Tony Blair will be forced to start the retreat over school reform next week when a committee of MPs tells him to dilute plans for new trust schools and give town halls even more control over education.
A draft report from the cross-party Commons Education Committee, widely seen as the basis of a compromise deal with mutinous Labour MPs, has been obtained by The Times.
It concludes that local authorities, far from being stripped of control over new self-governing trusts, should be given new powers to force all schools to take their fair share of poor and disadvantaged pupils.
The sweeping concessions suggested by the MPs, in effect tearing up Mr Blair’s school reforms, greatly reduce his room to manoeuvre. If he fails to take their recommendations into a Bill next month, he faces a huge rebellion and will have to rely on Tory support to get the Bill through. If he does amend his plans, the Conservatives will accuse him of backing away from radical reform yet again to placate his own party.
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The alternative plan emerged as Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader, broke his promise of loyalty to his successors by criticising the reforms in a speech to Labour MPs last night.
Lord Kinnock told the BBC he had spoken out with “great reluctance” against his “dear friend” Mr Blair.
“The day was reached - which I hoped would never come - when there was an issue of such profound and lasting significance that would affect not just our generation but others, on which it was important to make my opposition known,” he said.
“Politics without compromise is like a car without a gear box: it can look quite elegant but you won’t get anything out of it.”
More than 90 MPs, including many loyal former ministers, have made clear that they will vote against the Bill unless it is radically different from the proposals set out in a White Paper last autumn.
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This morning, Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, played down Lord Kinnock’s opposition. “I can tell you that the tone and language Neil Kinnock is using is not the kind of issues being raised by my colleagues,” she told GMTV.
Later she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the differences with Labour backbenchers had been narrowed to a “couple of issues”.
“What they are saying to me... is that they support the vast majority of the White Paper and that they need clarification and reassurance on a couple of particular issues such as selection and the role of local authorities,” she said.
Under the committee’s recommendations, local authorities would tell schools how many children from poor households should be admitted, and would vigorously police a new national admissions code that would outlaw selection and interviews of pupils or parents.
“Local authorities should be required to provide benchmarks for every secondary school in their areas for the number of pupils they should be admitting in Year 7 eligible for free school meals or the working families tax credit,” the draft report says.
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An annual report on how the schools are measuring up would be made to the Schools Commissioner and Parliament, the committee says.
The White Paper said that trust schools should have power over their own admissions as long as they adhered to the national code.
The committee’s report, which will be published next Thursday, says that it does not oppose trust schools, pointing out that they are exactly the same as the foundation schools set up by Labour to replace grant-maintained schools.
But it makes numerous recommendations to reduce their powers. Among the most important are that the Government should “think again” about plans to transfer assets to the new schools from education authorities, and place heavy restrictions on what can be sold off or leased (the White Paper made clear that trust schools should control their assets); and that education authorities should be able to submit plans for an ordinary community comprehensive school in contests to decide who runs new trust schools. (That is specifically ruled out in the White Paper, which says that “no more community schools will be established”.)
The most controversial recommendation, however, is the sweeping new powers for town halls over admissions. That is likely to be a step too far for ministers.
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A senior government source told The Times yesterday that the Bill would not sanction “social engineering” by forcing schools to take quotas of children from a deprived background.
Conservatives on the Education Select Committee are furious that their report is being used as a political football. They say that they will table numerous amendments when the report is debated among committee members on Monday and will produce their own minority report if changes are not made.
“There is a suspicion that this report is being used for party political ends to help the Prime Minister get out of jail. That is not the role of a select committee,” said Rob Wilson, MP for Reading East and a Conservative member of the committee.
The Tories’ opposition is a warning shot to Mr Blair that they will drop their support for the Bill if he waters it down to try to buy off the rebels.
Steadying hand assists reform
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Barry Sheerman, 65, has outlasted three Secretaries of State as chairman of the Education Select Committee (Sam Coates writes). Now the Huddersfield MP will play a pivotal role in helping to shepherd the education reforms through Parliament.
Educated at Hampton Grammar and the LSE, he was an academic before entering the Commons in 1979. The biography of Harold Laski that he jointly authored was acclaimed and he has written pamphlets on education and justice.