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4.30 pm
Now that the Government are in their fourth year of office, it is odd that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said, they are adopting some of the ideas that were central to the previous Government's drive to raise standards in education. That is especially true of the policy on city academies. However, it is regrettable that Ministers do not appear to have the courage to pursue some of their sensible, correct and logical ideas to their logical end.
If the Government believe that the scheme constitutes a formula for raising education standards in the inner cities, and that the new arrangement of establishing private, independent schools, which are funded by the state, and are able to select pupils on ability or aptitude, is a means of raising standards in some schools, why do they limit that agenda to schools that have failed and are being closed down? I have frequently asked Ministers that question, but I have yet to receive a convincing or plausible response.
If raising standards can be achieved by giving greater freedom to inner-city schools, allowing them to select at least a proportion of their pupils and to interview all applicants to the school, which means that they exercise a sort of selection over the whole intake, why will not that method raise standards in all schools in the inner cities and perhaps more widely? Why do Ministers believe that the scheme is relevant only to urban areas? Would not it be appropriate to explore its wider application?
Amendments Nos. 84, 85 and 86 attempt to widen the application of the scheme. I have tabled the amendments in a spirit of hope that Ministers will start to elucidate some of their thinking, and perhaps let hon. Members and the outside world into the secret of their aim. Apparently, they dare not speak its name. They are prepared to establish--[Interruption.] The Secretary of State is chuntering quietly. I hesitate to step into the schoolmaster's role, but if he has something to say, perhaps he will share it with the whole class. I suggest that he does not know what the end result of his policies will be. If he does, he must realise that it has far-reaching implications. He is beginning to lead us down a road that has some attraction. I compliment him on his first steps on the road.
If the Secretary of State believes that it is appropriate to remove failing schools from the control of local education authorities and that that is a recipe for raising their standards, why does not he accept that the lesson has a far wider application? If he goes further--he seems determined to do that--and provides that not only control of the school, but even its ownership should be transferred from the local education authority, why should the policy apply only to a few failing schools in urban areas? If he believes that it is possible to raise standards in some of our failing schools in inner cities by, like the previous Government, allowing selection on the basis of specific aptitudes or abilities--for example, technological, scientific, artistic or sporting expertise--why will not he tackle the point that I made in amendment No. 85?
Why does the Secretary of State not believe that it is also possible to raise standards by allowing schools to select 10 per cent. according to their aptitude or ability in mathematics, or English language or literature? There is no logic about why it is possible to raise standards for education in the cities by allowing selection according to some areas of skill and aptitude, but not others. We await the Secretary of State's response.
Mr. Blunkett: Oh, I will respond.
Mr. Brady: The Secretary of State promises a response, and it would be nice to imagine that it will be coherent and sensible. He oscillates between saying something that he apparently means and then dismissing it as a joke, so we have not really received any intelligent comments from him on the issue. Apparently, he does not think that these are legitimate matters for debate and he is not prepared to be straightforward and clear with the House or the public about his objectives.
The Secretary of State's city academies are leading in a clear direction which, as I said, may be positive. However, he must answer my questions if he is to convince anyone at all that he understands the implications of his own policies. To say that it is possible to select 10 per cent. of a school's intake according to aptitude for technology, but not to accept that it is possible to select 10 per cent. for aptitude for technology, 10 per cent. for science and 10 per cent. for sports is illogical. That might not be appropriate for all schools. Indeed, I am sure that it would not be. However, it would be sensible--[Interruption.] I am pausing in the hope that the Hansard Reporters can pick up the Secretary of State's response, as I would certainly be intrigued to hear it.
Amendment No. 86 puts forward the following option. Why is it possible to improve standards in schools only by allowing selection according to one small defined element of aptitude? Why not two? Might it not be worth pursuing that? How about sport and mathematics, or sport and languages? Those are perfectly sensible combinations which do not necessarily add up to 100 per cent. selection according to general ability. I have yet to hear a cogent explanation of the Government's position.
I have tabled three amendments which, taken together, would advance the Secretary of State's policy a few years and accelerate it in the direction in which he is already moving. Amendment No. 84 would make it possible to allow 10 per cent. selection in a school predominantly for local children which teaches a broad curriculum. It would also permit an option--not a requirement--which would
add a further string to the Secretary of State's bow and allow some city academies to select pupils on the fair, not arbitrary, basis of ability.The Secretary of State believes that it is possible to assess children's ability on the basis of an interview and to see how suitable they are for a sporting, scientific or technical college. However, apparently he has some difficulty with the idea that one might undertake that selection by means of examination. Again, I fail to see what sets his mind so firmly against the idea of examination. Arguably, given that the Government and Secretary of State speak so much about social exclusion, they might possibly--indeed, logically--take the view that an interview is a more difficult hurdle for someone from a working-class background in an inner-city area to cross than an examination. Indeed, the Secretary of State's right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently thinks that that is the case. Of course that is why he thought that entry to some of our best universities was unfair, and he attacked them partly because of their practice of allowing entry by interview. The Secretary of State was one of the few members of the Government to back up his right hon. Friend on that ill-considered foray into the media.
If the Secretary of State strongly believes that it is wrong to allow universities to select by interview because that is an agenda for social exclusion, why does he not feel the same about selection to the schools that he wants to set up under the Bill? Why does not he believe that allowing pupils to be interviewed for places at city academies will also involve a form of social exclusion?
I do not want to be prescriptive or to push schools in one direction or another. I want to allow people to follow another avenue and use another option under amendment No. 84. There may be a need or an opportunity for schools, especially those in some of our bigger cities, which choose to select pupils of high ability by examination--arguably the least arbitrary way in which to assess the ability of applicants--to pursue a less broad, perhaps more academic curriculum. That is only a short step away from the Secretary of State's proposals, and it could be possible under a small amendment that would simply allow another option--additional specialisation in some city academies. I should be interested to know why the Secretary of State thinks that that cannot work.
I want to hear a sensible response from the Secretary of State on why it is possible to select pupils according to ability in some spheres, but why he thinks it unfair, immoral or elitist--I do not know which--to select them according to their ability in other spheres. Why it is good to select according to scientific or technical ability, but never according to mathematical ability? That is the odd position in which he has lodged himself.
Why does the Secretary of State believe that it is right to select on some occasions, but not on others? Why does he apparently believe--he was reported as having said this--that the selective system at Trafford in my local authority, where we achieve the best results in the north-west, is reducing opportunities and standards of attainment in local schools? I am sure that even he, in his serious moments, would accept that that is a fairly odd assertion. However, a little way down the road in the centre of Manchester, he would be happy to set up an education system in his new city academies that would replicate some of the elements that work so well in my own area.
The House has covered some of that territory in considering legislation on grammar schools, which are dealt with in another group of amendments, but the Secretary of State cannot avoid or brush aside many of those matters given that he wants to introduce city academies. There is no real distinction of principle or logic between what he wants the city academies to do and what he apparently objects so vehemently to in other schools. He and his colleagues have given no reasonable, cogent justification for the Government's different stances on those different, but related policies.
I tabled amendments Nos. 84 to 86 in the hope that the Secretary of State would take the opportunity to explain--
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