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Education and Inspections Bill

The Conservative party has already set out its position and there will be a debate on admissions tomorrow. We have said that an incoming Conservative Government would not see a return to wholesale selection across the board. We will not see new grammar schools and secondary moderns being established outside areas that do not already have grammar schools. The White Paper contained a sensible set of proposals, but then Lord Kinnock intervened and 53 Labour rebels eventually went on to vote against the Bill. In their alternative White Paper, they said:"““local authorities should retain the power to decide whether to function solely as commissioners, and not providers, of education. There should be no outright ban on new schools being developed as local authority community schools.””" That looming Labour rebellion between the publication of the White Paper last October and the publication of the Bill at the end of February this year resulted in the famous concession letter from the then Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee. In that letter, the Secretary of State said:"““there may be occasions where a community school might best meet local needs. In such cases, if a local authority wished to enter a community school in a competition—and the Secretary of State felt that there was merit in such a proposal—the competition would be judged by the Adjudicator…In judging the competition, the Adjudicator would take into account the track record of the local authority in terms of educational performance, the degree of diversity in the local…system and parental preference.””" That represents a complete change of view—a change that was not based on the judgment of the Prime Minister or the then Secretary of State as to what would best serve the interests of this country in creating a high quality education system, but which was occasioned by problems in the Labour party. The change of policy was all about internal Labour party management.