5 per cent. bequeathed by the Conservative Government to 4.7 per cent. under the present Government.
Not content with misrepresentation on that score, Ministers seem to delight in exaggerating the increased education expenditure that is planned. They have calculated it on exactly the same basis as the health service funding increases, which resulted in John Ford, an adviser to the British Medical Association, saying that the Government had calculated the figures in--I quote, for the delectation of my right hon. and hon. Friends--"an unconventional way". In short, they fiddled the figures. The promises are bogus; the delivery is meagre, if not non-existent.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood pointed out the legitimate concerns that the chief inspector of schools has already expressed in his annual report about
After 33 months of Labour government, there are 48,581 classes containing more than 31 pupils. There are 3,500 pupils more in classes of more than 36. The head of economics at the leading firm of City accountants, Chantrey Vellacott--
Mr. Bercow:
--has pointed to the fact that the proportion of pupils in classes above 30 has risen by15 per cent. I am sorry about the ignorance of the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), but we can try to ensure that he is better informed about leading accountants in future.
The consequence of even the Government's modest reduction in class sizes at key stage 1 is a grotesque denial of parental choice throughout the country, as a result of which we are all getting letters of protest from parents, teachers and head teachers, telling us that they cannotrun education locally to meet the needs of pupils. [Interruption.] The Chief Whip, from a sedentary position, expresses his disapproval--[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) is not yet the Chief Whip, but he may be one day.
The hon. Gentleman will not escape from the other failure--the Government's disgraceful treatment of our grammar schools. Intervention, said the Secretary of State, will be in inverse proportion to success. Standards, not structures, the Government said. I have news for them. They cannot possibly object to the standards attained by grammar schools. It follows logically, therefore, that it is to their structure that Ministers mean-mindedly object.
Grammar schools are beacons of excellence in our education system, renowned for their academic results, their sporting prowess and their cultural achievements.
There is no reason to interfere with them, other than political spite and malice on the part of the Government, more than a dozen of whose Cabinet Ministers since 1997 climbed the ladder of opportunity afforded by a grammar school education. Now they want to kick the ladder of opportunity away from today's bright children from ordinary backgrounds.
Why do not the Government concentrate on doing something about education in Manchester, Hackney, Calderdale, Haringey, Islington and Leicester--in the benighted areas represented by Labour Members and undermined by inadequate, ineffective, politically correct Labour local education authorities? [Interruption.] I know that Labour Members do not like it, but there is a lot more to come, so they had better get used to it.
The Government's policy on school exclusions is equally stupid. They have a ridiculous, arbitrary, artificial target of reducing school exclusions by one third by 2002. What do the National Association of Schoolmasters/ Union of Women Teachers and the Secondary Heads Association say of that ridiculous position? They say that it is unacceptable for the Government and local education authorities to undermine the legitimate management role of the head teacher by imposing targets for exclusions because it will not serve the interests of the school or meet the needs of individual pupils. It is just a totem of political correctness that causes the Government to opt for an artificial school exclusions target.
Conservatives believe in free schools. We believe in the pursuit of excellence. We believe in giving heads and governors the freedom to employ the staff whom they want, to set the timetable that they want, to operate the arrangements that they want, and to determine the opening hours and the term times that they want.
"persuaded that the intention behind the letter of 28 September was to pass on information, rather than to support a particular side of the argument."
I do not have time to read out the leaflet that was sent out, but it is definitely a piece of campaigning literature that no reasonable person could construe as an attempt
to inform; on the contrary, it is an attempt to influence the outcome of the ballot. Ministers accept that it was sent out at public expense, bearing the imprint of a state-supported school. It prevents a truly fair ballot proceeding in the borough of Trafford.
"the absence of a transparent and educationally defensible mechanism for the equitable devolution of resources from central Government to local education authorities and from LEAs to schools. Such a mechanism is required."
On class sizes, the Government's performance is pitiful. There has been a tiny reduction at key stage 1 at a cost of £620 million to the British taxpayer, but for other primary school pupils, for secondary school pupils and for nursery school pupils as well, the classes are bigger, bigger, bigger in every case--up, up, up, in lingo that is interpretable by Labour Members.
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