Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 59, in clause 2, page 2, line 10, after ‘(3A)’, insert

‘Subject always to the overriding requirements of efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of education,’.

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 161, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, after ‘schools’, insert

‘, including a range of provision for children with special education needs’.

No. 178, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, leave out from ‘schools’ to end of line 13 and insert—

‘(b)securing diversity of educational and curriculum provision within schools and colleges;

(c)increasing opportunities for parental and pupil choice; and

(d)value for money.’.

No. 5, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring the spread of best practice adopted in the best performing schools.

(3B)For the purposes of section 14(3A), “best performing schools” means schools in the first quartile nationally of the value added measure of school performance.’.

No. 88, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring that at least 10 per cent. of school places are provided by one or more of the following types of school—

(i)foundation school with a foundation;

(ii)academy;

(iii)voluntary-aided or voluntary-controlled school.’.

No. 97, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring that the education provided in schools in its area shall contribute to social inclusion and community cohesion in that area and promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups.’.

No. 98, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring fair access for all pupils in its area to opportunities for education according to their educational needs and wellbeing.’.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

Amendments Nos. 59 and 178 probe further what the Government mean by the word “choice”. Choice for whom? [Interruption.]

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

Order. We are here to scrutinise the Bill line by line. Any other kind of conversation should take place outside the Committee Room.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

As I said, the amendments probe what the Government mean by choice. Choice for whom, about what, at what time and in what circumstances? What are the limits to choice? Should there be any limits to choice, and if so, what are they? Unlimited choice requires unlimited capacity and we do not have unlimited capacity in the system. It is important to put that on the record because local authorities will be charged with doing what is required when they exercise their powers and they need to know what the limits are when they compare one aspect with another.

The Bill has come at the end of 10 years of rising school rolls but there is about to be a period of 10 years of falling school rolls. We expect schools to lose about 500,000 teenagers in the next 10 years. What should local authorities do in those circumstances? Should they leave lots of school places empty to allow more choice or diversity in the system, or should they try to work within the boundaries of efficiency and value for money?

Let us suppose that a few Catholic families in a majority Muslim area want a Catholic school. What are the limits on the choice that the local authority must consider? Should it provide for the majority or the minority? It is important for the Government to be explicit about what they mean. In a rural area there may be only one local school to which a child can go. What does choice mean in those circumstances?

What does diversity mean? Does it mean diversity across the whole of a local authority area or choice specifically for parents? For example, in a rural area there may be diversity of provision across a borough but a very limited choice for parents who live within the catchment area of a local school, which may be a faith school or a specialist school, if they do not want to send their child to that school and it is impractical for them to travel further. What do the Government mean when they talk about exercising choice and diversity?

What is meant by choice for parents? It conflicts with aspects that we will debate later when we discuss admissions. When more choice is provided in the system and schools control their own admissions process, we will end up with schools choosing children rather than the other way round. Choice probably means preference. Perhaps the Minister will be more explicit about that; it would be more honest if we used that word.

We may talk about choice, but the Bill refers only to choice at 11. Choice should be extended through the system and it is why we have referred to choice and diversity within schools. Choice should apply to young people as they are trying to decide what kind of curriculum they want to follow.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s remarks. Do I understand it that the Liberal position is that they are in favour of the surplus places rule?

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

I am not sure that I understand the question. Would the hon. Gentleman clarify it?

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I am sorry. Are the Liberals in favour of the surplus places rule that no school is allowed to expand if there are surplus places in the local education authority area?

Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)

As it does not exist, she should not be in favour.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

The Minister says from a sedentary position that the rule does not exist, but the Prime Minister certainly referred to it. Whether it exists or not, it is preventing many good schools from expanding, because there are surplus places in the area. The hon. Member for Brent, East seems to be implying that while there are surplus places in a local education authority area, good schools will not be able to expand and new schools cannot be established.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

No; I am trying to get some clarification about the limits on choice. My questions are directed at the Government and the Minister. They put “choice” into the Bill. I want to know what the limits on choice are and what the Government mean  by it, because local authorities will have to exercise it. I hope that the Minister will clarify this point when she responds.

I return to the point about choice in the curriculum and in schools. We were extremely disappointed that the Government did not use this opportunity to implement the reforms proposed in the Tomlinson report. I know that we will discuss entitlements to diplomas later when we debate clauses 61 and 62, but the Bill does not implement the whole of the reforms recommended by Tomlinson, which have been recommended by advisers for at least a decade, including in Labour party reports. It does not break down the two-tier system.

We have tried to introduce the notion of choice in the curriculum to lay the groundwork for discussions that we would like to have later. We have included colleges because if there is to be choice in the curriculum, young people need to be able to move between schools and colleges, which requires a fundamentally collaborative model. We have proposed amendments to later clauses to ensure that that collaboration takes place.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton poured scorn on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PISA report, which was rather unfair. The OECD found that educational systems that enable choice of provision within schools rather than between them—I do not think that it is necessarily an either/or choice—are far more likely to meet the needs of all young people rather than some young people. That is why we have added those points to the amendment.

I return to my initial point about the limits of choice. Will the Government be clear about what the limits are? Do they mean value for money? The Audit Commission reported in “Trading Places” that large numbers of unfilled places are a substantial waste of public money. Will the Government be explicit about what they want local authorities to consider when deciding the extent to which they want to provide choice and diversity within the system?

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

The Liberal Democrat amendments show that they do not really have a clear understanding of the fundamental purpose of the Bill. No doubt the Minister will enlighten us of that in the coming hours, days and weeks, but I understand it to be to extend the capacity of schools to exercise certain freedoms. The Government believe, as, I think, do the Opposition, that that will help to drive up standards in education to the benefit of our children. There are debates about the precise nature of those freedoms and the continuing role of local education authorities, and there are debates, which we have heard at length today, regarding the pedagogy that would help to improve the quality of education provided in schools. But the essence of the Government’s position is that the greater freedoms enjoyed by schools are likely to be beneficial.

The other aspect of the Bill that seems to be central to its purpose is the notion that with that greater diversity should come greater choice, which could be exercised by parents in pursuing their children’s  interests. For once, I agree with the Liberals: choice should be qualified. Choice is not a good in itself. That is a popular misconception in modern politics. Across the political spectrum, it has become the orthodox view that choice is a good per se, and that by advocating choice without connection to its effect, we should receive plaudits. Politicians of all parties seem to have fallen into that trap, but I do not buy the argument. Incidentally, I make the same case about freedom, but perhaps we shall return to that.

I therefore have some sympathy with the case made by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), arguing that choice needs to be explained and, in some circumstances, qualified. However, central to the Bill is the idea that the extension of choice, the extension of freedom for schools to innovate, and the resultant diversity is likely to have a beneficial effect on standards. If the hon. Lady does not believe that, and from her amendments she does not seem to—because she was straightforward enough to question the basis on which the Bill is predicated—she takes a different view from the emerging consensus on educational matters, as it was described so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.

The understanding of the importance of diversity, greater school freedom and choice is a lesson that the Conservatives learned a long time ago. Grudgingly and falteringly, our Government friends have come to similar conclusions—I say that without meaning to be patronising. The Liberals have always been some way behind in politics. I was reminded of that earlier by the hon. Member for Brent, East when she opposed our crusade for disadvantaged people.

I was reminded of the antecedents of the Liberal party: people who opposed every 19th century reform introduced by Tories; who defended the slavers and those who put boys up chimneys and women and girls down mines. The Liberals drag their history behind them like a millstone. One understands that they are captives of that history. They are slow to catch up with the mood of the times, and that is well illustrated by their amendments.

To return for inspiration to the words of the Prime Minister, he spoke of the Government’s intentions towards education and illustrated his Pauline conversion to the Tory perspective on those matters on 12 December 2005 at the City of London academy. He said:

“The logic of changing to the specialist schools, of starting city academies, of giving greater freedom to schools in who they hire, what they pay, how they run their school day, is very clear. It is to escape the straitjacket of the traditional comprehensive school and embrace the idea of genuinely independent non-fee paying state schools. It is to break down the barriers to new providers, to schools associating with outside sponsors, to the ability to start and expand schools; and to give parental choice its proper place. This will never mean every parent has the place they want for their child.”

The hon. Lady is right that, in practical terms, choice cannot be unlimited. However, as the Prime Minister said,

“it will mean that their preferences start shaping the way the system works.”

Choice is a means of shaping the way the system works; choice is a vehicle for something greater. When I make a case against choice as an absolute, I do so on the basis that choice is only ever a means to a greater end. The hon. Lady seems not even to recognise it as such.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

We are seeking not to prevent choice, but to qualify in exactly what circumstances a parent should have absolute choice. We are not seeking to prevent diversity in the system; we are saying that diversity should exist within schools and within the curriculum. It is not an either/or issue.

