Mr. Peter Osborne:

I echo that. The schooling system and other schools in all of the sectors are superb at times. They are really good and there would be no criticism coming from us about the quality of commitment of the teaching and the teachers within those schools. They are very good. The touchstone though, going forward, is that we need to get children from all backgrounds in the same classroom, learning and developing together.

That is the challenge for all of the sectors, if there are those sectors going forward, it is how they open themselves up to doing that. Indeed, it is how the independent review, which sets out a 20- or 30-year roadmap, sets out how that can be done as well.

The issue with the Department is that this is just very difficult. That is why the Department also needs a 20- or 30-year roadmap to say, here are the stages of development that we think you need to be part of and, in fact, you need to lead as well.