HC Deb 19 November 1998 vol 319 cc1105-6
12. Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock Chase)

If he will make a statement on relations between the state and private school sectors. [59114]

The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris)

We welcome closer collaboration between independent and maintained schools in raising standards. To promote partnership, we are supporting 47 projects with £600,000 this year, and a further £1 million from April 1999. We established an advisory group to monitor partnerships and build bridges and we accepted all the recommendations in its recent report.

Dr. Wright

Does my hon. Friend remember the historic occasion last month when she addressed the headmasters and headmistresses conference jamboree and received a standing ovation? Does she think that she received that ovation because the teachers think that we have invented a system of noblesse oblige, subsidised by the state and sanctified with the language of partnership? When more than 50 per cent. of the applicants accepted at Oxford and Cambridge still come from the 7 per cent. of private schools, might it be that an attack on educational inequality needs another dimension, even if ovations become somewhat more muted?

Ms Morris

I remember well my visits to independent sector conferences for different reasons, and I was heartened by the response I received from the Headmasters Conference in Jersey. My hon. Friend gave his explanation for that good reception, but I am clear that the conference was pleased to have a Government who wanted to work with it in partnership on a common agenda to raise standards. The conference was heartened by the initiatives that we have set in train for the two sectors to work together and it was pleased that we have committed ourselves to a further £1 million over two years to enhance that work.

The best way to end the disadvantage that some children face in our school system is not to attack others but to ensure that we raise standards in all schools. We are doing that through our literacy and numeracy strategies and through continued investment in the maintained sector. I look forward to continuing the good start we have made in maintaining relationships with the independent sector.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood)

The bottom line of the Government's approach to the private sector in schools is that they have closed the doors of many ancient institutions of learning to the children of those parents who cannot afford to pay the fees. Is not the difference between the two parties that we gave those children a seat at the table, whereas the Minister thinks that they should be content with the crumbs that fall from the table?

Ms Morris

If that had been the case, I would not have received a good reception from the HMC when I visited it in Jersey. Under this Government, no school will get the crumbs from somebody else's table. We care about giving every child a chance and the solution is not to give some a ladder into the independent sector, but to be deadly serious about making every school a good one. It is inexcusable that under the right hon. Gentleman's Government, the message given to children from disadvantaged areas was that they should escape from the maintained sector because the Government did not exercise their responsibility for it properly. That will not happen under this Government. Parents can be assured that their children will receive a good quality education without having to leave the maintained sector.