David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I beg to move amendmentNo. 441, in clause 36, page 26, line 7, at beginninginsert

‘Until the school yearstarting on or after 1st August2010,'.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss thefollowing: Amendment No. 209, in clause 36, page 26, line 7, at endinsert ‘or anacademy'.

Amendment No.230, in clause 36, page 26, line 7, at endinsert

‘, academy, city technologycollege or city college for the technology of thearts.'.

AmendmentNo. 210, in clause 36, page 26, line 8, leave out from ‘ability'to end of line 11 and insert

‘oraptitude unless selection is for the purpose of section 101 (permittedselection: pupil banding) of SSFA1998.'.

AmendmentNo. 367, in clause 36, page 26, line 11, at endinsert

‘,or

(c) the school is acomprehensive with a grammarstream.'.

AmendmentNo. 442, in clause 36, page 26, line 11, at endinsert—

‘(1A) The admissionauthority for each secondary school, in exercising their functions,shall—

(a) have regardto the general principle that secondary education is to be provided incomprehensive schools, and

(b)determine that arrangements for the admission of pupils for compulsoryeducation is not based on any test of ability oraptitude,

except where theadmission arrangements have been determined under section 101 of SSFA(pupil banding) or regulations made under section [Retention ofselection by ability or aptitude after parentballot].'.

AmendmentNo. 368, in clause 36, page 26, line 13, leave out ‘orany'.

Amendment No. 45,in clause 36, page 26, line 28, at endinsert

‘and

(c)in subsection (4), after paragraph (b)insert—

“(c) anyselection of 10 per cent of pupils by aptitude in a subject that is acompulsory target-setting subject for the purposes of the specialistschoolsprogramme.”.'.

Clausestand part.

New clause 8—Freedom ofselection—

‘(1) Amaintained school shall have complete freedom to select pupils byacademic or other ability at its absolutediscretion.

(2) Sections 99 to103 of SSFA 1998 shall cease to have effect.'.

New clause51—Retention of selection by ability or aptitude after parentballot—

‘(1) TheSecretary of State must, after consultation, by regulations,make—

(a) suchsupplementary, incidental or consequential provision,or

(b) such transitional,transitory or savingprovision,

as he considersnecessary or expedient for the purposes of, in consequence of, or forgiving full effect to subsection(2).

(2) Regulations undersubsection (1) must, in particular, make provisionto—

(a) amend or repealPart 3, Chapter 2 (selection of pupils) of SSFA 1998 to provide for thelegislation to be consistent with the general principle that there mustbe a ballot of parents of pupils attending local primary schools if anysecondary school is to continue to select pupils by ability or aptitudeafter the school year starting on or after 1st August 2011,and

(b) amend or revoke anysubordinate legislation (within the meaning of the Interpretation Act1978) made before the passing of this Act necessary to achieve theprinciple set out above.

(3)Nothing in this Act is to be regarded as limiting the generality ofsubsection (1).'.

Amendment No. 443, in clause158, page 108, line 12, at endinsert—

‘(aa) regulationsunder section [Retention of selection by ability or aptitude afterparentballot],'.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

Good morning, Mr. Chope. Welcome back to theCommittee after the bank holiday weekend.

Before speaking to theamendments, I wish to say a few words about the context of our debatesso far and our forthcoming debate on this part of the Bill, which dealswith school admissions. I hope that that will be helpful to theofficial Opposition, who on more than one occasion have questioned myviews on certainmatters.

It seems to methat the way in which the official Opposition have approached the Bill,especially questions relating to admissions and the relationship withthe local authority, is not the most useful framework for increasingour understanding of how to build an education system that helps tofulfil the potential of all children. Their view is that there is adichotomy of those who believe that all our schools should be withinthe local education authority and those who believe that they shouldall be free-standing, independent schools with minimal connection withthe LEA. Furthermore, there are those who believe that there should beno LEAs at all. It is not helpful to consider the Bill in such terms.The issue is far more complex than that.

Similarly, traditionally theofficial Opposition have regarded the debate on admissions as a debatebetween those who believe in selection and those who are opposed to it.They have simplified that into debate on grammar schools andcomprehensive schools, or grammar school systems. It is interesting howselective  systems are always described as grammar school systems, not secondarymodern school systems, but we will leave that to one side for themoment.

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

That isa caricature of the mission of the official Opposition. We voted forthe Bill in the full understanding that it retains a role for LEAs: agood example of such a function that I value greatly is statementingspecial needs children. We would have voted against the Bill had weheld the opinion that the hon. Gentleman ascribes tous.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s comment,although he is, of course, in the vanguard of thinking in his party onsuch matters and I suspect that his views are not shared by the generalmass of hiscolleagues.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Could the reasonwe refer to selective systems as grammar school systems, not secondarymodern school systems, be that we still have grammar schools, but nolonger have secondary modern schools? Speaking as a secondarymodern-educated person, I do not believe that anyone in the room wouldadvocate a return to the secondary modernsystem.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

No it could not, because we still have secondarymodern schools. If the hon. Lady checks the list of categories ofschool held by the Department for Education and Skills, she will seethat it contains several secondary modern schools. Although not allnon-selective schools in wholly selective areas are defined officiallyas secondary modern schools, they have, in effect, the same status asthose schools that used to be defined assuch.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Is it not a failure of the Government that afteralmost 10 years in power, secondary modern schools are still inexistence? Are they not operating a comprehensivesystem?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

The hon. Lady makes an important point. If shecan be patient, I shall comment further on the grammar-comprehensivedivision in the hope of clarifying the point. The way in which theDepartment classifies our schools probably bears little relationship toreality. Some schools that are classified as secondary modernschools—perhaps in Kent, Slough or Buckinghamshire—have afar more comprehensive intake than some of the schools that areofficially classified as comprehensive schools. I am glad that shepicked up on my remarks on the important question of how schools areclassified. My preference would be simply to call them“schools”, but perhaps that is an idea whose time has notyet come.

It isimportant to raise the issue now, because for50 years oureducation debate has been too much hung up on the names that we giveschools. I do not believe that the concept of a grammar school is aprecise or accurate one, because some grammar schools are whollyselective state schools, some are non-selective state schools, and someare private schools that select to a greater or lesser degree byability and by the size of  the parents’ chequebook. The term “grammar school”is not helpful, nor is the term “comprehensive school”,which embraces an enormous range of schools with an enormous diversityof intake. We need to get away from the traditional framework ofdivisions between selection and non-selection, and between the controland running of schools by LEAs and a system of free-standingindependentschools.

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

Is notwhat we need to get away from the ideological obsession with intake andthe assumption that the intake of a school determines its quality? Thereason for the degree of passion about school intakesis thatthere are too few good schools in thiscountry, with 23 percent. officially regarded as underperforming. Should not the priorityof all Members of Parliament be to create more good schools so thatthere is not such a clamour by parents to get their children into thefew good schools that exist? That, not admissions, should be ourobsession.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I agree completely that our objective should beto create more good schools; paradoxically, that would make our currentobsession with choice became less relevant. If more good schools wereavailable, individual parents would be less anxious about their choiceof school, because the choice that they made would be less significantto and have less of an impact on their children’s education.However, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s view that therehas been an ideological obsession with intake; nor do I accept thatintake is irrelevant to the objective of building a system in which allschools are good schools.

To continue my generalremarks—I beg your indulgence, Mr. Chope: I shall move on to thespecifics of the amendments shortly—the real issue seems to meto be not a battle between independent schools and LEA-controlledschools but the correct balance of decision making between theGovernment in Westminster, the local authority, school governors and parents. It is interesting that so much of the debate in Committee sofar has focused on the level at which decisions should be taken. Somehave said that certain matters should be determined by parents; othershave said that certain matters are for the governing body to determine.The Opposition have criticised the Government for being too centralist.The Government have argued that they want to increase parentpower.

The argumenthas moved back and forth between the Government and the Opposition, andthe central theme of the Bill seems to be securing the rightdecision-making structure, getting the right decisions taken at theright level and ensuring a balance between the legitimate rights ofparents and school governing bodies and the democratic responsibilitiesof local authorities and central Government. We must therefore focusfirst on what decision-making structure would be best, and then on whatrelationship between local authorities and the schools in their areawould be best.

Thehon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), with whom I have some thingsin common and many differences, has said that he deeply regrets thefactthat the Conservative Government who passed the  Education Reform Act 1988 did not go the whole way and allow all schoolsto opt out. He and other members of the Committee may be interested toknow that, within weeks of the Act receiving Royal Assent, I madeprecisely that argument—albeit for different reasons from thehon. Gentleman’s—to my colleagues on the educationcommittee on which I was serving at the time. I argued that the onlyway in which we could conceivably maintain a coherent and equitablesystem following the passing of the Act, which I did not support, wasfor all schools to retain the same status: either all should stay in,or all should opt out.

There was an element ofmischievousness in that argument: it would have been impossible for allschools to opt out, because the Government of the day were not preparedto allocate the funding necessary for all of them to becomegrant-maintained. Some of us thought that the way to defeat thelegislation was to highlight that anomaly as forcefully as possible,but that was not the majority view of my party or my colleagues. We allknow the history of the past 18 years: the opting-out process has ledto more inequality in the system and a greater hierarchy of schools, aswell as greater differences in funding, both capital and revenue,particularly in secondaryschools.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

It is strange, is itnot, that the two outriders on the Committee agree on the fundamentalpoint that all schools should be treated the same, regardless offunding? The Minister may wish to note that. We do not benefit thesystem by creating types of schools that opt of the system, such ascityacademies.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

That is an interesting point; I shall take it one step further. I am not convinced that the key issue is whether all schools are inside or outside the LEA framework or we move to the hybrid system set out in the Bill. I believe that the relationships between an LEA and a school and between schools are more important. It is crucial that we get those relationships right and that LEAs are given the right responsibilities. I think that the Government have got the balance pretty well right in the Bill as drafted.

I do not think that the debate on selection is the old debate between grammar and comprehensive schools. Those terms are meaningless, because we have moved on in the past 40 years. No one is arguing that there will be no selection in the education system. The question is what is the appropriate age at which the selection process should take place. Nobody is arguing that universities should not select their students.

Having said that, perhaps we should move away from the concept of selection and talk instead of allocation. That would bring in far more strongly the matter of choice. In matching students to courses or institutions, their choice—or their parents’ choice in the case of younger students—must be crucial. Such decisions should be taken not on the back of an arbitrary test taken on a wet Wednesday morning in December, but on the basis of informed choice and advice about a student’s true ability and potential. We should move away from the old debate about selection versus non-selection and instead discuss the age at  which selection and allocation to courses and institutions takes place, the means by which that happens—not a single arbitrary test but a process of assessment and informed advice—and the purpose of selection and allocation. That purpose must be to develop the potential of all our pupils, not to institute and entrench social segregation.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

I am interested by my hon. Friend’s preliminary comments on the issue. What are his views on a test to divide children into ability bands, from band 1 to band 4, which is widely used by my local education authority in Hackney? Does he have any comments to make on that method of one-off testing on a wet Wednesday?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I shall come to later. There is a clause on banding systems; I shall have some amendments on that, too, so I shall talk a little more about banding then.

