Schools White Paper

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. We have learned from what has worked on the ground. It would be foolhardy to pretend that we dreamt up the ideas in isolation from our observation of what happens in our best local authority schools. Let us consider Knowsley. It has received an outstanding grade from Ofsted for the way it works to draw in external partners, provides 14 to 19 vocational opportunities for its pupils, and for its schools choosing to work together and with the local further education college to ensure that opportunities are available for everybody. We know that that works. We also know that, when a school develops a specialism or, as in the case of a city academy, develops a strong ethos in a short time, standards can improve. Such freedom and flexibility should not be reserved for the few but be available for all our state schools.