Ours is a probing amendment to get on record exactly what the Government mean by their provision. Diversity between schools or within the system is required if we are to implement Tomlinson. Young people would have to move between one institution and another. I am seeking to get on the record exactly what the Government mean by choice.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I do not want to be unnecessarily harsh on the hon. Lady, because that is not in my nature, as you know, Mr. Cook. No doubt “overriding” is a carefully chosen word; I am sure that the hon. Lady laboured long and hard into the twilight hours devising the amendments. However, saying that the choice should be subject to

“the overriding requirements of efficiency and effectiveness”

would limit the capacity to choose beyond the practical measures that she and I both believe are needed—because it would be impractical to offer ultimate choice, as she says—to a point at which the principles outlined by the Prime Minister in the important speech from which I quoted were impaired to an unacceptable degree.

Amendment No. 59 suggests that the Liberal Democrats do not really trust parents to make the best choices for their children. I am not sure that Liberal Democrats really believe that the effectiveness of education will be increased through parental choice, or that there should be as much diversity in education provision in schools. I think that they are still wedded, in a way in which the Labour party is increasingly not, to the straitjacket of the traditional comprehensive school. In that sense, they do speak for a constituency. It is a small and declining constituency, but that is, I suppose, the mantle of the Liberal Democrats as a rule, and no less so in this Committee.

The Liberal Democrats’ second amendment in the group relates to curricular choice. The hon. Lady made an interesting point about securing diversity of curriculum provision in schools and colleges and providing opportunities for parental and pupil choice. However, the logic of the amendment is that there would be less choice between schools, but individual schools having widely differing curriculums. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady made a compelling case for that—she certainly did not elaborate on it to a great degree. I wonder how it would be handled.

It is of course appropriate for schools to emphasise different aspects of the curriculum; indeed measures taken by the Conservatives when we were in government began that process. Some of us remember city technology colleges and their successors—technology colleges and then specialist schools. Some of us understand that it is desirable for schools to emphasise particular strengths, to appeal to parents on that basis and to cater for students with particular aptitudes. However, to write that into the Bill without a full explanation of its implications would be very worrying.

I am sure that, as I go on, I am persuading the Minister, who may have been hesitant, to resist the amendment. I think that she may have been waiting to hear what the Conservatives had to say before coming to a final judgment on it. She may now come to the same conclusion as I have, which is that the hon. Member for Brent, East has not made a sufficiently compelling case for the type of diversity that we are considering. It is a pity that in the amendment, which again deals with matters within schools rather than between schools, she did not address some of the pedagogic issues, which she might well have chosen to consider in relation to her views on the curriculum. It would have been interesting to hear how she applied her view of the nature of teaching and learning to the amendment.

For me, there are much more worrying aspects to what is going on in schools. I do not say that there are such problems in every school, or that there is a universal picture. As I have said, I do not take a narrow view on methodology. However, if we are to debate the curriculum and how we might vary it, it is important to have a clear view on teaching and learning strategies and how the curriculum might be developed. No doubt at some stage in our proceedings we shall have an extended debate about some matters that we began to explore this morning, such as the repercussions of Plowden and its effect on the delivery of the curriculum, teaching and learning strategies, and the relationship between the teacher and the taught.

I saw worrying signs in what the hon. Member for Bury, North said earlier about the way in which people gather, exchange and use information. We will discuss that in respect of technology—before I became a Member of Parliament, I spent my professional life in the IT industry so I have a perspective on such matters. I do not claim that it is particularly interesting, but I do have one. I was also worried about what the Minister said about personalised learning. We know that that will be debated further, and we do not take a dogmatic view about it. However, I have read some literature on the subject and seen in the debate on personalised learning shades of the old debate about child-centred learning. My concern is again about its effect on the nature of the relationship between teacher and taught. I take the view that teachers can and do inspire and that teaching is a valuable skill—a craft that we should never underestimate as a means of enriching and enlivening children’s experiences.

I know that the Minister cares about disadvantaged children as passionately as I do. I am not so sure about the hon. Member for Brent, East, but I shall give her the benefit of the doubt. For those children, school may be their first and last chance. The mentors that they find in their teachers—the models that they find in the adults whom they meet in the important role of educator—can change their lives. I have some concerns—I put it no more strongly—that an agenda might be developed that may be like the post-Plowden agenda that focused on child-centred learning and which, in my judgment, did considerable damage to many children’s life chances. We might be going down a similar road through personalised learning. I should like to hear from the hon. Lady about such matters in respect of the curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will speak to the Conservative amendments in the group. I do not recommend that the Committee support the Liberal Democrat amendments.

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

In this, my first contribution to the debate, may I also welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Cook? This is also my first contribution as a member of my party’s education team. Last Wednesday morning, when I was returning on the train from Leeds, having been at a pleasant ceremony to celebrate Leeds university being awarded Fairtrade status, I received a call on my mobile phone saying that the new leader of my party wished me to be its new shadow schools spokesperson. My first instruction was, “As soon as you get down to Westminster, get yourself on the Front Bench.” In the past week, I have done as much as I possibly can to read through the material. The advice that sticks out was from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East when she said that all MPs think that they are experts on education because they went to school. I assure the Committee that I bring that level of expertise to our proceedings.

There has been much talk about consensus between the official Opposition and the Government, and choice is one of the areas to which that particularly applies. However, I remind members of the Committee not to become sucked into the way of thinking that what happens here necessarily reflects the views that are held throughout the country. We must remember that many people in professional organisations and within schools are not part of the consensus to which the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred. It is important to hold debates such as this and for the Committee to hear the opinions that will be expressed by the Liberal Democrats today.

I come from a marketing background, and choice is what we in marketing call a buzzword. It is a word that connects with people and appeals to voters. The amendments seek to get away from last week’s political rough and tumble, which was perfectly legitimate, and accusations that we do not agree with choice if we oppose the Bill. The purpose of the amendments is to tie down what is meant by choice, as clause 2 does not sufficiently do that.

Robert Wilson (Reading East, Conservative)

The Liberal position seems to be against trusts, against foundation schools—at least it was—and against academies. In that context, what choice are you offering people? You say that it is all about having a good local school—

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

Order. I am not offering people anything at all. The hon. Member must learn to speak through the Chair. Please do not directly ask a Member what they are offering but pose questions indirectly in the third person through the Chair.

Robert Wilson (Reading East, Conservative)

My apologies, Mr. Cook. I believe that my comments have been received.

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

I am not sure that they have been received. I think that you are probably falling into the trap of trying to hear what I did not say.

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

Order. It is appropriate for an education Bill that people should learn. I suggest that hon. Members pick that one up and run with it.

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

Thank you, Mr. Cook. The hon. Gentleman and I will stay back after class if you require us to do so.

Amendment No. 59 is about the need to have parental choice, but in the context of efficiency and effectiveness. Choice leads to unbridled expansion of popular schools. That must work to the detriment of less popular schools, which are often in less popular areas, and that cannot be a good thing.

Amendment No. 178 is about diversity and choice. We need to think about choice within schools. Prince Henry’s grammar school in my constituency—before Conservative Members get excited, it is not a grammar school but a comprehensive school—is an excellent model of how to accommodate pupils from different social backgrounds and educational abilities. It places a high emphasis on sport, and it demonstrates that if there is diversity in a school, it can do many of the things that the Bill is trying to do and that we support.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

I am a little puzzled by the hon. Gentleman’s comments. He seems to be saying that it might not be a good thing that a school is good and people want to go to it. I am also keen to know exactly what he means by “less popular areas”.

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Lady asks a valid question. I was about to answer it through an example from my experience. Like hon. Members who have been MPs for many more years than I, every year I have parents who ask me to support appeals to get their children into what are perceived to be the most popular schools. Many parents want to send their children to a particular school, which, I am afraid, is in a nice area in my constituency, even though they live near another school that has a good record on the whole, but not as good as the other school’s. They do not want their children to go to it because of perceptions.

Parents often ask why a school cannot just add another class for that year’s entry, but where would that end? That summarises what we are trying to do   with the amendment. We are asking where choice ends. Clearly, another class cannot be added every other year. Schools cannot necessarily expand physically, nor would we want them to. The hon. Member for Elmet (Colin Burgon), one of my fellow Leeds MPs, made an impassioned speech last week on Second Reading. He said that the choice in this Bill would lead to a situation where children were bussed from one community to another, and in his opinion that situation would be to the detriment of both communities. I agree with him, and we need to address that issue.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for generously giving way a second time. In my constituency and in Hackney borough, due to poor planning and school performance in the past, many pupils were shipped out of borough to go to schools elsewhere, but people are now writing to me, clamouring to get into schools in Hackney, which has piloted much of what is in the Bill. Will the hon. Gentleman respond to that point?

