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Education and Inspections Bill

I wish to speak against unnecessary disruption in our schools and in favour of local choice, and therefore I speak against new clause 39, which was supported with characteristic eloquence and wrong-headedness by the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). That is a reminder to us all that the prejudices of old Labour are still around, and that the party is still fighting the battles of the 1960s and 1970s. I have not participated in education debates for a few years, so this afternoon’s exchanges have been quite nostalgic for me. I have been struck by how insular and inward looking our debates on education are. The point underlying the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) was that there are different ways to achieve an excellent academic education. That is true, especially when one looks at what happens in the rest of Europe. By and large, the schools in Holland are big comprehensives that contain significantly different streams. In any given Dutch town, one can find what is effectively a grammar school on the same site as a good technical vocational school. Incidentally, it is the lack of the latter schools that is the real, long-term failure of British education. The German approach is different, with different types of schools being provided. Over the past 30 or 40 years, both countries have gone through good and bad periods. Their results have been better than ours some of the time, and at other times they have been worse, but both have managed to ensure that debates about education have been about improving children’s life chances. They have not allowed them to deal in social engineering, class warfare or any of the things that have bedevilled education debates in this country. I am depressed to find that those influences still affect our debates here. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) has left the Chamber. She did not respond to my earlier intervention, but I was fascinated to hear her commit the Liberal Democrats to supporting new clause 39 and therefore the abolition of all grammar schools. I shall be interested to see whether my Liberal Democrat opponent in Ashford at the next general election says the same thing, and whether his counterpart in the neighbouring constituency of Folkestone and Hythe is pledged to abolish the grammar schools in Folkestone. Over the years, I do not remember Liberal Democrats ever saying such things in counties such as Kent, but the party’s policy may have changed under the hon. Lady’s tutelage.