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Education and Inspections Bill

I am not sure how to follow that extraordinary love-in between the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and the Secretary of State—[Hon. Members: ““Intertwingle!””] Indeed. I cannot help wondering whether such a deep and personal display of affection may be something that we should not be watching in public. Although we are liberals on these Benches, I have always felt that three is a crowd, so we will not be joining in. Of course, the truth is that it is just a marriage of convenience, not the real thing. The Secretary of State needs the passport that the Conservatives can give his Bill, and the Conservatives are really only interested in breaking up his family. The Secretary of State has been left walking a tightrope between the two, trying to persuade his family that this time he really has changed while still clinging to his affair with the Conservative Front Bench. The truth is that, as the hon. Member for Havant said, the Bill has change very little since Second Reading, despite the Secretary of State’s attempts to reassure his own Back Benchers that it has. The three key concerns that we had when we embarked on Second Reading remain. First, we do not believe that adequate safeguards on admissions have been given. If we are to give schools more freedom to control their own admissions, we want the extra safeguard of ensuring that someone impartial administers them. I welcomed the concession that the Minister made on Report for the conducting of pilots. However, I would have preferred that a permissive clause or enabling regulation be included in the Bill so that we could be sure that the Government are serious about this issue and are not simply going to kick it into the long grass, as I fear they will. Without such a safeguard, giving schools more freedom to control admissions is not adequate. Secondly, on accountability, we are totally opposed to giving trust schools the option of reducing the number of elected parent governors. To us, that flies in the face of all the spin about parent power. I assumed that I would never win the argument with the Secretary of State about giving away the power of veto, so that local authorities could have the strategic power that they desire to plan their own services. New Labour’s commitment to new localism has never really been about accountability. Nevertheless, I was astonished by the arguments that were advanced yesterday against parental ballots. Thirdly and most importantly, I still do not feel that an adequate, clear vision has been set out. Is this a competitive education model or a collaborative one? Still, we have the Prime Minister’s vision of a competitive model, rather than the vision that, I suspect, the Department for Education and Skills would much rather pursue: of a collaborative model that allows real choice in the curriculum. Without that model, we will never see the real reforms that we want—reforms that give schools the freedom to teach what young people want to learn. In our view, this Bill is a missed opportunity. It is a timid Bill with hidden dangers, and for that reason we will vote against it tonight.