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State Schools (Independence)

I do indeed agree with my hon. Friend. Funnily enough, yesterday I spoke at length to Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, about this debate. He reminded me that the national curriculum was introduced for perfectly good reasons. We were concerned that kids in many parts of the country did not seem to be achieving the basic standards in education that we expected, and it was an honest attempt to raise standards nationally. The national curriculum had a reasonably loose structure when it was introduced, but it has become altogether too bureaucratic and prescriptive. I agree with my hon. Friend that we could progressively move to a system in which individual state schools are independent. That is the vision that the Prime Minister set out in his White Paper, which I fully support, and I believe that in his heart of hearts, he would agree with much if not all of what my hon. Friend said.