Labour’s Opposition day debate tomorrow on Gove-levels might not reveal as much as the party hopes about where Liberal Democrat MPs stand on the Education Secretary’s planned reforms. True, you won’t see a Lib Dem lift so much as a finger in outright support of what Nick Clegg dubbed ‘a two-tier system’ created by scrapping GCSEs and replacing them with two sets of exams, but this might not be the forum for them to launch a rebellion. One key figure on the left of the party points out that ‘it’s not where the decision will be made’, while another MP says Labour’s motions are often so ‘over-the-top’ that they are unsupportable.
This is the text of Labour’s motion:
‘That this House notes the forthcoming consultation on the restructuring of the secondary education system; further notes the proposals reported in the press on Thursday June 21st of Government plans for replacing GCSEs with an O-Level and CSE system; believes that these proposals could, in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister the Rt Hon Member for Sheffield Hallam, ‘lead to a two-tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap’; and calls on the Government to ensure that any proposals for change to the secondary education system are subject to approval by this House.’
John Hemming tells me that the motion is ‘clearly wrong because there are no ‘government plans for replacing GCSEs with O-Level and CSEs”, and that ‘although in principle I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister’s view on this, the motion is procedurally wrong, hence I probably should vote against it’. John Pugh takes the same view: ‘I don’t know which I am more wearying of – opportunist wheezes from the Labour party or ill-researched educational wheezes from Gove.’
Clegg has already made his view clear on this, so his MPs may not feel there is a need to send him a message from the lobbies tomorrow. What may be more interesting is that the party’s grassroots are already drafting a motion opposing the Gove plans to be debated at the autumn conference in Brighton. The Liberal Democrat Education Association is holding a meeting this weekend, followed by a meeting of councillors and LDEA members next Tuesday, where the substance of the motion will be hammered out. I understand that while the motion will acknowledge that there is much that is worth considering in the package of reforms that the Education Secretary is proposing, it will roundly condemn any plans to replace GCSEs with a modern equivalent of O-levels and CSEs. It will also commend the party leadership’s forthright opposition to the plans. The areas where the Lib Dems and Conservatives agree include abolishing competition between examination boards to discourage “dumbing down”.
There is a danger for Cameron that every matter on which the Lib Dems and Tories differ turns into a test of strength with backbenchers demanding changes now and not in three years’ time. But with the Lib Dem leadership, Parliamentary party and grassroots all dead set against the plans, it’s only a matter of time before the real test of strength for the Lib Dems – whether in the Cabinet room or the ‘no’ lobby – takes place.
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