Education and Inspections Bill

I shall try to make some progress, as hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to speak in the debate. I should like to talk about the provision in the Bill for trust schools. That is a strange policy—it is a policy that dare not speak its name, as the expression ““trust school”” does not appear in the Bill. Such schools are known as foundation schools with a foundation. Trust schools are the successors of our grant-maintained schools. It is a pity, unlike our approach of proposing grant-maintained schools clearly, honestly and openly in a manifesto for an election fought on that proposal, trust schools do not appear in the Labour manifesto. We made it clear, however, in our 1987 manifesto—[Hon. Members: ““1987?””] I have a copy with me. It makes clear what our grant-maintained schools could do. It is true that trust schools do not have quite as many freedoms as our grant-maintained schools, but they are a step in that direction. I would like to remind the Secretary of State of the commitment that we made on grant-maintained schools, and how we envisaged their operation. We said that they would become ““independent charitable trusts””. That was the proposal that we made in 1987, and I believe that it is the origin of the trust concept.