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Education and Skills Bill

I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his commitment to evidence-based policy making. I will look with interest at the research that he mentions, but my assessment, from all the educational research that I have read, is that the debate is a red herring. Ultimately, it is what happens in schools, and not how they select their intake, that determines how successful they are. However, he makes his point courteously, so I shall take the trouble to get hold of the research that he mentions. There has been a measure of agreement among Front Benchers and Back Benchers about the importance of recognising and celebrating good schools and the ethos that makes them distinctive and successful. The worrying thing about the Government's approach to admissions and the admissions code is that they have alienated good heads and have undermined good schools. In March, as the Secretary of State pointed out, the Government rushed out an announcement in which they drew attention to what they perceived to be numerous infractions of the admissions code. The timing of the announcement was curious: it was made on the same day that we discovered that one in five parents found their children had been denied their choice of school. Headlines would have underlined the extent of Government failure to generate enough good school places. Curiously, instead of explaining why that had taken place, the Government attacked successful schools. Why? Well, I can only quote the words of Joshua Rowe, one of the governors of King David high school in Manchester, who said:"““this is a political stunt and smokescreen; a diversion from the real issues of failing schools””." I can only quote the Church of England's chief education officer, Jan Ainsworth, who said:"““The Secretary of State must have known his decision to go public in this way would result in hostile coverage. There is a real feeling of betrayal by the minister, and some anxiety about the direction of future relationships with his department.””" It was not only Jan Ainsworth who spoke up on behalf of the Church of England. Colin Hopkins, secretary to the Dearing review commissioned under the previous Prime Minister, stated that as a result of what Ministers had said the public had been given an"““outrageously false impression of our schools””." Listening to the Secretary of State, one would have got the impression that faith leaders welcomed his intervention the other month, but all those directly involved in the provision of faith education pointed out that the style, manner and content of the ministerial intervention was directly hostile to the ethos of those good schools. It was not just faith leaders who made that point. Conor Ryan, who was not just special adviser to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) when he was Secretary of State, but adviser on public service reform to the former Prime Minister, also pointed out that the problem with turning the issue that the present Secretary of State deliberately chose to raise into a cause célèbre is that it"““alienates many of the good school leaders whom the Government need if they are to tackle failing schools.””" Denounced by governors, criticised by the Church of England, held to account by those in the front line and damned by the man who was responsible for the education reforms that genuinely marked out the first few years of the Government as distinctive—not a happy position for the Secretary of State.