There are important distinctions to make. We need to consider the purpose of allocating children to schools. The purpose of banding is to create more balanced intakes and to increase fairness, parity of esteem between schools and the chance that every child’s potential can be enhanced. There is a difficulty with banding if it means that children have to sit an extra test around the time of their 10th birthday, but there are other ways to band children without imposing that on them.

Parity of esteem between schools, in contrast to the creation of a hierarchy of schools, is crucial. As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) said, it would mean that the question of choice would become less significant. The agonising that so many parents go through, particularly around the time of the transfer to secondary education, would be greatly diminished. That way, we would develop far more good schools and good school places.

Equitable finance is one of the keys to bringing about that parity of esteem. I am grateful that the hon. Member for Gainsborough stressed the importance of equitable distribution of finance. I suppose that his Lincolnshire constituency has things in common with my constituency, as some of the shire counties have had cause to complain about lower levels of funding over the years, as has my metropolitan district council. However, there are good reasons for that and we must live within the budgets allocated. The management and leadership of schools are also important: putting the strongest emphasis on increasing the recruitment of highly skilled managers is crucial. The chance of a school succeeding, developing its own character and fulfilling the potential of all its children depends on the quality of its management and leadership, combined with an appropriate curriculum.

A school’s success depends also on its pupil intake. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said that we have had an ideological obsession with intake, but if so, I do not share that obsession. I take a fairly pragmatic approach. I put this simple question to the Committee: if schools such as  Eton were stuffed full of the sons and daughters of “the underclass”, would they retain their high reputations? To me, it is manifestly self-evident that there is a relationship between the nature of the intake and the possibility of a school becoming a good school.

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

I disagree fundamentally with the hon. Gentleman. He assumes that people from certain social classes are less able than others, and I simply do not accept that. What matters is whether, within a school, classes are setted or streamed by ability. If that is done, the intake becomes irrelevant. The bright children, whatever their backgrounds, need to be stretched to their full potential, and the less able must be given time and space to learn, to ensure that they understand what is being taught and can learn at their own pace. If that were done in our comprehensive schools, intake would be completely irrelevant.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s later comment, but I would be the last person to say that there is a relationship between a child’s background and his or her potential. In fact, I believe precisely the opposite.

I have advanced my argument about the importance of intake not because of any ideological obsession, but because it is what the body of expert opinion in Britain appears to have concluded. Hon. Members should read the work of the National Foundation for Educational Research and that of Professor Jesson, who is one of the Government’s key advisors, particularly on specialist schools. They should consider also the work of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development’s and the programme for international student assessment—not just the United Kingdom’s performance in PISA, but the conclusions of the PISA study, which surveyed the secondary education systems of all 37 countries in the OECD. The study concluded that the countries in which there was greater equity between schools and a more balanced distribution of pupils within schools were the most able to fulfil the development of all their children and were less likely to have the long tails of under-achievement that have plagued the British system.

The hon. Gentleman may have talked to head teachers—I do not know whether he went to the National Association of Head Teachers conference this weekend. However, I thought that every head teacher from their own experience would say that schools do not need a mathematically and scientifically precise balanced intake, but a critical mass of able and motivated students. Conversely, as far as possible we need to avoid large concentrations of students with behavioural or severe learning difficulties and distribute those pupils more equally between schools.

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

How then does the hon. Gentleman account for the fact that there are comprehensive schools in leafy suburbs where 37 or 38 per cent. of children achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C and other schools, such as the Wellington school in Telford, which creams of 40 per cent. of its children to grammar schools, where 73 per cent. of children achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C? Is that not a result of what happens in the school? Wellington  school employs strict setting and streaming, whereas in other schools in those leafy suburbs children are taught in mixed-ability classes?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I do not think so. I think that differences in the performance of schools with similar intakes are due almost entirely to the quality of management and teaching and the flexibility in the curriculum. It is clear that schools with similar intakes perform differently. There is no dispute about that—it is not the point at issue, and I do not see the purpose of focusing the argument on that. As I recall, Wellington school is in Trafford not Telford. The hon. Gentleman has referred to it before and I think that it is located in Trafford, but I might be wrong.

The group of amendments is underpinned by the importance of balanced school intakes. The amendments are particularly important because of the historic change in Conservative party policy on education just a few weeks ago, which means that in one respect there is now an all-party consensus on school admissions: all three parties have pledged that there will be no return to the 11-plus examination. I was delighted to see the shadow Secretary of State himself appear on Teachers’ TV—I am looking for the reference but I cannot lay my hands on it—some weeks ago. He spoke forcefully about the brutality of the 11-plus and implied that that examination—the single test on the wet Wednesday in December—is not a rational, intelligent or useful means by which to allocate children to secondary schools if we want to develop the potential of all our children.

Amendments Nos. 441 to 443 and new clause 51 would change the Bill so that clause 36(1) would apply only until school year 2010. After that, local authorities and schools admission authorities would be obliged to adopt a sort of comprehensive system of intake. Selection by ability, and later selection by aptitude, would no longer be permitted. Given that we now have an all-party consensus that there will be no return to selection by ability, there is value in setting a date for the ending of such selection.

Now that that consensus has been established—presumably the Conservatives have good reasons for having come to share our view about the inadequacies of the old 11-plus testing system—it is even more illogical that selection by ability should be acceptable in some parts of the country but not in others. I fail to understand how all three parties can say that a non-selective system should operate in Sussex or Hampshire, whereas in Kent selection by ability can remain. In Bury, which has one of the most coherent systems of secondary education in the country—good 11-to-16 schools feed into two colleges—we all agree that a non-selective system is needed, and that is widely supported by parents, but in Trafford, the converse applies. Nobody, certainly not the Conservative party in Bury, argues that we should revert to a system of 11-plus testing.

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

Is not that what local democracy is all about?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

To some extent, it is. I have argued in relation to other parts of the Bill that we should allow  local authorities the right to take decisions at certain levels. However, I made the point in my opening remarks today that a key thing for the Bill to establish is the right decision-making structure. We have to agree which decisions should be taken by parents, governors, local authorities and central Government. Given that the Government have taken to themselves the power to decide virtually every aspect of admissions policy, it seems increasingly anomalous that in one respect—the small amount of 11-plus testing that still exists—they should abdicate responsibility to the twisted democracy of the grammar school ballot system. I shall say more on that later.

Now that we have consensus in favour of no return to 11-plus testing, I want to argue the merits of setting a date for phasing it out, as the Government have done in Northern Ireland. That process is not uncontroversial, but I recollect that in debates in the House about the proposed changes to the system of secondary admissions in Northern Ireland, people were not defending the 11-plus test—in fact, I vividly remember sitting in the Chamber and listening to Democratic Unionist party and Ulster Unionist party Members saying that they accepted that 11-plus testing was a crude, arbitrary and brutal way of allocating children to schools. Instead, they were saying that they like grammar schools. That is at the heart of the dilemma. Nobody has argued, even in Northern Ireland, for the restoration of the tests.

Northern Ireland has a 2008 deadline for the phasing out of the tests and a process for deciding what will follow them. The effect of the amendments would be to achieve the same thing here. They are based on the argument that there should be time for parents, governors and local authorities to work out with Ministers what should replace the tests. There are many options, and it is important that we spend time exploring them. One option would be, as I said when we discussed school expansion, for existing selective schools, many of which are small and will face falling rolls over the next 10 years, to expand on the basis of a balanced intake. That is a fairly painless way of changing the character of certain schools. It is what Margaret Thatcher did between 1970 and 1974, when she abolished more 11-plus testing than any Secretary of State for Education before or since, and it is a legitimate matter for local discussion.

Another would be something else for which the noble Baroness argued strongly 30 or more years ago: that the existing wholly selective schools should remain wholly selective, not from the age of 11 but from the age of 16. The transformation of the wholly selective schools into what we now know as sixth-form colleges is another option that should be a legitimate subject for discussion at local level.

There is even an argument, which I would not necessarily advance at this stage, but which might appeal to a new-born Conservative party that is desperate to reinvent itself, and particularly to those on its progressive and libertarian wings. Given the important changes to our curriculum in key stage 4 following the Tomlinson report, some of which will be  discussed later in the Bill, the key point of choice over curriculum is no longer at 11, but at 14. Therefore another option to consider what might follow the ending of selection by 11-plus testing is to argue that we should create a series of 14-to-19 schools. The current wholly selective schools could thereby transform themselves, while retaining their character and strengths, but opening up their facilities to even more children.

I do not want to act as an unpaid consultant to the Conservative party in how it might improve its education policy. I am merely saying that here is an opportunity for the more progressive and libertarian members of the Opposition to take up an idea and run with it. By doing so they could well gain greater credibility with some people working in education.

I turn now to amendments Nos. 209 and 230, which simply bring into the provisions of the clause the academy schools, the city technology colleges and the very small number—I think there may be only one—of city colleges for technology of the arts. The arguments for bringing academies into the system that applies to community, foundation and voluntary schools have been well made earlier in the debate. I do not think that it is necessary to repeat them now, other than to say that there is one key issue about academies that needs stressing and which perhaps has not been stressed to date.

Because the academies’ admissions policies are required to follow the national code of practice, yet are entrenched within their funding agreements, academies that are already established and have their funding agreement agreed will be acting in line with the current code of practice on school admissions. When the new code of practice comes into force at some point in 2007—presumably for the school year starting in September 2007—will the existing academies also be required to act in accordance with it or will their funding agreement still protect them, so that they merely have to have regard to the old code? That is an interesting point. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond. It supports the argument that academies and the small number of related schools should be fully involved in the system that applies to all other schools.

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

It is good to be back after our brief sojourn to consider these important matters, given heat, if not light, by the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) in speaking to his amendments.

“Children from poorer families have far less chance of improving their lives in Britain than they do in many other wealthy countries.”

So said a report from the London School of Economics, published in June 2005, with which you will be familiar, Mr. Chope, as will other hon. Members. That report showed furthermore that the decline of grammar schools had helped deepen class divisions, effectively kicking the ladder away from bright children. The study of eight countries carried out by the LSE said that social mobility in Britain was lower than anywhere else except for the United States.

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

The hon. Gentleman says that the decline of grammar schools has kicked the ladder away from bright children, but  what happens to those who would not have passed the 11-plus? Surely their chances have improved.

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

I shall deal with that matter in some detail during my peroration because the hon. Lady has a fair point. The arguments usually made against grammar schools, are not that they do not provide opportunities for working-class children, who would otherwise not have had such opportunities, but that they do not provide benefit to those children not selected at age 11.

