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Mr. Jamie Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he is opposed to selection by ability?
Mr. Brady: I am sorry, I did not catch that.
Mr. Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what his position is on selection by ability?
Mr. Brady: I propose to do that at the length that I am allowed by the time limit on speeches. The hon. Gentleman will not be disappointed.
Some areas, such as my own borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, took another route in respect of education at that time. Instead of scrapping our excellent grammar schools, we set about raising the standard of our secondary moderns. That is a model that hon. Members with open minds who genuinely care about educational outcomes will want to take seriously, as the system in Trafford works better than any comprehensive system in England.
Here are the facts. Last year, 70.2 per cent. of children in Trafford gained five or more A* to C grades at GCSE. That compares with 51 per cent. in Bolton, which is represented by the Secretary of State, or 56 per cent. in Worcestershire, where the constituency of the Minister for Schools is situated. In Bury—and I see that the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) is in the Chamber—where the social profile is broadly similar, the figure is 58 per cent. In Trafford, a wholly selective area, more than 70 per cent. of children get five or more good GCSEs. That compares with 60 per cent. in leafier Cheshire next door, 54 per cent. in Oxfordshire, 61 per cent. in Hampshire, and 56 per cent. in West Sussex.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley) (Lab):
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and he will know that I was responsible for education in Trafford from 2000 until 2004. The statistics that he has read out are very impressive, but I have to tell him that we encountered many difficulties. We had problems with admissions, as some schools were oversubscribed and it was very difficult to get looked-after children or those with special needs into them. That was one of the most difficult jobs in the country. Moreover, in the period when I was responsible for education in Trafford, there was always one school that was failing or subject to special measures. The hon. Gentleman must be careful when he quotes those statistics, as there is a danger that they are partial and do not take account of the problems that the Trafford system caused.
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Mr. Brady: The hon. Lady is absolutely right; there are problems and difficulties with any system of education. The point is that, in Trafford, we managed to overcome those problems and get the best results in the country. The hon. Lady should be pleased about that.
The rigour and transparency of selection helped to ensure high standards of primary education long before the publication of performance data. Equally striking is the extent to which these high standards are maintained throughout a pupil's school career. Richmond-upon-Thames tops the league table for primary schools; Trafford is second. Yet at GCSE level, Richmond slides down the rankings to 69th place, with only 55 per cent of children getting five good GCSEs. Trafford maintains the momentum; we continue to top the table at GCSE and at A-level.
None of this, of course, is new. We heard an excellent speech earlier about the Northern Ireland selective system, which gets the best results in the whole of the United Kingdom. Last year, even the DFES admitted that
"between the ages of 11 and 15, pupils in wholly selective local education authorities make more progress than pupils in partially selective or non-selective authorities and that extra progress equates to pupils in wholly selective LEAs achieving approximately two grades higher in one GCSE than in non-selective LEAs."
The fact is that selective LEAs do better for all children across the board. If seven out of ten children in Trafford can get five good GCSEs, why not in Oxfordshire, where only half of children reach that level? If seven out of ten children in Redbridge, with selection, can get five decent GCSEs, why not in Hampshire, Westminster or Manchester—or why not in Bristol, where only half as many children get five good GCSEs as those living in Trafford or in Redbridge?
We all know that the same few LEAs dominate the top of the table for GCSE achievement: Trafford, Redbridge, Sutton, Buckinghamshire and Kingston upon Thames, all of which are selective. The case for selection has been made as eloquently by the Government's own value-added tables as by anything else. The value-added tables had been expected to knock the grammar schools off their perch. But between the ages of 11 and 14, of the 21 schools adding most value, 18 were grammar schools and the other three were independent. If value-added tables were a wheeze to show the effectiveness of comprehensives, it did not work.
Of course some comprehensives do work well—usually ones where pupils are taught in classes set by ability, because pupils learn better when they are engaged at the right level of ability. That is the way grammar schools operate; if grouping pupils according to ability within schools is effective and desirable, it should be acceptable also to group pupils according to ability between schools. What matters is what works. Perhaps that is why today's ICM poll shows that 70 per cent. of the public would like more grammar schools, while only 21 per cent. oppose them.
