Work of the Select Committee
This has been a very interesting and busy week. The House is now sitting and business is rattling through. On Mondays and Wednesdays we have the Select Committee; last week we had we had a full meeting lasting for two and a half hours calling to account Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. That was a very productive session for several reasons. We’ve been building the team of the new committee since November and this was the first time I’ve felt that the team was really gelling in terms of the questions that they asked. We also got some very interesting answers. The Minister flagged up a real change on an issue that I have been campaigning on recently, namely faith schools and the Government’s attitude towards their expansion. Our regular meetings with and interrogations of ministers are a very important part of our job to scrutinize the department.
We have got another meeting tomorrow with the School’s Minister, Jim Knight, and with the Schools Commissioner and the Schools Adjudicator. We want the Commissioner and the Adjudicator to come in and look at the sort of things that we help change in terms of legislation and see how we are trying to change the attitude towards admissions. We would like to tighten up the schools admissions code with the help of the Commissioner, to make sure that everybody gets a fair crack at the admissions process rather than just a privileged minority getting their way because they happen to know the way the system works. So it is an exciting time for the Select Committee.
