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Health and Education

It may be Liberal Democrat policy—what do I care? If I see a good policy, I will embrace it—but it is also the policy of many Conservative Members of Parliament. There is nothing original about this, as there are many people on the left who believe that the best way to help the poor is not by cutting VAT, because a much higher proportion of poorer people's budget is spent on items that do not attract VAT in the first place. That is the point that I made, but I was quoted out of context by the Prime Minister. However, it is much better to be attacked by the Prime Minister than not to be mentioned at all, so I do not mind very much. May I make two brief points about education and health? The report by Sir Jim Rose was published this week—another report on education—and seeing that my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), the shadow Secretary of State, has just walked into the Chamber, I shall make an appeal to him. Often, we on the right are accused of being too obsessed by the structures of education, and it is said that while we have been obsessed in that way, the left has been more concerned about the minutiae, and that it has won the debate. Let me say straight away that I am not the slightest bit interested in returning to the 1950s, in having more grammar schools or in any of that. All I say to Sir Jim Rose and to all those on the Government and the Opposition Front Benches who think that they can micro-manage the thousands of schools in this country is that they are deluding themselves. We have to trust our professionals; we have to trust head teachers. I know a bit about education—after all, I have educated a few children in my time. I believe that head teachers want to have the freedom to set their own curriculum as much as possible, to hire and fire their staff, to interview potential pupils and to select their own pupils. I know that I start to lose everybody in the Chamber when I say this, but if they were given the same freedoms that independent schools have, there would not be a rush back to grammar schools. Most schools would hardly change at all. My son went to a comprehensive school; I have never sent a child to a grammar school. I am not interested in that, but I am interested in allowing the head teacher of my son's comprehensive school the ability to manage the school in the way he wants. He should not be micro-managed all the time by the Department, and he should be able to interview and select, if he wants. If we did that, it would revolutionise schools. I know that I do not take everyone with me on that, and I shall go one step further and lose virtually everyone in the Chamber. I believe passionately that we have to end the totally rigid divide that we alone have in this country between the private and public sector. It does not happen elsewhere. We have to encourage people to shift between the public and private sector. We have to have people who are setting up new private schools. We can bring that process in slowly, starting with reception classes, or start the process in some postcode areas. We should do what the French do. The French pay staff salaries in private schools, so fees in private schools are minuscule in France compared with—