HL Deb 10 October 2000 vol 617 cc156-8

3.2 p.m.

Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many secondary schools based on a system of selection have changed to the comprehensive system since 1st May 1997.

Baroness Blackstone

My Lords, in September 1998, Bristol local education authority published proposals to remove selection from Cotham Grammar School and Fairfield Grammar School. The proposals were supported by governors, teachers and parents at the school and there were no objections. The schools admitted their first wholly comprehensive intake this September. No secondary schools which were designated as grammar schools in the Education (Grammar School Ballots) Regulations 1998 have become comprehensive as a result of a ballot to change their selective admission arrangements.

Lord Dormand of Easington

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Why, after the Labour Party's many years of campaigning to introduce comprehensive secondary education, and with such an impregnable majority as the Labour Government have, is such slow progress being made? Is she aware that the balloting regulations, to which she has just referred, laid down by the Government, make it virtually impossible for parents to vote for a change to a comprehensive system? In those circumstances, will the Government examine what has happened in, for example, Ripon, Trafford and Kent to see what changes can be made to make the procedures more effective than they are at the moment?

Baroness Blackstone

My Lords, my noble friend may remember that at the 1995 Labour Party conference the Labour Party argued the case in Support for Diversity and Excellence, a Labour Party policy paper, that decisions on the future of grammar schools should be a matter for parental ballot. That commitment was repeated in our manifesto. On the issue of ballot regulations, some minor technical changes have recently been made as a result of a commitment made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place. The Government do not intend to make further changes. They consider that the balloting arrangements are now appropriate.

Baroness Blatch

My Lords, why are the Government so against selection?

Baroness Blackstone

My Lords, the Government have always considered that it is right to give educational opportunities to all children and not to designate them as educational failures at the age of 11. It is rather interesting that, under the previous Conservative government, one-third of grammar schools became non-selective between 1979 and 1997. If the noble Baroness is so committed to their survival, I wonder why she allowed that to happen.

Lord Shutt of Greetland

My Lords, bearing in mind Mr Blunkett's comment in July 2000 that grammar schools would be redundant in little more than a decade, what kind of redundancy is that likely to be: compulsory or voluntary? Otherwise, how is that likely to happen?

Baroness Blackstone

My Lords, by that comment I think my right honourable friend meant that, as a result of the Government's policy to raise standards, comprehensive schools will be so improved that parents will not wish to go through the selective process. In that sense grammar schools will be redundant.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford

My Lords, given that 13 per cent of the As and Bs at A-level are achieved by 164 grammar schools, does the Minster not think that it would be a mistake to destroy those schools'? Does she not worry that the other 87 per cent of schools do not achieve such high grades?

Baroness Blackstone

My Lords, I am very surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, is not aware of the fact— because he has some expertise in these areas—that children who go to grammar schools are selected by ability. So is it really surprising that they get higher grades at A-level? It is puzzling that he should ask that question. But it is also the case that able pupils in comprehensive schools do equally as well as those in grammar schools at A-level and earlier.