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Liz Blackman (Erewash) (Lab): I would probably have joined all my colleagues at the last election in proudly campaigning at every school gate that I could get at to hail the progress made in my local schools. The investment has gone in, and many of the reforms that needed to be made have been made. However, if we think that we have reached a point where we can relax, we are kidding ourselves. I say to my hon. Friends and to the Opposition that if they have any doubt about where we are and the road that we still need to travel, they should go to the Department for Education and Skills website, click on "school performance tables" and have a look, first at every school in their local area and its performance—the website allows that to be done very easily and shows a five-year period—and then have a little roam around the country. Members will see that there is a story to be told that is even more shocking than the 40 per cent. headroom that we still have to make as an average. There are schools that are bumping along, barely getting to 30 per cent, and they have done that for years. Derbyshire is a three-star authority and has done very well in supporting many of the schools in my constituency. Ten out of the 12 poorest schools fit into that category. If one looks more closely, there are schools that are achieving higher than that, but they are coasting. They are still going nowhere. One will also see some schools that are doing phenomenally well, reaching high levels of attainment and making that change very rapidly.
The Bill is based on what we know works. We may not have all the evidence, but we have a lot of evidence about what works. We know that good leadership, good discipline, individualised learning packages, specialisms, partnerships, federations, high-performing
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local education authorities, sound governance and engaged communities work. The central part of the Bill, the most powerful change agent, is the role that we are giving to local education authorities to get in early, make the diagnosis, broker the changes that are needed to shift those schools that are failing so many of our children and to make the difference. The Bill is not just about children in poorly achieving schools and poor areas. It is also about high achieving children who are not being stretched. I say, look at the website.
5.42 pm
Mr. Mark Hoban (Fareham) (Con): I welcome the Bill. It is symbolic of the change in this Government's attitude to education. By freeing the provision of education, putting more emphasis on parental choice and giving schools the opportunity for greater freedoms, it marks a comprehensive departure from Labour's past. It is a recognition by the Government that to make the next step change in improving standards, we need to free the education system in this country. We need to harness the accountability that increased parental choice and increased diversity of provision can bring to the education system.
For far too long we have relied on centralised control and direction to raise standards in our schools. The measures in the Bill will lay the foundations for a change in emphasis in our education system. The Bill will introduce more choice and more diversity. That will benefit parents and pupils, not just in leafy suburbs, but in urban areas and cities as well. For too long we have allowed education in our inner city areas to be neglected. Too often, education has not been seen as a route out of deprivation and social problems.
I am concerned that the Government have already made too many concessions since the White Paper and the vision that the Prime Minister set out in its foreword. The concession that the Secretary of State made to allow LEAs to set up new community schools will be used by the weakest local authorities to hide their performance. Local authorities that are strong, confident and proud of the schools in their area will have no fear of new providers. The hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) pointed out from his experience of a visit to Sweden that competition from new providers can raise standards, improve diversity in the system and lead to better results, not just in the new schools but also in the schools already in the area. We need to learn that important lesson from experience in Sweden.
We also need to say to those people who do not believe that autonomy and freedom can contribute to an improvement in standards that they should look at the value added tables for schools published earlier this year. What type of school was at the top of those tables in raising attainment beyond the expectation of children at the end of key stage 2? The answer is city technology colleges—the Conservative forerunners of academies. Schools with the least freedom—community schools—actually experienced a reduction in standards at key stage 4 compared to their results at key stage 2.
It is vital that the Government hold firm to the reforms and recognise that parental choice, diversity and freedom lead to higher educational standards. That
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was the basis on which I fought the last general election. I am pleased that the Government were thinking what we were thinking, and I am delighted to be able to support the Bill.
5.45 pm
Colin Burgon (Elmet) (Lab): The Government have a good story to tell about their education programme; about investment, which has never been matched by any other Government, the new building programmes, the record number of teachers and teaching assistants and rising standards across the board. But if we are honest, there is one thing we have not delivered: a rise in standards in areas of social deprivation. The question we face is how to address that issue.
The areas of greatest deprivation can easily be identified. We should be building schools there for the pupils who live there. A pay structure for head teachers and classroom teachers should reflect the difficult and different nature of the job in those areas. We should have something that our public school comrades have always had—class sizes of about 1:12. If it is good enough for them, it must be good enough for us. The important point is that those changes should be carried out in the community itself, rather than bussing kids to other schools. Two communities suffer from that; bussing children out of one area deprives it of a school, while school sizes balloon in the other.
The Bill is primarily about governance. I was a teacher for 17 fairly tumultuous years; it was a tough school, not a finishing school for the sons and daughters of gentlemen, and I rarely, if ever, thought about the nature of its governance or about its relationship with the local authority. We have to understand that the key determinant of education is not governance but the ability and class of the kids walking through the school gate and the ability of teachers to engage with them in education.
I shall be voting against the Bill because it is about the primacy of the private over the public; it is about marketisation, competition and fragmentation. We have heard much about the direction of travel. I urge my hon. Friends to recall what the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) said, because he brilliantly spelled out the direction of travel. It will be a disastrous direction both for education and for us as a Labour Government.
5.48 pm
Mr. Rob Wilson (Reading, East) (Con): My Front-Bench colleagues believe that the Bill is timid—it certainly would be for a Conservative Government, but it is as radical as we will get from a Labour Government. Indeed, when the legislation is passed into the right hands it could be every bit as radical as the Prime Minister originally intended. It will certainly mean an end to the pretence that we have a comprehensive education system and it will mean a significant decline in the power of local education authorities.
I understand why some Labour Members are concerned about the direction of travel of the legislation.
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It will not be everybody's cup of tea. The quality of education has become so poor in many areas, with thousands of schools failing, that the middle classes are gradually withdrawing from the public sector, especially in the cities. As one Downing street adviser put it,
Otherwise, he argued, they would demand tax cuts rather than supporting public sector investment.
The Conservative party has already been down the independent road. We tried to use grant-maintained schools to raise standards and choice in education, in an attempt to break away from the dead hand of LEAs. Grant-maintained schools made a small but important contribution. Their impact could have been more significant, but unfortunately there was not a broad political consensus on the issue at that time. This time, we have a wider political consensus on trust schools and extra freedoms, so, if we can get the Bill through Parliament largely unaltered, one roadblock has been removed.
The Bill provides an excellent foundation on which a Conservative Government can and should build. A number of specialist schools are currently permitted to select 10 per cent. of pupils on aptitude, which is to be applauded, by why only 10 per cent. and why include only certain specialisms such as PE and information technology? If the principle is sound, why not extend the practice to a wider range of specialisms and increase the percentages?
I have not had time to say everything that I want—this is the abridged version of my speech—but the Bill is a great platform on which the Conservative party can build further educational reforms. A party that has dismantled the comprehensive education system can hardly complain when we kick dust on that system's grave.
5.50 pm
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