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State Schools (Independence)

I am pleased that my hon. Friend made that intervention. As part of this think-piece debate, it is important that we explore such nuances and how our party would approach the problem of improving educational standards. My hon. Friend, who is totally committed to education, believes and has great trust that a future Conservative Government could return the national curriculum to something like what it was before. He is worried about the state of the educational establishment, particularly teacher training colleges, and believes that once he becomes a Minister—we all sincerely hope that he does become an Education Minister—he can impose his will. It is important that my hon. Friend and I should conduct this friendly debate in public as well as in private, as it informs how we will develop policy during the next three years while we are in opposition. With respect to him, one cannot impose one’s view from the centre. Incidentally, that is the view of Chris Woodhead and other people I know who work in the state sector. If there are 20,000 schools in this country, that is impossible. Whatever one says and does, whatever one’s commitment and however long one is allowed to be a Minister—and Ministers’ powers are somewhat limited—if schools do not agree, they will simply not go along, and my hon. Friend knows that. When I have visited schools in my constituency and talked about synthetic phonics—now they are in fashion, but a few years ago they were not—teachers have told me, ““Well, we had all these circulars from the state, but we just binned them and carried on doing what we know best; we’re professionals.”” Whatever my hon. Friend’s good intentions, even if he tried to return the national curriculum to a pure state of more traditional conservative teaching—if it were possible to devise such a thing—if head teachers and teachers on the ground and teacher training colleges wanted to ignore it, they would.