Education and Inspections Bill

Certainly not, and my subsequent remarks will make that clear. The noble Baroness also spoke of the vision of the White Paper. I am afraid that the vision of the White Paper was unaccountable chaos—unaccountable to the local community. Moreover, the changes the Government were forced to concede, bit by bit, to get the Bill through another place will make their original vision much more accountable to the local community. Competition seems to be the panacea for all ills. The noble Baroness talked about maintained independent schools, and the Government refer to trust schools as maintained independent schools. So far as I am concerned, they are independent of the local authority, independent of the community, and independent of parents. Very few parents have any role at all in the governance of those schools. In that respect, they are also independent of children because they can turn them away willy-nilly if they wish. They are dependent on the state only for funding, because in pretty much everything else they can do what they like. The noble Baroness also said that unless a community school could demonstrate that it would raise standards, it should not be allowed to go ahead. I do not disagree with that, but I would also like to see the same criterion applied to a trust school or an academy. We have tabled an amendment on those lines to which my noble friend will speak shortly. Unless a trust school or an academy can demonstrate that it really would improve standards in the community, it should not be allowed to go ahead. My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby quoted a number of pieces of research in her inspiring speech, but one piece she did not mention was the work of the Sutton Trust. Its research considers voluntary-aided and Church schools, and shows quite clearly that their intake is skewed towards the middle classes with results that correlate closely with the income of the parents. We all know that, in this respect, choice is a very good thing for parents. If parents are sufficiently interested in the education of their children that they take great care over the choice of school, they are much more likely to play a positive part in their children’s education—and that will make a big difference to children’s level of achievement. The noble Lord, Lord Young, asked whether we are doing the best possible job for our children. In some cases I agree with him that we are not.