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Education and Skills Bill

That is right, and that point was finally recognised last year in the then shadow Secretary of State's speech. It was reiterated earlier this year in the Department's own research on the admissions system for 2006, which was conducted by Sheffield Hallam university. Reference has been made to that. The difficulty is that if we almost have consensus, how can we move forward? We have to work just a little bit harder on the current shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), his colleagues and the Conservative party, and we must test out some of their arguments and assumptions. Although he spent 25 minutes discussing an argument that took place four months ago and not addressing new clause 14, the hon. Gentleman did say something about the context in which he was approaching the Bill and the issue of fair school admissions. The difficulty is that in trying to extricate themselves from the policy that they almost had 12 months ago, the Conservatives are now posing a false antithesis. They are saying that the Government's desire to ensure fairer admissions within the available school places is somehow at odds with the desire to get more good school places. To get a thriving education system, we need both. We absolutely need fair admissions policies, but we need to continue the process of ensuring that every school is a good school. It is not good enough to say, ““The solution to the problem is nothing to do with fair admissions; it is all about getting more good school places.”” That raises the question, ““What is a good school place?”” Far too often, the official Opposition define a good school as one with a high proportion of highly able and motivated children. That is a completely distorted approach. The Opposition are locked into a circle of misconception that a good school is a school with a high proportion of such pupils. Therefore, not all schools can be good schools. It seems to me that one or two basic principles should underline the Government's approach—any Government's approach.