Department for Education and Skills

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:02 pm on 16 October 2002.

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Photo of Graham Brady Graham Brady Shadow Minister (Education) 7:02, 16 October 2002

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow my hon. Friend Mr. Lansley, who made an excellent speech, as is typical of him. He reminded the House that in all the current crises in education, Ministers were warned; Ministers had notice before they happened. They were warned that the way in which they introduced AS-levels and the new sixth form curriculum would cause problems. They proceeded regardless. They were warned that the Criminal Records Bureau could not complete the checks in time for schools to open at the beginning of the school term, and they failed to take action. On all the key issues in education, Ministers have had adequate warning, but their response has been less than adequate.

Opening the debate, my hon. Friend Mr. Green referred to the measure of the Government being intervention without substance, and he prayed in aid the Minister for School Standards, who used the wonderful metaphor of the doughnut—the education policy with a hole in the centre, even though it has a lot of icing on top. It was a brilliant metaphor, if I may say so, and the hon. Gentleman should take full credit for it. It says everything that it is necessary to say about the Government's approach to education.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford went on to speak about the fiasco of the Criminal Records Bureau checks, and the fact that 100 people had been wrongly accused by the Criminal Records Bureau and thousands are stuck in the system. Even more worryingly, perhaps, there has been no common sense and no consistency in the way in which the Government have dealt with that crisis. There was advice from the Secretary of State one day and contrary advice the next. Schools were left for an unacceptably long period not knowing which way to turn. Ultimately, they were left to make their own decisions and to risk the consequences.

The Minister for School Standards confirmed to me in a written answer today that no guidance was given to the Criminal Records Bureau about the way in which people who have an unbroken record as teachers should be treated. There was no differentiation between those who were applying new, those who had no record of good service in our schools, and those who did have such a record. That, again, was an appalling breach of common sense.

In the debate we heard about the Government's record on truancy and the fact that another target had been missed. Truancy was meant to go down, but it has gone up. We heard about the Government failing to meet their primary school targets. We heard even from the Secretary of State that she stands by the targets, but I think she said that she had no idea how she would reach them. She thought that they were worth while in themselves, but she had no practical suggestions as to how we would move away from the plateau which she accepted we had reached.