Clause 1 - purpose and interpretation of chapter 1
Education Bill
10:45 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I should like to probe the Government's motives a little further than my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West. I shall try to illustrate the difficulty in which the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough seems to find himself. It arises from the differences between those who want to treat schools as toddlers, those who want to treat schools as teenagers, and those who want to treat schools as grown-ups. The toddler approach adopted by the Liberal Democrats claims that everything in the garden was rosy until approximately 1986 and continues to be--or would have been, had no changes in education been made since then--provided that local education authorities constantly hold schools by the hand.
The Government's approach is much more progressive. They say, ''We will set a series of boundaries for the teenager: he must be in bed by 6.30
pm or 10.30 pm—it obviously depends on the age of the teenager. We shall allow him to drink alcohol in closely-prescribed circumstances, but we, the parents of the teenager—or, in this case, the Secretary of State—know best''.
Our approach is that schools are grown-up. They have the right and responsibility to take the decisions that they believe are appropriate in the interests of their pupils' learning and advancement, and of the wider community. The toddler approach is totally out-of-date and discredited, but the Liberal Democrats like to propose it none the less. They suggest that, because so much innovation took place as a result of local authority involvement—I am talking, of course, about England and Wales, not Scotland, about which you, Mrs. Adams, will know much more than I—that innovation is now closed off. I see no evidence in my local education authority of innovation being closed off because of legislation passed since 1986. I see no reason why local education authorities should be given a role additional to that provided in the Education Reform Act 1988 in deciding the kind of innovation individual schools should attempt to introduce.
The Government's approach is more progressive because they understand that innovation in schools is necessary, but they want to constrain the boundaries heavily. They do not really trust schools, just as sometimes we do not really trust teenagers. They do not want them out on a motorbike late at night; they do not want schools taking decisions for themselves unless the Secretary of State is looking over their shoulder and keeping what they are doing closely in mind. That is the difference between the Government and the Liberal Democrats. The Government's approach is for teenagers, and the Liberal Democrats want to treat schools as toddlers. It is far more appropriate to treat schools as grown ups, with the reserve power of intervention for special cases where the adults cannot look after themselves.