Education and Inspections Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. This is in danger of becoming a seminar on Finnish education, and the time has come to move on. I would like to resume my speech by quoting an excellent remark of the Prime Minister’s when he launched the proposals that we are debating. He said last October, and I thought that he put it very well:"““We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self governing independent state school.””" That was what he promised us last October. It was such a bold statement that it reminded me of another Prime Minister’s view of education reform. Perhaps I can quote to Labour Members what she said:"““I want to see far more schools becoming independent state schools.””" That was our agenda for education reform when we were in government, so of course we were delighted when this Prime Minister finally repeated a commitment made by the former Conservative Prime Minister when she set out her views about how to reform education. If only Labour Members had listened to her 20 years ago, we would not have had so many years wasted in appalling attempts to get rid of initiatives such as grant-maintained schools, which we introduced as part of that policy.