Education and Inspections Bill

I am sorry—the noble Lord, Lord Gould. The way in which to help all comprehensive schools to be as good as the best is not to take away their links with the local authority, but to support and resource every one of them, while encouraging every local authority to show the leadership required that will enable schools to support each individual child in fulfilling its own educational potential. That is what we need to do to make sure that our schools are as good as those in Finland, to which my noble friend referred. What is the difference between the Finnish system and that in this country when both are basically comprehensive systems? As she pointed out, in Finland there is very little opting out because the vast majority of schools are comprehensive schools. They get their share of the higher achieving children as well as of those who need more help. In this country we do not have that system: we have independent schools, voluntary-aided schools, grammar schools and secondary modern schools in some areas; that is the choice of the local people and I would not take that choice away from them. But that is the crucial difference. If you are going to compare a comprehensive school in Finland with a comprehensive school in the UK, you have to look at its intake and at the support it is being given. The vast majority of comprehensive schools in Finland have an intake completely spread across the whole ability range. It is not diversity and choice that matter; it is quality. If I go and buy a car I do not want a choice of a red, blue, green and purple clapped-out Mini; I want a choice of a Rolls-Royce—and that is what we should be making of all our comprehensive schools.