LABOUR’S rebellion over Tony Blair’s school reforms will swell to well over 100 strong when Scottish MPs, who have so far remained aloof, join the revolt.
The list of 91 MPs who have signed the Alternative White Paper challenging Tony Blair’s plans to set up independent trust schools contains only one Scottish MP. The Times has learnt that up to a third of the 40-strong group of Scottish MPs oppose the plans, but have decided not to go public because Mr Blair’s proposals for independent trusts apply to English schools only. However, they say they will make their opposition known when the Bill is published next month.
Opponents said yesterday that the revolt could be “of Iraq-like proportions”. In the vote on the Iraq war, 139 Labour MPs went against the Government. At the last meeting of the Scottish Group Executive, the MPs decided that it would be inappropriate to play a prominent role in the campaign. “If Scots were to lead the change on education the West Lothian Question would be raised and that could be a diversion from the main issue,” one Scottish MP told The Times.
The West Lothian Question asks why a Scottish MP should be able to vote on English matters such as health and education when the Commons has no say over the same matters in devolved Scotland.
Advertisement
Critics of Mr Blair’s school reforms say that the creation of self-governing trusts spells the end of comprehensive ideals and will lead to the best pupils fleeing their local schools.
A report from the Commons Education Committee, to be published on Thursday, is expected to form the basis of a compromise between Labour MPs and the Government. A copy obtained by The Times shows MPs saying they want local authorities to be given new powers to police admissions to the new trust schools, which should have their proposed powers watered down.
Lord Kinnock, meanwhile, must have felt a sense of déjà vu when he bellowed his objections to Mr Blair’s plans to a packed Committee Room 14 at Westminster. It was in that very room that the former Labour leader had led a passionate attack on an earlier Bill, one that would allow the extension of pupil selection in schools around the country. In 1980 his target, as Shadow Education Secretary, was the Thatcher Government’s first Education Bill. In 2006, as Labour ‘s elder statesman, he found himself in a very similar spot.