Academies Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) for giving me my cue, once again. She finished her remarks by saying that what is important is that we have the best possible education for all our children, and that is precisely why I have always been an advocate of academic selection. May I say to her—I hope that she will take this in the spirit in which it is intended—that there is always a danger in these debates of reverting to historical anecdotes about our own experiences? All too often, people look at debates about academic selection through a prism that is not the experience of people today in areas such as mine, which still have selective schools. The borough of Trafford has a model of diverse education, where the grammar schools are excellent and so are the high schools, a very large number of which are specialist schools that excel in particular areas. We have moved a tremendous distance from the kind of world that the hon. Lady described, which was one of pass or fail. We have moved to a world where many people will choose to go to a high school because of its specialism and its very high academic attainment. My area achieves better results than leafier Cheshire does over the border. In fact, it achieves better results than any other part of the country apart from Northern Ireland, which also has a wholly selective system. As is well known, I am an advocate of that system.