Education and Inspections Bill

I believe that phonics is an important part of the literacy teaching arrangements there. There is a lot of international evidence, and I have tried to address it, but I am happy to rest my case on an excellent lecture that I heard delivered at the London School of Economics only a few days ago by the Prime Minister’s former adviser on public service reform, Julian Le Grand. His lecture was entitled ““Competition and Choice in Public Services”” and it set out excellently the thinking behind the Bill and reviewed the international evidence. It does not all point one way, but the vast majority of it points clearly towards what Professor Le Grand, a Labour supporter and former No. 10 adviser, summarises as the three key elements for public service reform: user choice, money following the choice and new forms of provider. That is a good summary of exactly what we need to do to raise standards. I am very happy to rest my case on the professor’s lecture, and I rather suspect that the Secretary of State agrees with it, but perhaps at the moment she feels a little inhibited in saying so.