Schools White Paper

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Secretary of State confirm that, so far, only one additional independent school has come into the state sector? The White Paper talks of a new role for LEAs. Can she tell us what will be done to stop them preventing new providers from coming into the sector? If they are to replace school organisation committees—another set of quangos that Labour set up and is now abolishing—will not the problem get even worse? The next point is the expansion of good schools. Education Ministers have repeatedly given us assurances from the Dispatch Box that the surplus places rule did not exist. Yesterday, the Prime Minister confirmed that it did and that it would be scrapped. Why has it taken so long for the Government to identify and get rid of the roadblocks to giving us more good school places? Should we not conclude that we have had surplus Ministers, as well as surplus places? [Hon. Members: ““More!””] There is plenty more. The White Paper praises city academies. Conservative Members back academies because they are just like the city technology colleges that we set up in the first place. Can the Secretary of State tell us how she will avoid the real danger that they end up replicating failed comprehensives in smart new buildings? Will she give them real freedoms, including over admissions? Will business backers be able to cut waste and open these buildings to the whole community so that they can be engines of regeneration, not just islands of investment? The next issue is a difficult one: admissions. We all want to move from the situation in which we have selection by house price to one of genuine diversity in schools with parents having choice. However, the Government have created total confusion over this issue. One briefing has suggested that there will be compulsory banding and then the bussing of children across LEAs. That would represent top-down social engineering beyond even the wildest dreams of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Will the Secretary of State rule out today bussing that is designed to meet some arbitrary central admissions quota? The White Paper argues that streaming and setting should be the norm in all schools—we agree. In its 1997 manifesto, Labour said the same thing. What has it been doing for the past eight years? Why has it taken three manifestos, nine Acts of Parliament, five Green Papers, four White Papers, two strategy documents and four Education Secretaries before anything has been done about that? If the Government are serious about standards, is it not time to reform the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, to insist on rigour in exam standards and to give heads the final say on discipline and exclusions? Will she confirm that the White Paper shows once again that the Government are keeping appeals panels? Why do they not scrap them? Yesterday the Prime Minister said that this was a pivotal moment. Today he says that it is a historic turning point. Tomorrow I expect that we will have the hand of history on his shoulder again. In the past eight years, we have had lines in the sand, final moments and final chances, but this has been pivotal for parents, teachers and children all along. When it comes to reforming education, is it not the case that the Chancellor will not have it, the Cabinet does not like it, the Back Benchers will not wear it, the Deputy Prime Minister cannot bear it and the teaching unions and Labour LEAs will try to stop it? Conservative Members fear that only the worst parts of the White Paper will be implemented and the best will be forgotten. Is it not the case that the only way in which the best ideas in the White Paper will have a chance of being introduced will be if we have a Government who believe heart, head and soul in rigour, choice and autonomy? Is not that the message of today’s statement?