Damian Green – 2001 Comments on the Education Bill

The comments made by Damian Green, the then Shadow Education Secretary, on 22 November 2001.

The Government will claim this Bill is deregulatory. This is flatly the opposite of the truth.

It amounts to the biggest move yet towards the centralisation of decision-making in education.

The Government is about to snuff out even more areas of independent activity in education. Under the guise of encouraging innovation in schools, the Bill will take power away from local government, from school governors and from headteachers, and keep that power back in Whitehall.

I think this approach is exactly the opposite of what we need in our schools today. You cannot create a world-class education system if all power lies with the Secretary of State.

If the Archangel Gabriel was available to be Secretary of State for Education and Skills, we still should not give him the powers that the current Secretary of State wants for herself in this Bill.

What we need are motivated teachers, schools that can think for themselves, local authorities that can take their own decisions. We will get none of that from this Bill.