Education bill – Labour depends on Tory support

THE GOVERNMENT’S controversial Education Bill, which aims to pull the
comprehensive system to pieces, is getting its third and fourth readings
in the Commons this week. As comprehensive education has been at the
root of Labour education policy for many decades, this dismantling
stirred up opposition even in the usually submissive ranks of New Labour
backbenchers.

Some Labour MPs could join a ‘rebellion’, opposing the encouragement
of grammar schools and demanding a ballot of parents before a local
authority-run school becomes a trust school, the new ‘independent’ state
schools.

However this limited opposition is highly unlikely to stop the bill’s
progress through Parliament. New Labour are quite prepared to rely on
the other bosses’ parties in the Commons to vote with them, especially
the Tories, who saw the bill through its earlier stages.