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Baroness Young: I really do not think the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, can quite get away with his remark about grant-maintained schools failing. The fact is that these are very popular schools. We have already heard from the Minister that there are more than 1,000 of them. Many more schools would go grant maintained if there was not a sustained campaign at a local level against them.
When I made this point at Second Reading the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said that she was amazed that I should make that statement. I would not make that statement if I did not know it to be true. I could, but I shall not in this setting, give the details of, at any rate, one school that is known to me that was prevented from going grant maintained by a sustained campaign. I have had a great deal of evidence brought to me from other authorities where that has gone on.
The truth of the matter is that it is very easy indeed to frighten parents. They think that they are going into the unknown, they are not sure whether the school will be financially viable, they are not sure whether it will collapse, they are not sure who will be teaching, and so on. It is their children who are involved and so they play safe. It is therefore very unfair and untrue to say that grant-maintained schools have not been a success. If there are not more of them, the reason is not hard to find. I would not want anyone to think that grant-maintained schools had not been successful. Bearing in mind the old adage that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, why would such distinguished people wish to send their children there if they were not very good schools indeed? I hope that we shall not hear any more in the Committee discussions about grant-maintained schools being a failure. They are not. They are a success story.
Another point has been raised about selective schools reducing the number of selected pupils. After all, selective schools could choose to do that if they so wished, but on the whole selective schools are satisfied with what they are doing. I cannot see the purpose of the amendment except to try to make it as difficult for other schools to do what they would like as grant-maintained schools find it is to do what frequently they would like to do today. I very much hope that the Minister will not accept the amendment.
Lord Dormand of Easington: Perhaps I may respond to what the noble Baroness said about me. I did
not say and have never said--I repeat it again--that grant-maintained schools fail. That is not the point. As I said earlier this evening, I am sure that some grant-maintained schools are highly successful, some are moderately successful and some probably fail, as with most schools. What I did say--I repeat it again and I have said it many times--is that what the Government have said about introducing grant-maintained schools has failed. The noble Baroness said that 1,000 schools are now grant maintained. What she did not say is that 25,000 schools are not grant maintained. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said, and as we have said many times from these Benches, the applications from governing bodies to become grant maintained have fallen to a trickle--either a trickle or they have stopped altogether. Where ballots have been held, in many cases schools have voted against becoming grant maintained. That is a most peculiar definition of success.
Baroness Young: If I have misunderstood the noble Lord, I apologise completely. I certainly do not want to misrepresent what he has said in any way. He said that the number of grant-maintained schools is not increasing. That is a fact. I would agree with him on that. It is not increasing, first, because a good many parents have been intimidated into voting against such a move. Secondly, when one party says that were it to win the election it would do away with grant-maintained schools, or at least fundamentally alter them so that they would cease to be the independent schools that they presently are, not surprisingly, a good many people decide that they do not wish to risk something when they do not know what the outcome will be. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, because of his party's commitment to various bureaucratic arrangements, of which this would be one, it has been very successful in the past in stopping a great many things which would have helped a lot of people.
9.30 p.m.
Baroness Warnock: This argument is rather extraordinary. It is plain that if every voluntary or county school were obliged to agree to consider selection every year it would become an absolute formality. Most people would not even consider it, but they would be able to say that the matter had been on the agenda and had been discussed for perhaps two minutes. Is it then really a proposition that all schools should at least consider genuinely being, even in part, selective? It seems to me that the number of children who are there to be selected would soon dry up. How could it be that all schools should be selective schools? What is going to happen to the other children who are not going to be selected? If all schools became selective, the number of places for unselected children would contract. But they have to be educated somewhere. I cannot see the realism behind this clause. I do not particularly support the suggestion that schools should be allowed or forced to decide whether to be less selective, but this is an empty clause. It is not a
particularly helpful contribution, but I believe that there is something very weird about the argument behind this clause.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: Perhaps I may add to the argument which the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, has just made. I made the point earlier that it seems to me that selectivity can apply only to schools which are over-subscribed. Therefore, how can it be that schools which are under-subscribed should consider this policy? There is no way in which it can be made to operate. I believe that I am only making the same point as the noble Baroness made.
Lord Henley: I start by assuring the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, that I do not believe that "Thomas" is a horrible name. We even have a cat named "Thomas" if that is of any consolation to the noble Baroness. I accept that Members of the Committee opposite--and I refer to both Benches--simply do not like selection or grant-maintained schools. They are frightened of what parents might want and believe that they or their friends on the local education authorities know best.
Perhaps I may correct one or two of the assumptions of the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington. He spoke about a number of failing grant-maintained schools. I accept that there are obviously such schools failing. There are also failing non-grant-maintained schools and there are successful grant-maintained schools and LEA schools. That is part of the diversity. If the noble Lord looks at the figures and the annual report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector he will find that, of those inspected, about 1 per cent. of grant-maintained schools were found to be failing. Of those which have not taken the option of going grant maintained the figure was about 3 per cent. That speaks for itself and shows how well the grant-maintained schools are doing and how well they can do.
I repeat the call I made earlier that many more schools should consider the option of going grant maintained. I am not going down the line that the noble Lord tempted me to follow as to why there are not more grant-maintained schools. We discussed that at great length before dinner, if I remember rightly. It is quite clear that many more schools would like to become grant maintained if they were offered the option of the ballot, but very few have had that option. I imagine that that is largely because of the influence of the LEA governors, who will not allow the parents of those schools to have a ballot on becoming grant-maintained.
I come to the point that my noble friend Lady Young made very effectively--that should the party opposite, sadly, get into government it will quite simply neuter the grant-maintained schools, and there is no question about that at all. They say, "Yes, they will survive under a different name. They would be called 'foundation schools'" but there would be a number of LEA governors on them and their funding would be provided by the LEAs. If that is not scrapping the grant-maintained process I do not know what is.
I come now to the amendments themselves. They would turn this particular clause on its head. They would require wholly or--dare I say it to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, despite what he said--partially-selective schools to consider reducing or ending the proportion of selective school places they offer and other schools not to consider introducing or extending selection. We believe that selection is an important matter which deserves proper consideration. It is a matter that has not been properly considered in the education world over the past few years. We want schools which are not wholly selective to consider introducing or extending selection as part of their strategy for improving standards and responding to parental wishes. It may be that they come to a different view and do not want to consider selection, but that is a matter for them. We think it right that they should consider it once a year, just as once a year they should consider whether to go grant-maintained.
Again, I direct my next remark at the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, who implied that there was no parental desire to go selective. He suggested that the majority of parents were against it. According to at least one survey, parents want to see more, not less, selection in many areas. A recent survey by the Association of Teachers & Lecturers showed that a majority of parents were in favour of selection. If the noble Lord looks at any of the selective schools up and down the country, he will find that their places are over-subscribed four or five times over. That seems to express a desire on the part of the parents in those areas to have the selective option. Sadly, in many parts of the country, there is no selective option that parents can pursue.
There is nothing to prevent a school considering whether or not to seek to reduce or to end its selective arrangements. However, we have no intention of requiring those schools so to do. This clause does not place any requirement on schools to introduce or extend selection. It requires the governing bodies of the schools to consider the matter. For that reason, I hope that the Committee will reject the amendment.
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