What I hope to show today is that typically the aggregate results in areas that have selection are better; that the standards in primary schools are higher; and that many of the schools in selective areas which are themselves not selective do exceptionally well. So that the hon. Lady can research the matter while I am on my feet, she might care to look at the Gleed girls’ technology college in Spalding, an excellent secondary school. It achieves better results than many comprehensive schools, despite the fact that it is the neighbour of the Spalding high school, a selective girls’ school, which itself, is exceptional. I will deal with the point in more detail as we continue.

The LSE report states:

“In Britain, 38 per cent. of sons born in 1970 to the poorest quarter of families were themselves in the bottom quarter of earners at the age of 30. Only 11 per cent. had reached the richest quarter. By contrast, 42 per cent. of those born to the wealthiest quarter remained amongst the top earners at 30 and 16 per cent. were in the bottom quarter. There was greater movement among those born in 1958”—

the year of my birth.

My story, a story of a working-class boy who, by achieving a grammar school education and subsequently a university education, was able to achieve a lifetime ambition of becoming a Member of Parliament—not that one must have a grammar school or a university education to be an MP—is a useful example of what happened to many of my generation, who otherwise might not have achieved their ambitions. Indeed, they might have achieved far less than the generation that was born later.

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

Is it not also the case that many working-class children who failed the 11-plus went on to make up for that failure and developed in later life, went on to university but had to work twice as hard to get there? Is that not unfair?

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

Yes, of course, many people develop talents and are well educated and successful, notwithstanding what happens to them at age 11, but many are not. Social mobility, by any measure, has declined in this country. One of the factors in that decline, though not the only one, of course, has been the dogmatic adherence, which we heard again this morning, to a faded and thwarted comprehensive ideal.

I am glad that that dogma is not shared by the Prime Minister. It is certainly not shared by his education adviser, who made precisely the same point in his book entitled “A Class Act: The Myth of Britain’s Classless Society”, which I refer to again. Lord Adonis said that  grammar schools were important in delivering social mobility to a generation that would not have had opportunities before that.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

If that is the case, why are the hon. Gentleman and his party not arguing for the reintroduction of grammar schools into every town in Britain?

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

We argue, in amendment No. 45, that there should be the opportunity for schools to select. We are not opposed to selection. We argue vociferously for banding and streaming in schools. We argue that what I described as a faded dream, or perhaps a nightmare that the hon. Gentleman has endured for so long, has not delivered for children in this country and that we need to think again. But it is important that we focus on the large number of schools that are not grammar schools. Our debate has been focused on the many children who do not live in an area with selection. It is important that we raise standards for all of our children, not just the most gifted, and it is vital that we understand that there are many factors in a good outcome in education: teaching and learning, curricular issues, home-school issues—the hon. Gentleman knows them all.

The Conservative party is not preoccupied with grammar schools, and we do not focus only on the children who attend them, but in light of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments it is important to focus on them now, as the Committee considers this part of the Bill. That is why the Conservative party has said what it has—we want opportunity for all children and we want more good schools of all types.

It is undeniably the case that one of the effects of the comprehensive idea, an effect that I am glad to say is now being broken up, was to undermine the opportunities of very large numbers of working-class children. The LSE study to which I referred found that

“an increasing link between family wealth and educational achievement was partly responsible for the marked decline in social mobility in Britain.”

As I said, in 1970, poorer children had much less opportunity to improve their socio-economic status as adults than those who were born when I was. The LSE report felt that

“The abolition of grammar schools...reduced opportunity in a country where parental wealth and a good education are strongly linked. Uniquely among the countries studied, the life chances of poorer children in Britain had become worse over time.”

The report showed that the decline of grammar schools has helped deepen class division, kicking away the ladder from brighter, working-class children.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

Myhon. Friend makes a powerful case on why comprehensivisation, as implemented in some places, has led to a reinforcement of class divisions. Is he aware of the position on admissions to leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, which we know is a matter of great interest in some quarters? Is it not the case that the proportion of children from state schools at those universities has decreased, in line with the sort of comprehensivisation, dictated by social engineering, that we have seen?

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

That is precisely the case that Lord Adonis makes in his book, and he goes on to say that the trend that I have described—the blighted chances of working-class children—has resulted not only in the school system becoming a matter of selection by house price and wealth, but has caused similar effects in universities. At the very least, there is a case for retaining existing grammar schools in the interests of social mobility and for considering selection, as the amendment does, in academies, as the Government have, and trust schools that empower local communities and parents. All of them, like it or not, break down the idea that all children, regardless of aptitude or ability, and of where they come from, should end up being educated in large, bog-standard comprehensives. The hon. Member for Bury, North and other people want to impose the straitjacket of the comprehensive—“straitjacket” is not my expression; it is the Prime Minister’s.

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

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting speech, but given that class divisions have considerably changed, partly because of the decline of manufacturing and the rise of service industries, how does he define social mobility?

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

I began to define it in what I said about the LSE report, and I should be happy to let the hon. Lady have a copy of the report. The LSE defines it by the way people move from one social class to another in terms of wealth distribution—the way people move between, or across, the spectrum of wealth. I do not for one moment claim that wealth should be the only arbiter of human happiness, nor is it necessarily a perfect proxy for class, but it is of profound concern.

The LSE report found it “deeply shocking” that its evidence suggested that fewer people move from one position in respect of wealth to another during the course of their lifetime. The definition of social mobility is not perfect, but it is good enough for the LSE and for several other studies, which almost comprehensively suggest that social mobility has declined.

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

I do not dispute that this is an issue. The question is how the hon. Gentleman defines it, because it changes the parameters of the debate. Given that we accept that social mobility is declining and it is important that it should be greater in all groups, why is the hon. Gentleman so focused on the academic? Surely, all children should have the ability to move between different bands of income as they get older.

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

It is because there is a proven relationship between educational attainment and family income. If people cannot easily obtain an education that is best suited to their needs they are unlikely to progress educationally and there is likely to be a direct correlation, although not a perfect correlation, between that fact and their chances of obtaining a different place in society.

I do not necessarily equate wealth and happiness, but if we measure social mobility in those terms, we see  that there has been a decline and it is almost undeniable that it is linked to educational opportunity. I think the Committee would agree on that.

At a risk of doing the point to death, if the LSE study and similar studies are right to say that social mobility has declined and that educational opportunity and achievement are linked to that decline, we must ask why. It is pretty clear that what has happened in my lifetime, since 1958 and since the decline of grammar schools in the 1960s and 1970s, is that most people who obtain the best education for their children do so on the basis of where they live, which is often a product of how wealthy they are.

We have moved from selection on the basis of ability to selection on the basis of wealth. Of course, that is not exclusively true; many children achieve against the odds, many good schools are situated in difficult areas and many head teachers, governors and teachers are doing a superb job in very challenging circumstances. But it is undeniable that wealth has become the arbiter of opportunity in that respect and we need to break that down. I guess that that is why the Government adopted their policies. That is what the academies programme and the extension of specialist schools, with all their strengths, are about, and it is what the Bill is about. It is a recognition that the comprehensive system as designed in the 1950s and still supported by the hon. Member for Bury, North and others has failed generations of children.

I am making the assumption—perhaps an a priori assumption—that grammar schools do a good job. We should look at the evidence for that; it has become clear since we have been able to measure value added, because we can now see the difference between key stages 2 and 4 in respect of a child’s progress. The analysis of value added shows very clearly that grammar schools do exceptionally well. We should bear it in mind that a grammar school’s intake is already disproportionately able. The sort of children measured at key stage 2 who go to grammar school would already have achieved a great deal, and a great deal will be required to take them on still further, but that is precisely what grammar schools do.

Last year in my own county of Lincolnshire, where the value-added system has been in place for some years, the 15 best schools in terms of value added were all grammar schools. Spalding girls high school, which I have mentioned already and shall mention again, achieved the goal of being the best value-added school among those grammar schools last year.

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous with his time in giving way. Is it not true that two of the most important factors in value-added measures are the quality of teaching and learning in a school and parents’ support for their children? Is it not important to support initiatives, such as extended schools and Sure Start, to ensure that parents are supporting their children, which is a key factor in improving performance in schools?

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

The hon. Lady always speaks with great insight in this Committee. Both things are true. The quality of teaching and learning and the progress of the children is undeniably critical in the success of a  school, as is the home-school relationship, which I mentioned earlier in my contribution.

It may be true to say that if parents have taken the trouble to get involved in their child’s education and back the school strongly, and if the children attend a school that is able to attract good teachers and good leadership, the children will do well almost regardless. That is the implication of the hon. Lady’s comment. My ambition, like the Minister’s, is to ensure that leadership, quality of teaching and learning and home-school support is available for as many children as possible, by learning some of the lessons that we should have learned over the past 30 years about what works and what does not. I doubt—I put it no stronger than that—that everyone has yet learned those lessons and that there is not still considerable ingrained prejudice, born of the dogma of a previous age, about what makes schools effective. However, judging from her last contribution, that is not a prejudice that the hon. Lady has.

Grammar schools make a big difference to the children who attend them and achieve exceptional results measured by value added. But what about the children who do not attend them? The hon. Lady makes a point about children who are not selected to go to grammar school. I refer her to the work ofDr. John Marks, which she will know, I have no doubt. Dr. Marks has been studying educational standards for a long time. I have the figures from his analysis of the five A to C grade GCSE standard across types of school. His study, published in 2002, suggests that the percentage of pupils in comprehensive schools achieving five A to C grades was about 40 per cent. in that year. I acknowledge that it has increased a little bit since then, because the Minister will no doubt correct me if I do not. In the same year, the figure was 63.5 per cent. in grammar schools and 34.1 per cent. in secondary moderns. In other words, in a selective system as a whole, the figure was 43.9 per cent. and in all comprehensives it was 39 per cent.

Of course, in taking the average one is not necessarily suggesting that all secondary modern schools do as well as comprehensives, but it is true that secondary moderns do remarkably well for their children, given that many of the brightest children have already been selected to go to grammar schools. The effect of selection in an area is not the sorry story that people would have us believe. Many secondary modern schools are strong and do exceptionally well. My judgment about the post-Butler system is not that it was structurally faulty, but that we did not invest enough in resources or expectations in secondary modern schools. We did not understand that without a disproportionate investment, children who do not have the implicit advantages suggested by the hon. Lady will not fare as well. We need to back all our children regardless of ability and all schools regardless of type.

I point to the popularity of grammar schools. Much is said about the possibility that people who do not go to grammar schools and parents whose children do not get in are unhappy with selection by or within schools. Perhaps they are even unhappy with 10 per cent. selection, but the poll figures suggest otherwise. An ICM Research poll on the question of abolishing the remaining 164 state grammar schools, albeit one conducted for the National Grammar Schools  Association, found that 27 per cent. of people supported abolition and 61 per cent. opposed it. Those are remarkable figures, given that many areas of the country have not had grammar schools for a long time and that many of the children of those interviewed would therefore have no opportunity to go to one.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I am delighted by my hon. Friend’s paean of praise for grammar schools. Surely the logic of it is that we should allow grammar schools to be resurrected wherever people want them.