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

I cannot comment on the hon. Lady’s experience, but let us not fall into the trap of looking at things that did not work in the past and assuming that the Bill therefore represents a step forward. We are trying to get the Government to clarify what is meant by “choice”, and I hope that the Minister will respond positively to that. To make it clear and to address the point made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, we do not oppose the concept of choice, or parental preference, which is probably a better way of putting it, but we have to be realistic. We have to accept that people will not always be able to have the preference or choice that they want. Again, where are the parameters?

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I would like to rewind to the point at which the hon. Gentleman said that a good school cannot expand. I would like to know why a good school cannot expand. I think that it can: that is one of the objectives of the Bill. He also referred to a school that is not doing so well in a not-so-popular area. We want the best education for all children, so if one school is doing better than another, the objective must be to drive up the standards of the one that is not doing so well. If that does not happen, that school should be closed and the ones that are doing well should be expanded.

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Lady obviously misheard what I said because I did not say that good schools should not expand, but that there has to be a limit. Let us focus on the point: we are trying to determine the limitations and the definition of choice. The Liberal Democrats agree with local decision making, but that is in danger of becoming a local free-for-all. We want the Minister to clarify the matter and to consider putting provisions in place to ensure that choice does not simply become a licence for the best schools to expand indefinitely and without limitation.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is a new Front Bencher, but notwithstanding that, I wonder whether he would clarify the point he made about the limit of choice being the capacity of people to travel to the school. He said that we might end up in a situation where people travel past one school to get to another, but is that not a common experience of many our constituents, who choose not the school closest to them, but the one that they prefer? Is that the sort of limit he wants? Would he place a distance limit on people’s capacity to choose?

Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are provisions in the Bill that deal with transport to schools, and we shall debate such issues when we get to them. However, the answer to his question is no. Of course we are not saying that everyone has to go to the school that is nearest to them: that would be ridiculous and would give people no choice. We do not think that. We support parents having a range of schools to choose from in an area, but that must not become a licence for the best schools to expand with no limit and to the detriment of the other schools. The evidence from the Audit Commission and from Sweden shows the danger that such a process will be socially exclusive. I simply ask the Minister to consider the amendments in the spirit in which they are proposed. I ask her to consider the issues, and I look forward to her response.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I shall not respond to the Liberal amendment; my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings has done that extremely well. However, I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) on his appointment. I think that he will enjoy the position very much and I look forward to working with him in the coming months, and hopefully years, in our respective positions. Leeds is a former old town of mine: hon. Members will be unsurprised to learn that I went to school there. I went to Roundhay, a very good school in Leeds North-East. It was a grammar school that went comprehensive the year before I joined, and it had many of the grammar school traditions. It covered the whole ability range but it produced some very good results.

It appears to me that the amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats tries to reinforce the surplus places rule, and I think that that is a big error. One of the problems with the local management of schools and with the agenda of the internal market and of choice, and with the way that that agenda did not raise standards as much as those of us who advocated it had hoped, is that good schools were not allowed to expand if they were in a local authority area with surplus places. The local authority would say that it could not justify, in financial terms, allowing a good and popular school to expand while there were x-hundred surplus places.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, I like quoting the Prime Minister. On 24 October 2005, the Prime Minister said:

“No one will be able to veto parents starting new schools or new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there are local surplus places.”

I think that he is right. Whether the rule exists in practice or not, we need to get rid of it.

Angela Smith (PPS (Yvette Cooper, Minister of State), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Sheffield, Hillsborough, Labour)

I think the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the surplus places rule. As one who had to deal with an application to expand a popular school when I was a cabinet member for education, I can say that the rule does not apply to expansion of schools but forces a local authority to tackle surplus numbers in individual schools. If a school has a surplus of more than 20 per cent. of places, the authority is required to act to deal with it. That is the rule that we are discussing.

The expansion of popular schools often gives rise to the argument by local authorities that surplus places will be created in other schools. More often than not, however, and as indeed was the case in the situation with which I dealt, that argument fails, both with the schools organisation committee and with the adjudicator.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

That is a welcome intervention and an interesting point. Often, though, the argument never gets to a schools organisation committee. Schools do not even contemplate expanding because they know that the local education authority is opposed to expansion as a result of the surplus places rule.

I faced that situation in West Sussex. I wrote to the director of education and asked why such schools could not expand, given that he and I were dealing in correspondence with parents who were disappointed that they could not get their children into those schools. He said that there were surplus places in the area and that the financial justification could not be made. So it is a problem that I hope that the Bill will eradicate.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

Presumably the hon. Gentleman would not advocate having unlimited surplus places in order to maintain choice and diversity in the system. The question is where local authorities should draw the line, and what the Government recommendation is. It is important to get that on record, because local authorities have to implement the Bill.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I understand that, but in introducing the amendment the hon. Lady said that unlimited choice requires unlimited capacity. That is a similar phrase to, “There is no such thing as perfect markets.” Things do not have to be perfect in order for benefits to apply to the system. Things can be imperfect, and there can be a degree of choice. A school can be allowed to expand without there being perfect, pure, unlimited choice for all people. There can be benefits from giving just some choice and allowing some schools to expand. Of course there will be financial matters to take into account, but the amendment proposes an overriding requirement. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings said, that puts a burden on local authorities not to allow any expansion of good schools for as long as some surplus places exist.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

The real point is that some local authorities would use that part of the Bill—if the amendment were incorporated—to resist the very   changes that the Government and the Opposition, and most of us who believe in this agenda, wish to pursue. We know that local authorities have a history of maintaining excessive numbers of surplus places, and that is exactly why the obligations to deal with them were introduced by the Government. The Liberal Democrat amendment would provide them with an excuse not to grasp the nettle.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

My hon. Friend makes the point well. I am grateful for his intervention.

I want to talk about amendment No. 161 and the other Conservative amendments. The amendment is about including in clause 2, which deals with diversity and choice, a range of provisions for children with special educational needs, which is important. It is difficult to understand the debate on the future of special schools unless one visits one or more of them. I visited a school at the invitation of Maria Hutchings, whom hon. Members may recall confronted the Prime Minister on the issue of special schools for those with moderate learning difficulties during the general election, thereby creating a furore. Maria Hutchings is the parent of a child at Cedar Hall school in Thundersley, near Benfleet in Essex, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink).

Cedar Hall is a special school for those with moderate learning difficulties and is the very type of school that current education orthodoxy and policy is seeking to eliminate. It is excellent and achieves high standards, with high expectations for all its pupils; it has a happy environment, but a strict policy on behaviour. I had a chance to chat with a number of the pupils. One boy was a football fanatic; his trousers were covered in mud from having played football at playtime. He was a keen Arsenal supporter, although that should not totally be held against him. He was a happy, well-balanced extrovert of a child with lots of friends at school. It was impossible to tell, when chatting to him, that he had such a traumatic start to his school career. He went initially to a mainstream school, where he was bullied remorselessly and became withdrawn. He hated school and tried to commit suicide—this eight-year-old boy—by throwing himself down the stairs on a school day and, on one occasion, by trying to get out of a moving car on the way to school.

There is no question that, for some children, mainstream school is not appropriate; they do not want to go there—nor do their parents want them to. There is equally no question that for some children with moderate learning difficulties, mainstream school is entirely appropriate, and they can flourish and make friends. It depends on the child. It should be a matter of choice for the parent, which is why we must keep the special schools open and ensure that parents are informed by the local education authority of the full range of options available to them.

Amendment No. 161 would ensure that the concept of diversity and choice extended to a range of provisions for those with special educational needs.   Lady Warnock was responsible, in many ways, for the orthodoxy that led to closure of many of those schools, but at least she is honest about that and accepts that it was a mistake. She said to the Education and Skills Select Committee on 31 October 2005:

“people, and particularly parents, do feel that they are being cheated and therefore their children are being cheated”—

The White Paper emphasises parental choice as the great good that will come with educational reform, but she says:

“I think that produces a hollow laugh on the part of parents with children with disabilities because they have no choice. Everything depends on the assessment that their child gets and it is the local authority which conducts the assessment and also has to pay the money and naturally the parents do not believe the assessment is truthful because it is pitched as low as the local authorities can get away with because of the money. They really have virtually no choice of schools and no control over wishing for anything else”.

Lady Warnock makes a valid point, which is why the Conservative party established a commission under Sir Bob Balchin to look into that matter. It concluded that the assessment needs to be separated from the provider and funding, so that the statementing is done by an independent set of people and the funding comes direct from central Government and will follow the statement through to the school. In that way we remove any possibility of a conflict of interest.

Amendment No. 161 has the support of the National Autistic Society, which made the important point that, although there are an estimated 90,000 children with autism in this country, there are only 7,500 specialist places. To quote from its brief on the amendment, which it has circulated round the Committee, it says:

“There is an overall lack of specialist provision for children with autism, and more broadly, special education needs ... Parents want a range of provision, including mainstream schools, special schools, resource bases within mainstream and dual placements.

