---

Health and Education

The maiden speech of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) was a fine speech. I have listened to several maiden speeches over the past few days and I have been impressed by their high calibre. The hon. Gentleman and I will obviously differ on many issues, but he will provide us with good debate during the coming years. I must make special mention of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James). I lived in Swansea for 13 years and taught at the university there. Indeed, I took Donald Anderson’s job when he was elected to Parliament a very long time ago, and later joined him here. My hon. Friend’s speech was very good and it brought back many memories of happy days in Swansea, where I still have close associations. Her robust speech makes me conscious of the fact that she will be a great parliamentarian and will fight the corner for Swansea. It is wonderful to have a robust discussion about everything, so let us start with education, as not much has been said about it today. I want to say only three things, the first of which is that there is a remarkable amount in the Queen’s Speech that I salute. It contains a great deal, and opens with a commitment to the"““long-term growth and prosperity””" of our economy. None of our achievements in education, health or any of the public services, nor anything that we have done during the past eight years, would have been possible had it not been for our successful running of the economy. As the former Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee, I have considered our achievements in education. Part of my job during the past few years has been to scrutinise and to point out matters to the Government. Colleagues will know that when my Committee and I thought that the Government had got it wrong, we were pretty robust in our criticism—constructive criticism—of them. The Government have a very proud record in terms of investment in education, the early-years programme and Sure Start, the secondary schools programme, and skills and higher education. That does not mean that we have accomplished everything, however. One interesting phrase that leapt out of the Queen’s Speech was the commitment to achieve"““safe and secure communities . . . fostering a culture of respect.””" Many of us in this House will remember ““respect”” for a long time to come; indeed, there is a Member of this House associated with that title for whom I do not have a great deal of respect. On returning to the House after an election, it is sometimes important to point out not only the easy things that one heard on the doorstep, but the difficult things. I was most worried to discover on the doorstep in the recent election that although there is not an actual dislike of politics or politicians, there is an undercurrent of resistance, almost, to the democratic process. Once we start to pick up that feeling, it should worry all of us—not just the Government, but the Opposition. The feeling is not just about party politics. As a young MP, I remember hearing Harold Wilson when he was chairing a Committee on new communications technologies. It was a time when satellite communications and 24-hour media were only dimly perceived. In the 20 years since, we have seen the rise of 24-hour media. From talking to many of my constituents I gain the impression that they feel inundated and fed up with it. There is far too much of it and they have had enough. If we think of the constant barrage of news and information that comes in so many ways and if we add to it the rather nasty tone of the last election, we gain an understanding of the problem. I realise that the Conservatives no longer want to be seen as the nasty party, but many aspects of their behaviour during the election—their use of the Australian term, for example—made me think that they had forgotten that. I remember when I first went to Australia hearing politicians call each other liars in the chamber. We would not countenance that in this Chamber. The Tory candidate who stood against me called me a liar in his election address. I never experienced that before in all the seven elections that I fought. I thought that it was inappropriate for the Leader of the Opposition and my Conservative opponent to use that term. It feeds back to the ordinary people I talk to, who do not want the tone of British politics lowered in that way. I also recall the Headmasters and Headmistresses conference taking place during the election. These days, the Secretary of State and junior Ministers cannot get a fair hearing even from headmasters. We then ask ourselves what to do about disruptive behaviour in schools. My Select Committee took considerable evidence on disruptive behaviour, and it is a real problem. All the evidence that my Committee took over five years suggests strongly that such behaviour greatly reflects what is happening in society. Kids do not become different people or step into a different culture when they come to school. They bring what they have learned from outside into the classroom. Teaching becomes the toughest job in the world when children who show no respect at home, no respect on the streets or no respect in their communities also show no respect at school. For such children, it is inevitably difficult to enter a regime in which they are expected to behave themselves, to be quiet and to allow others to learn. It is a challenging problem for our society and there are no glib answers. There is no silver bullet for improving the environment in all our schools. I go to a school of one sort or another once a fortnight. I often find good schools, well behaved students and an atmosphere in which pupils can learn—in short, everything that parents would expect of a school that they want their children to attend. I go mainly to state schools—I do not visit the private sector very often—and it is those schools to which I am referring. I believe that we should be proud of the teaching, leadership and environment in which most of our kids are educated in this country. It does no one any good to exaggerate the problem, though behaviour is not what it could be and there is some low-level bad behaviour in some schools, which stops others from learning. We can probably agree on both sides of the House that what we want from our education system is quality learning in the classroom. We want a teacher to be able to teach and a student to be able to learn. Teachers, heads and all those associated with our education system sometimes need to be congratulated, not criticised, on doing a very good job in most of our country’s schools. We should remember that. I have two more points about the Queen’s Speech. First, precisely what is going to appear in the education Bill is rather a mystery. We know about only some parts of it and it seems rather a miscellaneous Bill. I should like to tell the Secretary of State that the battleground for ideas and actions over the next four years may be slightly different from what she anticipates. I shall tell the House what I think, which is that we will return to what happens to children between the ages of 16 and 18. The manifesto contained a pledge that I hold very dear—that no longer will any child be allowed to go into employment without any training or educational qualifications. That is not a plea for making compulsory a school-leaving age of 18, but we must ensure that no child goes into the labour market without some educational or training guarantee. Finally, the Tomlinson report will not go away. We must make vocational education a genuine alternative for children aged between 14 and 19. That alternative must not be a lesser choice or second class in any way, but making it available will be the challenge for the next four years. I hope that we have a good debate on education and that new Members will continue to contribute to it when they have delivered their maiden speeches, as it is a wonderful sector in which to take an active part.