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

As I said in my hon. Friend’s absence during our last meeting, he is an outrider, but I am firmly rooted in the cavalcade—the limousine—that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) are flanking. I understand that our party, our shadow Secretary of State and our leader want to focus on the schools that most people go to.

My hon. Friend might be right, but the problem with his position is that for too long, Conservatives have been caricatured as interested only in the most able children—the children most likely to go to grammar schools. I am interested in all this country’s children. This debate is our first opportunity during the progress of the Bill to speak about selection in such terms. It is certainly the first time that we have talked about grammar schools. We have spoken about every imaginable subject affecting children’s progress, and in doing so have shown our determination that all children should get the very best education. For the vast bulk of children, that will not mean going to a grammar school.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says. That is why we do not want to get stuck on the term “grammar school”. The next Conservative Government want all schools to be in charge of their admissions procedures so that if they want to move gradually toward a selective system they can do so, as can schools in the independent sector.

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

The purpose of the Bill—indeed, the purpose of much of the cross-party consensus that has emerged on education—is to do precisely what my hon. Friend wants to do. It is trying to provide for children of all kinds and with all types of ability the sorts of opportunity that were once available only to a minority of children. That is what I want to do, and that is the position that the Government, falteringly and grudgingly, have come to. The Opposition have moved away from the faded dream of the hon. Member for Bury, North. Perhaps he will tell us something about his nightmare now.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

Given what the hon. Gentleman has just said about extending opportunities to all children, why is he so opposed to my suggestion that the most effective way to do that is to transform the existing wholly selective schools into sixth-form colleges?

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

The hon. Gentleman published an alternative White Paper, did he not? It is fair to say that he has a long track record of opposition to selection.  He has doubts even about partial selection in schools, as he made clear in an earlier sitting. As the provisions that we are now considering, and the amendments that he and other hon. Members have tabled, are on precisely that subject, he would hardly expect me enthusiastically to endorse them or to agree with what he said.

The best way to achieve opportunity for most children in this country is to travel in a different direction to that suggested by the hon. Gentleman. We are aiming at the same end, but going there by different means. The mode of travel that I have adopted is not terribly unlike that of the Government.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

In judging the amendments of the hon. Member for Bury, North, and without going back to a previous debate, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that it was that hon. Gentleman who, in a previous debate, was quite happy that up to 35 per cent. of children should be condemned to remain in a failing school? Surely we should focus on a structure, whatever it might be, that would lift children out of such schools, rather than concentrating on social engineering to the exclusion of standards and being happy when standards are low but the needs of social engineering are met.

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

My hon. Friend’s point is not dissimilar to the one made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith), that we should focus not on structure but quality. The Bill obliges us to focus on structure because it is largely about structure. I understand the reason for that, but it would be wrong for the whole debate to be skewed away from the proper consideration of standards and quality that my hon. Friend highlighted by the fact that we are, of necessity, largely considering structural matters.

I think that the Ministers would agree that it is vital to debate all the factors that affect quality. We have started to talk about them and I shall not repeat them, but they are by no means all questions of structure. It is arguably the preoccupation with structure that has meant that successive Governments have failed to deal with some of the issues highlighted by my hon. Friend. He, on the other hand, is a great champion of education and of opportunity for all.

I mentioned Lord Adonis and shall return to that subject, but first it is worth saying something about the system in Northern Ireland, to provide an illustration of the effect of selection. Northern Ireland, as you know, Mr. Chope, retains a selective system, with 11-plus exams still determining the school of its children. Intriguingly, overall achievement in Northern Ireland schools is substantially better than in England and Wales. At GCSE level 52 per cent. of pupils in Northern Ireland schools obtain five or more passes and the same pattern is replicated at A-level. The number of pupils achieving two or more grade A passes is 12 percentage points above that for England.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

What proportion of children leave school in Northern Ireland without a single qualification to their name? Would it be 25 per cent?

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

I do not have the figure, but I shall happily come back to the hon. Gentleman with it.

The fact is that the selective system delivers better results in Northern Ireland than the non-selective system does here. When the matter of abolishing selection in Northern Ireland comes before the House, we shall oppose the Government, as my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has made clear. We shall do so because what matters is what works, and the system there works. To alter it would be more of the dogma from which I hope we have moved away, and which is retained only in a small and dwindling section of the Labour party.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

We are in danger of going down the route of discussing Northern Ireland in a Bill that does not cover Northern Ireland, but some of the hon. Gentleman’s comments cannot go unanswered. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North made the point about the number of children who leave schools in Northern Ireland without qualifications. There is also a consensus that the 11-plus must go, but that there will be some sort of pupil profile to help children, parents and teachers select the right school. Northern Ireland has a different type of selection, and I am interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments, which do not seem to chime with the opinions of his party’s Northern Ireland Front-Bench team.

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

As the hon. Lady says, it would be wrong for me to be seduced into a long and intricate debate about Northern Ireland, which I was using merely as an illustrative example of how a selective system compares with that prevailing in the rest of the UK.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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

Not if it is about Northern Ireland.

The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bury, North are not in the spirit of the Bill. By contrast, our amendment No. 45 would open up to more pupils the process of selection by aptitude. It is curious that schools can select by aptitude children who show strength in languages, but not those who show strength in mathematics. They can select those with musical ability, but not those who are strong in English. We seem to be dancing on the head of a pin by limiting schools’ capacity to select to those areas that the Government have designated; for what reason, I can only guess.

Will the Minister say why the subjects on the basis of which schools cannot select are set in stone? Why are languages treated differently to mathematics? Why will she not accept our amendment, which would allow schools to select up to 10 per cent. of their pupils on the basis of strength and aptitude in any subject? We know that some children show potential in one area and others in a different area. It is quite wrong to slant the system against some of those aptitudes on the basis of which schools are not permitted to select.

I return to Lord Adonis. His sagacious ideas have been at the heart of the Committee’s considerations  and of the Prime Minister’s thinking. In his study, he drew attention to the effect of the abolition of grammar schools, stating:

“In the late 1960s the state grammar schools and quasi-state direct-grant schools were intact, and together easily outclassed the independent sector in terms of academic output.”

I say to the outriders of the Committee—they seem to have become advocates of private education on one or two occasions, although I do not wish to be unkind to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough—that many of our state grammar schools routinely outperform some independent schools.

I have nothing against private education, although I did not have one, unlike the Secretary of State. I hope that my children will go to the local state schools. Grammar schools and other strong, high-performing state schools do an exceptional job, and while we should celebrate the good work of the independent sector, we should not suggest that it cannot be matched and beaten by the best of the state sector.

Lord Adonis goes on to talk about the decline of grammar schools and says that, over a decade,

“this meritocratic pillar of the state school system collapsed, due to the attack by the political class upon it.”

He goes on to say that

“the comprehensive revolution tragically destroyed much of excellence without improving the rest. Comprehensive schools have largely replaced selection by ability, by selection, by class and by house price. Middle-class children now go to middle-class comprehensives in catchment areas that comprise middle-class neighbourhoods, while working-class children are mostly left to fester in the inner-city comprehensives their parents can’t afford to move away from.”

That sentiment seems comprehensively to make the case for a system that breaks the stranglehold of comprehensive education. I want to see a flowering of diversity, and all kinds of schools doing their best on the basis of high-quality teaching and learning. Education has the capacity to elevate and inspire, and to change lives. We must replace the hypocrisy and faded, faulted idealism of the past with a better vision for our children’s future. When the actors in the tragicomic drama of this Committee melt into the air, the brief candles of our passions, our humour and, on occasions, our disdain, will flicker and die. All that will be left is what the Bill does—the difference that it makes. Our amendments and the Bill will be judged by the differences that we make to schools and children’s chances. I want to be judged as someone who tried to do his best to make a positive difference. I reject the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bury, North, and strongly endorse our amendments because I resist and, indeed, resent the continuing attack on selection, which has done so much damage in the past, continues to do so, and may do so again in future.

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

Part of the difficulty in discussing grammar schools in a Committee such as this one is the disproportionate number of people who probably went to grammar schools. People tend to bring their own prejudices—either positive or negative—to the debate. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) made an interesting speech. I suspect that there is a game of long-word bingo going  on on the Conservative Benches. I have no idea what the word sagacious means, but perhaps he will enlighten us later.

However, I am bemused about what the Conservatives’ policy is on selection and grammar schools. As the hon. Member for Gainsborough rightly pointed out, the logical extension of the argument made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is to extend grammar schools. It is not clear to me where exactly they fit. Perhaps the point is that the Conservatives have an instinctive love of grammar schools, and they must have been disappointed that Baroness Thatcher did so much to remove grammar schools and put in place the comprehensive system. That inconsistency has played throughout the party.

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

Perhaps I can help the hon. Lady with some clarification of our policy, which is clear. We do not want to do anything that damages good schools, and 168 grammar schools in this country are good schools. When we have a system in which 23 per cent. of secondary schools are under-performing, and probably a similar proportion of schools are coasting, it is in nobody’s interest to damage 168 very good schools.

We are clear that we are not proposing, when we return to office, to bring back the 11-plus or to extend selection in areas that do not already have grammar schools. We are clear that that is our policy, and we want to focus on the 4,000 comprehensive schools and the 24,000 schools as a whole, and to make them good schools. That would be our focus, not getting bogged down in the distraction about admissions, which is what this debate, and the debate that we shall have on the next clause, is all about. The clauses have nothing to do with raising standards in schools.

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

The hon. Gentleman said that he is against extending selection, but that is exactly what one of the amendments tabled by his hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings would do. I am not clear what the difference is between selection on ability and selection on aptitude, as stated by the hon. Member for Bury, North and, indeed, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. The policy seems to be entirely inconsistent.

The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings made some good points about social mobility. In fact, those are the points that I would have thought would have united the Committee, regardless of which party we are in. However, there is a serious problem that the most important predictor of a person’s future attainment would remain his or her parents’ ability. That is an unacceptable situation. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton questioned some of the issues to do with intake, but his hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings seemed, on the contrary, to support the position taken by other members of the Committee that this is an important factor in a school’s attainment. Surely the question is what do we doabout it.

Although a return to selection, or an extension of selection, may help social mobility for the few—  perhaps the most academically gifted—it would fail those who are less academically gifted, or less academically able at the time of the selection test. Of course, that is the point. Many young people develop at different speeds in different subjects, and further selection would leave behind those failed by the current system. Other hon. Members pointed out the number of young people in Northern Ireland who leave school with no qualifications, which is surely unacceptable. Focusing entirely on the social mobility of the brightest will not solve the problem. The answer lies in early years education and the extra help that we need to give to those who are either disadvantaged through income or underachieving. That is why we have argued for more targeted funding, aimed specifically at individual pupils. However, that is not relevant to this debate, and I shall not prolong it further.

