asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations she has received about her proposal that there should be a form of written contract between each parent and the school which its child attends.

What I had in mind was not a contract as a legally enforceable document but an undertaking on both sides. My Department has so far received 11 letters from members of the public, and comments have also been made by various educational organisations.

Will the right hon. Lady admit that the proposal is quite absurd and that the deafening silence that we have received about that proposal since it was made now means that it is dead and buried?

The proposal is not absurd. Something similar exists in other Western European countries, and it is extremely important to get a much closer relationship between parents and the schools. Until this moment, I did not think that this was a party matter.