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Prime Minister, this has been held to be binding. Now the Minister says that it is not in the manifesto. Would he like to develop that line of argument? I do not think that the Secretary of State will thank him if he does; he is in enough trouble as it is.
Mr. Blunkett: I wish to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention merely to the fact that he was quoting the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), in terms of her interpretation of the manifesto.
Mr. Dorrell: So we are back to the wet night in Dudley doctrine--that it does not matter because it was not in the manifesto. In her response to a debate in which the pledge was being quoted, the Under-Secretary talked about two commitments in the manifesto Those two commitments the Government are certainly honouring, but she forgot the commitment in the letter.
Before he gets too excited about it, the Secretary of State should remember that, the following day, the Prime Minister acknowledged at the Dispatch Box that the Under-Secretary was wrong. When challenged by my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) on the issue, he said:
According to the Prime Minister's doctrine, the parent is not entitled to rely on the general pledge of Labour party policy given to the IAPS by the hon. Member for Walton on 1 April; any parent taking up a place in a prep school on the assisted places scheme was told on 11 June--several weeks after the commitment--that, if they wanted to rely on that commitment they had to get a specific and personal promise out of the prep school offering the assisted place. The Prime Minister had changed the terms of the argument.
Under further questioning from my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley, the Prime Minister introduced a new principle into the defence of the Government's position. My right hon. Friend pressed the Prime Minister
to say why we could not have this principle in the Bill in the unrestrained terms of the Kilfoyle letter and why it had to be based on discretion. The Prime Minister said:
It was only in another place that the full implications of the two new doctrines introduced by the Prime Minister became clear. My noble Friends supported an amendment moved by a Liberal Democrat peer, which is why I hope the Liberal Democrats may feel that this commitment should be written into the Bill.
My noble Friends pressed Baroness Blackstone to elaborate on the Government's policy. Part of the speech in which she set out the three circumstances in which the Government intend to use their discretion has already been quoted. Two of those circumstances are welcome. The first is where the local age of transfer is not 11 but 12 or 13, and I agree that that would be sensible. Secondly, there is the Dulwich example, where there is a secondary school that recruits at age 10. That seems sensible, too.
Then we come to the third example--I shall quote Baroness Blackstone's words directly. We come back to the doctrine of the specific promise. She said that some schools
The importance of the questions that I am asking is underlined further when we look at what Baroness Blackstone had to say about the Government's belief that they need to protect themselves from abuse. She is the only Government spokesman who has tried to answer the question about what sort of abuse is being referred to. My hon. Friends and, I hope, the entire House will listen with some care to the few words that she offered in answer to that question. This is the Government's defence of why we cannot have this principle written into the Bill. She said:
Mr. Don Foster:
The right hon. Gentleman said, rightly, that the House should listen carefully to what was said by Baroness Blackstone. It is also important that the House reads all her comments on this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman reads further, he will see that she talks about the fact that the majority of schools will act honourably. She said:
I agree that parents must be responsible for their own decisions and make their own choice about whether they want their child to switch to the state system at 11 to go on in the independent system to the age of 13 or to switch into the state system at 13. Those are the decisions that it is proper for parents to make.
I do not accept any criticism about not reading the entire speech: I was reading the end of Baroness Blackstone's speech. I read the final paragraph of her speech to the last full stop and I read it verbatim. My point is that the Government's definition of abuse is the mainstream intention of any parent with a child on the assisted places scheme picking up on the commitment given by the hon. Member for Walton.
The numbers attached to this argument are tiny. What is proposed makes no material difference to the Government's plans for the assisted places scheme, regrettable though I believe them to be, but it makes a huge difference to individual children and it makes an even bigger difference to the Government's reputation for straight dealing. As the Bill went through the House and another place, we were told, first, that everything would be all right because it would be against the children's interests to move them at 13. Then we were told that we could rely on the discretion because it would deliver the result that the hon. Member for Walton promised. Then,
when Baroness Blackstone was pressed on what she meant by abuse, she made it clear that she was referring to the great majority of parents who are relying on the Kilfoyle letter. They are being defined by the Government as abusers of the system.
The Secretary of State can use his majority if he chooses to overrule the Lords amendment. I hope that he will use this as an opportunity to show that he is bound by the specific terms of the commitment given on behalf of the Labour party which would not be honoured if the speech made by Baroness Blackstone was the guiding principle on which he was intending to use his discretion. This is his opportunity to recognise that this is an argument that has dogged the Bill from the beginning. It is an argument where right is on our side and he now has an opportunity to acknowledge that.
"Yes, the right hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise this, and I hope that my answer will give him some satisfaction."
The Prime Minister recognised that the Under-Secretary and the education team had got it wrong. He went on to say:
"the Secretary of State will make it clear today"--
he had not made it clear until then--
"that he will exercise his discretion in respect of those children".
Then the Prime Minister introduced some new doctrines into the argument. They had not been mentioned before. He said that the Secretary of State was about to issue a new statement of policy that said that the Government would exercise this discretion
"provided that they"--
"have been given a promise or an understanding that their assisted place will go all the way through to 13."
That was the doctrine the Secretary of State repeated from the Dispatch Box this evening: that the commitment in the Kilfoyle letter is not an unrestrained commitment, but a commitment to honour places where a specific commitment can be shown to have been given to a specific parent that the place will be open to age 13.
"It is important that there is a discretionary element, because we must avoid abuse of the system."--[Official Report, 11 June 1997; Vol. 295, c. 1135-36.]
That is the Achilles' heel of the Government's argument. Despite repeated attempts to extract from Government spokesmen, both in the House and in another place, an example of the abuse against which the Government are protecting themselves, no example has been forthcoming. The only Minister who offered any explanation about the abuse that the Government had in mind is Baroness Blackstone, about whom I shall have more to say in a moment.
"with an age range of seven, eight and nine up to 13--may have been given a clear promise that they can keep their place up to the age of 13 in the belief that the new Government gave such an undertaking. We shall honour that commitment."
What on earth does that mean? Does it mean that, on recruiting a pupil into a prep school, a head teacher has to produce a specific commitment that the child will be welcome at the school to the age of 13? Is not any parent entitled to assume that, provided the child behaves properly and so on, that is an implied undertaking between a school and a family? Why cannot that parent rely on the implied undertaking that, on putting a pupil into a school, the place will be open until the completion of the normal cycle of education in that school? Why cannot that parent rely on the general principle of the letter sent by the hon. Member for Walton?
"I was referring to schools which are simply using this as a bridge into independent secondary schools--in other words, providing another two years of private schooling at the taxpayers' expense for those who will then go on to pay for their child's independent ordinary schooling."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 July 1997; Vol. 581, c. 790-1.]
Let us be clear: the abuse against which the Government are protecting themselves is the action of parents who rely on the Kilfoyle letter and who, through the assisted places scheme, are intending to use a place at a preparatory school as preparation for access to an independent school at 13. That is the case with the great majority of children going into prep schools. It is precisely what the majority of parents who put their children into an independent prep school will intend for their children. The action of those parents is being described by Baroness Blackstone at the other end of the Corridor as the abuse against which the Government are protecting themselves. That is why Conservative Members do not accept the soft words of the Secretary of State.
"I am sure that the vast majority of schools will act honourably and seek to do the right thing by the pupils in their charge. But I am afraid that we cannot rule out the possibility that a school--perhaps giving prominence to its own interests--may not ensure that parents consider all the available options."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 July 1997; Vol. 581, c. 1094.]
Surely the point is that many parents will want to consider what is the right thing to do for their children at the age of 11, and it is important that they should be given all the available information. That is the point that she was making.
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