As we have seen, what we do with grammar schools is controversial, although I thought that it had ceased to be controversial, given that all parties had agreed that they did not want a return to the 11-plus. The question is what we do about that. I am entirely in agreement with the arguments made by the hon. Member for Bury, North about the impact of grammar schools and the fact that it is unhelpful and unacceptable to extend the system. However, we need to take people with us, and for that reason, new clause 51 is extremely helpful.

However, I would not support amendment No. 441. The critical issue is the ballot. At the moment, it takes a relatively large number of parents to trigger a ballot, and the ballot takes place with feeder schools only. If we had a different kind of ballot, which included all the schools in a borough, not just the feeder schools that have an incentive to send pupils to the particular grammar school, we would have a different effect. Taking people with us is important. We are an instinctively localist party, and on this subject, we would not wish to be dogmatic and to impose that.

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

Will the hon. Lady consider two points? The first was made by one of my hon. Friends. Why would we want to go down the road of ballots of this kind? These are a small number of schools, for the most part doing excellent work. Would it not be a distraction from the principal job, which she rightly describes as improving standards in all schools? Secondly, is it not true that most grammar schools draw in a large number of feeder schools—it is certainly true in rural areas—meaning that the ballot would not be quite as narrow as she suggests?

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

Although the hon. Gentleman is correct to say that they are a small number of schools, they are concentrated in particular areas. In some areas, parents have little choice in what kind of school system their children go through. In areas such as Kent, where there are so many grammar schools, an awful lot of children are affected by the 11-plus, and that is why we need a ballot system and to encourage all schools in those areas to take part.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the most  important thing is to engage parents in a full debate on schools? That is what is lacking. I live in a grammar school area, with a successful comprehensive school a quarter of a mile away, but we have never had a full and open debate. That has been lacking. I would not impose a system on any parents, but the debate is critical.

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

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We support the idea of a ballot, but wish to see its remit extended.

Amendments Nos. 209 and 230 are also helpful. The hon. Member for Bury, North made a good point that has been raised with me previously. I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says about the extent to which the funding agreement entrenches the existing relationship between academies and the old code of practice. The amendments provide an obvious way to tackle the problem.

The Conservatives appear to argue against selection, but are tabling amendments that would increase it. It is not clear in which direction they are moving. We Liberal Democrats will oppose their amendment to increase selection further.

Mr. Hayesrose—

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

I am going to finish now. I am trying to keep my contributions brief.

We will oppose the Conservative amendment on selection, because we do not see any difference between selection by ability or aptitude.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I tabled four amendments in the group. I shall start by dealing with clause stand part and new clause 8. Basically, the new clause would remove clause 36, which is logically in line with what I am trying to achieve in setting schools free. The famous election manifesto that swept the Conservatives to power in 1951 was entitled “Setting the people free”. I want to set the schools free, and that is what my amendments would do. They also give me an opportunity to make some general comments of a clause stand part nature, which I hope might be useful.

I know that Committee members are interested in my views and are waiting with breathless anticipation for the publication of my pamphlet on this subject next week.

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

Will you be autographing it?

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

It will be a virtual pamphlet. We are very modern; it will be published on the internet by the Cornerstone Group, of which my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings is a member. The Cornerstone manifesto is based on the saying, “The stone that was rejected became the cornerstone”. I often feel, in this Committee, likethe stone that was rejected. However, we live in hope. As my hon. Friend said, it is ideas that matter. When our brief life in this Committee flickers out like an  extinct candle, I hope that our ideas, and those of the hon. Member for Bury, North, will go on flickering in some shape or form.

Why do I want to get rid of clause 36? Let us consider what it does. Elsewhere in the Bill, and in previous legislation, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings said, assessment of ability in music, dance or sport is allowed in schools that specialise in such skills. The prevention of assessment in clause 36 covers intellectual ability in English, maths, languages, science and so on. My hon. Friend made a good point. It would be useful if the Minister told the Committee why she feels that there is such a distinction between dance, music and sport, and English, maths, languages and science.

There is not as strict a divide between the subjects as might be supposed, which is also interesting. Recently, comprehensive schools have been encouraged to specialise in certain subjects—for example, technology, science or languages. We should like the Minister to say whether the clause forbids assessment in those subjects, even for admission to such schools specialising in languages, science or technology. I suspect that that is not so. I am sure that the Minister will say that schools will be allowed to select a certain number of pupils who are particularly proficient in languages, science or whatever.

We are confusing the issue in many ways. The public are also rather confused about what is going on. We no longer have pure comprehensives or grammar schools, apart from 165 of the latter, and yet increasingly schools are being encouraged to specialise in music, dance and sport. Those schools can be selective. Schools are being encouraged also to specialise in languages or technology, and presumably to a certain extent they will be selective as well. What is going on?

Apparently, everybody in the Committee except for myself is convinced that there should be no selection at all in traditionally academic subjects such as English or maths. Why is that? Is there something special about English or maths, or is that a political issue? Going back to Lord Adonis, is it the case that the Government recognise the sense of selecting some, or indeed all, pupils in certain subjects, but that they do not have the political courage to go that final step and say that if it is all right to select some, or all, pupils because they are particularly good at music, sport, technology or languages, it would be possible also to select pupils proficient in, for instance, maths? It is well known that maths is a skill that is often innate. True, a pupil might have a brilliant or bad maths teacher, but it is often an innate skill so why can we not select for those with such a skill?

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

I notice that, like a celebrity on a chat show, my hon. Friend plugged his Cornerstone paper. He is mistaken: our amendment would allow selection, up to 10 per cent., on the basis of academic ability in mathematics or one of the other subjects that he described. So we are not quite as he painted us.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I was addressing my comments to the Minister. I recognise that the view of my hon. Friend is that selection should be allowed to a certain extent. However, if my hon. Friend thinks that we should  allow 10 per cent. to be selected, why not go the further mile and say that schools should be allowed to select who they want? I accept that he takes a perfectly moderate and sensible line, but I do not understand why the Minister feels that it is not possible to accept my hon. Friend’s amendment. Presumably, we will find out in a moment.

It makes sense to suit children to the type of education offered and to select on ability and aptitude for those with a propensity for academic subjects—leading on eventually to A-levels and university. The clause accepts the good sense of admission by ability to the existing designated grammar schools and that those 165 schools will be allowed to continue to select on merit.

Actually, the hon. Member for Bury, North made a perfectly reasonable point. Perhaps I should not have mentioned him because I might not be summarising his case fairly, but why is there an exception for existing grammar schools? Is there a logical intellectual reason that existing grammar schools should be allowed to survive, especially considering the way in they schools have been abolished in the past, because they have been in odd areas and it was not logical to keep them? Why should some people be subjected to, or enjoy, grammar school education in certain parts of the country, but not in others? Surely there is no real case in logic for retaining just 165 schools—pure grammar schools, selecting on ability—in certain areas because of geographical and historical accidents, but not allowing them to exist in other areas. Is not the real reason that it is not worth the candle—it is politically too much of a hassle to abolish the remaining 165? If there are 3,500 secondary schools, why go to all the effort of having massive local campaigns just to get rid of the last 165 grammar schools? That is a fair point, but that is politics and does not relate to education, logic or forethought.

It would be useful if the Minister explained why she wants to leave those 165 grammar schools in place. There is a perfectly fair case to be made for having separate schools to cater for separate abilities and aptitudes with each school creating a climate, ethos and specialism in certain subjects. That would be a good system. Hence the grammar school, the music school, the sports school, the dance school, the languages school, the maths school, the classics school—any school that one can name. Most schools will not want to specialise.

I can tell my hon. Friends the Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that I fully accept that in recent years the Conservative party has, in a way, got stuck in a rut over grammar schools. I did not agree with the policy of setting up a grammar school in every town, or of putting that to people in the manifesto. We were stuck in a rut because many of us went to grammar schools—I did not do so myself—and were of the view that they were the way forward.

When so few people go to grammar schools it is difficult to make them politically popular. However, the fact that we do not want to call schools “grammar schools” should not prevent us from adopting what would be the popular policy of allowing them to be in  charge of their own admissions procedures. I have made the point before, so I do not need to labour it, that there would not be a revolution. Most schools would evolve gradually; there would not suddenly be lots of new-style grammar schools popping up all over the country. Most schools, allowed to do what they wanted to do, would remain broadly comprehensive.

That leads me directly to my next point. The alternative to specialised schools for grammar, music, dance, sports, maths or classics, and the approach that the Government seem to prefer, is for children of all abilities and aptitudes to be put together in one school, the comprehensive, which then attempts to cater for all possible abilities and aptitudes. We now know that the pure comprehensive model simply does not work. If comprehensive schools try to run with mixed ability teaching—that is, all abilities in one class—they will fail; and that is what they are doing. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has made that point many times, and he is absolutely right. The usual situation is that the teacher aims the degree of difficulty of the lesson at the middle band—neither the very bright nor the very dull—with the consequence that the very bright underachieve because it is far too easy for them, so they are not stretched and they soon get bored, and the least able are also neglected because they cannot cope, are similarly ignored and also get bored.

Most people in this room would now agree that the model of the pure comprehensive has failed; it is not a good model. We have to consider how to deal with that, and the answer is streaming. One way is to stream the children once they are at the school, probably in an A stream, a B stream and a C stream. Given the usual general mix of abilities in a comprehensive, there will probably be four streams—one A, two Bs and one C—because the majority of pupils will be in the B stream. The trouble with that is that it sounds sensible but it assumes a big school.

The more sophisticated the streaming, the bigger the school has to be because, for economic and educational reasons, each class has to be of a sufficient size—say 30 pupils. The so-called A stream in such a school, comprising the able children who would not go to a grammar school, merely means that a grammar stream exists inside a comprehensive school—so we have a system of hidden grammar schools in many comprehensive schools. The Government claim that they are committed to the comprehensive system, but there is a grammar stream in many comprehensive schools.

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

Would the hon. Gentleman concede that pupils in many comprehensive schools are streamed according to ability and achievement in particular subjects? They are not singularly labelled as being in the A stream.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I am coming to that point. That is what is called setting. Setting means doing the same thing—separating groups of children according to ability and aptitude—but doing so subject by subject. Thus, in theory, a child might be in A set for English but C set for maths. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is committed to setting. However, with limited numbers of staff, it  makes timetabling very complicated. It also, again, assumes large schools, and in practice most able pupils in the grammar stream will be in the A set for almost all, if not all, subjects. What is called “setting” because it is more politically acceptable often means much the same as streaming, and it necessitates large schools. To make streaming work it is necessary to have a four-form entry. If there are 30 in a class, that means 120 pupils in a year, so we are talking about a school of about 800 pupils. That would work for a comprehensive school of 800 pupils, but would it work for a comprehensive school of 600 pupils?

