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Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the House has not been in touch with me on that matter.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), will you give us an undertaking that we will have access to our offices in Norman Shaw north at all points during this week?
Mr. Speaker: It is my understanding that Members' offices will be available to them. Access is the concern, not the offices or entry to them.
BILL PRESENTED
Fisheries Jurisdiction
Mr. Alex Salmond, supported by Mr. Roy Beggs, Mr. Alistair Carmichael, Mr. Eddie McGrady, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Ann Winterton, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Angus Robertson and Mr. Michael Weir, presented a Bill to make provision for withdrawal from the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union; to amend the Fishery Limits Act 1976; to make provision about the exercise of functions under that Act by Northern Ireland Ministers, Scottish Ministers, the National Assembly for Wales and the Secretary of State; to provide that that Act shall have effect regardless of the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972; to define English, Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh waters; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 183].
Grammar Schools (Ballots and Consultation)
12.36 pm
David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 in order to remove the powers to hold grammar school ballots and to require the Secretary of State for Education and Skills before the end of the next Parliament to consult all maintained primary and secondary schools in each local education authority in England on the future arrangements for secondary school admissions within that authority; and for connected purposes.
- "was a response to the needs of a vanished society which required a small educated class and a large number of manual workers. It is no longer the appropriate model for a world where most jobs require educated men and women."
The idea of local ballots on the future of the remaining 164 grammar schools was introduced with a set of rules structured so that it is utterly impossible to win that ballot for change. Kafka would have swooned at the byzantine complexity of it all. It is that deeply flawed approach to consultation that my Bill seeks to set aside. That approach is shot through with anomalies, drawbacks and stumbling blocks, and it has led to only one ballot being held—in Ripon in 2000.
The practical difficulties and absurdities in the present arrangements inevitably prevent any parent, anywhere, ever again, from being given the chance to decide on the admission policies of their local grammar schools. The law must be changed. The view of every affected parent in the locality is key to the whole process, but must it be parents alone who can contribute to the debate and have a veto on change? Many educational writers argue that parental involvement in schools is too short term and too naturally entwined with the interests of their own children for them to see—in that classic Downing street phrase—the big picture. There is a strong argument that the whole community should vote, but my Bill does not tread that path. While parents are probably better placed than voters at large to know the effects of selection on children, the importance of the ultimate decision being theirs is more that it would be politically problematic for a future Government to override that decision locally or nationally, so I would expand the electorate only by including staff at local schools, whose opinions at present are either stifled or marginalised.
Mere tinkering with the regulations is wholly inadequate to extracting us from the quagmire that impedes progress. The many parents and schools seeking change are bogged down by apparent Government indifference to the outcome of local decisions. My party's commitment to lifelong learning and comprehensive education must mean the end of the division that segregation always brings for education and for society as a whole. Parental choice is actually denied where selection by examination persists, so the Government have to decide that they really want to see change. The educational and social imperatives that lead inevitably to that conclusion have to be spelled out by the Government in clear terms.
The vacuous vacillation that characterises the present arrangements is unsustainable. The status quo must go. The Government cannot just stand aside during a review, without giving any information, resources or commitments on future funding support for a reformed system, if that is indeed what parents and schools want to endorse.
My Bill's other provision would offer the Secretary of State an early opportunity to bring about historic and long-overdue reform in our nation's schools, for the enactment of the Bill would launch a large-scale, systematic and balanced debate on secondary school admission policies in each English local education authority. There would be no hiding place for the myths, distortions and half-truths that are routinely used to permit the continuance of those dodos in the educational aviary.
Some hon. Members and vested interests outside the House will fight to retain or extend secondary school selection by ability, or by its close relative, aptitude. They will doubtless cite past evidence from an imaginary golden era, when selection into grammar schools was said to offer the only escape from poverty for academic young people who would otherwise have had poorer educational opportunities, notwithstanding the fact that then, as now, grammar schools were predominantly socially selective as well—overwhelmingly peopled by children from better-off homes.
The dinosaur defenders would then fall back on the fallacious argument that standards in comprehensive education are sacrificed in an egalitarian levelling-down process. They say that the collective overall performance of schools is better in selective areas, but a proper value-added analysis and comparison of selective and non-selective LEAs shows clearly that community educational performance is actually depressed, not enhanced, in selective areas, so bang goes another stock myth.
Those who try to rationalise the irrational and promote the unpalatable will now be forced to dig deep into their reasons rag-bag. An old mantra from new Labour seeps into their thinking: people want choice and diversity, they will assert triumphantly. Sadly, in a selective system, only children able to pass the test on a wet Tuesday in February, and their parents, have more choice of school. Only when all schools in an area are comprehensive do families have access to a real and more meaningful choice.
So finally, in desperation, the republican guard around the final citadels of privilege will deploy their Exocet excuse. They will say, "What's wrong with
selection? It happens in real life." But selection takes no account of the fact that children develop at different rates. It sets at naught the facts that there cannot be selection for the few without rejection for the many and that selection separates children socially at an early age, dividing families and friends. Is that not social exclusion for those who may see themselves as failures?There is renewed pressure to end secondary selection—for example, the recent launch of a parliamentary campaign to modernise secondary school procedures, called "Comprehensive Future", the aims, values and philosophy of which are contained in early-day motion 1859. I hope and believe that my Bill is entirely consistent with those ideals. Last weekend, in the Caroline Benn memorial lecture, Professor Sally Tomlinson excoriated the present mania for diversity, which frustrates the comprehensive ideal.
Let me offer some final perspectives, all three from men educated in boys' grammar schools. First, Shakespeare was over-critical of selection when, in "Henry VI, Part 2", he wrote:
- "Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school".
The case for change is completely compelling. There is a mood for change out there; the means for change lie in here; the time for change is right now. I commend the Bill to the House.
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