66 per cent. of parents said their choice was limited by a lack of appropriate placements for children with autism in their local area.”

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I cannot resist the temptation to make a special plea for the Government to look again at the early diagnosis of autism. On behalf of the autistic community and carers, it is vital to acquire the right kind of education in the way recommended by my hon. Friend and to identify autism as early as possible. It is still a significant problem, and it needs to be addressed. This would be a good opportunity to air the issue and for the Minister to say a word about it.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

While my hon. Friend is on the point about spreading best practice by reference to the definition of best schools, may I welcome the fact that his definition of “best schools” is linked to their performance according to the value-added measure? That is an important point.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing the second part of the amendment to the Committee’s attention. It is designed to ensure that we do not define a good school just by the raw results which of course will be influenced by the intake of a particular school. The value-added measures are a better way of assessing a school’s contribution to delivering higher standards of education to all intakes, regardless of ability. It is an accurate measure of how well a school is doing.

Tarun Kapur, the head teacher at Ashton on Mersey school in Trafford, took over that school several years ago. At that time, it had poor standards and behaviour—just 29 per cent. of its pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A-C. He changed the ethos of the school. He introduced a strict school uniform with blazer, white shirt and tie. Shoes had to be black, and trainers—black or otherwise—were not permitted. He introduced regulation hair cuts and a no-jewellery policy. That was a huge change, which he had to sell to parents. He did so by inviting them to a large meeting at which the new uniform was modelled by two students and he explained precisely what he wanted to achieve for the school, and how their children’s education would benefit.

None of that was easy for Mr. Kapur, but it worked. Ashton on Mersey school is in an area of Trafford in which the grammar school creams off the top 40 per cent. of the most academically able. Despite that, 67 per cent. of his pupils achieve five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C; 57 per cent. when English and mathematics are included. Those are very good results for a comprehensive, let alone for what is, in effect, a secondary modern school. When I visited the school, I saw the uniform being strictly enforced; a child was sent home for wearing trainers. Teachers addressed one another as “Sir” or “Mr. Jones” or “Mrs. Jones”, even out of earshot of pupils. There was a professionalism to the way in which the school was conducted. Whenever an adult entered a classroom, the class stood up—it was a reflex action. That is what I remember from my childhood. I was educated at a school in Canada. There, it was a reflex; one just stood up.

I did not give that example because I hark after a bygone age. This is a modern school in Trafford, led by an effective and highly regarded head teacher, and his approach works. Students feel safe there, and achievement is high. That is the kind of best practice that we should spread in this country, and I hope that the amendment will help to encourage that to happen.

I mentioned the Trafford example to the general secretary of one of the teacher unions—I shall not say which, as it would embarrass him or her—and he or she said that if he or she were still a head teacher, that is the approach that he or she would take and that, almost certainly, he or she would want children to stand up when a teacher or other adult came into the room. The issue is not confined to fuddy-duddies or to those on the right, it should be cross-party and cross-ideology. Best practice should be spread.

In Trafford, there is another school, Wellington school. Again, 40 per cent. of the most academic children are creamed off to the grammar school. However, last year that school saw 73 per cent. of its 15-year-olds achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, 66 per cent. when English and mathematics were included. There are no GNVQs in those numbers. That school has rigorous setting and very high expectations of the children. Again, it has effective lesson monitoring and staff development, things that should certainly be spread to other schools.

The best-performing comprehensive in England is the Thomas Telford city technology college in Telford. That school has a banded intake based not on the ability range of the applicants but on the national array of ability. On that basis, one would have thought—

Angela Smith (PPS (Yvette Cooper, Minister of State), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Sheffield, Hillsborough, Labour)

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s having given way one more time. Is it not the case that best-performing schools should be measured over time rather than on the basis suggested in the amendment? Year-on-year improvement in results is the real sign of an improving and well performing school, rather than a constant performance level that does not change. A school might well have a success rate of 65 per cent. but if it does not move from that rate, what is there to suggest that its practices are any better than those of schools that start at a low level but improve year on year and constantly strive for further improvement, changing their practices to achieve the best for their pupils?

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. However, if a school is in the top quartile of the national table for value added measure—given that that is a normative-based approach—and if standards are rising nationally, the implication is that it remains in the top quartile only if its standards rise too.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I first became interested in value added measurement in the 1980s, when the University of Sheffield did its pioneering work on the subject. The point is that it shows not only those schools that are performing excellently with a difficult cohort, but those that are coasting in rather more straightforward circumstances. It has the effect of exposing good and less good practice. I entirely agree that there is a need to use the Bill to find better mechanisms for sharing that good practice throughout the range of schools, regardless of their starting point.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that valuable intervention. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) is also right to say that we should pay attention to a range of years. The school might pop up to the top of the league table one year and drop down the next. However, the amendment will obviously be read intelligently by local government officials, and not in a very mechanistic way.

If a school is improving, it has not yet reached the point at which its practices should be spread around the country. It must maintain its position in those upper echelons, and it cannot be an example to follow until it has become a peer of the best performing schools in the country.

The Thomas Telford school in Telford has a banded intake on the basis of the national array of abilities in the country, so that in theory, if it were in tune with the national average, about 56 per cent. of its 15-year-olds would achieve five or more A* to C GCSEs. One might expect that figure to rise to 60 or 65 per cent. if the school were better than average. In fact, Thomas Telford managed to get 100 per cent. of its students to achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C—all of them, including the bottom 7 per cent. of the attainment ability that the school takes in.

That, of course, is not the end of the story. What those 100 per cent. of students achieved was not five or more GCSEs but 12 GCSEs at grades A* to C. That included GNVQs, which are worth up to four GCSEs, but even if that equivalence calculation is removed from the results, Thomas Telford is still the top-performing comprehensive school in the country. If at that school, with an ability range that reflects the country as a whole, 100 per cent. can get at least five good GCSEs, why is the national average 56 per cent?

As an aside I want to mention that I asked the head teacher at the school, Sir Kevin Satchwell, about the uniform policy. I asked, “Does it matter that the students at the school wear blazers? Couldn’t they just wear pullovers, as many comprehensive school students do?” He said, “No, they must wear blazers, shirt and tie because that is what adults do. If you want to treat children like primary school children, with a soft jumper and sweatshirt approach to uniform, they will behave like primary school children.” That is the view of a head teacher, and I think that we need to take the views of such people seriously. Let us impose on ourselves the duty to spread the best practice adopted by schools such as Thomas Telford, to achieve such results.

The amendment deals with adopting the practice of schools in the top quartile of the value-added league tables. Perhaps we could be even more discerning and specify the top 5 per cent. I hope that we can pay attention to the schools that I have listed, because they achieve a huge amount and I think that we can learn a lot from what they do.

Finally, amendment No. 88 would establish a target of 10 per cent. of school places to be made up of schools of the types specified: trust schools, academies and voluntary aided schools. The main purpose and drive behind the Bill is to achieve diversity in the range of schools available to parents, and a greater chance that parents who are not happy that their children should be taught in a progressive school, or one with whose ethos they disagree, will find the type of education they want for their children. A 10 per cent. target should make local authorities more proactive in initiating competition, not simply on the basis of need, but on the basis of fulfilling the obligation to provide a diverse range of schools.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

Before I speak to amendments Nos. 97 and 98, which are in my name, I want to make some general observations about the debate so far, and the other amendments.

I want to start by commenting briefly on some of the points made by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about best practice for special needs. It is indisputable that a central priority for our system should be the extension of best practice. It is a fair criticism of the English, and perhaps the British, education system that we have not been as good at spreading best practice as we should have been.

I do not find the idea in amendment No. 5, that an arbitrary cut-off point fixed for schools in the value-added performance tables should be used as the criterion for which schools spread best practice, in any way convincing. I have several reasons for that. First, why should it be the first quartile? Why 25 per cent. and not 20, 30, 10 or 5 per cent.? There is no logic or rationale for choosing an average percentage. Secondly, year on year the schools in whichever percentage group is chosen will change. Thirdly, the nature of the value-added methodology is likely to change too, not necessarily year on year but over time. In fact, the contextual value-added indicators that will be published for the first time this year are slightly different from the value-added indicators used previously, and there is a lively debate among statisticians as to which is the appropriate methodology. There is no fixed value-added methodology.

Fourthly, the distinction between the schools that happen to be 25th and 26th in the league table can be so tiny as to be almost insignificant. Fifthly—I am trying reach tenthly, but I am not sure how to do so—there is little or no reason to assume that the methods shared by those schools are common. I should have thought that experience would teach us that such schools use a variety of methods and that no single method can be transferred universally. That returns to our earlier debate about those who believe in a silver bullet to solve all education problems and those who believe in a variety of methods for all aspects of running a school which need to be tried and explored, and that it boils down to the quality of the head teacher, the management team and the teaching in the school rather than whether the children have short haircuts and shiny shoes. I discount the amendment.

