Conduct Of The Rt Hon Member For Oxford West And Abingdon

EDM number 808 in 1993-94, proposed by Frank Cook on 10/03/1994.

That this House notes that the Right honourable Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, in answering the honourable Member for Rugby and Kenilworth on 1st March, referred to 'a disgraceful form of educational apartheid' existing in 'certain authorities', citing Middlesbrough, part of Cleveland Local Education Authority, where he claimed 'it is difficult or impossible for local county maintained schools to play competitive sports against grant-maintained schools', Official Report, column 771; notes too that this implied calumny falls to his own discredit in all 'opt-out' proposals to date in Cleveland have proved resounding failures and that in consequence his attempted misrepresentation of the Cleveland situation proves true by default in that there exist within that local education authority no grant-maintained school with which county schools can compete; reminds the Secretary of State that his Jesuit education will have taught him of the triple need for contrition, confession and satisfaction as essential prerequisites for absolution; reminds the Right honourable Member also that satisfaction for calumny demand equal or wider broadcast of the retraction than that given to the original publication; and therefore urges the Right honourable Member for Oxford West and Abingdon to make fitting and proper reparation before or during the next session of Education Questions.

This motion has been signed by a total of 20 MPs.