06 October 2006
A future Conservative government should curtail school selection and establish a 'very different agenda' to the vouchers policy on which the party fought the last election, shadow education secretary David Willetts has said.
'Although we as a party love to think of selective schools as being a device for spreading social mobility, the evidence is very clear: they do not create a genuine meritocracy,' Willetts told a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth on October 3.
Willetts said he supported parental and student choice, but if these were to work fairly and avoid the creation of sink schools for the most deprived children, schools should not be allowed to select.
Speaking to Public Finance, a senior party aide acknowledged that Willetts faced an uphill struggle convincing many party members, but added that while there would 'certainly be no more' grammar schools under a future Conservative government, existing ones would not be closed.
Although many formal conference speeches avoided making direct statements on future party policy, Willetts said his vision for education was shared by party leader David Cameron.
In a direct attack on the centrepiece of his party's education policy at the last election, Willetts said: 'I've lost count of the number of papers and pamphlets and meetings I've gone to in which people have told me the solution is school vouchers.
'But it doesn't matter how much choice you theoretically give parents, if there is no response from the supply side& you just end up with frustrated choosers who conclude that politicians make empty promises but are incapable of delivering.'
Instead, a future Conservative government should focus on removing the current planning, funding and regulatory restraints that reduce choice to 'mere rhetoric' by preventing good schools from expanding and new ones from opening, he said.
Those restraints included 'absurd' planning permission limits on the number of plots on which schools could be established and funding rules that meant schools could not expand while unpopular neighbouring schools had spare places.
Speaking to PF, Willetts confirmed that the Conservatives would support the private sector by making it easier for it to enter the state school sector.
He added that the current regulation and inspection regime also blocked new entrants from the independent sector because they could not open schools until they had been inspected with all their teachers and facilities in place.
Tories seek to clarify policy on health service
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley has confirmed to Public Finance that his party wants to remove artificial limits to private sector involvement in the NHS.
Lansley was clarifying Conservative policy after similar comments by Oliver Letwin, chair of the party's policy review team, led to allegations from Economic Secretary Ed Balls that Tory plans for private sector involvement meant 'the end of free health care as we know it'.
Meanwhile, party leader David Cameron, in his closing speech to conference on October 4, said: 'I will never jeopardise the health service by cutting its funding.' But he added that he would ensure that the money was well spent. He also promised 'no more pointless reorganisations'.
Conservative Central Office had sought to distance itself from Letwin's reported remarks. But Lansley told PF: 'Like the current government, our policy is to remove artificial limits to private sector involvement in the NHS. But we had that position long before Patricia Hewitt adopted it last month.'
Lansley added that comments from Gordon Brown supporters such as Balls illustrated the depth of disagreement within the government. 'They do not seem to know what their own policy is,' he said.
The Conservatives also backed the need to transfer services from hospitals to primary and community care settings, said Lansley. But he agreed with health unions that many of the current cutbacks were driven by financial deficits, not clinical reforms.
He was also concerned that the government had overstated the number of treatments that could be safely transferred. 'You can't just close an A&E ward with hordes of people waiting at the door. Transfers to the community have to be evidence-based and the new services have to be ready in place,' he told PF.
Regions' powers should go to councils
A Conservative government would swap regionalism for localism by transferring the powers of regional assemblies to local government, senior MPs pledged.
'In so many ways councillors should be best placed to effect local change, but they can't under Labour's straitjacket,' shadow local government and communities secretary Caroline Spelman told the conference on October 3.
'Decision-making is being taken further away from the people under the guise of regionalism. It's a bypass down which government steamrollers its will regardless of local opinion,' she said. One of the first things a Conservative government would do to strengthen localism would be to abolish the regional assemblies, she added.
Shadow constitutional affairs secretary Oliver Heald added to her pledge by saying the Conservatives would also oppose any plans by Labour to abolish existing borough and county councils.
'In government, we fell into the trap of over-centralising,' he added. But the party had learnt its lesson and, if given another chance to govern, localism and devolution would now be 'safe in our hands'.
PFoct2006
