Education Bill

My Lords, I also declare an interest in that I work with a Malaysian company, YTL, in a plan to take ICT provision into every Malaysian school. That background gives me a little insight into what is happening here. Their Ministers and senior civil servants wanted to come here to see what we were doing. I can assure the noble Lord that his officials were very helpful in showing what Britain can and does do in this area. I cannot match their eloquence, but I stress one point that I think has not been stressed sufficiently. This is not simply enabling people to look something up in Wikipedia or whatever and get a few quotes for their essays. This transforms schools completely. I took these Malaysian visitors—Secretaries of State and so on—to schools here in Britain to see what was happening. It transformed whole schools, not simply the teaching patterns, but all the relationships—with the parents, with the governing body, between the pupils and between the pupils and the teachers. It changed discipline. It took a failing school to one now where there are five applicants for every place. There were other factors, but the headmistress—am I allowed to say that these days?—or the lady who is in charge of the school, the principal, told us that ICT, properly used, was one of the key ingredients. So I think it is important that the Government have a policy that becomes a strategy.