Education and Inspections Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), with whom I shared membership of the Select Committee in the previous Parliament, and with whom I had many disagreements then and no fewer today. She says there is no evidence of benefit, but that does not mean that there is evidence of disbenefit. She speaks about the percentage of parents in her constituency who are fortunate enough to get the school of their choice compared with those in Barnet, but there is not much choice in some constituencies. I cannot speak for hers. There is a big choice in Barnet, so it is not surprising that so many are disappointed when there is a wide range of choice available. What we want, as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler), is not that 100 pupils should get the school of their choice and that 365 should be rejected, but that 465 pupils should get the school of their choice. In other words, we need more good schools. When he was sent down from Oxford, the hero of ““Decline and Fall”” was told when seeking a teaching job that there are leading schools, good schools and schools, and that schools are pretty awful. That, sadly, is the case for many parents, aspiring or otherwise, and pupils, capable or otherwise, not only in our inner cities, but in other parts of the country. The only thing that makes me feel ashamed about representing the Isle of Wight is that we inherited a poor system of schooling, where no choice is available at high school level. My Conservative-controlled council inherited that from the Liberal Democrats, who had controlled the council for 20 years. There is no choice and no competition among high schools. I have two points to make about the Bill. First, I am concerned that charities will not take part in the trust schools enterprise if they are over-regulated. There are regulation-making powers in clauses 7, 8, 12, 17, 19, 22, 24 and 25. If Ministers do not display a light touch—I suspect they may want to treat the regulation-making power with a light touch, although I am not sure that their hon. Friends on the Back Benches want to see such a light touch—the Bill will not achieve the objectives that Ministers seek. The second point relates to school transport. I hope that the defence will be removed from section 444 of the Education Act 1996, which permits parents whose children are excluded from school transport because of misbehaviour to allow them to truant from school. There should be no obligation, as my youth council says, on those who misbehave to be carried to school at public expense.