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Mr. Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman thinks about these subjects, so I would like him to answer the following question. Which does he believe is more likely to produce an improvement in standards in a school: changing the structure of the school or ensuring that there is the necessary quality of teaching and leadership from the staff, irrespective of the structure?
Mr. Willetts:
This is the sort of false distinction that we hear. If I remember rightly, what we used to hear in 1997 from the Prime Minister was "Standards, not structures." The Bill reveals that he has come to recognise that one needs to change structures to help to get standards right. Of course, there are many other things that can be done to raise standards, including, as
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the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) rightly says, ensuring that there is good teaching.
I was hoping to try to find some scope for agreement. I think that we agree on the need for reform to improve education standards further, and I suggest that we may even have some agreement on how to reform. Instead of the ideological debate that took place for so long about what form education reforms should take, we now have evidence coming in from other advanced western countries about how to deliver effective education reform to raise standards. The evidence from the school choice experiments in America and from Sweden clearly shows that one can raise standards by having more diversity of provision, more freedom for schools and more choice for parents. Those are the principles that we believe lie behind sensible education reform the world over that successfully raises standards.
Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone) (Lab): On the point about evidence, has the hon. Gentleman looked at charter schools in America? Has he looked at schools in Minnesota and California? He made a point about Sweden, but if he looks at Europe he will see that the best results are in Finland, where there is a comprehensive system throughout the country.
Mr. Willetts: I believe that phonics is an important part of the literacy teaching arrangements there.
There is a lot of international evidence, and I have tried to address it, but I am happy to rest my case on an excellent lecture that I heard delivered at the London School of Economics only a few days ago by the Prime Minister's former adviser on public service reform, Julian Le Grand. His lecture was entitled "Competition and Choice in Public Services" and it set out excellently the thinking behind the Bill and reviewed the international evidence. It does not all point one way, but the vast majority of it points clearly towards what Professor Le Grand, a Labour supporter and former No. 10 adviser, summarises as the three key elements for public service reform: user choice, money following the choice and new forms of provider. That is a good summary of exactly what we need to do to raise standards. I am very happy to rest my case on the professor's lecture, and I rather suspect that the Secretary of State agrees with it, but perhaps at the moment she feels a little inhibited in saying so.
Ms Angela C. Smith: I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman had to say about reform. Does he agree that one of those reforms should be that local authorities are able to require all types of school to set up special needs units to serve the needs of the most vulnerable children in our schools?
Mr. Willetts:
There is a serious problem with access to special needs. In Liverpool last week I spoke to parents of children with special needs. Their concern was that their children were going to mainstream schools and they were not confident that even the special units in those schools were the right environment for them. Many of them wanted their children to go to schools specialising in special educational needs, and they were suspicious that some of the units attached
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to mainstream schools would leave their children vulnerable to bullying. I do not believe that such units are the full solution.
Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willetts: For some strange reason, the hon. Gentleman was unable to catch the Secretary of State's eye, so I am very happy to give him an opportunity to intervene. He might even want to make the point that he was going to make to the Secretary of State.
Alan Simpson: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was beginning to get the feeling that had I been stark naked and the only person left in the Chamber I still would not have been able to intervene.
The hon. Gentleman made a point about evidence forming his position in this debate. Rather than listen to the evidence of the Prime Minister's mates, will he look at the evidence presented by the OECD in its international comparisons, which shows that Finland, with its comprehensive system of education, driven through community schools, has the highest standards of attainment and achievement? The OECD also concluded that the fragmented systems around the world widen the gap between the achievers and the under-achievers. Why will not the hon. Gentleman base his position on that evidence, instead of on mates-based evidence?
Mr. Willetts: I would like to turn to the question of fragmentation and diversity in a moment. I hear a lot about Finland. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I should go there on a fact-finding visit. I would be very interested to see what goes on in Finland because several people have put the hon. Gentleman's point to me. However, I would be interested to look not only at the structure of education in Finland but at what goes on in the classroom—at what the teaching methods are. I would be interested to see how literacy is taught, whether synthetic phonics is used, how mathematics is taught and what kind of history lessons are taught. I rather suspect that Finland's standards are so high in the international league tables because of the pattern of education in the classroom which Conservative Members believe in and which has disappeared from far too many of our schools.
Mr. Willetts: I hope to make some progress, but I must of course give way to the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee.
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op): As Chairman of the Select Committee, I took the Committee to Finland to look at certain aspects of education. We found that Finland is unique: it is small and it does not have the urban problems of most advanced societies with which we tend to compare ourselves. If we make a like-with-like comparison, we see that we are doing very well educationally, and I think that the hon. Gentleman would admit that.
Mr. Willetts:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. This is in danger of becoming a seminar on Finnish education, and the time has come to move on.
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I would like to resume my speech by quoting an excellent remark of the Prime Minister's when he launched the proposals that we are debating. He said last October, and I thought that he put it very well:
"We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self governing independent state school."
That was what he promised us last October. It was such a bold statement that it reminded me of another Prime Minister's view of education reform. Perhaps I can quote to Labour Members what she said:
That was our agenda for education reform when we were in government, so of course we were delighted when this Prime Minister finally repeated a commitment made by the former Conservative Prime Minister when she set out her views about how to reform education. If only Labour Members had listened to her 20 years ago, we would not have had so many years wasted in appalling attempts to get rid of initiatives such as grant-maintained schools, which we introduced as part of that policy.
Anne Snelgrove (South Swindon) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Socialism was once described as the longest route from capitalism to capitalism, and when I see this Government's approach to education reform I am very much reminded of that observation.
Mr. Willetts: I give way to the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones).
Helen Jones (Warrington, North) (Lab): The main difference between the hon. Gentleman's Government and this one is the investment that has been made in education—that is why standards have risen. When I taught under the Conservative Government there were not enough textbooks to go around my classroom. Now there are new buildings, new computer suites and plenty of books for every child.
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