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Education and Inspections Bill

I agree with my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, who knows all too well that the effect of selection in the partially selective schools in constituency has a very big effect on other parents of year 6 children in his constituency and, indeed, in mine. Significantly, the mistake was not made in the admissions code of practice, which does not use the 1998 level as its benchmark but says that selection cannot be raised if it has been continuous since that time. However, the code of practice was not mandatory. Unfortunately, the 1998 Act causes the problem. That Act was never intended to say what the judge says that it meant. I spoke to my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), who was the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when Mr. Justice Collins made his ruling, and I have a letter from his Under-Secretary—Stephen Twigg, whom we all miss, I am sure—who wrote:"““It was not widely expected that schools that had been compelled by the Adjudicator to reduce the level of partial selection would be able to raise it again. Nor was this our intent when we introduced this provision.””" The then Minister went on to say that"““we may want to amend the School Standards and Framework Act at some time in the future””." The time has come; the opportunity is here. I raised the issue with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and I understood that she would consider it in Committee. It has not yet been dealt with, so I have tabled an amendment that would deliver what the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 intended, what we meant when we said, ““No new selection””, and what most of my constituents and, I am sure, those of my hon. Friends are expecting. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), both of whom were educated in my constituency, will understand when I say that, when the 1998 Act was passed, there was in my constituency one of the six lowest performing schools in the country—not the one that they went to—and its performance was worse than that of any school in Liverpool, Manchester or Leeds. Since that Act was passed, that school has dramatically improved its pass rate from 4 per cent. to more than 30 per cent., partly because the partially selective schools in the neighbouring constituency were forced to stop taking the most academically gifted children from our borough. The adjudicator forced those schools to reduce academic selection in successive steps from 50 to 33 to 30 and then to 25 per cent. The head teacher and the staff of that school, having rolled that heavy boulder up from the bottom of the hill to the top, are now on the verge of a bright new future, as an academy. I want to be able to assure them that that process will not be suddenly reversed by an adjudicator who can decide to increase the proportion of selective schools, with all the devastating consequences that that would have for the other schools in the borough. I wish to say a brief word about new clause 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). I am a great admirer of the work that he does with Comprehensive Future—a total supporter—and I believe that it is important to keep hold of the fact that ballots in fully selective areas of the country and adjudicators in respect of areas with partially selective schools are the two means by which we can gradually reduce and then I hope, one day, eliminate the use of academic selection in secondary schools. I welcome the new cross-party consensus—although it does not appear to have reached all Opposition Members—the logical conclusion of which is that we must make ballots and the adjudicator system work. With my brief amendment, I am trying to ensure that the adjudicator system works in the way that we intended. My hon. Friend is trying to improve the ballots system, but I fear that putting the onus on supporters of grammar schools to call for referendums may make it easer for them to run ““Save our grammar schools”” and ““Vote no to abolition”” campaigns, and to have the upper hand in referendums. I am not convinced that reversing the current system and providing for ballots opposing abolition would advance the cause that my hon. Friend and I both support. For that reason I shall not vote for his new clause, but I should like the Minister to say what the Government intend to do about this loophole.