In amendment No. 161, on the subject of special needs, the hon. Gentleman does not accurately reflect the contribution that Baroness Warnock has made to the special needs debate, either through the article she wrote last year or in her most recent article, which was published just a few weeks ago. Her understanding of the system is one of greater complexity than Opposition Members would like to believe. There is no evidence of a systematic policy to close special schools.

The general consensus among all the experts who came before the Education and Skills Committee during its recent inquiry into special needs was that we need a range of provision, which should include some special schools for children with the most serious disabilities, a considerable amount of mainstreaming  and improvements to the way that children with disabilities are taught and supported in mainstream schools, together with a significant increase in the number of special units and special resource centres attached to mainstream schools. We are talking not about an either/or debate about special or mainstream schools, but about one that focuses on a continuum of provision that is more sensitively matched to the needs of individual children. I am not sure that amendment No. 161 deals with that.

I want to return to the starting point of the debate, which was the comment made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. Looking at the list of members of the Committee, I see that he has the privilege of representing the constituency with probably the most beautiful name, and I congratulate him on his good fortune. I envisage his constituency as peopled with individuals with names such as Bilbo Baggins. Frankly, aspects of Tolkien came into his argument.

The hon. Gentleman said that clause 2 and the focus on choice and diversity were central to the fundamental purpose of the Bill. That may be the case, but I put it in a slightly different way. They are central to the Bill but they highlight the different reasons why people of different perspectives can support it. The real issue is not in accepting choice and diversity but in how we interpret them.

It find it surprising that the clause is perfunctory in describing the powers of local education authorities in terms of securing diversity and increasing the opportunities for parental choice. I should have thought that the brevity of the way those concepts are dealt with provides a blank cheque for a large number of lawyers to argue about the definitions of choice and diversity in the years ahead.

I do not see it as a question of whether one is broadly in favour of, or opposed to, choice and diversity. The heart of the clause is about how we define them. The problem is that in many respects the two concepts have been used loosely by both main political parties for many years and by the Department for Education and Skills in a series of publications. There was a time when it seemed that every White Paper, whether from a Labour or a Tory Government, included the terms “choice” and “diversity” and something else, perhaps “excellence”, in a seemingly infinite series of combinations. However, we must move on from the use of “choice and diversity” as a political slogan and examine what we really mean by it.

It bothers me that there is no clear or detailed definition of the concepts in clause 2. If the clause is accepted unamended, it runs the enormous risk of opening the floodgates to a series of legal arguments and challenges as time goes by. It worries me that there appears to be a consensus about diversity; it appears to be defined in respect of simply having different kinds of school—different names, different labels, different forms of governance and perhaps different structures of ownership. I have no great objection to that, except that in England there is a great problem in supporting  the concept of diversity and accepting it without rearranging the objects of diversity into hierarchies. If we merely focus on diversity and on creating a range of different institutions with different names, labels and forms of governance attached, the clause runs the risk that sooner or later parents will sort those institutions into ever greater hierarchies. That is precisely what Her Majesty’s Opposition would like and it is why they are so enthusiastic in their support for the Bill. I hope that Labour Members can put greater emphasis on the parity of esteem between schools and support a concept of diversity that is designed to deliver it, rather than reinforcing and extending existing hierarchies.

Annette Brooke (Children & the Family, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument with great interest. Is he concerned that should a future Administration inherit this measure, it could be implemented in a very different way from what is intended now?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

That is a concern about all legislation. I do not completely buy the argument that it is easy for an incoming Government to turn legislation to their advantage merely because it contains a degree of ambiguity. If an incoming Government were sufficiently committed to a particular policy, they would simply introduce new primary legislation.

I want to tie the question of diversity and hierarchy in with the whole question of ethos. “Ethos” has appeared briefly in this afternoon’s discussion; the term is increasingly used to describe the qualities of certain good schools. It is right to identify an ethos and a sense of identity as characteristics of a good school, as has been well documented over a number of years by Ofsted and others.

However, I am a little concerned when diversity and hierarchy are linked with ethos—again, I can see that this is attractive to some members of the official Opposition, although not necessarily those who are here—because we run the risk of having schools that operate an exclusive policy of admitting only those children whom they feel match their ethos. There is a fundamental difference between a school developing and establishing an ethos and encouraging children to benefit from it, and a school developing an ethos and keeping children out because it does not wish to admit those whom it judges not to be beneficial to the continuation of that ethos.

I am worried about the word “ethos” and am grateful that it does not appear in the Bill—perhaps it appeared in an earlier draft. I make that point because it is absolutely relevant to the debate about diversity.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether he is saying that all schools must be the same, with exactly the same ethos? There is no room for diversity, difference or choice in those schools if they are not allowed to have their own distinctive ethos.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I am arguing precisely the opposite. I am saying that diversity within a school is more important than diversity between schools. I am less concerned about having different types of ownership or governance, or different categories of school as a matter of policy, and more concerned about having a curriculum in each school that is sufficiently flexible to match the range of individual needs that each child brings to that school. It is far more important to focus on diversity within the school than on diversity between different categories of schools.

David Evennett (Whip, Whips; Bexleyheath & Crayford, Conservative)

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that one school should have lots of different ethoses? He seems rather confused. He wants to have diversity within the school, but surely the school would then lose its ethos.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I think that it is entirely possible for a school to have its own distinctive ethos but, within that ethos, for it to run a varied and flexible curriculum that can respond properly the needs of each child. The best schools do just that.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

My hon. Friend may be referring, if not by name, to Mossbourne city academy in Hackney, which has a mix of pupils from all ability ranges and all social and ethnic backgrounds. The school has a strong ethos, which all its pupils buy into, and there is a queue of parents waiting to get in. Is that the sort of the school that my hon. Friend is talking about?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I was not specifically thinking of Mossbourne city academy in Hackney, but that is a good example of exactly the argument that I was trying to make. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point.

David Evennett (Whip, Whips; Bexleyheath & Crayford, Conservative)

I am very interested in Hackney, because the Prime Minister says that the academies have a different ethos—indeed, one specific ethos—so what the hon. Lady said does not make sense.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I am not sure that the Prime Minister has ever said that every academy shares the same ethos. He has argued that having slightly different arrangements for the academies has enabled them to establish their own ethos more easily. The important point is that whatever ethos an individual academy establishes is not used in an exclusive way to deter certain children from applying or to find ingenious ways of preventing children from being admitted.

One argument that is often put in support of the diversity policy is that we need a wider range of schools to generate a strong ethos and raise standards, but there is not much evidence to support that view. Nor did the Education and Skills Committee report on secondary education, which was published last year after two years of inquiry, reach the conclusion that a diversity of schools or different kinds of school would, in itself, raise standards. The evidence that we found, and the conclusion that we reached—this is very much the conclusion that Ofsted has reached over the years—is that what matters in raising standards is not so much a school’s structure, name or even ethos, and certainly not the existence of a pattern of different   kinds of school, but the quality of management and teaching, the flexibility of the curriculum and parental engagement.

Robert Wilson (Reading East, Conservative)

Is the hon. Gentleman then arguing that the money spent on academies, for example, is wasted?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

No, I am not arguing that at all. I believe in letting 100 flowers bloom and in innovation, and it is important to explore a range of different ways of delivering education, but I do not buy the argument that establishing a diversity of institutions is, in itself, guaranteed to drive up standards. The track record of the academies to date is mixed: some are doing significantly better than their predecessor schools, but some are not. It is not easy at this stage—although it may become easier later—to draw conclusions about the impact of the academies programme on standards. One might argue that we would have had a stronger impact on standards if we had spent £11 million on two schools or £7.33 million on three schools, rather than £22 million on one school, but that is a separate issue.

I think that I have been able to make my point about diversity. I am concerned that the clause does not adequately define diversity and therefore leaves it wide open to challenge in the future.

Let me move on to the question of choice. The clause talks about

“increasing opportunities for parental choice”

and I am a strong supporter of parental choice. Again, however, the difficulty is one of definition. The assumption, probably since the Education Act 1980, which first introduced the concept of open enrolment, has been that choice is at the heart of the system. From the early 1990s onwards, with the establishment of city technology colleges and the expansion of grant-maintained schools, the view has been that a greater range of schools offers choice. The problem, however, is that we have defined choice as a range of theoretical alternatives for parents, whereas most parents would define it as the capacity to secure their first preference. Simply increasing the range of different schools or different types of school, therefore, does not necessarily mean that we are increasing a parent’s chances of securing their first preference of school.

Of course, that might work in precisely the opposite direction. We might have a greater diversity of schools and ethoses—I am not sure whether that is the plural of ethos. Perhaps I can check that with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, who might know the answer from his days in Leeds and Nottingham. The hon. Gentleman did not attend school in Bury, did he? I am sure that somebody on the Committee knows what the plural of ethos is, but it is not me.

