Education and Inspections Bill

Thank you very much. Towards the end of my career, my results were outstanding. They went through the roof. Now, I had not altered and the pupils I was teaching had not altered, but they were getting A grades all the way through. Why was that? I do not think that the marks were manipulated, but the questions were made easier. For example, for the set book in the special subject that I did for 17th century history, the pupils were given the numbers of the pages that they would be questioned on—in some cases, only three pages. You do not have to be a genius to learn from that. The result of this decline in standards is catastrophic. These are the great problems of education in science, history and mathematics. How will the academies get the teachers of talent to transform this when the universities are closing down science departments at a rate of knots? I respect the Minister. He has given great thought to this, but the malaise that is afflicting education is much deeper. Unless he grasps the nettle—and I am sure that he has the integrity and intellect to face this—it will get worse. It is getting worse. When you see universities such as Exeter closing down science departments, you realise how bad the situation is getting. When people like me appoint redundant physicists from universities, there are deep problems in English education. Unless we grasp them, they will get worse and we will become the poor men of Europe as far as education is concerned. This Bill, particularly with controversy and people such as the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, not liking it and chipping it down, and with the fight in the Labour Party, will not solve this problem, but the problem will not go away and unless we face it there will be trouble. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will give some thought to science, mathematics, history, results and things like that. If he does not, well, I will be dead, but others will have to face the problem. The solution offered by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, with which I tend to agree, is practised in Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria. Unless we face these big problems, our problem will get worse.