HC Deb 12 November 1964 vol 701 cc1177-9
16. Mr. Hornby

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether it is his policy to preserve the grammar schools.

23. Sir W. Bromley-Davenport

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards grammar schools.

Mr. M. Stewart

It is the Government's policy to reorganise secondary education on comprehensive lines. The method and timing of reorganisation must vary from one area to another. In general, entry to grammar schools will no longer be restricted to certain selected children at the age of 11 plus and the range of studies in these schools will be widened. One aim of this policy is that what we all value in grammar school education shall be preserved for those children who now receive it and made available to more children.

Mr. Hornby

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that statements that have been made both by himself and his colleagues and by certain Labour controlled councils have given cause for considerable anxiety amongst many local education authorities? Will he assure these authorities that there will be no wholesale destruction of existing good schools and no undue interference in the indepen- dence of local education authorities who have well conducted the education affairs of their own areas?

Mr. Stewart

Yes. But what I notice is that, all over the country, local education authorities of many different political complexions are proceeding, or are anxious to proceed, with the reorganisation of secondary education. This creates a situation in which it will become necessary for some general statement of principles to be made, and that I shall hope to make on a later occasion.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is the very greatest anxiety through all sections of the community that "hate" legislation will be passed to abolish the grammar schools? Since the Prime Minister has said that grammar schools would only be abolished over his dead body, what happens, in that event, to the one-man band?

Mr. Stewart

I congratulate the hon. and gallant Gentleman on the care and thought that he has evidently given to his supplementary question. If he will study the terms of my main Answer, he will see that he need have no anxiety about the Prime Minister. With regard to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's reference to widespread anxiety, I think that that anxiety might be lessened if some of the critics of the Government's policy made a more careful study of what the Government's policy is.

Mr. Hogg

Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the disquiet felt by many people at the prospect of the destruction of good existing schools is not altogether allayed by his promise that what is best in existing schools will be sought to be retained? In view of the Prime Minister's statement, to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) referred, will the right hon. Gentleman make himself a little plainer in order to avoid an embarrassing choice as to the fate of the Prime Minister?

Mr. Stewart

The use of the word "destruction" by the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not help the problem. One of the reasons that grammar schools have continued for so long is that they have shown themselves over the centuries to be capable of adaptation and change to meet the new needs of the nation. I think that that process has to continue.

I do not say that this can be done without anxieties and heart searchings among many people. I was myself a sixth form master in a grammar school and I know well how some people who have served these schools very well indeed must naturally feel. But we must ask them to consider the education needs of the nation as a whole and if we approach them reasonably I think we shall get a reasonable answer.

Mr. Merlyn Rees

Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us on this side of the House who attended State grammar schools, who worked in them for many years and who would like our children to go to them, do not accept that the application of the comprehensive principle, in different ways in different parts of the country, will destroy grammar school education but that it will provide it to a larger number of children over a wider ability range, as is already done in the comprehensive public schools?