Schools that work for Everyone

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend has set out, as in previous points that have been made, the particular challenges that rural communities face in having strong choice and strong school places locally. I assure him that I am well aware that hon. Members in rural areas are concerned to see us get on with the national funding formula next steps, and we will be announcing what we are going to do shortly.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

May I give the Secretary of State the opportunity to answer a question that I tried to get her to answer last week, which she simply failed to address? We can either have school selection or we can have parental choice; on one hand the school selects, and on the other the parents choose. Which is it?

[Justine Greening]

In the end, it is both. At the moment, many parents do not have the choice of a grammar school, so it makes sense to see what we can do to rectify that. I disagree with the underlying premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question, which is that if a child cannot get into a grammar, there are no other good schools around for them. We want to make sure that there are. In many parts of the country, grammars and non-grammar schools coexist very well together and, indeed, work very effectively together. We would be wrong not to respond to parents who want more good school places and the option of a grammar school for their child.