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Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend has just said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). Does he not think that a considerable part of the blame for the bad teaching of, for example, reading lies with people like Kimberley, Meek and Miller—self-professed experts in the teaching of reading and well-known Marxist academics—who are on the record as saying:

"Within the psycho-semiotic framework, the shared reading lesson is viewed as an ideological construct where events are played out and children must learn to position themselves in three interlocking contexts."?

Does that sort of rubbish not account for the destruction of the life chances of a generation of children in our state schools?

Mr. Collins: I am always both amazed and impressed at the ability of my hon. Friend to memorise large sections of text. His ability to memorise that chunk of text is even more impressive than usual, and I am delighted to say that it leads me to a different point that I want to make that relates, funnily enough, to Marxist ideology. [Hon. Members: "Ah."] Professor Crampton, who is the professor of east European history at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford university—a man who therefore knows quite a lot about east European politics in general and Marxist regimes in particular—wrote a letter to The Times a few days ago about the comments, to which have I referred, made by Professor Sir Martin Harris, the new university access regulator. He said:

"Professor Sir Martin Harris is not alone in believing that class should play a significant role in determining university admissions policy; this was also very much the view of the communist-dominated regimes which came to power in Eastern Europe immediately after the Second World War."

He continued:

"Universities were given strict quotas on how many from each class they could admit with the result that, regardless of aptitude, intelligence, interest or attainment, it became very difficult or even impossible for those stigmatised as 'bourgeois' to gain entrance into university."

My hon. Friend, in his characteristic way, has perhaps put his finger on the sinister thing that may be behind what the Government are about.

Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge) (Lab): In the hon. Gentleman's little rant about reading standards, he ignores the fact that examination results at the ages of 14 and 16, and at A-level, are now better than they have ever been. We should be proud of that. It is useful that we are raising standards in the secondary sector, but I want to refer back to the class issue for a moment. Is it not true that students from non-traditional backgrounds, whom we discussed extensively during the debates in the Committee that considered the Higher Education Bill, have lower aspirations and very often, because they do not know anyone who has attended a top university, do not apply because they think that the university is expensive or not for them? We as politicians, as well as the universities, certainly have a great deal of work to do in persuading those youngsters that they can apply and that they can succeed.
 
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Mr. Collins: The hon. Lady makes two interesting and important points. Her first point relates to exam standards, and I refer to the findings of the Government's own Tomlinson report, which indicates that there are accelerating and growing problems with basic functional literacy and numeracy among large numbers of young people who leave school with very good exam results. That is very much what employers are saying. If her view is that literacy and numeracy are getting better in this country, I wish she was right, but I am afraid Tomlinson concludes emphatically that that is not the case.

As for the point about some students from non-traditional backgrounds being put off because they think that university is expensive, what on earth does the hon. Lady think that the implications of introducing top-up fees will be in respect of their assessment of whether university is too expensive for them? I point out that the former Secretary of State for Education and Skills—now the Minister for the Arts, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris)—said:

"for many lower income families the fear of debt is a real worry and could act as a bar to higher education".

Absolutely. Under the Government's proposals, students will have twice as much debt when they graduate as under Conservative proposals.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Ivan Lewis): Going back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), does the hon. Gentleman accept that not one child who has benefited from this Government's literacy and numeracy strategy in primary schools has gone into further education, higher education or the labour market, and when people claim that there are no improvements in literacy and numeracy they miss that fundamental point?

Mr. Collins: The Minister appears to have misunderstood his own Government's figures. They indicate that the literacy and numeracy hour— an invention of the previous Conservative Government under the superb Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard)—did produce some notable progress in literacy and numeracy attainment levels until 2000. In other words, that was in the pipeline—it was working through—but then, at the point when it might have been expected that a Government who had been in office for three years would begin to make a difference, it ground to a halt, and in each successive year since 2000 there has been no further upward movement in literacy and numeracy standards.

I am delighted that the Minister has, inadvertently, I suspect, paid tribute to the superb attainments of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk when she was the Secretary of State for Education, but I am afraid that that is not something from which he and his colleagues can take any comfort or credit.

Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way in his powerful speech, but as a further point on numeracy for the hon. Member for Cambridge, would he like to comment on the fact that Oxford university, which has figured rather heavily
 
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in the discussions so far, has so despaired of the school mathematics system in this country that it now has a four-year mathematics course instead of the three-year course of a few years ago?

Mr. Collins: My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point; there is an issue here that needs to be dealt with in the schools system, not in the university system.

I had intended to spend a moment talking about the absurdities of the 50 per cent. target, but I do not intend to do that, beyond recording that there are now more and more academics, including Professor Michael Sterling of the Russell group, and more and more employers, including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, who utterly reject the contention that the 50 per cent. target is either necessary or desirable.

That is again a fundamental difference between the two parties: the Government are obsessed with the 50 per cent. target, but we will scrap it. It is sometimes said that there is little to tell between the parties these days, but there are some big differences here. We believe in equality of opportunity; they believe in equality of outcome. We believe that universities should select on academic merit; they believe that just about anyone should be admitted. We believe in fitting the student to the rigours of academe; they believe that if they do not fit together, it is the course that should be dumbed down, not the students who should be better chosen. We believe that we should reward parents who work hard to teach their children to read, to familiarise them with books, to stretch their minds—and who, perhaps, even scrimp and save to get them better teaching. They believe that anyone who dares to encourage their children to rise above mediocrity should be ostracised and punished. We think that becoming a graduate ought to make life better for those graduates' children; they think that being a graduate means that their children should have less chance than them to follow in their footsteps. We believe in more science and more technology—more physics, biology and engineering. They just believe in more social engineering. We believe that universities should be free to decide their own admissions, their own access policies, and to run themselves. They believe that universities should be governed by an old-fashioned class warrior guided by legislators whose shoulders are groaning under the weight of all the chips, and kicked to the ground so that the state can keep its jackboot firmly on their windpipe.

Labour's old tribal loyalties and class hatreds have not gone away—they have just been hidden for a while. The mask is slipping. With an election coming, and core Labour voters to reassure, a blood sacrifice has to be made to the old socialist gods—and butchering middle-class aspirations will fit the bill nicely.

The stakes are high. The reputation, integrity and independence of our universities are in danger. Conservatives will fight for merit, excellence and real fairness. It is essential for our country that we should prevail.

3.59 pm

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