Education and Inspections Bill

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and the Minister knows that she is right. The point applies wherever one goes in the country. For example, to get money from the building schools for the future programme, Newcastle had to include an academy in its proposals. I do not believe that that gives choice. It is back to the nonsense that we heard the other night when the Home Secretary told us that having a passport was voluntary. It is just semantics at the end of the day. One of the great myths in the Bill is that the creation of choice and diversity means that the good schools will suddenly, because of trust status, say, ““Ah, we want to take the most disadvantaged, unruly, disruptive kids from the estate down the road so that we can expand.”” That is absolute and utter nonsense. There is not a single piece of evidence for that. Successful schools are successful because of their size, catchment area and parental involvement. The idea that we will deal with disadvantage simply by creating trusts is absolute nonsense. Before the last general election, the Government betrayed most of our schools and most of our youngsters by their betrayal of the Tomlinson report and its proposals. There is a sop to vocational education in the Bill—a sop that continues the myth that academic education is for the best and vocational education is for the rest. Lady Lumley’s school is in north Yorkshire where it is sometimes 30 miles to the nearest school let alone the nearest college. One cannot have there the sort of diversity that is prayed in aid by the Secretary of State and Ministers. In reality, the Secretary of State will decide the vocational curriculum; it will not be individual schools. There will not be that flexibility. Wherever I go—I am sure that this applies to every Member of the House—I am constantly bombarded by companies that say that they cannot get people with the right skills. They are talking about the right skills from levels 2 and 3 and right up to graduate and postgraduate levels. The Bill does absolutely nothing to create a 21st century curriculum. All it does, yet again, is show that this is a controlling Government who have now reformed themselves in the image of Mrs. Thatcher. They should be ashamed.