Trafford's outstanding results are achieved not just because of the grammar schools, but because of the quality of the high schools that stand in the place of the failed secondary moderns of the 1960s—proud, high achieving schools with a rich pattern of specialisms,
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from sport to technology. We can judge the effectiveness of the high schools by the results that they produce. Do not forget: the most academically inclined children have gone elsewhere.
The national average for children achieving five good GCSEs in 2005 was 57 per cent. Ashton on Mersey high school in my constituency, also a specialist sports college, easily beat the national average: 62 per cent. of pupils got five good GCSEs. Down the road at Wellington, 73 per cent.—16 percentage points above the national average for children of all abilities—got five good GCSEs. Children at Trafford's high schools are receiving a better education and getting better results than at most comprehensives.
Indeed, if you exclude the performance of Trafford's grammar schools, with roughly the top 40 per cent. of the ability range, the high schools on their own would come 65th out of 148 LEAs in England, ahead of Richmond-upon-Thames and many others. Trafford is perhaps the perfect example of the successful, diverse state education system that the Prime Minister and Lord Adonis so rightly want to achieve—a system that, in the words of the White Paper, takes full account of
All of us here today want higher standards in schools. I am not claiming that what we do in Trafford can work everywhere, and I certainly would not seek to impose it on other parts of the country. But I am asking all hon. Members to look at the facts that I have put before the House. If they do so with an open mind, they will find it impossible to rule out the use of selection as a part of the modern, diverse provision of schools that our children need.
5.10 pm
Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab): We have moved on a long way from the rhetoric of the White Paper six months ago. Some of the White Paper's language could have been lifted directly from the speeches of Sir Keith Joseph in about 1981, shortly before he made his terrible speech in Preston and argued that all women in social classes D and E should be sterilised, as the solution to the problems of the welfare state. Nevertheless, we have moved on since that early rhetoric. I commend the Secretary of State and her ministerial team for the way that they have listened to the criticisms from a wide range of sources to try to convert the White Paper into a Bill that is practical and workable.
Perhaps the key moment during the past six months, when we saw that we were moving in the right direction, was when the Secretary of State came to the Select Committee on Education and Skills and made the very simple and straightforward point that, regardless of the rhetoric about trust schools and the brave new world promised in the White Paper, in reality a trust school would be no different from the existing category of foundation schools that already have their own foundations.
In fact, trust schools will be simply a subset of foundation schools. Given that we have recently legislated to allow schools to become foundation schools far more easily—a process that can be achieved in four weeks following the simple vote of the governing body—why on earth do we need a new Bill to launch trust schools?
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I shall support the Bill this evening. It has many merits, some of which were spelt out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher): the emphasis on curriculum reform, particularly at key stage 4, and on the personalisation of the curriculum and the measures on school discipline. However, there are controversial issues about the governance of schools, the role of local authorities and the admissions policies.
Although we had genuine concerns about those issues six months ago, the Government have responded to them. Local authorities will be able to run new community schools, subject to the veto, and it is extremely important that the criteria by which that veto will be exercised are spelt out in the Bill. There are also concerns about the eligible bodies that could become involved in the new trust schools, and it is important that there are measures in the Bill to determine what external partners can become involved. The key criterion is that an external partner should be a charity or a corporate body that already has a good track record in delivering education, not someone who just happens to have a couple of million pounds to spend and wants to inflate his ego.
As the corollary of the tightened admissions procedures already included, it is important that the code of practice appears in the Bill, albeit not necessarily in full. I am not convinced about whether such a long document could be included as a schedule to the Bill. Although it already has 18 schedules, I should have thought that a 19th schedule with the full text of the code of practice would not be unreasonable. The Bill should certainly state the key admissions criteria that are deemed acceptable and those that are not. Of course, the precedent has been established for inserting some criteria in the Bill, such as in the clauses that relate to banding and interviewing.
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