The extension of the range of different kinds of ethos can result in an increasing number of parents being denied access to their first-choice school. Again, it is extremely important that we define choice more precisely. I really believe that we, and the overwhelming majority of parents, would define “choice” as the capacity to secure their first preference. Quite frankly, from a parent’s point of view, there is   little point in having six, seven, eight, nine or 10 different schools within immediate travelling distance if they are not able to secure their first preference.

The consensus now is that choice is the driver of the system, and that that is what most parents want. That is true in many respects, but not all, because I think that parents use the concept of choice as a proxy for quality. Clause 2 does not take that on board fully. As the hon. Gentleman said, we are being led to confuse choice as a means to an end with choice as an end in itself. Clause 2 emphasises choice as an end in itself, whereas choice should really be a means to an end, and that end should be an improvement in quality. Parents frequently say that they want choice, but that is because they deem that to be the way to get better quality. When parents want to choose something other than their neighbouring school, they say that it is because their neighbouring school is not good enough.

If we could develop a policy under which every local school was good enough, parents would place far less emphasis on choice. The great paradox is that if we could secure quality in all local schools, choice would become far less significant than we have been led to believe it is. I just make that point about choice as a proxy for quality.

There are two other issues to raise about choice. There is another great paradox. The real choice that a small but significant minority of parents want for their children is that of avoiding their being taught with the slightly more unpleasant children down the street, or on the other side of the tracks. I sound a note of caution about that. How can I explain this delicately? It should not be made any easier for parents to opt out of the normal processes of social life. It should not be the role of the state education system to increase segregation between parents and between children.

The final point about choice is that if we really believe in choice as I defined it—as the ability to secure one’s first preference—the logical corollary is that it is absolutely impossible for schools to establish their own over-subscription criteria. We cannot have it both ways; either parents can choose the schools, and the system has to adapt to respond to those first preferences, or the schools can establish their own over-subscription criteria, in which case it is the school that will determine which places go to which children. We really cannot have it both ways. We may return to that later, when we deal with admissions.

I will try to be brief to allow others to speak, but first I move on to amendments Nos. 97 and 98. In one sense, they would provide a counter-balancing mechanism to what could be the worst consequences of the simple statement about diversity and choice in proposed new subsection (3A)(a) and (b). Amendment No. 97 would place a responsibility on local authorities to ensure that education in the schools for which they are responsible contributes to social inclusion and community cohesion. The amendment has, if not exactly the same wording, very similar wording to that of the Education and Skills Committee’s report on the White Paper.

I need not over-emphasise the deep and growing concerns about the consequences of growing social exclusion among young people. Those concerned about education have been debating for a number of years the consequences of some aspects of faith schools and the increasing trend of children from particular families to be educated separately from children of different faiths or beliefs.

I do not see any great movement to change significantly the nature of our faith schools—I think that they are a fixed part of the landscape—but I detect at some of the highest levels in the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England a growing awareness of the consequences of reproducing in a multicultural society an education system in which children are taught only with children of similar background and faith. In the context of 9/11 and of growing concerns about the alienation of Muslim youth in the United Kingdom—a debate that is now far more high-profile than it was some years ago at the time of riots in some east Lancashire and West Yorkshire towns—we need to be more sensitive about how to educate our young people and avoid falling into the trap of educating them in ghettos.

I do not pretend that there is an easy solution to the problem, and my amendment does not prescribe one, but I think that putting the responsibility on local authorities to ensure that their schools contribute to social inclusion and community cohesion would put down a marker. We have an increasingly dangerous tendency to segregate our young children according to the belief systems of their parents. Although one must respect the views of parents and the way that many wish their children to be brought up in their own beliefs, it is a growing trend among parents of different faith and ethnic groups. A more integrated approach to primary and secondary education might provide a better foundation for our society’s development in years ahead.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

I am slightly concerned by my hon. Friend’s comments. He speaks of faith schools as though they create ghettos. Has he thought about faith schools in east London? A Catholic school might have Vietnamese children alongside Nigerian, Irish, Spanish and first-generation Italian children. That is not one cultural group; it includes people from different backgrounds, nationalities, races and incomes. Such schools can be very diverse. Will he clarify his argument?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

That is an extremely important point. In many inner urban areas, both Church of England and Roman Catholic schools have increasingly started to diversify their intake of children because of the force of circumstances and different residential patterns. Precisely because those faith schools can provide high-quality education for children from a wide variety of faiths, we should ask ourselves why in other parts of the country, some schools insist on a more rigid set of admissions criteria. There are many parts of the country where it is perfectly normal for children of different faith backgrounds to go to the same primary   school, but at age 11, they are segregated into secondary schools of different faiths. I am not saying that this is unacceptable and should be changed. However, there is raised awareness that such a structure of secondary education may lead to growing segregation and may exacerbate the problems of social exclusion about which we are increasingly concerned. Therefore, I support amendment No. 97.

With amendment No. 98, we argue that the concept of fair access should be included in a local education authority’s list of important duties. The concept of fair access was prominent in the original White Paper—in fact, it was reiterated on page after page. Although I am delighted that many aspects of the White Paper are not contained in the Bill, that concept should have been included. It might raise the question of how we define fair access—perhaps, the criticism that I made about including diversity and choice without adequate definition could apply to that concept—but it was a key part of the White Paper.

There is consensus on the argument that if we are to move towards a freer school system, with a slight increase in the autonomy and independence of schools and a change in the nature of the relationships between schools and local authorities, there must be counter-balancing mechanisms to avoid a deregulated free-for-all. At heart, Conservative members believe that a deregulated free-for-all is the best way forward, while Labour members want greater autonomy and freedom for schools. However, to ensure that our best schools are open to those children previously excluded from them, and that we satisfy parents that the admissions system works well, new managerial autonomy must operate in a framework of democratic accountability, part of which must be based on a system of fair admissions and access to schools.

In many parts of the country, parents are confused and bewildered by the complexity and irrationality of the admissions system and by the bizarre criteria used by certain schools to admit some children and to exclude others. There will be time for a longer debate on admissions, but it is vital to reiterate the White Paper’s emphasis on the importance of fair access.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. In view of the hour and the fact that the Committee wants to make progress, I shall speak briefly. There are many clauses yet to come, and we are only on clause 2.

I will make three points in support of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. These amendments to the themes of clause 2 would improve the Bill. Diversity and choice—or “choice and diversity” as they were known in a Conservative Government White Paper—are good themes. I intend to subject the Government’s interpretation of choice and diversity, and that of the Conservative Government, to a closer analysis than I have done in the past. I do not expect to see a great deal of difference at the end of that process. Choice and diversity are readily understood and welcomed by parents.

No parents will welcome choice more than those to whom my hon. Friend referred when speaking to amendment No. 178: the parents of children with special needs. We owe them a particularly good hearing on the subject of choice, and I fully support the arguments that my hon. Friend made on the point. For those parents and pupils, choice is particularly important, and I look forward to the Minister’s response on the matter.

I also support amendment No. 5, which is designed to spread best practice through schools. It is important that we bear in mind the need to improve all school. When we debate uniformity, social background, social structures and inclusiveness, there may be some differences in the Committee. I hope that there will be one point, however, on which we will have a consensus: that there should be uniformity in our expectations of children and of the schools that offer them education. We should not put up with poorly performing schools, or with schools with certain labels being recognised as good schools while others are not. There should be uniformity in the aspirations that we have for children.

I welcome my hon. Friend’s amendment as a contribution to the debate and perhaps as a way of ensuring that the schools with the best performance can spread it to other schools whose performance is not the best. As I made clear in my intervention on my hon. Friend, I welcome the fact that he has sought to define the issue in terms of value added. That is a valuable concept, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings made clear. It cuts both ways, because some schools that appear to be good schools are, on closer examination, merely coasting along and not doing as well for the children as they should be. We should look for those schools to improve as well. The concept is valuable, and I think that I can be consensual on the matter. I echo what the Secretary of State said on choice, which I hope will meet with approval in all parts of the Committee, although I am not sure that it will:

“A choice between weak or failing schools is no choice at all.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2005; Vol. 438, c. 171.]

We should not put up with weak or failing schools, we should ensure that schools have uniformity of aspiration and we should spread best practice from the good schools to those that are not doing as well as they could.

My final point is in support of my hon. Friend’s amendment No. 88, which seeks to probe into the question of diversity and to deliver diversity by ensuring that 10 per cent. of school places are provided by one or more of the types of school listed. It has value, and again I look forward to hearing from the Minister on it. I do not want to anticipate the Minister’s response to the amendments, but I am sure that in your time, Mr. Cook, you have heard Ministers give technical reasons why amendments should not be accepted. I cannot see a good reason why any of these amendments should not be taken, but we will hear from the Minister on them.

