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Children's Plan

Does the Secretary of State agree that ever since the reforms that introduced the principle of testing particular age groups to national standards and then reporting the results to the public, there has been a consistent campaign against both practices by teachers' trade unions and large parts of the educational establishment? Labour spokesmen and Ministers, however, have in principle always defended that approach. Will the Secretary of State explain how his latest announcement of stage not age testing is not yet another serious step back in the face of all the campaigning? Surely it will make it much more difficult for parents to know whether their children have reached the standards expected of their age level, much more difficult for people to have confidence in the quality of the standards being described, and almost impossible for parents and the public to make meaningful comparisons between the performances of different schools.