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Education and Inspections Bill

I assure the hon. Gentleman that he does not know my borough as well as I do. If he did, he would know that those who are sucked in, as he put it, by the high-quality schools available in the borough come in many cases from much more deprived areas, such as Wythenshawe on the Manchester side of the boundary. I am afraid that there is no cogency to the point that he makes. Similarly, the hon. Gentleman alluded to the education system and performance in Northern Ireland without, astonishingly, mentioning that Northern Ireland gets the best GCSE results in the whole of the United Kingdom. It is scandalous that the Government intend to proceed to abolish Northern Ireland’s grammar schools, which, together with its high schools, achieve the best results in the whole country. He did not seek to apply his balloting regime there. Apparently, he is happy for Labour Ministers—from a party that is not even represented in Northern Ireland—to act over the heads of the people of Northern Ireland, the massive of majority of whom, when there was consultation on the subject, supported keeping the system as it is.