Kent is obviously a very big county, and there is a lot of diversity in performance there. I believe very firmly that if we are trying to improve a system, we should look at the bits that are working less well and try to raise standards there, rather than removing the parts that work best. I think that the tragedy of the comprehensive revolution in the 1960s and ’70s was that often the people who suffered most as a result of the destruction of so many grammar schools were working class people in areas where very little of quality was put in their place. The hon. Gentleman will have heard me quote from the pamphlet “A Class Act”, written by Lord Adonis and Stephen Pollard, who was then at the Fabian Society, in which they made that very point.
I am a strong supporter of what this Government and the Government immediately before did to try to raise standards in all schools. I am a strong supporter of academies and free schools. In fact, when I was shadow Schools Minister—the job that the hon. Member for Cardiff West now has, has had for some time and might have for many years to come—I was able constantly to praise the efforts of the then Labour Government to increase the autonomy of schools and create the academy model, building on the grant-maintained schools that went before them. It is regrettable that the Opposition are starting to move away from that bipartisan position.
To return to amendment 11, my campaigning on the subject aims to bring better schools and more opportunity to more children in state schools across the country, as well as to champion the obvious success that is evident in my constituency and in the borough of Trafford. Having been educated at Altrincham grammar school, which is in my constituency, I do not just believe that selective education can bring wider opportunity and social mobility; I know it.
I am not seeking to impose a different model of education on places or communities that do not want it, but I believe in wider choice for parents and a greater diversity of schools. I cannot see why every specialism under the sun should be welcomed today, except for a specialism in teaching the more academic. It is absurd in today’s pattern of educational provision that the law still holds that the man in Whitehall knows best, especially if he celebrates the success of existing grammar schools but seeks to prohibit any new ones, however much parents and communities might want them.