Bruce Anderson: You cannot build an education system on eloquence and righteous indignation

In Opposition, policy is not necessarily good politics and truth is not always the same as wisdom. Last week, David Willetts delivered one of the most thoughtful and well-argued speeches by any Tory frontbencher since the last election. The consequence: one of the roughest meetings of the Tories' back bench 1922 Committee in living memory (given the history of the Tory party over recent years, that is saying a lot).

Mr Willetts was shot at from all sides. If it had been necessary for him to be re-elected by his colleagues, there would have been no point in his standing. A number of MPs speculated that his career was over. They were reckoning without David Cameron: the heavier the onslaught, the stauncher his support. David Willetts found this moving. Mr Cameron was right to go to the aid of a colleague who was taking a line which he himself had cleared. But they were both wrong to take it. There was no need to mention grammar schools.

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Mr Willetts had crucial points to make on the supply-side in British education. Its deficiencies are blighting a lot of children's prospects. There is an analogy with food shops. Imagine an area with only four of them. At three, the best that could be hoped for is the avoidance of food- poisoning. The fourth is a local Fortnum & Mason. So the queues start at dawn. Families move house to be nearer the shop. They try to suck up to the owner, to the extent of joining his Church. They reorganise their lives around the need to gain access to decent food.

An absurd picture, is it not? That could never happen, because the market would automatically correct matters. The excellent food store would open other branches, or new suppliers would move in. The useless shops would have to improve dramatically or go out of business.

So why can we not apply the same principles to education? That was the problem which Mr Willetts addressed. He is determined to end the Government's monopoly control over publicly-funded education. In Sweden, Holland and some American States, diverse provision is encouraged and with it, the empowerment of parents. David Willetts wants to do the same here. Lots of organisations have expressed interest in opening new schools in Britain, or taking over failing ones. If Mr Willetts has his way, they will all be encouraged.

David Willetts also made two key points which would have surprised other Tories who had not thought through the problem. The first relates to education vouchers. On their own, they are not enough. Demand-side reforms will not work unless you also liberate the supply-side. Otherwise, it would be the equivalent of issuing food vouchers in the old Soviet Union. Under the Willetts reforms, the money would follow the child. Within a few years, there would, in effect, be vouchers. But to issue vouchers without ensuring a substantial increase in the supply of decent schools would be the cruellest deception. So would the claim that grammar schools are the answer.

Over the past few days, a number of Tory MPs and commentators have demanded the return of grammar schools. All their speeches and articles have one thing in common. None of them even begin to address the practical problems. You cannot build a schools system on eloquence and indignation.

Suppose it were decided that in an area with four comprehensives, one would become a grammar. The consequences should be self-evident. First, administrative chaos. Second, a move by most of the best teachers to secure posts in the grammar school. Third, a devil of a lot of disappointed parents as the realisation grows that three quarters of the town's children would be attending the other three schools, which had all been disrupted and demoralised.

This may explain an interesting phenomenon. From 1979, the Tories were in office for 18 years. During most of those years, local authorities had the power to establish grammar schools. Only one tried, Solihull. The attempt was abandoned, as parents came to understand the implications. This also explains why the Tory party did not rally behind the grammar schools in the 1960s and 1970s, and why Margaret Thatcher approved the comprehensivisation of more grammar schools than any other Education Secretary.

There are good grounds for arguing that she was wrong, as were her predecessors. The trouble goes back to the 1944 Education Act, which established a tripartite system - grammar, technical, secondary modern - in which all three should enjoy parity of esteem. That never happened. It would have been better if there were only two types of school, grammar and technical, with selection postponed until 13 and capital investment concentrated on the technical schools. Mr Chips could make do with a blackboard and chalk.

It would be much easier to make the case that an intensive academic education does not suit every child if the non-grammar schools were something like the German technical high schools. In those circumstances, the Tories could have defended the grammar schools. As it was, the sink secondary moderns sank most of the grammars.

The ones which survive are, no doubt, excellent. But they do not provide the answer to the most pressing educational problem of our time: how to ensure that no child is left behind. That is not only a moral imperative; it is an economic one. Our children will have to earn their living in competition with Indian and Chinese youngsters. Much more must be done to ensure that they are able to do so.

As last week showed, many Tories are still unwilling to face up to this. Some of them object to the notion that a system which favours the middle classes is ipso facto unfair. It is the middle classes who do the work and pay the taxes. Should they not be entitled to some return?

They should, and their able children would benefit from the streaming and setting which David Cameron wishes to see throughout every comprehensive. As he has said, "I am so much in favour of selection that I want it to happen in every school." But it would be bad morals and worse politics to turn Tory policy for secondary schools into an array of life rafts, trying to rescue a few survivors from the wreckage of the comprehensive system. As David Cameron has also said, "we are all in this together".

But Mr Cameron had already announced that his Party was no longer committed to extending the grammar school system. There was no need for David Willetts to repeat that. By doing so, he ensured that the vastly more positive and substantial aspects of his speech were ignored. It was poor tactics. Yet Mr Willetts has a strong case in self-defence. He claims that if he had not mentioned grammar schools, his carefully crafted speech would have received no coverage. Given the dumbed-down nature of much of the media, he has, alas, a point.

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