Much of the interest before Alan Johnson’s speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday was in whether his words would serve as a launch pad for a successful bid to become the deputy leader or even the prime minister.

In that respect, the Education Secretary was unfortunate. He was obliged to take part in a round table with Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, and selected public sector managers that was so excruciating that a visit to the dentist would have been an appealing alternative. The combined debate on education and health then overran and was hijacked by delegates linked to the Unison union hostile to private involvement in public services. By the time that Mr Johnson stood up to speak, the audience was in such a surly mood that Tony Blair or Bill Clinton would have struggled to inspire them. This was not destined to be Mr Johnson’s David Cameron moment.

The content of his address was, nevertheless, interesting and important. He made a number of points about the truly appalling treatment of children in care and put forward measures to improve matters. He announced a welcome reduction in GCSE coursework, where cheating by downloading material from the internet has, unfortunately, become common. He again flagged his interest in allowing state schools to open on a Saturday.

There is, though, a wider question on which Mr Johnson was silent. He endorsed Gordon Brown’s suggestion that spending per pupil in the maintained sector should rise from £5,500 today to the £8,000 typically spent by private schools on an unspecified timetable. This went down reasonably well in the hall but there was no indication as to what the money should be spent on and the benefits which the taxpayer might expect from this hefty extra investment.

There is no doubt that Labour has already spent heavily on schooling. As Mr Johnson asserted proudly, an additional 36,000 full-time teachers have been recruited, their pay has increased by 17 per cent in real terms since 1997 and a substantial programme of capital spending has swept away the remnants of facilities that dated from the Victorian age and ushered in an era of gleaming new sports halls, lavish computer centres and multiple interactive whiteboards in Britain’s classrooms.

There have been advances in results as a consequence. Yet the evidence suggests that Labour has hit the schoolyard wall. The top and middle thirds of children in most secondary schools are making progress but the bottom third is still stuck at a level that ministers rightly view as unacceptable. It is not clear, however, that there is some pivotal sum of additional expenditure that will improve their position. But there is the danger of thinking that spending is a strategy in itself.

Raising the standards of struggling pupils depends on the provision of vocational education that actually deserves the “parity of esteem” cited so often in its favour. As of 2008, 14 new diplomas with a strong vocational bent are to be introduced to run alongside the existing GCSE qualifications. If they are to be credible, employers must be involved in their design and execution. While new spending will be involved, it is not a vastly expensive exercise. The content and value of these courses will determine whether those who are now bored at school will be motivated in future. Education, education, education should not mean just money, money, money.

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