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21st Century Schools

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. This is high summer, the season when the BBC's screens are filled with repeats. It has nothing original to offer, so it serves up old material that flopped on first appearance simply to fill the airwaves. As it is with the BBC, so it is with the Secretary of State. No wonder this document is printed on recycled paper. Indeed, the White Paper is about as original, fresh and innovative as the Secretary of State's performances on the BBC's "Today" programme. May I ask the Secretary of State why he is today offering one-to-one catch-up tuition, personal tutors for all pupils, and tuition groups for those in secondary schools as though those proposals were new and exciting, when in June 2007, the Prime Minister promised one-to-one catch-up tuition, personal tutors for all pupils, and tuition groups for those in secondary schools? And he has still failed to deliver. I know that the Secretary of State relishes his role as the Government's attack puppy, and his special vocation as the Prime Minister's "mini-me", but when will he realise that simply repeating the same old nonsense over and over again ad nauseam has not exactly helped the Prime Minister to new heights of popularity, and it will not help him? In the White Paper, the Secretary of State pledges to guarantee a whole series of high-falutin' promises on better discipline and higher standards, and says that he will legislate to ensure that every school delivers its legal obligation. Is it not the case, however, that every time this Government have introduced a law saying that something wonderful must be delivered, it is only because they have demonstrably failed to deliver that goal in the last 12 years? We have a new law saying that child poverty must be abolished by 2020, because the Government have failed to hit their target of halving child poverty by 2010. We also have a new law compelling public bodies to promote equality, because this Government have presided over a catastrophic drop in social mobility and a widening gap has opened up between the poorest and the rest. Now we have new laws to guarantee to every child better discipline, even though school discipline is running out of control, with 425,000 pupils suspended last year, 200,000 of them for violence, and with 100,000 teachers having left the profession in disgust. We also have new laws to guarantee every child higher standards, even though we are falling down the PISA—programme for international student assessment— international league tables for achievement and the gap between independent and state schools is widening. Is it not the case that we do not need new laws, new entitlements and new guarantees? We need a new Government. All the good ideas in this White Paper are Tory ideas. Let us take enforceable home-school contracts. When the idea was put forward, the Secretary of State said:""I do not think a commitment to helping children to read and behave well should be put in a contract"." His junior said:""The Home School Agreement should not be a contract forced on parents"." But today we have enforceable home-school contracts with penalties for recalcitrant parents—Tory ideas winning the argument. I very much regret that we have not had more influence on the Secretary of State. We have been calling for less bureaucracy for teachers, for example, but in this document there are just four brief paragraphs on cutting red tape, with just two suggestions—a new cross-disciplinary review and a new quango. I ask why, on parental choice, the Secretary of State has nothing worth while to say. When parents are denied a good choice of school, he proposes a survey, then an opinion poll, then a consultation, then a plan and then further consultation. By the time all that happens, the children denied a good choice of school will be drawing their pension. This Secretary of State has never seen a bureaucracy he did not want to protect and entrench in its complacency. I hope that there is one other area on which the Government will U-turn—their proposals for school report cards. We have outlined plans for sharper accountability, with tests for which one cannot cram and proper robust and reliable league tables. Today, however, the Government propose abolishing league tables altogether and replacing them with fuzzy measurements of perception, well-being and partnership working. Parents will be left in the dark about which schools are failing. Is it not the case that this Secretary of State has run out of ideas, run out of money and run out of time? Should he not make way for a party ready to reform, act on discipline, back parental choice and focus remorselessly, at last, on higher standards for all?