Schools White Paper

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement—on the Conservative Benches, I think that feeling goes fairly wide. I am also grateful for an early copy of the White Paper, especially as I understand that 5,000 copies were pulped last night as the Cabinet could not actually agree on the policy. Our approach to the Secretary of State’s proposals will be straightforward: wherever the Government promote rigour, encourage discipline, give schools more autonomy and parents more choice, we will support them. And, as we read that the Chancellor, the Deputy Prime Minister and many other Labour Members are against her, she will need all the support that she can get, but there is one question that jumps out of the White Paper. Eight years ago, the Government abolished grant-maintained schools. Let us remember that those were state schools, free of local authority control and able to set their own culture and ethos. Does that sound familiar? So why has it taken eight years to get right back to where they started? Let me take each of the key issues in turn. First, on school autonomy, all the evidence shows that standards rise when schools are free to innovate, free to diversify, and free to specialise. The question for the Government is this: will today’s proposals lead to real autonomy? Real autonomy means schools controlling their own finances. So will the Secretary of State confirm that, under her plans, funding will still go through local education authorities and not directly to schools? Real autonomy means that head teachers are in control, not tied up in centralised rules, regulations and bureaucracy. So will she take action to cut paperwork, including the current self-evaluation reports that run to hundreds of pages and drive head teachers up the wall? What guarantee can the Secretary of State give that the White Paper will not add to bureaucracy? Can she explain the point of the new schools commissioner? Can she tell us whether her new parents’ councils will replace governing bodies or whether they will be set up in addition to them? If Government want real autonomy—they will have our support if they deliver it—can she confirm that those independent schools in the state sector will own their buildings and land, employ their own staff and have the freedom to expand and the ability to opt out of national agreements? The White Paper shows a complete muddle about the role of local education authorities. Can the Secretary of State tell us how much independence those schools will really have? Can she explain why, on page 28— hon. Members will be interested in this—it says:"““Trust schools will be funded in exactly the same way as other local schools. They will be subject to the Code of Practice on admissions and to all of the accountability mechanisms that apply to state schools.””" So can she explain what these new freedoms are? That gives every impression of having been written by a deeply divided committee—I think that we can call it the Cabinet.—[Interruption.] We support the proposal to get independent providers into the state sector, but we have heard that so many times from the Government: we heard it in 1998, 2002 and earlier this year. Can the Secretary of State confirm that, so far, just one—[Interruption.]