I would also like to hear from her on the theme of the different types of school and the proportion of school places to be delivered, to which I will return later in our proceedings. In this group of amendments we are seeking to make a difference and ensure that all the sound and the fury that has been in the background during the Bill’s passage—though not on the Opposition side of the House—ends up meaning something and that the Bill makes a difference. We must not end up with small numbers of schools that have a particular label and not much difference being made to schools in general. I hope that the Minister will be as good as the Government’s rhetoric and give some indication either of how many school places or of how many schools of each type she expects there to be. I am thinking particularly of paragraph (ii) of the amendment. How many academy schools does the Minister expect there to be? Will she give us an estimate on that? I hope that she will be able to give the amendments sympathetic consideration. They are tabled in a consensual spirit that will improve the Bill and I commend my hon. Friend for having tabled them, particularly the one on special schools.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Durham, City of, Labour)

I rise to speak to amendment—

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

Order. May I make one more appeal? Would the hon. Lady raise her head up, speak up and do so in this direction?

Phil Hope (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Education and Skills; Corby, Labour)

And be brief.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Durham, City of, Labour)

I shall do so.

I rise to speak to amendments Nos. 97 and 98. The Minister will know that the Education and Skills Committee was keen that the Bill should contain a duty for schools to ensure that they promote community cohesion, better race relations and social inclusion in their areas. I have a concern that although clause 2, as drafted, secures diversity and greater parental choice, that might not necessarily contribute to greater community cohesion.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

On a point of clarity, I do not think that the entire Education and Skills Committee agreed on that matter. We tabled amendments against that—[Interruption.]

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

Order. Hon. Members must come to order. There is a Chair, use it.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Durham, City of, Labour)

I stand corrected; it might have been the majority report of the Education and Skills Committee, I cannot quite recall. However, the point is that most of us were keen for there to be a requirement on community cohesion to be given to individual schools. It was clear in the White Paper that the Government wished trusts to have some overall responsibility for community cohesion. If the trust principle is successful, and I hope that it will be, trusts can have responsibility for a range of schools. Within   that, each school could be monocultural or mono-faith and schools might not necessarily interact with each other. We have tabled this probing amendment to ensure that clause 2 would not have an undermining effect or prevent schools from having an active role in community cohesion.

I shall discuss an example from my experience. The Northern Ireland education system is diverse—there are different types of school and parental choice—but it also leads to a high degree of both social and religious segregation. I do not want that to be expanded as a result of the Bill. If each school had to pay attention to community cohesion, it would have to interact with other schools and faiths. That would help to produce greater social inclusion.

I shall move on to amendment No. 98. The assumption underpinning the Bill is that that clause 37, which requires schools to act in accordance with the code of practice on admissions, will deliver fair access. However, it is important to put something in the Bill that flags the Government’s intention to support fair access, as was outlined in the White Paper.

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

I call Sandra Dorries—I apologise. I call Nadine Dorries.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

That is actually my daughter’s name, so well guessed.

It will come as no surprise to the Minister that I support amendment No. 161, as I am particularly interested in special educational needs. When I was a new MP, the parents of a boy called Jack were the very first people to visit my surgery, and their case ended up in the Minister’s office. Jack has severe learning difficulties and special educational needs. I do not know whether the Minister knows the conclusion of the story: Jack is receiving a full education in Moor House school. I thank the Minister because, but for her intervention, Jack would have had a battle to be educated anywhere. At the time of his parents’ visit, he was being educated at home. Jack’s case highlights the need for local education authorities to have adequate provision for special educational needs. At the moment, one of the problems is that the Government appear to have a policy of inclusion and local education authorities are attempting to interpret it, but there is a grey, fuzzy area in between.

That has resulted in a disparity of provision—a postcode lottery—across the UK. Will the Minister confirm that the Government have an inclusion policy? When I asked Lord Adonis that question last week, he said that Parliament, not the Government, has an inclusion policy. I beg to differ. I should like to know whether the Government have an inclusion policy because, first, it is difficult to get a Minister to say whether they do, and secondly, local education authorities believe that the Government have one, interpret their policy and statement children.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Durham, City of, Labour)

Does the hon. Lady also recall that the Minister told the Committee that the Government’s policy was that the interests of the child would be at the centre of the decision-making process, that the child could therefore end up in a mainstream or special school and that it was up to the local   authority, the professionals and the parents—who know about the individual child’s needs—to make the decision, and not a Minister?

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

The Minister—Lord Adonis—is known for passing the problem back to local education authorities; he does that every time he is questioned about inclusion for children with special educational needs. The LEAs try to interpret what they think is Government policy in a number of ways.

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

Order. At this stage of the debate, we should concentrate not so much on Government policy, but on the duties of local education authorities. That is what the group of amendments is focused on.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Yes, I understand your point, Mr. Cook, but LEAs attempt to carry out and execute their duties in accordance with what they believe to be Government policy. The problem is occurring because that policy is adhered to rather than specified.

I shall give an example, Mr. Cook. In section 3 of the statementing process—whether one can get to that process is another issue—the needs of the child are often minimised so as not to incur the additional costs that would come with putting him or her into special education provision. Alternatively, the special school may have closed and there may be nowhere for the child to be educated.

It is also extremely difficult for the child to be statemented because many local education authorities believe that they do not need to go through that process now because there is not the funding to allocate to the child. The options open to a parent then are to access the special educational needs and disability tribunal. Again, I shall cite what the Minister said this week. I made an error in assuming that it was very expensive to go to SENDIST, and it is—it costs parents between £2,000 and £10,000 to take a child’s case to the tribunal.

Angela Smith (PPS (Yvette Cooper, Minister of State), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Sheffield, Hillsborough, Labour)

I take the hon. Lady back to the issue of the duties of local authorities. In the past, she has said that she wants schools to be released from the asphyxiating control of local authorities. It is therefore interesting to hear her defence of local authorities in relation to special needs, and I should like to hear her comments on that matter.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

No, I certainly do not defend local authorities. I am not sure where that comment came from. However, I do believe that schools need to be free and out of the control of local education authorities. That is what the White Paper was about and the Bill is a watered down, wimpish version of it. It is about slightly removing schools from the control of education authorities.

I return to my point about SENDIST. Many local education authorities now employ barristers to represent them at those tribunals when parents are trying to secure access for their child to the special school provision that they need. To be able to stand up against the local authority’s barrister, the parents also need to employ a barrister. They also have to pay for specialist reports on the child to be done and, as we   heard in the Education and Skills Committee, that costs between £2,000 and £10,000. Thus there is the bizarre situation that only wealthy parents who have the finances to pay for that kind of assistance can access the tribunal and can secure the provision that children with special educational needs require.

I will be brief, as it is nearly 7 o’clock. This is one of the most important amendments to the Bill and I hope that the Minister will give it due consideration.

Angela Smith (PPS (Yvette Cooper, Minister of State), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Sheffield, Hillsborough, Labour)

I shall speak principally on the issues of choice and diversity. In the debate on choice, I detected a nervousness in the Committee about what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North described as the possibility of a deregulated free-for-all on the issue of choice. What is interesting is that no one denied the right of parents to have a choice.

We must therefore strike a balance between the need for choice and the need to foster social inclusion and fair access. The need for balance is important. On the issue of choice, it is important to remember that appeals by parents who fail to get their children into their first-choice schools are not just about a failure to get into popular schools, as the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West said, but sometimes about the failure of the parents to get a child into the school that their sibling already attends. The parents may have moved down the road and no longer be in the catchment area. Sometimes it is necessary to appeal on the basis of special needs if the parents feel that they have not been met sufficiently.

Peer friendships also play a part in parents’ decisions about where to send their children. It is not always about wanting to send children to the so-called exclusive schools. I spoke to a parent recently who told me that she wanted her child to go to the school in a working-class area to the west, rather than the east, of where she lived because all the children in her boy’s class were going to that school. The question of choice is more complicated than we sometimes give it credit for.

If we want to strike a balance on choice we have to recognise that it is for the local authorities themselves to ensure that they produce a system of robust schools that can withstand the rights of parents to make choices. Since 1998, when the funding started to flow through, my authority, Sheffield, has been working on the process of building and sometimes rebuilding schools in the working-class areas of the city, and introducing fresh start in schools. It encouraged federations, built a new sixth-form college and in September will open two academies, which they started thinking about when the Liberal Democrats were in control in 1999-2000.

Myrtle Springs school once had the lowest number of applications in the city but this year in September that school will be full, with all its pupils from within the catchment area. For the first time, Myrtle Springs will have a balanced intake from the more aspirational end of the catchment area as well as from the poorer end. That is a success. We already have evidence in Sheffield that work on producing robust schools has produced results that are improving year on year. I believe that the framework of the Bill will allow   parental choice, and that such choices will not destabilise our schools. As many as 93 per cent. of parents achieve first preferences in Sheffield.

