Clause 138
1:30 pm
David Laws (Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)
Not only have those books not been banned from the reading list, but they are the favourite books of the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families; he picked them out in a recent selection. He has apparently been reading one of those titles to children in schools, so I hope that it is not banned.
I refer to those books because, under clause 138, they could find their way into every English examination in the land. They could be a compulsory part of the GCSE English examinations that every child in the country must sit. Under the clause, the Secretary of State is taking extraordinary powers—new powers, as has been confirmed in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole—that will allow the Government to dictate to examination boards what precise books they will examine youngsters on and what parts of history must be included in history examinations.
The clause has drawn a lot of attention from the educational media and the wider media. The books that I mentioned at the beginning of my comments were drawn to my attention by a leader article in no less than The Times, which published an editorial on the subject on 20 March. The feature was titled “Set texts”, with the subtitle: “It is not the Government’s job to hand out reading lists”. It was not only The Times that covered the matter. As well as the The Daily Telegraph, there was a leader article in no less a paper than the Daily Express under the headline “Brainwashing won’t work”, which concluded that only the slowest of learners will fail to appreciate that the Secretary of State’s control freakery and belief in centralised planning are the mark of a crackpot and not a statesman. Those are not my words but those of the Daily Express.
The significance of the clause is set out not only in the exchanges that we had in the evidence sessions a couple of weeks ago, but in the explanatory notes. It is worth reminding ourselves what those explanatory notes say about the clause. I assume, Mrs. Humble, that because my general criticisms of the clause are embedded in the amendments, you will not allow a separate stand part debate on the clause. The explanatory notes say:
“This clause allows the Secretary of State to determine the minimum requirements in respect of skills, knowledge, or understanding that someone must be able to demonstrate to gain a particular qualification or type of qualification.”
It goes on, very helpfully, to give an example:
“For example, it could be used to ensure that the content of GCSEs properly reflects the... Key State 4 Programmes of Study, such as specifying which authors’ works needed to be studied for someone to gain a GCSE in English.”
It goes on to say:
“The Government intends that this power would be used only in exceptional circumstances.”
However, none of the guarantees in relation to that, or to intervention on grading or assessment, are embedded in the Bill.