Education and Inspections Bill

The world is moving on. I have talked about the concern of Labour Members over the possible threat to equity. I understand the concern and appreciate their sincerity. I have explained why I do not believe that the old model of the local comprehensive school can work any longer. There is a second concern—that having laboured long and hard, the Secretary of State has produced a mouse. There is concern that despite the radical talk that we have heard from the Prime Minister and in the introduction to the White Paper, the Bill does not go far enough. We would like to see far more education reform than is in the Bill. There are too many examples in the Bill of measures that take a step towards more freedom and more choice, only to erect a Heath Robinson sort of contraption around them to stop freedom being enjoyed and choice being exercised. In Committee we will try to bring back the greatest possible freedom for schools. We have some concerns about restrictions in the Bill. I shall give two examples—first, the power of the schools adjudicator. The Bill increases enormously the adjudicator’s power to interfere in the decisions that individual schools take, including about their admissions, but about many other matters as well. The powers of the adjudicator appointed by the Secretary of State are so enormous that it would be tempting to allow the powers to go into legislation, knowing that a future Conservative Secretary of State could use the powers of the adjudicator provided for in the Bill to change the education system in the way that we wish. If we simply wanted to come to power with maximum Executive freedom by fiat to change schools, we would use the powers of the adjudicator. I am sure that Labour Members will wish to consider that point. I do not believe in free-standing executive discretion on the scale that will now be enjoyed by the adjudicator. It is important for those of us on both sides of the House, who believe that ultimately these decisions should be taken by people who are democratically accountable, to consider whether we are content with the amount of discretion that the adjudicator will enjoy under the Bill and, in particular, whether we believe that it is right that there is no provision for any appeal by a school against a decision by the adjudicator. This is one way in which it may be possible for Members on both sides of the House to improve the Bill. Secondly, on the important issue of interviews for admission, the Bill goes even further by explicitly banning, in primary legislation, interviews for all purposes other than the allocation of children to a state boarding school. That ban is already in force through the admissions code, but it is tightened up in the Bill. I recognise that, and I regret it. It goes to the heart of an important confusion in the Bill. The Bill contains tough, indeed draconian, powers on discipline, and, in this day and age, we need to make it clear that teachers have disciplinary powers. But the Government are only thinking of how to improve order and discipline in a school by giving teachers almost unfettered power to discipline children. There is a better way of ensuring that schools are orderly and can maintain discipline, which is by encouraging schools to have a distinctive ethos and to have parents who are committed to the school and understand its ethos. Being able to invite parents to an interview to establish whether they and their children are committed to a home-school contract is a good way of establishing a commitment to discipline without having to fall back on the severe disciplinary powers proposed in the Bill. We know that a small number of Church schools have historically used interviews in order to establish the religious conviction of parents. I rather suspect that the Prime Minister is aware of such procedures used by schools. It is a great pity that he appears to be committed to a provision that would stop schools doing what the school to which he sends his children has been doing, which seems to us to be a reasonable way for Church schools to establish a denominational commitment. The Prime Minister said to a Labour party conference:"““I believe we’re at our best when we’re at our boldest””." On another occasion, he said:"““Every time I’ve ever introduced a reform in government, I wish in retrospect I had gone further””." When he contemplates the Bill, I am sure that he will wish that he had gone further. It will be our task in Committee to make sure that the Bill goes a lot further than it does now.