Education and Inspections Bill

Throughout the Select Committee’s work, it was clear that the education professionals who appeared before the Committee were in a mood to have reform; they were pro-reform, rather than anti-reform. The Liberal Democrats are not anti-reform either, despite some of the things that have been said during the debate. However, the Select Committee found that the reform that the professionals sought related to improving standards, enhancing quality and ensuring fair access for all. That is why it is a source of great sadness to me that, although there is much in the Bill to be welcomed, it is flawed by its concentration on structural change, as has been said. Much of that appears to be unnecessary and some of it is downright unhelpful and perhaps counter-productive, at least if we assume that the Government want to improve fair access to the best quality of education for all, as I believe they do. Much attention is paid to the language of diversity and choice. Diversity and choice are good words—they are ““hooray”” words. Who is going to be opposed to such things? Not the former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, who has been on the airwaves this week, acting as Government apologist for the Bill and saying that diversity of provision is a precursor to increasing standards—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may have heard him. Of course, he presented no evidence for the claim, but he explained that the Bill was a welcome step towards ““marketising”” education. He did not give any explanation of why the marketising of education was to be welcomed. Given the problems that we are experiencing in the NHS, specifically with regard to dentistry, we can see the consequences of dogmatic and inappropriate marketisation. One would have thought that such language would be seen as reactionary and backward thinking—hardly the stuff of a legacy-setting reform agenda. A successful school system provides the best opportunities for all its young people and ensures that every child meets their potential, irrespective of their background. On that basis, substantial parts of the Bill fail the test because they make it less likely that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will succeed. Allowing independent admissions under current arrangements will undoubtedly lead to children from poorer families being left further behind. We have already heard about the Sutton Trust’s paper, which states:"““Schools which are responsible for their own admissions take a low proportion of pupils on free school meals, which is an indicator of a school’s overall social mix.””" The Institute of Education, in its report in January, stated:"““There is clearer evidence that own-admissions authority schools are associated with greater levels of social segregation.””" Furthermore, Baroness Warnock, in her evidence to the Select Committee last autumn, stated that greater independence over admissions inevitably led to children with special educational needs receiving a poorer deal. As the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and I mentioned earlier, the Selection Committee raised the point that that anonymisation of the admissions procedure could have given the Government a way out of the accusation that independent admissions procedures are selection by the back door.