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3 am

Mr. Brady: I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), and I wish to refer to a specific local example which sheds light on these matters. St. Bede's college in Manchester is an independent Catholic grammar school, and Trafford borough council--and Cheshire county council before it--have, since the second world war, funded the provision of places for local Catholic children in the borough of Trafford at St. Bede's.

It throws light on the attitude of the Labour party and the Government that, now that Trafford borough council is Labour-controlled--for the first time in its history--it has decided to end that provision, in spite of the fact that the circumstances which my right hon. Friend described appertain exactly; the school has offered places to the local authority at exactly the same cost as the places in maintained schools. There is no financial benefit to the local authority from scrapping the scheme. It is simply an ideological attack on the principle of selective and independent schools, and shows a negative attitude to partnership.

The provision of places at St. Bede's is actually cheaper for the local authority, because there are no capital costs for the local authority--unlike at maintained schools. I am keen to support new clause 5 and the amendments, because the other parties--and I am pleased to say, in this instance, that that includes the Liberal Democrats in Trafford--are supporting partnership and choice, and opposing the Labour party's regressive thinking on this matter.

The Conservative and Liberal parties have pledged to restore the scheme when they take control of Trafford borough council. I am concerned that clause 118 could be used to prevent that, and I seek an assurance that that will not be the case. I strongly urge the House to support the new clause, to prevent any attempt to stop the reintroduction of that scheme if the local population vote for it.

Mr. St. Aubyn: I, too, support new clauses 5 and 6. I also want to speak to new clauses 9 and 10, which

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Mr. Blunkett: I shall not detain the House, but I want it put on the record that my ministerial colleagues, having been on the Front Bench almost continuously for the past 11 hours, deserve a break to get a cup of tea and relieve themselves. The silly nonsense that we hear from Conservative Members illustrates the utter contempt in which they hold standards and children's education.

Mr. St. Aubyn: I have not been a Member of Parliament for long, so perhaps this will carry less weight than if it were said by someone else, but I have rarely heard such a ridiculous statement by a Minister. It ill behoves the Secretary of State to try to disguise the fact--which everyone knows--that his ministerial colleagues made remarks on this issue that, after slipping clause 118 into the Bill at the last moment in Committee, they cannot now defend. I see that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris) is now back in the Chamber--I hope that she will resume her seat on the Front Bench.

As I said, we are discussing an important issue, which goes to the heart of the question whether we should trust anything that the Ministers say. They are asking us to take much on trust, as so much in the Bill is to be governed by regulations that will be issued and reviewed long after the Bill is enacted.

It is fitting that we should be discussing partnership schemes at 3 am, because last year we debated the assisted places scheme at a similar hour of the morning. That was another occasion on which the Government did not give sufficient time for proper consideration of an issue that affects so many children--nearly 400 in my constituency alone. In the last stages of that discussion, I tabled amendments similar to new clauses 9 and 10, but I was persuaded by the Minister's response to withdraw them.

New clause 9 would encourage and enable charities to top up the fees of a child at an independent school where the cost would exceed the standard spending assessment for a child at a maintained school in the area. Last year, I accepted the right of the new Government--although I did not agree with them--to claim back the £1,000 more that it cost on average to send a child to an independent school through the assisted places scheme rather than to a maintained school, and to use that money towards the costs of teachers in other parts of the education service. However, I tabled the new clause because I believe that we should allow charities to step into the breach. In that case, the assisted places scheme, or a version of it, could continue in areas where it had popular support, without doing so at the expense of the Government's objective of finding more money for primary school teachers.

The equivalent of new clause 10 in the Education (Schools) Bill would have ensured that councils had the power to go ahead with a new version of the assisted places scheme. The Minister for School Standards said:

"I intend to ask the Committee to reject new clause 2, because it is unnecessary to include its provisions in the Bill, given that . . . Regulations . . . made under section 518 of the Education Act 1996,

Nearly one in five children in Surrey go to independent schools, and it is especially important for us to build bridges between those schools and the state sector. It so happened that our scheme came to fruition when the Bill was in Committee, so I took advantage of its approval by the county council to announce it to the Committee, and to seek endorsement from Ministers for what we were trying to do.

I said:

"The Education (Schools) Act 1997 . . . was a retrograde step away from more partnership between the public and private sectors. Since then . . . it was agreed to create a new partnership scheme in Surrey between independent schools and the state sector."

We have heard the rhetoric from Labour Members about how, through their new education action zones, they will get companies such as Proctor and Gamble involved in education--a field that the company has not previously entered to any great extent. We thought, why not get the royal grammar school in Guildford involved, as it has been in the business of education for more than 500 years and might have a thing or two to teach other schools in the area, given that it is often the best performing school in the country by many measures?

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So we thought that we were on to a good thing, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood pointed out, we heard from the other side of the Labour Government. Something that we have learnt the hard way in Committee is that there are two sides to this Government. This is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Administration. If they drink the right potion, one hears the right noises, but when they make the decisions they often reach into that other cabinet and drink potion B--then the lesson is, "Watch out!" I fear that one Minister--I would not like to say which one--had drunk deep of potion B before the Government came up with clause 118.

Mr. Willis: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman has been drinking, but it is certainly something of the night. Will he confirm the reality of these amendments, and in particular new clause 5? If it were adopted, the public sector would make a huge subsidy to every child in a private school throughout the country. Will he confirm that that is really the intention--a huge transfer of funds from the public sector to subsidise the private sector?

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