Mind your grammar

The government today has chucked another one of its planned bills over the side - "education for all".

The official explanation is that having already dropped the bill's most contentious policy - forcing all schools in England to become academies - there's essentially not that much point in going on with it in its planned form. There is not that much need to change the law.

Instead, a bill on technical and further education was published. Next year the government will publish another set of reforms for schools, that will include Theresa May's most controversial proposal so far - to open new English grammars.

Move along, nothing to see, just a perfectly logical tidying up exercise - if a piece of legislation is watered down, and more to the point is superseded by another, it is purely rational to get rid of it.

And as my colleague Branwen Jeffreys writes, this clears the way for Mrs May's grammar school plans, with legislation possibly in the spring.

Except that politics is rarely that straightforward.

When Number 10 outlined the grammars proposals in September, sources were telling us that the existing reforms would go ahead as planned.

At the Tory conference the message was the same. Senior ministers told me that the planned Education For All Bill would proceed this autumn, and that the proposals for grammars would work together perfectly well.

Only three weeks later, what's changed?

It is true that there is a point of legislative tidiness.

The government is at pains to say that the grammar proposal will be part of a wider reform, only one of many measures to maximise the number of good school places.

Politically, the government needs the controversial idea to be part of a wider package if they have a hope of getting it through the Commons, let alone the House of Lords.

But as soon as Mrs May made clear she wanted to bring in far-reaching education reforms, there was a clear question - what was the point in spending political time and effort passing one big package of change this autumn, only to do the same next year?

But it's suggested tonight that there was a lot more to it.

One source told me a general "shakiness" around the government meant that the whips were trying to "clear the decks" of anything that might be remotely controversial.

With all the anxiety around grammars and education in the Conservative Party and among the education unions, the smart move was to junk the bill rather than rattle the cage even further.

One source told me "the PM has allowed the blob to win".

Labour hijack

Another source suggested ministers were worried about Labour using the Education For All Bill to try to stymie the prime minister, by trying to tack on amendments that would block her longer term plans for grammars.

So, even though the bill didn't mention grammars, it could have been hijacked as a vehicle to attack the plans.

Having clocked that risk, it was goodbye to Education For All.

It's also been suggested the government "rechristened" the bill to focus on technical and further education, in part to give them a line of defence against accusations that the focus on grammars suggests the less able are being ignored.

Theories abound.

The government's official explanation is here. But bear in mind, the government is in discussions with potential Tory rebels over grammar schools.

As one minister said: "People are being seen in an ongoing programme."

Opening new grammars is one of the prime minister's big priorities that will be extremely hard to achieve. And to make that happen, ministers may find that other things have to be left behind.