Education and Inspections Bill

I am strongly in favour of empowering parents; I am in favour of empowering everyone. That is the basis of my politics and that is why I support this Bill. I want parents to have the chance to choose the school that is right for their children; not just a good local school, but the best possible school for them. This Bill is about empowering parents and about giving them choices, voices and access, as the noble Baroness said, from the beginning until the end. That does not mean a compulsory one-off ballot; it is not about that. It is about a continuing process of engagement and participation through school choice, parental councils, schools that respect and listen to the views of parents as mandated by the Bill, real rights of redress and a real involvement over time on a continuing basis. Some 72 per cent of parents want more involvement in their schools, and the Bill enables that to happen. The question that we have to ask is whether the amendment mandating balloting takes the cause of empowerment forward or back. Compulsory ballots are a cumbersome, time-consuming and rather intimidating procedure that is intended to slow down the pace of reform and to make genuine parental participation less likely rather than more. That is not to say that ballots should not be held if the governing body wishes to hold them; but it is to say that one-off, compulsory ballots do not help the cause of greater parental empowerment but are likely to slow it down. One-off compulsory ballots are not genuine participation; they are a device to get in the way of genuine participation, and they should be resisted. The metaphor of politics has been used. Just as it is true to say that a general election every four to five years no longer represents participation and no longer represents involvement, it is true to say that a compulsory ballot, held possibly once in the life of a parent, does not begin to offer the participation that we need. This Bill is about real empowerment and real involvement over a period of time from the beginning to the end, as the noble Baroness said, and the compulsory balloting procedure is an attempt to get in the way of that, not to assist it.