Education and Skills Bill

I do not remember that. It was many months ago and I have forgotten. The amendment typifies the Labour Government's obsession with admissions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said on Report:"““Unfortunately, there is still an old Labour, socialist approach to the question of admissions… It is the Secretary of State's belief that what really matters is manipulating access to a limited number of good school places, instead of expanding their number overall. If only he would commit as much intellectual energy to generating more good school places as he does to the micro-management of their allocation, this country would be in a better place””.—[Official Report, 13 May 2008; Vol. 475, c. 1239.]" Conservative Members believe in a fair and clear admissions system and we therefore support the concept of an admissions code. However, our priority is to increase the number of good schools by making it easier for new providers to establish new schools, thereby giving parents a genuine choice of school for their children, focusing on raising academic and behavioural standards, and ensuring that the teaching of reading in reception class is effective. By contrast, the Government have devoted huge amounts of effort to continual changes to the admissions code and pillorying faith schools. In the final stages of the Bill's passage, the Government tabled two dozen new clauses and amendments to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 about admissions. It was all very last minute and rushed, without the usual Committee stage scrutiny and consultation. Now the Government seek approval of an amendment passed in another place to allow the public consultation, which closed in October, on the new draft admissions code to be valid, notwithstanding the fact that the draft code is based on the new clauses, which have not yet received Royal Assent. That is all indicative of an over-ideological obsession with admissions, which is so characteristic of the Government in general and the Minister's boss, the Secretary of State, in particular. The truth is that what determines a good school is not its intake, but its leadership and the quality of teaching. I can take hon. Members to schools in the most deprived parts of our inner cities and with every possible disadvantage that are safe, secure and highly successful and which have high levels of academic achievement. By contrast, there are many schools in leafy suburbs where the take-up of free school meals is well below the national average and where behaviour is out of control and academic standards are poor.