The Committee will see the point that I am trying to make. Because we do not have the political courage to set up separate schools for people who are academically gifted, and because we have to cater for them within the comprehensive system, we often create a very complicated timetable and structure. We have to have big schools because, to make setting and streaming work within the economic constraints and the constraints of timetabling, a large number of pupils is needed. Yet many studies show that many pupils are happier in smaller schools. My personal experience is that children are happy in a school as small as 600 pupils or even smaller. Why should we create a system that needs a minimum of 800 pupils in order to work? Because we do not have the political courage to say that we are prepared to let schools do what they want, with some schools becoming grammar schools, we are set in this bind. My new clause 8 addresses that problem.

Amendment No. 367 would simply insert a new paragraph (c) in the list of exceptions:

“the school is comprehensive with a grammar stream.”

I am talking about what happens in many schools now. As some comprehensive schools attempt to cater for the most academically able child by streaming, having the pupils of high academic ability in one stream, the less able in another stream and the less able still in the third stream, the top stream is often called the grammar stream. But if that stream is to be educationally and financially viable, enough children of high academic ability have to be admitted to the school. Such a school would therefore wish to assess the academic ability of applicants in order to produce a viable grammar stream.

Although I would prefer the clause to be dropped completely, if we are to have it, which clearly we will, and if we are to exempt grammar schools from the prohibition on admission by ability, it makes sense also to exempt those comprehensive schools that have a grammar stream. Why, if are we exempting grammar schools, are we not exempting comprehensive schools with a grammar stream? I think that I know the answer: it is do with politics, but I am not sure that there is a logical reason for it. Why should we prevent the many schools that have a grammar stream from operating effectively? The amendment would allow those comprehensives that stream according to ability to assess ability as part of their admissions procedure.

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

My hon. Friend is giving a comprehensive analysis of the value and importance of streaming and setting. He will know that in-school selection of that kind is dear to the heart of myhon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and  Littlehampton. Is not the problem that effectively we have selection by postcode and by wealth? We have to focus on what we do for those children who are not at the best schools, streamed, set or otherwise. How will we improve their chances using my hon. Friend’s techniques?

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Minister and Labour Members have to answer this point. No doubt for very good reasons—I would say ideological reasons and they would say for reasons of common sense—they have created the comprehensive system. In so doing they have thrown away the ladder that allowed many people to escape from inner-city ghettos: inner-city grammar schools no longer exist. That is entirely reprehensible. We now have comprehensives, which used to base admission purely on a catchment area, but now tend to be much more open. As my hon. Friend has said and as others have said repeatedly, we now have selection by postcode. I fully accept that.

I fully accept what my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, are trying to achieve. My hon. Friend is extremely concerned about the existing education establishment, especially in the many schools that have set their hearts against streaming and setting. He believes that many children are stuck in a system, in bog-standard comprehensives—to quote a phrase—and they cannot escape. He believes that the way to get round that is to insist that all schools stream or set, or have a combination of the two, so that they get rid of mixed ability teaching.

I entirely agree with everything my hon. Friend is trying to achieve. The only problem with it is that historically Conservative Governments have found it virtually impossible to impose their will from the centre, however well meaning their efforts. There are a limited number of Ministers, dealing with 20,000 schools and up against a very truculent education establishment, not least the teachers’ unions. When we tried to impose our will through central direction we were frustrated.

I fully accept where my hon. Friend is, and where he is trying to get to, but a future Conservative Government would find it difficult to achieve their aims in the way he suggests, so I have an alternative approach: to allow schools to get on with it. My hon. Friend will immediately say, “What will then happen to the bad schools? Surely they will just carry on.” That is true in life. I would say that parents would leave those schools if they had consumer choice. My hon. Friend will argue that in many areas it is simply not possible to leave a school, which shows that there are infinite grey areas in all these arguments. No one has the correct solution but we must feel our way at least towards approaching these problems logically and not just on the basis of what is politically feasible.

What I like about Lord Adonis and what he has written is that he has accepted the logic of many of the arguments. However, I feel sorry for him because he is caught in a political system in which he simply cannot deliver on the logic of those arguments, nor can the Prime Minister. Therefore, they have ended up with a Bill which, although it was portrayed as being  tremendously important and making a dramatic change to education, will make very little difference in many areas.

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

My hon. Friend makes an important point as 60 per cent. of lessons in comprehensive schools still take place in mixed ability classes, despite a clear pledge in Labour’s 1997 manifesto that it would increase the proportion of setting. No one underestimates the difficulty of doing so, but it can be done. People said the same thing when I first raised the issue of synthetic phonics four years ago, but now the Government are going to change the law, and by September 2006 synthetic phonics will be taught in all primary schools. That shows that with determination, good research and the dissemination of that research, the battle can be won. We must engage in it if we are to raise standards in our schools.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

That is a very good point, fairly put. I accept it completely and wish my hon. Friend well when he becomes an Education Minister. If he can impose his will, that will be tremendous. However, he might find, as did as our noble Friend Lord Patten, that the education establishment he is dealing with is very unresponsive to that sort of change.

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

I hope that my hon. Friend will exclude teachers from that because they have been victims of the kind of dogma that he highlights. Most teachers know what works best and they are desperate to try to put it in place. They resist these things just as much as my hon. Friend. Teachers are good people, trying to do their best, and they deserve our support.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

That must be right and we all have to say it, although, sadly, there are many teachers who do not agree with me or my hon. Friends on the issue. We must accept that many teachers do not believe in the kind of rigid setting and streaming that my hon. Friend is talking about. It is idle to suppose that all teachers are on our side and that there is a vicious education establishment—a crust on the top—which is working against them, supported by Labour Ministers. I am afraid that many teachers are fully wedded to the comprehensive ideal. Good on them. Why should they not be? It is a perfectly logical system. I suspect that many teachers are much more in line with the hon. Member for Bury, North than with the Minister. The hon. Gentleman fulfils an important role in this Committee, because he is speaking up for many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the education establishment.

Mr. Chaytorrose—

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I am sorry. I took the hon. Gentleman’s name in vain. I was trying to be nice.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I do like it when the hon. Gentleman says that. Does he accept that what he said is not just the view of teachers, but the view of many thousands of school governors and parents? What most parents want is a good school as near to their home as possible.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

Yes, people often say that about schools and hospitals. They do want a good school down the road, but I get no sense that, when they look into the matter more deeply and talk things through, parents or prospective parents have any great opposition to the concept of setting and streaming. I may be wrong, and of course there will be some who oppose it. It all goes to show that we live in a very complex democracy with a huge variety of views, for which we must cater in every way we can. It is very difficult for any political party to impose a certain set of views on the nation as a whole, when we are an increasingly diverse society.

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

My hon. Friend is making some pertinent and important points. My understanding of public and parental opinion is that people do want rigorous setting in comprehensive schools. What the Conservative party and I want is for the issues, instead of being debated behind closed doors by educationists, to be debated in the open. Ultimately the public will be able to decide what kind of education system they want. I hope that come the next general election it will be a key factor in determining the result.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

That is a fair point. It is good that we should have that public debate. But what has dominated the papers for a whole week? Has there been a sensible discussion in the tabloid or broadsheet papers about the debates in this Committee? Sadly, the papers have been dominated by other subjects, which I shall not delve into. That is the world that we live in, and there is not much that we can do about it.

I am interested in the subject because my son is going to a comprehensive school in September. He has been admitted to the school but went to take a test on Saturday. Admissions are not based on ability but everyone who is admitted is then rigorously tested. Another comprehensive school that I know about, to which my son might have gone, operates a different system. Before applicants are admitted—before they send out the letter saying that someone can go to the school—they are tested. The school claims that that allows it to get pupils with a broad range of abilities, so that a third will be very able, a third middle stream and a third the least able. I have some suspicions about that—I suspect that it is doing a bit of cherry-picking—although I shall not name names and identify the school.

Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)

I am not going to ask the hon. Gentleman to name names; however, the school that I visited most recently, the Petchey city academy in Hackney, which will not open until September, operates that very form of banding, which all new schools are taking up in Hackney. They have a very comprehensive intake. They take children in equal distribution across the four ability bands. The head teacher praised that, and is not the only head teacher in Hackney to have done so. The hon. Gentleman is making dangerous comments if he is suggesting that the approach is used to cherry-pick pupils, when it is actually a method for creating the most comprehensive balance possible in our complex education system.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I am sure that some head teachers who are fully committed to the comprehensive system use  that system of tests before admission to create precisely such a pure comprehensive school. That is undoubtedly right. There are head teachers who are fully committed to the comprehensive principle, but there are others, and there is a suspicion that they may use the approach I outlined. Some comprehensive schools seem to manage to achieve a very high-ability intake, and to do very well in the league tables.

Without naming names, I simply make the point that it is difficult to impose by central diktat what will happen to schools. Certain schools will be committed to a certain form and others will be committed to another way of proceeding. However many controls are established, and however many clauses like clause 36 are passed, many schools will circumvent them. We all know that quite a lot of fiddling with the league tables goes on in one way or another—children suddenly not appearing in tests and all the rest of it. There is no point in denying it; it happens. That is why it is idle to suppose that we in this room can create an education system entirely according to our own lights. We are dealing with such a complex situation that, ultimately, many schools will go their own way.

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

I ask the hon. Gentleman to substantiate his accusation that our schools are fiddling the league tables.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I am not going to substantiate it, because I would have to name names.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I would happily give the hon. Lady cases that I am aware of—cases of schools that do not allow children with special needs to sit certain exams or SATs because that would drop them down the league tables. I would be happy to give her the evidence.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I am happy to name a school that does the opposite, because it is one that my own children went to. Our Lady of Victory is a primary school that had a 100 per cent. record. It no longer has that record because it now teaches special needs children. The school believed that it was its duty to admit special needs children, and it immediately dropped down the league tables. Therefore, it is not listed in any of the national newspapers, although it is a wonderful school where 100 per cent. of the children achieve superb results.

We all know that such things go on in life. It is not a criminal offence; it is not even necessarily wrong. Schools are just trying to get the best reputation that they can, and we know that that is inevitable.

I turn to amendment No. 368, which would leave out the words “or any” in subsection (2). Clause 36 will ban admission criteria based on ability

“for all or any of the pupils who are to be admitted”.

If we want academic standards to be achieved in our schools, clause 36 is wrong. But if we are to have clause 36—this is the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings—we should permit schools to assess at least some applicants for ability according to their judgment whether that is necessary. Leaving out the words “or any” would permit that. Clause 36 will not add to  education improvement in this country. Without it, the system would be much freer, and would achieve better academic results.

