Education Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I agree with his emphasis on the needs of every child, and I further agree that the five A to C-grade GCSEs measure had its imperfections. He might, then, agree with what I am about to say. I believe that the English baccalaureate will be divisive in and of itself, because it has a narrow, academic focus and will encourage schools not to focus on young people who have a more vocational aptitude. That is essentially the problem with it. There is a prescriptive choice of subjects in the baccalaureate, and where is the evidence to justify that selection? Where is the creativity in the Government's vision? Where is music, religious education or business studies, and why is Latin in there? The Government have never satisfactorily answered those questions. My fear is that if the Government create that divisive performance management tool and apply it to a free-for-all in education, there could be some very worrying changes on the ground. That is the risk to which I am alerting Members today.