Education and Inspections Bill

When one reflects on the number of days that were rightly given to consideration of Welsh devolution and compares that with the six hours for this debate, it underlines the need for all right-thinking Members to vote against the programme motion. We are not here necessarily to help or hinder the Government but to hold them to account, and we are considering an important Bill. I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and some of those that my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley South (Mr. O’Hara) made about the many good things that have been done locally and nationally in our schools. My constituency, like everyone else’s, has benefited. I want to underline that aspects of the Bill will be advantageous to people in constituencies such as mine, and they are welcome. However, let us make no mistake: at the heart of the Bill lies a structural issue about trust schools. That outweighs everything else in it. I agree with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who said that we were considering something that was roughly analogous to grant-maintained schools. Looking around the Chamber, I see no more than a handful of hon. Members who were here in the winter of 1996–97. You will remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that one measure that came before us towards the fag-end of the Major years was the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Bill. I had the honour of speaking about schools for the then Labour Opposition. We defeated the Bill by one vote, mainly thanks to a hapless Whip on the Government’s side, I hasten to add. Nevertheless, we defeated it, and we were committed to removing what we saw as a travesty of educational policy that went under the banner of grant-maintained schools. This is the first time since 1997 that I have spoken in the House on education. I have no doubt that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and for Havant (Mr. Willetts) were absolutely sincere, even if they were making mischief with the Government, when they said that they applauded these policies. If these trust schools are introduced, they will atomise comprehensive, co-operative and cohesive local educational communities. I can put this no better than the head teacher of the Notre Dame specialist arts school, a girls’ faith school in my constituency, who wrote to the Secretary of State to tell her that she had missed the point completely, and that trust schools and foundation schools were of no consequence whatever in meeting the demand for raised standards.