---

Education and Inspections Bill

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ascent. He speaks eloquently, but perhaps he should listen more carefully. When I used the word ““failure””, I deliberately said ““in inverted commas””. That was the language. It should never again be the reality. Selection by so-called academic ability through such a test is a throwback to the days when education was in effect a privilege, not a right. When I was young, the system acted at each stage as a sieve so that a small minority could go to university. At each stage—11-plus, CSE, O-level and A-level—those who did not make the grade were out: they had ““failed””. That was the language. Thank heaven that, for most children, those days have gone. There was no proper vocational education at the local secondary modern. My two brothers went there and left without many qualifications or any preparation for working life whatsoever. In the 1980s, one of them went through a succession of so-called youth training schemes, stacking shelves, only to be ““let go”” days before his six months were up, when the company was supposed to offer a permanent job. What a great start to life that was. I was fortunate enough to start at a grammar school. However, there were hierarchies among the grammars. There was a snobbery attached to the grant-maintained schools, all of which locally opted out to become private schools in the mid-1970s. Those hierarchies and snobberies explain why many of us are suspicious about the Bill, which creates yet another new class of schools—trust schools. As I said, my grammar school went comprehensive. That was a painful process because it involved the merger of two schools—a grammar and a secondary modern—but once the pain was over I do not remember Marshlands high school being anything but the better for being a comprehensive. It was far more balanced—and we got girls for the first time, so perhaps I was biased. There was certainly no attachment to the old grammar school, the 11-plus and the all the disgraceful division associated with it, and since then there has been no call from any political party to go back to that system. However, the way in which it was done left an echo of selection that remains divisive to this day. That time of reorganisation is full of great ironies. It is often said that the Secretary of State who turned more grammars into comprehensives was none other than Margaret Thatcher. And the Secretary of State who presided over the biggest expansion of private education, at least in my area, was a Labour Secretary of State who is now a Liberal Democrat and whose mother, coincidentally, comes from Newcastle-under-Lyme. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now, that Labour has not followed through by fully addressing academic selection at such a young age. New clause 39 would address that historic anomaly, but not by imposition—it would allow for a ballot of parents of pupils and primary schools feeding grammar schools.