Damian Hinds

I am grateful to Labour colleagues for their interventions, and for telling this House and the country what they need to know. All these successful schools and trusts have been doing exactly that. They have brought new talent into the profession, and they have helped to improve retention, but no, they are not the right people to make that decision, are they? No, Labour MPs and Labour Ministers should be making that decision for them. The vast majority of schools follow the national curriculum, but some innovate. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with adding something on top of the national curriculum? In any case, every school is statutorily required to deliver a balanced and broadly focused curriculum, and they are checked on that by Ofsted. Finally, there is the power for councils to prevent good, popular schools from expanding. What could that possibly achieve, except creating more disappointed families, children and parents? The one thing these four measures will achieve is ticking one more union demand. This Bill cannot be seen in isolation. Look at the Government’s broader proposals: scrapping the Latin excellence programme; scrapping the expansion of the cadets programme in state schools; making Ofsted judgments less transparent; and taxing independent sector education for the first time in our country’s history, and almost uniquely in the world, in a way that will fill more of the most popular state schools and make it harder for families to get their child into the state school of their choice. Potentially the biggest thing of all is the curriculum review. This Bill says that schools must follow the national curriculum, before the new national curriculum is set out. It pre-empts the review. We do not know what will be in the review, and we have to keep an open mind and see what comes forward, but I remind colleagues that the Government are not forced to adopt what the independent reviewers come up with, nor are they obliged to stop where the independent reviewers do. In this country, since the start of the national curriculum, we have always taken the approach of not specifying exactly what kids will learn in sensitive subjects such as history, English literature and religious education. People often misunderstand this, but it is not a list of the things pupils learn in school. Having a broad framework has helped to guard against the politicisation, or the over-politicisation, of education. It would be very dangerous if, instead, Ministers came up with a more prescriptive approach to the national curriculum, especially if this Bill removes the safety valve of schools being able to deviate somewhat.