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Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out all the words after ““That”” and insert ““this House declines to approve the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 until the people of Northern Ireland have been given the opportunity to approve the proposals contained therein in a manner analogous to the procedures followed in regard to similar proposed changes in England””. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am very proud to address your Lordships’ House tonight as the product of a grammar school education. I went to the Wallace High School, which is very much part of the community in Lisburn, County Antrim. That school takes boys and girls from every walk of life, and gives them a huge range of opportunities. It is certainly not a case of money or resources. It is about an educational ethos. There is a fundamental belief among the teachers that every pupil is capable of achieving his or her best. Many pupils went on to the Queen’s University, Belfast, and other highly regarded universities in Great Britain and Dublin. Many of us were the first in our families to go to university. We owed that opportunity to the schools which helped us to fulfil our potential. That is the secret of success of good schools, and so often it is grammar schools which have lead the way. In Northern Ireland, grammar schools represent an enduring excellence in our state education system. By every measure, Northern Ireland grammar schools out perform all other schools in the Kingdom—maintained, specialist, fee-paying or academy. Pupils at grammar schools achieve better GCSE and A-level results, and provide more added value, to use current education jargon. Northern Ireland’s grammar schools are truly vehicles for social mobility. The fact that I am standing here tonight and addressing this House is proof of that. When Labour—hardly traditionally supportive of grammar schools—were elected in 1997, they chose in England a totally different approach from that which they are now pursuing in Northern Ireland. They put in place legislation that would allow parents to hold ballots on the future of grammar schools in their area. A few campaigns were started. None has succeeded. Some would argue that the cost of such campaigns could have been used to better educational purposes. But it seems intuitively correct that regions or communities should decide what is best for their children. That is truly local democracy. Grammar schools in Northern Ireland, unlike in England, educate almost half of the children in the Province, yet the Government are committed to making it unlawful to select pupils on the grounds of academic ability. No matter that the public in Northern Ireland want to keep their grammar schools or that standards will fall. What is their crime? It is to be delivering the excellence in education and the sort of superb schooling that every parent wants for their children. I believe that the future of our education system lies in the need to remove as far as humanly possible the baleful influence of politicians. Politicians, driven by ideology alone, should not be allowed to wipe away an entire school structure. Schools should succeed or fail on one basis alone—the quality of the education that they provide to our children. Following the publication of the Burns report into post-primary education in Northern Ireland in October 2001, the then Minister of Education in the devolved Administration at Stormont, Martin McGuinness, set in train a very involved consultation process on its recommendations. When just over half the responses had been returned to the department, he declared: "““I have 100,000 responses sitting in my Department and those are the people that count””." The results were published in October 2002. The responses from some quarter of a million Northern Ireland households—which equate, proportionately speaking, to responses from some 5 million households in England—included those from 162,000 parents and 21,000 teachers. It showed that 57 per cent of households, 58 per cent of parents and 64 per cent of teachers were in favour of abolishing the divisive 11-plus, yet 64 per cent of households, 63 per cent of parents and 62 per cent of teachers favoured the retention of some form of academic selection. Opinion on these issues was seen to cross both the class and religious divides. An independent ““omnibus survey”” of a random sample of the population, which was taken at the same time, confirmed those results. Moreover, the BBC survey in January 2004 and the Belfast Telegraph survey in September 2005, again with random samples, indicate remarkably consistent support for academic selection. In December 2005, Ms Angela Smith, the then Minister with responsibility for education, published the draft order and simultaneously released the results of a consultation on admissions arrangements which was completed six months ago. While the figures do not appear in the document, the Minister admitted that at least 90 per cent of the responses to the consultation supported academic selection. The Government therefore have deliberately chosen to ignore the outcome of every public consultation and test of opinion on the issue over a period of more than three years and instead seeks to impose a policy against the will of the people. At no time have the people of Northern Ireland had an opportunity to influence the pattern of education reform through their elected representatives. A majority of locally elected politicians oppose this order, which would not pass if our local Assembly were functioning. There are obviously different perspectives on why the Northern Ireland Assembly is not functioning, but it is safe to say that it would be inconceivable for a Government, having promised the people their say, to impose such huge changes in any other part of the United Kingdom against the will of the people and a majority of elected representatives in that area. In England, the issue is handled with great sensitivity, as highlighted by a statement by the Department for Education and Skills. It states: "““Where selection exists, the government believes in local decision-making as to whether it should continue and has put in place mechanisms to allow this to happen””." I simply say to noble Lords that the Government have no argument on why they have accorded this right to the people of England while denying it to the people of Northern Ireland. I therefore ask for your support on this amendment. I beg to move. Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out all the words after ““That”” and insert ““this House declines to approve the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 until the people of Northern Ireland have been given the opportunity to approve the proposals contained therein in a manner analogous to the procedures followed in regard to similar proposed changes in England””.—(Lord Rogan.)