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

Of course, even without clause 36, the provisions in it would still be law. The clause adds nothing to the Bill; it just repeats provisions from the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

Consequent legislation would have to be made, but my hon. Friend understands the point that I am trying to make. I have tabled the amendments to stimulate a debate on the need for clause 36, and I commend them to the Committee.

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

Clause 36, which is important to the Bill, reaffirms the Government’s long-standing and strong commitment to preventing the introduction of any new selection by ability at maintained schools. The debate has been interesting, with challenges from various sides. However, I intend to consider some of the amendments in detail as well as to respond to some of the broader arguments.

I start with amendment No. 45, tabled by Conservative Members, which would allow any school to select up to 10 per cent. of its pupils in any target-setting subject for the specialist schools programme. That would include mathematics, science, history and English. Currently, only a small number of schools select up to 10 per cent. by aptitude.

To correct the hon. Member for Gainsborough, it is not the case that a specialist school can select in any subject in which it chooses to specialise. We restrict in regulations the subjects in which selection by aptitude is possible. Only in approved subjects can that happen.

Because the amendment would apply to all schools, it would be likely to lead to an extension of selection, especially in subjects that are proxies for academic selection. We do not depend only on our interpretation of the amendment to be clear about that. The debate has been revealing, particularly the speech of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. There may be some contrast between his approach and that of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. We have learnt today that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is a member of the Cornerstone group.

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

I am the chairman, actually.

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

The hon. Gentleman says that he is the chairman. I am not sure that he is completely happy with the stated policy of the Conservative party. He certainly implied that he wants a return to a process of selection by ability that goes further even than is suggested in the amendments. The fact that he spent most of his speech arguing the success of grammar schools was confusing for members of the committee. I estimate that, in a speech of about 36 or 37 minutes, he spent about six minutes on the amendments. The rest was a paean of praise for grammar schools.

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman has moved away from the policy of having a grammar school in every town. He even suggested at some points that part of the problem with that policy was that it was not very  popular, that it was caricatured and that the Conservatives had therefore had to take a different approach to achieve the same objective.

We have repeatedly said that we do not want to increase selection by ability. The amendment could do just that, and it would lead to a blurring of the distinction between selection based on aptitude and that based on ability. Hon. Members have asked me to outline that distinction, which is reasonably clear. Ability is generally described as an all-embracing factor that suggests whether a candidate will be able successfully to undertake a course of study, and it could be considered a predictor of overall scholastic attainment. Aptitude selection, which is allowed in a small number of prescribed cases, is much narrower. The school admission code says that

“a pupil with aptitude is one identified as able to benefit from teaching in a specific subject, or who demonstrates a particular capacity to succeed in that subject.”

It measures potential, not prior, achievement or knowledge. There is no need for prior teaching in a subject for someone to show aptitude.

That distinction applies to the testing that will enable schools to identify aptitude, as opposed to ability. Unlike a test of ability, which we all know is more likely to be passed by those who have been coached in a particular area, we are careful that testing for aptitude measures a child’s propensity to succeed rather than their ability. For example, there are a number of effective measures of aptitude in prescribed subjects, such as tests for aptitude in music that measure children’s propensity to recognise pitch, rhythm, harmony and texture; those for aptitude in physical education based on the fundamental motor skills test devised by the Department of Education and Training in Victoria, Australia; and those for aptitude in languages that measure the propensity of children to recognise the meaning of non-familiar languages. In subjects such as science and history, it is much less clear that a distinction between aptitude and ability can be made.

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

Many music teachers may well dispute the argument that one cannot be taught how to hear pitch, or that that ability will not improve with teaching. I certainly do.

Does the Minister not recognise that in 2003, the chief schools adjudicator, Philip Hunter, said about specialist schools that finding a difference between the meaning of ability and aptitude was

“the sort of exercise lexicographers get up to when they haven’t enough to do”?

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

I think that I have just explained that there is a difference between ability and aptitude. Adjudicators have found it possible to rule which tests successfully test aptitude and which ability, so it is possible to make that distinction.

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

The right hon. Lady has identified the difference between testing for potential, as she put it, and testing someone on what they already know—something on which they could be coached. As she will know, propensity or potential can be tested for in the  case of mathematics. There is a great deal of academic evidence to support that. So why not extend the arrangements to maths?

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

Because I have drawn on the evidence about the areas in which it appears to be possible to test for aptitude separately from ability. There is a strong suggestion that what is being tested for in the case of maths is ability and previous teaching. That brings us back to the crux of our disagreement. We do not believe that we should extend selection by ability. Conservative Members do. That is a fundamental difference between us and the reason for my opposition to amendment No. 45.

Amendment No. 45, and the hon. Gentleman’s speech, hid the objective of returning to selection by ability, although the hon. Member for Gainsborough is at least honest about wanting to go back, pretty much red in tooth and claw, to selection by ability—or perhaps that should be blue in tooth and claw. His new clause 8 would permit any maintained school to select part or all of its intake on the basis of aptitude or ability.

As I have made clear, we are developing an admissions system with the aim of establishing equity of access to schools. The hon. Member for Gainsborough made his view very clear: it is that not only should there be no limit to the basis on which schools select, but—this is clear from his amendments—there should not be any structural framework for admissions arrangements. Fundamentally, he thinks that we should return to a free-for-all with respect to admissions, with no limitation on the criteria that schools might use to choose pupils. That is the key point. He is arguing not for parents to have as wide as possible a choice of school for their child, but for schools to be able to choose the pupils that they admit. That is another fundamental difference between our approaches.

Amendments Nos. 367 and 368 would have much the same effect, by a slightly more back-door route. They would permit more schools to select part of their intake on the basis of ability by removing partial selection from the definition of schools with selective admissions arrangements. I got slightly lost as we went down various routes such as grammar streams and pursued other arguments.

To make things clear, the Government support setting. There is more setting in secondary schools now than there was in 1997. However, the hon. Gentleman took us back to a rigid set of arrangements, which even he suggested would be difficult to replicate in a range of schools. What is more, his amendments place no limit on the proportion of children who would be admitted to such schools on the basis of ability. The proportion could be anything from 1 to 99 per cent.

Once again, the hon. Gentleman is proposing a back-door route for the creation of grammar schools. We want a clear framework in our admissions system, and a set of transparent and objective admissions arrangements about which parents can feel confident—not the free-for-all, or even the furtive return to selection by ability, that Opposition Members seem to be proposing.

I thought that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North about amendment No. 210 and his other amendments was pragmatic and thoughtful, although I did not agree with everything that he said. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings seemed to have written off his comments before he had listened to what my hon. Friend had to say. He was not dogmatic; he was reasonably pragmatic in much of what he said.

Amendment No. 210 would have the opposite effect to those that we have considered so far. Its intention is to prevent the operation of any selective admission arrangement except as part of pupil banding. I have made it clear, as does the Bill, that we do not support selection by ability at age 11, and we do not wish to see it extended. There will be no new grammar schools. However, since the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, we have had a consistent policy on the process for decision making in respect of the 164 schools that remain wholly selective. My hon. Friend suggested that that is an abdication of responsibility. I believe that it is being clear about where responsibility for decision making should rest—with the governing bodies of schools and local parents. It represents a consistent approach to devolving decision making to those who are most likely to be affected by the selection arrangements of particular schools. That is why we established the grammar school ballot system.

Taken together, new clause 51 and amendmentsNos. 441, 442 and 443 would continue the legislation that restricts selection by ability until the academic year 2010-11, after which amendment No. 441 would remove the current regime and new clause 51 and amendment No. 442 would mean that selection by ability or aptitude in secondary schools would be allowed only where a parental ballot of pupils in local primary schools had been held. Amendment No. 443 would then ensure that any regulation made under that provision would be subject to affirmative resolution.

I do not believe—largely for reasons that I have spelled out—that those are appropriate additions. There is already a system that allows parents to decide whether to remove selection from existing grammar schools: if 20 per cent. of local parents support it, a ballot is held. On the point made by the hon. Member for Brent, East, the eligible parents from whom the20 per cent. come are those whose children are at primary schools that send pupils to the grammar school. That is a pretty broad range of parents, and she would make it even broader. They cover a wide range of primary schools in an area. If a simple majority is in favour of the removal of selection, it is removed. In addition, on partial ability, parents, schools, local authorities and, in future, admissions forums have a right to object to admission arrangements that allow schools to select part of their intake by ability.

Further—I do not think that this is the impact that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North would want it to have—the new clause would require the revocation or amendment of any provision under chapter 2 or 3 of the 1998 Act. As a consequence, we would have to revoke or amend clause 43, which allows for new forms of pupil banding. As we will discuss when we come to that, there are strong arguments in favour of pupil banding—for example, it can help to  ensure a broader range of ability in a school. I do not think that he would want that to be removed.

The amendments would also require the revocation or amendment of provisions that allow admissions authorities to select up to 10 per cent. of their intake by aptitude. I think that that is my hon. Friend’s intention. However, there are arguments for schools to be able to select 10 per cent. of their intake by aptitude in limited circumstances in respect of a limited range of subjects outlined in regulations. We would not want those provisions to be removed.

To sum up, my argument is that the provisions allow the removal of selection where there is a call for it. The amendments would have additional and unintended effects, which could adversely affect the implementation of the provisions in the Bill that are aimed at increasing opportunities for deprived children. If the amendments were agreed, it would require a further amendment or a repeal to facilitate pupil banding. We have in place suitable provisions to ensure that that decision making can occur. My hon. Friend referred to it in his contribution—the decisions are made, in these circumstances, at the appropriate level for those impacted on by the selective arrangements of the remaining grammar schools.

Amendment No. 209 aims to extend the prohibition on selection to academies. Although it has that intention, I hope that I can reassure the Committee that academies are already required by law to cater for children of all abilities. They have a clear legislative duty to provide education for local children of all abilities. Section 65 of the Education Act 2002, which amended earlier legislation to enable the establishment of academies, requires them to provide

“education for pupils of different abilities who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated.”

Furthermore, their funding agreements require them to comply with the schools admissions code and admissions legislation. Hon. Members referred to the new code. I can assure them that we will update annexes to existing academy funding agreements to reflect its provisions. Therefore, the impact will be that existing academies comply with the conditions of the new admissions code.

Academies are not permitted to conduct admission interviews with parents or pupils, or to introduce selection by ability. As with other specialist schools, they can introduce up to 10 per cent. of selection by aptitude for prescribed subjects. Also, they can introduce banding arrangements as a means to ensure that they have an intake that is representative of the range of abilities of all applicants, as, in fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) described in relation to the Jack Petchey academy. However, none of the existing academies select by ability, and the Secretary of State would not approve a funding agreement for an academy if it proposed introducing such selection. Finally, amendment No. 230 would prevent city technology colleges from introducing selection by ability. However, CTCs do not select by ability. They operate pupil banding to ensure that their intake represents a broad range of abilities.

