Education and Inspections Bill

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), although on this occasion he confined his remarks to generality and rhetoric. We heard very little about the outcomes of his own tenures as Secretary of State for Education and as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Those of us who have followed developments in education over many years know that those were years in which teachers and others involved in education, including parents, were desperate because of the underfunding of education and this country’s relatively poor attainment levels in comparison with those elsewhere in Europe, to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred. Those levels are improving significantly, and I would have expected him to acknowledge that the Government’s increase in resources for education has been a major factor in that improvement. I am one of the Members who criticised the White Paper when it was published. I considered it a poor piece of work. It was incoherent in many respects, it lacked an evidence base, and it contained claims and statements that were difficult to credit. It was difficult to understand how local authorities could act as strategic champions for their areas, working to raise standards and to ensure an adequate supply of places to meet parental aspirations, if they were the subject of vilification in some of the background briefing and if their role was being written off as though they were being sidelined. I do not think that that was at all helpful. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and her team for the way in which they have worked with Back Benchers like me over the past few months, and to the Select Committee and others who have voiced significant criticisms of the original White Paper and have worked to improve it. We now have a Bill that I shall be happy to support tonight, although I still feel that changes are needed. My main reason for supporting the Bill is that it continues the good work already done by the Government to raise educational attainment levels. It recognises the importance of a coherent approach that links what is being done for teaching with the wider ““Every Child Matters”” agenda—something that appears to be entirely unfamiliar to Conservative Members, whose approach seems to involve ignoring the importance of coherence and interdependence. I think that in future years they will rue their failure to understand the position. I also support the changes that have been made to ensure fairness in selection, a proper role for local authorities and a significant reduction in the bloated and rather bureaucratic role envisaged for the office of the schools commissioner in the White Paper. Nevertheless, one or two fundamental changes are still needed. One involves the Secretary of State’s power to veto a local authority’s proposal for a new community school. I am glad she has accepted that if there is to be a competition for new schools, it must be a fair competition, and that if parents want a community school they should have that option. However, I do not buy the argument that the Secretary of State needs the power to prevent a local authority from proposing an inappropriate scheme. Clause 7 provides for that veto, but only in respect of a local authority submitting a plan for a community school. If an authority submits a plan for a foundation or trust school, there will be no veto. If the aim is to restrain poorly performing local authorities, the provision should apply to all types of school. The fact that it applies only to community schools implies that a degree of bias remains, and I think that it should be removed in Committee. I also hope that more thought will be given to the difficult balance that must be achieved between promoting choice and diversity, which I support, and ensuring that we maintain the highest standards of quality. It is not always possible to combine the two. Measures to improve one school may well be compromised and undermined by measures to expand another. In my area, a clear and co-ordinated approach has enabled a hugely successful post-16 campus to be created alongside the sixth forms of a number of existing schools. That co-ordination has ensured the widest possible choice of curriculums and courses, and the maintenance of quality. If there were a proliferation of small sixth forms, all constrained by a lack of resources and unable to provide such a wide opportunity, quality and choice would be undermined. The issues are complex. I felt that the speech of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), in which he promoted diversity and choice, was a little superficial. He did not recognise that there are difficult challenges to be addressed. Addressing those challenges will depend on local authorities’ having an understanding of the issues, an ability to engage with all the parties and the power to ensure a co-ordinated approach not just to education, but to the wider ““Every Child Matters”” agenda. That is why the crucial role of local education authorities must be maintained, as—I am glad to say—my right hon. Friend and her colleagues now recognise. I am a little nervous about the fact that there is still a tendency to try to write the local authority out of the scene and I hope that it will be countered. The Conservatives need only talk to their own representatives in local government to realise that it is recognised on a cross-party basis that local authorities have an important role to play, and that rhetorical attacks on them and attempts to wipe them off the scene are counter-productive. I hope that there will be further changes to the Bill in Committee, and that the Committee stage will be constructive but not excessively prolonged. With those reservations, I shall be happy to vote for Second Reading.