The main theme of Tony Blair’s second term was investment and reform of public services.  No one can dispute that the government has delivered the investment, with startling improvements in quality.

In the third term, where new investment may be less apparent, reform becomes even more important as the driver of quality.  Hence the current focus on choice in public services as the new mechanism for raising standards.  But what exactly are the implications of this for schools?

The concept of parental choice was adopted as a political slogan over 20 years ago.  Unfortunately, many of our traditional school admission policies are designed primarily to deliver choice for those parents with confidence, contacts, knowledge, and the resources to transport their children long distances to school.  For the rest, probably the majority of parents, there is merely the chance to express a preference.   

This explains, particularly in our secondary schools, why many parts of England are now disfigured by a deep seated educational apartheid.  It explains why school allocation determines a child’s progress to a greater degree in England than in almost any other OECD country.  It explains why our current admissions arrangements were recently described as a "bare knuckle fight" between middle class parents.

It explains why our society is increasingly divided, in Professor Sally Tomlinson’s immortal phrase, between a small minority of "smug winners" and a large majority of "resentful losers".  The political consequences of this for Labour should be obvious.

The new emphasis on choice in public services provides a unique opportunity to reverse this trend.  Currently almost a quarter of our secondary schools function as their own admission authorities and consequently choose which pupils to admit.  This is clearly quite incompatible with any concept of parental choice.

It follows, therefore, that the only logical secondary school admissions policy, for a government totally committed to extending choice in public services, is one which guarantees to parents a place at their first choice of secondary school within an agreed reasonable travelling distance.

Such a pure choice approach would, of course, immediately exacerbate the problem of escalation of house prices near the most popular schools. However, there is a simple solution to this.

Admission to secondary school should be determined primarily by a child’s attendance at a feeder primary school.  In many parts of England this system has worked well for many years.

In almost every other part, even where there is the greatest competition for school places, it would be a simple matter for the local education authority to construct a system of vertical federations of a large number of primary schools and one or more secondary schools. These federations should be constructed with the aim of delivering a broad and representative social mix.

Attendance at any one of a large number of feeder primary schools would, therefore, guarantee a place at the preferred secondary school, thus largely eliminating the problem of house price escalation. 

A Labour manifesto which offered a promise to all parents of a place at their first choice of secondary school would send a simple message to voters as powerful as the class size promise of 1997.

It would demonstrate that the government is determined to make a reality of parental choice for all parents.  It would, in the prime minister’s own words, ensure that the historic privileges of the minority are finally extended to the majority.

David Chaytor is Labour MP for Bury North.