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Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): I am very interested in the hon. Gentleman's line of argument. Would he also argue that schools should not be able to select on the basis of sex?

Simon Hughes: No. There needs to be choice: we need boys schools, girls schools and mixed schools. As we know, the issue is that more parents of girls want their children to go to single-sex schools than do parents of boys. In Southwark, we have ended up with a shortage of boys schools, because the former Inner London education authority closed some of them. Now, we have suddenly realised that there is an imbalance. The issue is difficult. In my judgment, it is better to go to a mixed school because such schools are more like society in the real world; however, people should be able to choose.

Geraint Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that all Church schools should be part of a co-ordinated scheme, or that the current common admissions policy should apply, whereby they cannot use religious criteria to filter out certain people? Is it by definition fair if they simply join the co-ordinated scheme?

Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is right, and there are two issues. First, all schools in London should be in the system. People should not be able to get into a secondary school unless they apply through the common admissions policy. Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman and I well know, we are long way from having a common set of admissions criteria. My personal view—I say this a Christian, a member of the Church of England and the chairman of governors of a school—is that no faith school or non-community school should be allowed to have more than 25 per cent. of pupils from the faith or denomination in question. Otherwise, there is disproportion, and problems can arise if one sets up Buddhist schools, Muslim schools
 
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and so on, because they can lead to racially divided schools. That is not my party's view, but it happens to be mine.

Angela Watkinson: I was dwelling on what the hon. Gentleman said about admissions to faith schools. Does he agree that one main reason for the success of denominational schools is that everybody—pupils and parents—subscribes to their ethos? If a significant proportion did not, the whole nature of such schools would change.

Simon Hughes: I understand that argument, but I do not accept it. I visited a Muslim school in Brent the other day and I have visited many other such schools. In my view, many people buy into a school's ethos even if it is not their own personal ethos. Many people who do not go to church want their children to go to a Church school because they like the ethos, and because they want their children to be brought up in a school that is run according to Christian principles. It is a matter of judgment as to whether 50 per cent. of pupils need to be practising Christians. In my judgment, one can sustain the ethos of any school—be it a Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim school—provided that a quarter or more of pupils come from the background in question. That said, the issue is of course open to debate.

I am clearly against the Greenwich judgment, which is wrong. It is sad that the Tories and Labour did not repeal it—[Interruption.] If I might have the Minister's attention for a second, I encourage him to repeal that judgment and I shall tell him why. Of course, there are schools that are near boundaries, but one builds up communities by allowing people to go to a school that is in their borough. A school must be able to say, "You live in this borough, so we are going to give you priority." At the moment there is flight all over London, as we all know, which does nothing to enhance community.

Of course people must be expected to travel to school; indeed, in rural areas there is often only one school and people have to travel for miles. But the Greenwich judgment is bad for communities and for community building, and I ask the Government to look at it again seriously. To do so would be of equal benefit to the much more prosperous boroughs such as Richmond, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) is the Member of Parliament, and to boroughs such as Lambeth and Southwark. It is not going to be more disadvantageous to inner London.

Kate Hoey: I agree wholeheartedly with that. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the effect can be seen in the new academy in Lambeth, which was fought for and campaigned for so strongly by Lambeth parents, who were so short of secondary places, only for them to discover that nearly half the pupils would come from Wandsworth, making it no longer feel like a Lambeth school?

Simon Hughes: As so often, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and her neighbour agree across the borough divide.
 
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During the year, people also arrive in London and seek school admission. We need the ability to tell a school that it must up its numbers to accept pupils who are without a school in the middle of the year. Only small numbers are involved, but taking a rigid view that no child can ever be admitted because the school is full is not right. In fact, the school may be full in notional number terms but not physically full and I hope that attitudes can be changed in that respect.

On pupil and staff numbers, recruitment and retention, I want to reinforce the point that I made earlier: we must look seriously into the falling number of qualified primary school teachers. I have the Government figures from parliamentary answers and it is clear that the pupil-teacher ratios are worsening in primary schools. Yes, school assistants and others are available, but at the end of the day we need enough teachers to do the job. How do we recruit more of them, and what are the priorities?

There is a real need to recruit more men to teach, particularly in primary schools. There is a real need in London to recruit primary school teachers from the minority ethnic communities and from the black community so that we have an ethnic mix with appropriate role models. There is also clearly a need to do something about senior management. The Government are alert to the view that some school principals, heads and senior staff are brilliant, but some, bluntly, are not. My view is that there should be a five-year contract, which would allow us to get rid of senior staff after five years if they were not up to scratch. We have to be ruthless about that. Unless there is a good person leading the school, the school will not do well. I hope that we will look further into that problem. Finally, we need to provide more housing in London. The Government have made a good start, but we are not nearly there yet.

I now have time only for a shopping list in respect of what further needs to be done. Please will the Government pick up on the point that one of the Minister's predecessors acknowledged was important some years ago—starting mentoring in the last year of primary school so that it follows through into the secondary school when, for all sorts of reasons, initiative may drop off?

Secondly, let us go on encouraging play and sport, recreation and swimming. The old political correctness of the 1980s—that competitive sport is no good—has left a sad legacy. Schools desperately need things for energetic young people to do. To be honest, the more swimming and other sports that schools can offer, the better.

Thirdly, the Minister is right—and the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has been brilliant on the issue—that unless we improve the performance of black teenagers and white working-class teenagers, London is in big trouble. In that context, we have to bring down the number of exclusions, particularly of black teenagers, because otherwise we will create an enormous social problem. I disagree fundamentally with what appears to be the new Tory policy. There should always be the possibility of appeal against a decision to exclude. Occasionally, schools can get into a mindset against a particular pupil without very good reason. In those circumstances, there must be an independent appeals system.
 
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We must remember that, at 14, a non-academic pupil may want to go out and do some work. Sitting at the back of a boring class is not much use for such pupils and the more chance they have of gaining work experience from 14, the better.

New buildings are great and we should support the Government in replacing the poor buildings, but we need the buildings and facilities to be open throughout the week, not just in school hours. We also need genuine community facilities.

Finally, my colleagues in Southwark would never forgive me if I failed to mention the need for more money. We are waiting for the comprehensive spending review and I gather that the building schools for the future programme has not sorted out the funding gap between the resources provided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and those provided by the Department for Education and Skills. My colleagues are awaiting the reconciliation that will allow the schools to be built.

I finish with the point that the best investment is not in the buildings, but in the people—the heads, the staff, the teachers and then the pupils. We can make do with a relatively ropey building if the right people are in it. We are moving in the right direction. I salute the Government, but I hope that they get admissions and appeals right and that we get the Greenwich judgment repealed. We will then be moving even further in the right direction than we are now.

2.24 pm

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