Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Schools White Paper, Welfare Reform and British Nuclear Fuels
Schools White Paper
Put to him that the Prime Minister had been bullish on the white paper and had seemed relaxed about winning with the support of the Conservatives, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said the Prime Minister was quite happy to put forward the positive arguments for the white paper. The fundamental core of that argument was that we had seen what had already worked to improve schools and what had resulted in substantially better figure figures in the last few years, even in the most deprived areas. We needed to learn from that experience and what the Prime Minister wanted was for people to address the substance of that issue. There was a period now to do this. There had been this argument about selection but it was not something which would be changed by this white paper. Therefore the Prime Minister hoped that people would address the fundamental issue, which was how do you learn from the experience of schools that had shown what worked.
Put to the PMOS that the Prime Minister had said that the bill was fundamental to the Government and as such it sounded like an issue of confidence, the PMOS answered that it was first and foremost an issue of how we continued to raise standards. The Prime Minister had indicated, as he always had, that the priority he had was that people understood and recognised the argument for reform was based on the empirical evidence of the past few years. The core of that argument was whether we should accept that the current number of good schools was static or that it could increase. He firmly believed it should and could increase and the evidence supported him in that assumption. Put to him that the Prime Minister had said the bill was important for the Labour Party and the Government and as such it must follow that it was unacceptable then to rely on the support of the Conservatives, the PMOS said that he would not get into the party political side of that question but the Prime Minister had demonstrated both the significance he attached to this bill and the reasons why he believed it was in the country’s interests to pass it. He was not in anyway trying to diminish the significance of either.
Asked what the Prime Minister had meant when he had said selection was a red herring and the rebels had something else in mind, the PMOS said he would not try to second-guess the thinking of the critics. What was the case however was that the Prime Minister believed that the position on selection was not altered by this white paper except to increase the period in which the adjudicators rules applied from one to three years. The core of the argument was whether you gave schools the freedom to develop their own ethos and therefore to improve using the lessons of what had been seen to work. Put to him that people like Lord Kinnock and Lady Morris understood the bill and therefore that only left the option that they were up to something else, the PMOS said that they spoke for themselves. He was trying to reflect the Prime Minister’s thinking as to why he believed the core of this issue was about whether you let success dictate what you should do next in education. If a school was popular you tried to understand why it was and then apply those lessons elsewhere.
Put to him that the Prime Minister’s suggestion to look at what worked meant looking at the most successful schools, which were either private or state schools that selected by ability, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had answered that himself at the press conference. He had explained why he was opposed to selection, which was that selection may be fine for an elite group of pupils but what it left was a very long tail of people who felt they had failed at the age of eleven. The experience in Northern Ireland showed that this was what occurred. What you needed to do given the changing realities of the job market, not only for today but also for the future where you would need a much more highly trained workforce, was to provide as good an education as possible for as many people as possible and the Prime Minister had quoted the CBI in support of that argument.
Put to the PMOS that the Prime Minister was leaving the impression that his critics did not understand what he was on about when it in fact seemed that the problem was that he could not understand his critics’ viewpoint on selection, the PMOS said that what the Prime Minister did get was the practical and empirical evidence from looking at the performance of City Academies in the last few years. They showed improved performance in some of the most deprived areas in this country at three times the rate of other schools and vastly beyond what they had shown before academy status. The question in this debate was whether you accepted a limited number of good schools in the country as a fact of life. The Prime Minister did not. He choose to believe that you could grow the number of good schools and his argument was that the City Academies and Trust Schools were growing the number of good schools.
Asked if the Prime Minister would take a close look at the Select Committee report when it came out later this week and whether it would influence the vote, the PMOS said we would wait to see what the report said first.
Welfare Reform
Asked if the welfare reform green paper’s priority was in the same order as the schools white paper, the PMOS said it was a separate issue that was distinct for its own reasons, which were to encourage people back to work. 90% of those surveyed on IB said they wanted to get back to work. Therefore you had to address how best to do that. The green paper would set that case out. Put to him that there was a suggestion that it would also include an announcement on the CSA, the PMOS said that was not something he was aware of. Asked if there was any indication yet of the timescale for developing the green paper into a white one, the PMOS said he would check but did not think we had given an indication yet. Asked if it was correct that the Government thought that changing the name of IB would help the process of reform and change attitudes, the PMOS said that John Hutton had indicated yesterday that there would be a new name.
British Nuclear Fuels
Asked if the Government had a view on the sale of Westinghouse, the PMOS said hat it was largely a commercial matter and as such it was best dealt with by the DTI. Asked if he had read that on Teletext, the PMOS said that he was amused to see that Sky had translated Teletext into TV Text.
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