We have had a good opportunity to debate not only the amendments, but some of the broader issues to do  with selection. I hope that I have reassured hon. Members that we have in place what we believe are the right limitations on further selection by ability in our schools; an appropriate process through which, at the appropriate level, parents and governing bodies can express their views about selection where it remains in our grammar schools; and a suitable balance that ensures that admissions arrangements can recognise through, for example banding, the need sometimes to be able to make changes to ensure that pupils with a broad range of abilities are admitted to particular schools. On those bases, I hope that all hon. Members will feel able not to press their amendments to a Division.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I am grateful to the Minister for responding to the debate, and particularly to the amendments that I moved, so carefully. However, it seems that the arguments about selection and non-selection cannot be dismissed as easily as the Opposition would like them to be. I tried to explain that we should focus on admissions policies, not on the names of schools. However, Opposition Members insisted on focusing on the names of schools, and we were dragged inevitably into an argument about defending a certain category of existing schools. I am utterly relaxed about the names of schools because it seems completely irrelevant, but I am extremely concerned about having fair, open and transparent admissions policies. It is inconsistent for the Opposition to argue that schools’ intakes are irrelevant and that we should not be discussing them, but at the same time to spend virtually the whole of their contributions defending the importance of preserving grammar schools’ intakes. That is utterly beyond belief.

If their arguments about the superior performance of the existing 165 wholly selective schools, and presumably of the other 35 or so partially selective ones, are so solid and valid, the logic of their policies should be, as I said earlier, to reintroduce selection in the whole of the United Kingdom and go back to John Major’s old policy of having a grammar school in every town. That is not their policy, because deep down they know that selection does not work to the advantage of all children.

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

Nor is it the Government’spolicy.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

My amendments simply argue that we need to followthrough the logic of the all-party consensus that the old 11-plussystem—selection at 11 by an arbitrary test—does notdeliver the rise in standards that we want. I was grateful that thehon. Member for Gainsborough appreciated that there is no logic in thecurrent arrangements; they are arbitrary and arbitrary solutions do notnecessarily deliver the bestresults.

On intake, itis not a simple matter of abolishing certain kinds of schools. I do notknow of anybody who has argued for the abolition of any grammar schoolssince the days of Margaret Thatcher, who was the last Secretary ofState to suggest abolishing grammar schools and abolished a largenumber of them. We have got to get away from the idea of  abolishing schools or not supporting good schools. Wherever there aregood schools, I want more children to be able to attend them. However,we cannot consider schools in isolation from the wider system in whichthey operate.

Themerit in my amendment is that the status quo would apply until 2010,after which there would be an end to selection throughout the country.However, selection would still be subject to the existing rules onparental ballots; in areas that are currently wholly or partlyselective, parents would still have the right to vote on whether to goahead with ending selection in 2010. That is entirely in line with our1997 manifesto policy that, ultimately, such matters should bedetermined by parents. All I am arguing for is that the Governmentshould change the default position and see through the logic of theirown position on selection—and the logic of the LiberalDemocrats’ position and the Conservatives’ officialposition.

I do not wantto digress for too long, because lunch time is approaching, but while Iam on this subject I shall say a little more. I have retrieved theshadow Secretary of State’s quote that I mentioned, and it isimportant that we get it on the record. Recently, on Teachers’TV, hesaid:

“Lookingback to my friends from primary school, the brutality of theeleven-plus and the ones who went to secondary moderns that is one ofthe problems with theeleven-plus.”

I have tosay that there was not much grammar in that sentence. Hecontinued:

“It'swhy David Cameron and I have said that we won't go back to theeleven-plus in parts of the country where it's disappeared, ’cosI think”—

heactually said, “’cos I think”; I would notnormally expect him to use that word, but perhaps one of his brains wasnot in gear at thatmoment—

“choosingat 11 whether someone can benefit from academic education ornot...there's too many kids who develop after 11 and are not inthe appropriateschool.”

So there we haveit: the words of the shadow Secretary of Statehimself.

A range ofoptions could be considered to replace the status quo. We need an open,transparent public debate, not framed simply by arguments about themerits of individual categories of school, but focusing on theimplications of particular admissionspolicies.

I have arguedthat 11 is far too early to select children on the grounds of academicability. Given that we now have a national curriculum, it is almostimpossible to see the logic of segregating children at 11. I understandthat, 30 or 40 years ago, long before the national curriculum, thosewho did not go to selective schools did not pursue externalexaminations and, as late as 1970, therefore 50 per cent. of them leftschool without a single qualification to their name. I can see that inthose days there was at least a logic in segregating children at theage of 11. Now that all children follow the national curriculum up tothe age of 16, however, it is increasingly hard to understand what thepurpose is. As hon. Members on both sides of the House know, the realpurpose is social segregation, not the liberation of eachchild’s intellectual potential.

I have proposed severalalternatives. For example, in certain areas—I know some of themwell, although I do not wish to name them—the best solution,which would be to the advantage of all children, would be to change thecharacter of the existing wholly selective schools so that they becamesixth form colleges. Perhaps, in other areas, the option of a 14-to-19school may be pursued, which would be an easy way of enabling morepeople to gain access to the current wholly selective schools. It mayalso be that, in some areas, parents would see the advantages of simplyallowing the existing grammar schools to expand on the basis of amixed-ability intake, whereby all children who entered after 2010 wouldbe of mixed ability.

Myrecollection is that, early in the Government’s first term, Ipublished a Bill on the 10 per cent. issue. The proposals in my Billwere based on the argument that, having reached 10 per cent. byaptitude, the logical way of dealing with the remaining wholly orpartially selective schools would be to bring down the proportion ofchildren that they admitted from 100 per cent., to 90 per cent., then80 per cent., gradually in stages, until it also reached 10 per cent.All schools would then be able to select a maximum of 10 per cent.,either on grounds of ability or aptitude. There is an argument to bemade for universal entitlement to10 per cent. selection, sothat all schools would be able to select that proportion based onability or aptitude. I do not wish to pursue that argument, but it is apossibility.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

A fascinating possibility just occurred to me. Thehon. Gentleman has made the interesting point that there is logic inallowing all schools to select 10 per cent. by ability. I understandthat that would be the view of the official Opposition. I suspect that,even if my free-for-all solution, which is viewed as so radical, everhappened, most schools would probably move to that position. So it is areal possibility that, if the different models proposed by the hon.Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehamptonand myself all happened, we would all veer toward the samething—which I suppose is life, is itnot?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I am grateful for that intervention. The moresuch issues are discussed outside the traditional framework of blackand white or either/or solutions, the more we are likely to move towardsolutions based on sound educational reasons, rather than on historicalattempts to defend socialprivilege.

One of theConservative party’s difficulties, which has trapped it over theyears and led its more forward-thinking members to abandon the oldpolicy of wanting a grammar school in every town, is that its argumentsare increasingly outdated, inaccurate or irrelevant. Conservativesalways refer to social mobility. A number of recent academic studieshave identified a slow-down in social mobility in this country. Forinstance, the LSE study lists a number of factors that may havecontributed to that, one of which is the change in the nature of theadmissions policy for secondary schools. However, the study doesnot—as the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepingswrongly asserted—conclude that social mobility has slowed downas a direct result of the change in the  admissions policy for secondary schools. There is no assertion in thatstudy of any relationship between cause and effect. It would be helpfulif the hon. Gentleman spoke to its authors and asked them exactly whatthey think about thatrelationship.

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

With all his understanding and knowledge ofeducation, is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that there is nocause and effect between educational opportunity and attainment, andsocial mobility or that the abolition of grammar schools had no effectin that regard? If he is saying either of those things, he is steppingoutside the research data. He must knowthat.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

No, I am not saying that. I am saying that theorganisation of education can play an important role in the extensionof social mobility; it is not the only contributory factor. There arewider economic and social forces that are probably far more important.My key point, however, is that the hon. Gentleman was inaccurate aboutthe LSE report; it does not conclude that the slow-down in socialmobility is related to the changes in admission policies or thedeclining numbers of grammarschools.

The Oppositionwill also quote at length from the league tables, and they have manyopportunities to do so. I imagine that they have teams of researcherstrawling through them to examine the GCSE, A-level and value-addedscores in many of our selective schools. It does not come as a surpriseto me—I do not think that it will surprise many Committeemembers—that schools that admit children with the highest levelperformance at age 11 are likely to produce children with the highestlevel of performance at 16 or 18. Similarly, it is not a surprise thatthe value-added scores in some selective schools are particularly good.Clearly, if the intake is full of young people who have the greatconfidence boost from knowing that they successfully passed a test toget into their secondary school, that will obviously increase theirexisting high levels of motivation even further, making it easier toteach and stretch them. The league table results—even thevalue-added results of individual schools—are not directlyrelevant to the wider debate about the basic organising principles ofhow we allocate children to secondaryschool.

The otherclichÃ(c) to which the Tories always refer is the changing patternof entry to Oxford and Cambridge universities. Why we focus entirely onOxbridge is beyond me. The decline in the proportion of children fromstate schools over a generation was  entirely the result of the direct-grant grammar schools opting out ofthe state system in the 1970s. It is utterly dishonest to draw anyother conclusion than that. They also refer to the work of Dr. JohnMarks, the leading intellectual advocate for their position. I shouldhave thought that John Marks is not entirely neutral in this debate,but I will return to other academic worklater.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

Before the hon. Gentleman brushes over his lastremark about independent schools, the now independent grammar schoolsand social mobility, does he accept that the children who went to thosegrammar schools before the 1970s were chosen because of their ability,whereas, after the 1970s, children were chosen on the basis of theirparents’ ability to pay? That explains a lot about socialmobility, which the hon. Gentleman has damaged with hispolicies?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

It is true that the former direct-grant grammarschools—not all the former state grammar schools—thatopted out of the state system in the 1970s became fee-paying schools.It was actually Lady Thatcher’s policy that led them to moveout. However, we will not pursue that; it is a matter for anAdjournment debate on anotheroccasion.

Socialengineering is the other issue that is always mentioned. Whenever theConservative party wants to block any kind of social change,improvement or extension of opportunity, it is all about socialengineering. It is beyond me why 1,000 years of maintaining elitistforms of education to protect the social privileges of an elite is notsocial engineering, but extending educational opportunityis.

The hon. Member forBognor Regis and Littlehampton is a great advocate of streaming; hebelieves that schools should be forced to stream. It is difficult tograsp how that is compatible with his policy of devolving more power toindividual schools to decide themselves how they operate. It isimportant to say that, during the recent inquiry by the Education andSkills Committee into the White Paper, we considered the latestevidence on streaming from research by the Institute of Education andwe included a reference to it in thereport.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

Order. Before I adjourn the Committee, I shouldsay that it is my intention to suspend this afternoon’s sittingbetween 7 and 8pm.