New Grammar Schools

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right. The scrums around good schools are not just around good grammars; they are around good and outstanding schools more generally. That is why our focus surely has to be on opening up the system as much as we can to make sure that we absolutely maximise our ability to get good schools and more places at such schools for children in their local areas. Many of our colleagues talk about how children come from miles away to attend the good school in their constituency. Perhaps if we already had a good school closer to where those children live, they would not need to spend their time travelling, and losing out on homework and study time.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the comprehensive-educated Secretary of State to her post and wish her well in this new challenge.

The

“age of 11 is too early to make final decisions about a child’s future.”—[Official Report, 8 July 1970; Vol. 803, c. 683.]

So said Margaret Thatcher, the Secretary of State who oversaw the greatest expansion of comprehensive education. Does the current Secretary of State really want to increase the number of children taking the 11-plus and to bring back secondary moderns and grammar schools, with the negative impact on achievement predicted by Her Majesty’s chief inspector and the negative impact on social mobility predicted by the Government’s social mobility adviser?

[Justine Greening]

I have a great amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman. I know he spent a career in education before coming into this place. I would simply say to him, as I have said to many other colleagues, that he should wait for the policy options to come out. I will be interested to hear his response to them in due course.