§ Mr. Michael Brown asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science which organisations have made representations to him regarding the introduction of education vouchers for schools; and if he will make a statement.
§ Sir Keith Joseph: No organisation has made representations on this topic recently. The Government have long been committed to doing everything practicable to advance parental choice and parental influence in our school system. The parents' charter promised in our 1979 Manifesto and put on the statute book by the Education Act 1980 takes us a considerable way forward and sets the general scene for the foreseeable future. However, as I said at the recent party conference, I am intellectually attracted to the idea of eventually increasing parental power even further through a voucher system; though there would be great difficulties in making such a system deliver, in a way that could be commended, more choice than is given by the 1980 Act. It is now for the advocates of such a possibility to study these real difficulties to see whether proposals can be developed to cope with them. There would be no question of more than an experiment in a limited area as a first step even if a practicable scheme does eventuate.