House of Commons
Wednesday 20 October 1999
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Grammar Schools
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Robert Ainsworth.]
9.34 am
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West): I am delighted to have secured this debate on an important topic for the education of children in many parts of England. The question of the future of the grammar schools, which is sometimes dismissed by some hon. Members as a sideshow or an irrelevance, is deeply important not only for the schools concerned, which are doing an excellent job, but because of what it tells us about the nature of education and how education systems can be run most effectively for the benefit of all our children.
It will come as no surprise to hon. Members to learn that during the Wirral, South by-election--I see the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) in his place--the Prime Minister, who was at the time the Leader of the Opposition, told the electorate:
More recently, we have seen the Prime Minister declare to the Labour party conference that the class war is over. In that context, I thought that it might be useful to draw the attention of the House to some comments that have been made by Andrew Adonis, who is now an adviser to the Prime Minister on educational matters. In "A Class Act: the Myth of Britain's Classless Society"--published by Penguin Books in 1998--which Andrew Adonis co-authored with Stephen Pollard, a former research director of the Fabian Society, they state:
The Government implemented a one-way ratchet that allows the removal of grammar schools, but not the introduction of grammar schools. Labour Members claim that the issue is one of parental choice, but that is not true. Parents are free to choose not to have a grammar school, but they are not free to choose to have a grammar school. The ballot question is loaded, because it does not even refer to grammar schools or the intention to abolish them.
The balloting and petitioning system leaves many disfranchised voters. Parents with pre-school children or children at private schools are disfranchised for the purposes of the petition, although they can go to the trouble of registering for the purposes of the ballot. In the borough of Trafford, some 400 children attend St. Bede's college, which is a private Catholic grammar school, but they are funded as state grammar school pupils by the borough. The parents of those children are also disfranchised.
The petition provides for no mechanism to check whether signatures are genuine. The signatures will simply be checked against the list of eligible voters. The Government have not contracted the Electoral Reform Society to engage in any proper check or scrutiny of whether those people who appear to have signed a petition have in fact done so.
Two and a half years into the Labour Government's term, several grammar schools are threatened, including 33 in Kent, seven in Trafford, eight in Birmingham, three in Barnet and one in Ripon. Margaret Tulloch of the Campaign for State Education--CASE--has identified the five grammar schools in Sutton and Surrey as probable targets for this year. Why? In my view, the attacks are entirely prompted by mindless, outdated ideology. The whole debate on the Government's side has been dominated, tragically, by the ideas of an education system that Labour Members saw or experienced in the 1950s, not the reality of selective education as it is today.
In that context, I draw the House's attention to some press comment on the subject, especially from my own area. For example, the Manchester Evening News, although not noted for its right-wing sympathies, on 17 November 1998, in an editorial entitled "Caning the Able", stated:
Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead):
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will tell the House that the theme of my article was that both main political parties in this country have found it terribly difficult to get secondary education right. My article also stated that we should try to spread around the successes that are achieved, and that we should want all schools to succeed in their different ways, whether it be in technology, arts or languages. If that is to be our strategy, it would be as wrong to discriminate against schools because they are academically good as it would be to discriminate against others because they excel in some other aspect of education.
Mr. Brady:
Absolutely: I am delighted to confirm that that is the theme of the right hon. Gentleman's article. In this, as in many other areas of policy, the right hon. Gentleman's thinking is some way ahead of that of the Government and of many commentators. Later in my speech, I shall argue that the borough of Trafford, if it has not achieved the ideal that the right hon. Gentleman described, has at least approached it quite closely, as is shown by the overall standards and levels of achievement of its schools.
The success of grammar schools is well known and easy to identify. This year, half the top 200 places in the A-level league table were occupied by grammar schools, as were nearly half the top 300 GCSE league table places. In 1998, the 12 local education authorities at the top of the GCSE achievement tables all offered some elements of selection.
Labour Members may say that such results are surely inevitable, given that the most academically able children have been selected to go to those schools. However, I invite them to look at the overall achievements of the LEAs, as that evidence lays to rest the myth about the selective system. Of the 149 LEAs in England, 29 have a significant element of selection. In 1998, all the top five places in terms of performance were occupied by selective LEAs. Trafford came first, followed by Bournemouth, Sutton, Southend and Buckinghamshire. Twenty-three of the 29 fully or partially selective LEAs achieved above the LEA average for the country as a whole.
"A Labour Government would not close your grammar schools. That is my personal guarantee. I am not interested in closing good schools."
That may have given heart to parents in Wirral, South and other constituencies, but I am not sure that it is entirely consonant with events since the new Government came to power.
"The comprehensive revolution has not removed the link between education and class, but strengthened it."
They continue:
"In 1965, the Labour-controlled House of Commons resolved that moving to a comprehensive system would preserve all that is valuable in grammar school education for those children who now receive it and make it available to more children. Few would maintain that this has in fact been the case."
Later in the book the authors state:
"The comprehensive revolution tragically destroyed much of the excellent without improving the rest. Comprehensive schools have largely replaced selection by ability with selection by class and house price. Middle class children now go to middle class
20 Oct 1999 : Column 362comprehensives. Far from bringing the classes together, England's schools--private and state--are now a force for rigorous segregation."
That is what the Prime Minister's adviser thinks of the policy of further comprehensivisation of England's education system. However, one of the earliest steps taken by the new Government, in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998--I had the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee--was to introduce measures that placed the remaining grammar schools in peril.
"One may imagine that, with failing schools all over the country, the government would not want to waste any effort tinkering with those which are the most successful. You may think that an education system so popular that parents move home to take advantage of it would be safe from interference.
The article got the details of the School Standards and Framework Bill slightly wrong. It went on:
Yet the consistently high achieving grammar schools of Trafford are among selective schools which could be forced to go comprehensive as a result of a Commons vote today which will allow ballots among parents and feeder primary schools."
"It has been a long-held Labour philosophy that selective education is unfair. Latterly, it had seemed that the pragmatism of New Labour might allow them to turn a blind eye to those remaining pockets of non-comprehensive schooling.
20 Oct 1999 : Column 363
I am also pleased to see that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) is in the Chamber, as I should like to quote an excellent article that he wrote in the Sunday People:
Plainly, we were wrong to think that.
For the sake of their principles, the Government may be about to compromise the educational opportunities of generations to come."
"Grammar schools are the outstanding success of public education in this country. They act as beacons shining out so that all can see what can be achieved in the State system."
I entirely concur with those sentiments. I am especially pleased that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is here today, as it demonstrates that this issue is not confined to one political party.
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