The Tories fail to see that the free school project is the party’s lifeline

Conservatives need not scrape about for a mission when education reform is proving such a success

Aqueue for the swings in the playground is usually the first warning sign. It normally means a bulge in babies, which has not been matched by a bulge in resources. Next, there might be surprising difficulty in getting a nursery place. After a year or so of intelligence work, a parent might find out the catchment area of the decent school is measured in metres. And so begins a trail that will probably lead, this year, to 100,000 parents being rejected from their first choice of school. Some will have all of their requests turned down. And what will any political party do about it?

Only the Conservatives have an answer, not that you would know about it. For some time now they have been encouraging new schools to be set up by former teachers or entrepreneurs. Already, 391 are open with 300 on the way. It is amazing, now, how many of the best state schools in the country just did not exist five years ago. One new free school, near The Spectator’s offices in Westminster, received 23 offers from Oxford and Cambridge last year. It’s a miracle, performed under MPS’ noses. And it is astounding how few of them are aware of this, or even show much interest.

The renaissance of state education now under way is being treated like a dirty secret by a Conservative Party that seems to have forgotten anything that happened before the vote to leave the EU. It has stopped talking about school reform, or free schools. In Parliament earlier this week, it transpired that ministers are thinking of dropping New Schools Network, a charity that helped most free schools set up. It acts as an icebreaker of reform, giving advice that the civil service would not (or could not). If it falls, it will sound the death knell of the free school project. And, perhaps, of the Tories’ hopes of re-election.

Had free schools been flourishing in Denmark or Iceland, Conservatives would be flying out in their dozens with to investigate. They seem less interested in places like King’s Leadership Academy in Warrington, whose very first GCSE results showed 93 per cent of pupils getting grade 4 or above in English and Maths, compared to a national average of 64 per cent. Then you have London Academy of Excellence in Newham which, with its first set of A-level results, sent more students into Russell Group universities than every other school in Newham put together. The latest figures show that free school pupils, on average, make more progress than any other type of school. It’s quite something.

You can’t blame wealth: free schools are likely to be found in the poorest areas, and their pupils more likely to qualify for free school meals. You can’t blame state cash: free schools cost almost a third less to open than places built by Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme. Free schools have added 200,000 school places so far, and judging by the public appetite (three applications for every place) that’s nowhere near enough.

The list of successes can go on – as can the list of teachers who triumphed, against pretty daunting odds, to set up such schools. But when was the last time we heard an education minister, or the Prime Minister, talk about them? The opponents of free schools have certainly gone quiet, which is wise. Far better they let the Tories get bored, which seems to be happening. Damian Hinds, the new education secretary, has barely spoken about what he inherited. He was due to announce the latest wave of free schools in January, but this has been delayed pending a review. All rather ominous.

Given how little the Conservatives have to boast about at present – with rising crime and wage stagnation – it makes no sense for them to go cold on free schools. But blame could well lie with an old Tory malady: attention deficit disorder. Politicians like new things and the Tories quickly tire of old ideas, regardless of how well they are working. They didn’t even notice when, last month, government taxes covered government spending for the first time since 2002. The tuition fee reform has let thousands more into university who might not otherwise have gone, with a record number of poorer students on campus. Yet the Tories now seem ashamed of their whole university agenda.

Underlying this, of course, is a deeper question: what are the Conservatives for? Without Brexit, now, we’d struggle for an answer. Theresa May has dumped much of David Cameron’s agenda, which is odd given that Conservatism is supposed to be about conserving what works. But she hasn’t put much in its place. As the last general election demonstrated, shouting about Brexit is not a convincing substitute for an agenda.

Earlier this week, Liz Truss offered a reminder of what Conservatism could sound like. In a speech at this newspaper’s Investing in Britain forum, she offered various principles: opening up markets, being on the side of the newcomer and standing against both Nimbyism and big government. She spoke of another forgotten Tory achievement: slashing employment regulations, which encouraged companies to hire at the fastest rate ever recorded. Conservatives, she said, are the anti-establishment party and will always stand alongside those who want change.

Mrs May used to have her own version of this argument. On the steps of Downing Street in her first day, she listed “burning injustices” which she promised to remedy. But she missed out the biggest burning injustice of all: the fact that, in the state sector, the poorest children end up getting the worst exam results from the weakest schools while the richest get the best. It’s a formula that sends inequality cascading down the generations. So any battle against inequality is doomed unless it starts with school reform.

This is the great tragedy: the Tories don’t need to scrape about for a reforming mission. They don’t need a new wheeze to show that they’re on the side of change and social justice. They have the free school project, and it’s working – they just need to talk about it. Mr Hinds has the perfect opportunity to restart the conversation. But to drop the agenda, now, would be an act of self-harm so great that the Tories would, quite frankly, deserve to lose the next election. A party that cannot defend its successes can expect to be defined by its failures.