Before moving on to diversity, I want to make one more point. This year, the parents of 55 children in Sheffield did not make an application, and the schools obviously failed to follow up that lack of applications. That is not good enough. What will the Bill do to ensure that the needs are met of those children whose parents do not make a choice—who do not even apply for a place in the secondary sector? What will the Bill do for them?

I move on to the question of diversity. I argue that diversity does not necessarily have to work only within schools. Sheffield has a healthy system of specialisms. Fourteen of our 27 secondary schools now have specialisms, and the other 13 are well on the way. We have a well developed virtual learning environment and a well developed system of ICT, and all schools have broadband.

All our schools work collaboratively with each other. Teachers go from school to school to develop their curriculums, and if a school does not deliver a particular curriculum choice, it can be delivered by teachers from other schools. We also have a system that allows the college to participate in the education of 14 to 16-year-olds. I believe that we match Wolverhampton and Knowsley in developing innovative collaborative ways of working with that age group.

Diversity between schools working collaboratively can release much expertise and make available to all children in an authority area the expertise of the entire boundary area. Why should children be restricted to what is available within their school? It seems impossible to imagine that we can offer children the widest possible range of choices and expertise within one building. Collaboration between schools is the way forward, as has been proved by Wolverhampton, Knowsley and Sheffield. We must build on that, and I believe that the Bill could enable us to do so successfully. Diversity is not a dirty word, either between schools or within schools.

I give a final example. In Sheffield, we have a school that offers Latin as part of its language specialism. I believe strongly, as does the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, that it is important to offer Latin as part of the modern language curriculum. It can be made available to all Sheffield schoolchildren because that school offers it. It is a result of our system’s diversity.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

I am following the important points that the hon. Lady is making, and I strongly agree with what she says about Latin. Would she join me in wishing to hear the Minister’s views on that provision of Latin in Sheffield?

Angela Smith (PPS (Yvette Cooper, Minister of State), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Sheffield, Hillsborough, Labour)

I have not asked the Minister to comment. Latin will always be a minority subject in the modern languages curriculum, but it should be   available to all children who want it. Those who have ability in modern languages will need Latin to develop it. Online learning and other modern ways of working will allow us to achieve that.

As time is pressing, I shall finish by mentioning the 10 per cent. rule. I do not believe that that rule can possibly be applied. How on earth can the Government force local authorities to develop 10 per cent. of their schools in any of those ways if there is no parental choice or demand for it? We will be working against the wishes and aspirations of parents if the Government force the 10 per cent. rule on every local authority in the land. I can almost guarantee that in the Sheffield city council area there will be no parental demand for such a development. In many cases, more than 10 per cent. of our schools work in that way. I have no problem with foundation schools, trust schools or academies. Indeed, I understand the advantages of such developments. However, we must not force local authorities to develop them or force parents to have them if they do not want them. That is why I oppose the amendment.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

Owing to the mechanics of the Committee, I am in the happy position of having either to limit my remarks to 10 minutes or to extend them to 10 minutes, depending on how things proceed. I shall speak briefly to amendments Nos. 5, 161 and 88. Amendment No. 5 has stimulated a healthy discussion in Committee about the ethos of schools. At the heart of that discussion is proper consideration of whether leadership in a school—an essential element in developing an ethos that delivers a high-quality education—is a science or an art.

Is the effective education of children about a series of management, teaching and learning techniques, and things that can be adopted, borrowed and learned from other institutions, or is it something more ethereal? Is it a mystical capacity to inspire; a semi-magical blooming of a child’s capacity to comprehend, analyse and empathise? In truth, I guess that it is about both. It is about teachers having the right techniques and a school having the right ethos. It is also about understanding the special quality of teachers to get the best from children and to help them to achieve their potential. I do not take a dogmatic view about such matters; indeed I do not take a dogmatic view about anything.

It is self-evident that, in spreading best practice, we will be building on the good things that already happen within almost every school. Hardly a school in Britain does not have some good practice. When we talk about poorly performing schools, we must not assume that there are not good teachers labouring in them. We must not assume that children are not making progress in them. We must not assume that those schools are doing nothing right. That is certainly not the case. It is for us in this House to talk up teachers and schools, not to talk them down as has too often been the case for a long time across the political spectrum.

The sense of communal identity built on shared value that elevates expectations and allows all members of a school community to contribute to a process that grows along with the institution seems to   be something that we can identify and share through the collaboration and mentoring that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough mentioned a few moments ago. She is right about the availability of technology to allow that process more easily. It is true that we should be able to take advantage of technology to share among schools some of the skills, resources and strengths that I have described. I welcomed her contribution in that respect. It is entirely in the spirit of our amendment No. 5 on sharing good practice.

I turn briefly to amendment No. 161. I first became interested in special needs education when I was a county councillor and a member of an education committee. After the Warnock report and the subsequent Act of Parliament that was introduced by a Tory Government—misguidedly, in my judgment—I began to have profound doubts about the inclusion strategy that was then the orthodoxy across the political spectrum. I defended several parents who wanted their children to be educated in special schools, as I did many parents who were seeking out-of-county and, indeed, out-of-country placements for their children because places other than the local authority were best suited to provide an education in line with their statemented need. I supported parents who were trying to find their way through the statementing process, which bamboozled and intimidated so many, and I became convinced that, although inclusion works for some, it simply is not good enough. For many, it does not deliver the goods or match a child’s particular needs. We should be bold and brave enough to do what Baroness Warnock has belatedly done and to admit that some of the assumptions that underpinned the Act and which were embodied in her report were wrong.

In principle, statementing is quite a good idea—my view on the issue may differ from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, although I do not know, because we have never talked about it. I believe that it is good to crystallise a child’s needs, because that gives the child and their parents an entitlement that they would not otherwise have. That is, of course, a good idea, and although the process may be too complicated, the principle is right. I am convinced, however, that the best way forward for many of the children who have been statemented is a place at a special school. That is particularly true of children with learning difficulties of one kind or another, but also of children with the kind of physical disabilities that my hon. Friend mentioned, and deafness was principal among his considerations.

In that respect, I was going about my business in Spalding on Saturday, as I routinely do, when I met a constituent in the photographer’s shop that he runs—indeed, I was picking up the pictures that I showed the Committee earlier. We conversed about the business that we were transacting, and I talked to him about his profound deafness. He talked about his educational background and said that he went to a very good school. I asked where it was, and he named it, but I will not, for the sake of discretion, say where it was. Rather poignantly, he said that it had closed down, although   he was not making a political point, and I did not choose to exploit it either. However, the school’s effect on that man’s life was to make him aware of his potential, raise his expectations, allow him to prosper and bring him into the community in a responsible position as a respected local businessman.

Hon. Members could replicate that experience perhaps many hundreds of times in speaking about their own constituents, and I want young people in this generation to have the same opportunity as that gentleman to fulfil their potential. I therefore strongly defend special schools and strongly amplify my hon. Friend’s comments about not only their survival, but their expansion. Let us be more ambitious than simply saying that special schools should be saved; new special schools should open where they are necessary to meet demand and where parents want them for their children.

Although special schools are so important, the reasons why may not be self-evident. First, special schools allow a concentration of resources that is hard to duplicate in the mainstream, as are the skills of the teachers. Secondly, they provide confidence and security to young people who are often extremely vulnerable. We talked earlier about disadvantage, and there can be no greater disadvantage than beginning life with a handicap—I use the word advisedly, because I know that it is not the modern idiom—that inhibits learning. Thirdly, such schools are often smaller and therefore more intimate, so the relationship between staff and students is special. Their character and, to use a word that has perhaps been overused today, ethos are something to behold.

Jacqui Smithrose—

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I have only a moment, but I will happily give way, because it would be discourteous not to do so.

Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)

I just did not want the Committee to finish without being informed that the plural of ethos is ethoi.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

We learn something every day. Indeed, I am always learning from the Minister. When I was shadow Minister with responsibility for schools, we crossed swords—well, we perhaps did not quite cross swords—debating exactly these special educational needs issues. That was many years ago, when we were both altogether younger and perhaps a little more naive.

Finally, on amendment No. 88, one way of encouraging the diversity that most members of the Committee have welcomed would be to look at ways of encouraging the plural provision that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton recommended. That would seem to be a guaranteed way of delivering diversity, but that diversity might not emerge unless we accept the amendment.

With those few brief remarks, I hope that I have once against illustrated that the Opposition are rigorously determined not to make narrow partisan points, but to improve the Bill for the benefit of our children and their futures.

Ian Cawsey (Assistant Whip (funded by HM Treasury); Brigg & Goole, Labour)

I hope that all hon.. Members will take note of the length of my contribution.

Debate adjourned.—[Mr. Cawsey.]