Orders of the Day — School Standards and Framework Bill

House of Commons, 11 March 1998.

INFANT CLASS SIZES

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Betty Boothroyd (Speaker, West Bromwich West)

With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 79 and 80.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I welcome one of the Government amendments that is grouped with new clause 8. It is nice to begin on a positive note, although I am not sure that we shall return to it too often. Government amendment No. 80 substitutes the word "shall" for "may" at the beginning of clause 3. It is a simple amendment, and the idea behind it is not complex. The issue arose in Committee, when we sought to argue with the Government that they should be under an obligation to provide local education authorities with the money necessary to redeem the infant class size pledge. In arguing that case, we reminded the Government that they had given a firm commitment on that point as the background to the infant class size pledge. I was pleased when the Minister for School Standards responded to the debate by saying that he had some sympathy with the amendment that we had tabled, but that he needed to improve the drafting of it. I welcome the fact that the Minister has brought back the idea that the Committee approved, and the drafting has, no doubt, been much improved, although quite how eludes me. The amendment that I tabled in Committee was withdrawn at the Minister's request, but precisely the same wording has been brought back to be approved by the House. I congratulate the Minister on the improved drafting that that represents; after the debate, he might explain behind the Chair how that improvement was achieved.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman was up late last night, in Durham, but he seems to have had a memory lapse. I clearly recall that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) who made the suggestion to which the Minister for School Standards responded.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I shall consult the record, but I have no doubt that the same thought occurred to us both and was supported on both sides of the Committee. I merely wished to congratulate the Minister on the improved drafting of a single word. More seriously, I wish that I could be more positive about the way in which the Government have reacted to the arguments that we made in Committee about the need for the delivery of their class size pledge to be made more flexible in the Bill. I want to be clear about what I think should be the attitude to class size in infant schools. Of course, I accept that, if all else is equal, it is better to be taught in a smaller class than in a bigger class. That is simple common sense and has never been the subject of any argument. Furthermore, I accept that research by the Office for Standards in Education has shown linkage between late educational attainment of individual children and class sizes in infant schools, which is why the Government have focused class size policy on five, six and seven-year-olds and have not, as Liberal Democrat Members argued in Committee that they should, extended that principle higher up the age range. I accept the Government's focus on infant classes, but the key principle is to recognise that class size is not and never can be the only factor to be taken into account when making decisions about the use of resources in individual schools and about which school represents the best educational opportunity for a particular child. The academic proposition that, if all else is equal, it is better to be taught in a smaller class than in a bigger class should always be judged in conjunction with other, conflicting considerations. Let us consider what parents and teachers must take into account when deciding whether a child's best interests would be served by putting him in a particular class. First, local priorities vary. In certain circumstances, a head teacher may decide to use extra resources to take on extra teachers, to reduce class sizes all the way up the school, but, in others, it may be in the interests of the children to buy extra equipment, to improve buildings or to deal with other priorities that face the school. It is better to leave decisions on how best to use financial resources to improve educational opportunity for children to the head teacher and governors of a school, rather than to impose a statutory obligation, which would apply in all circumstances, that a class size of 29 is always better than one of 31. Local priorities vary, and it would be over-simplistic to impose a single statutory framework.

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that there should be a limit on class sizes? The new clause suggests 35 pupils, but would he accept 40, 45 or 50? Surely a line must be drawn. We are not arguing about whether standards would be improved in a class of 22 pupils rather than one of 20, but does he accept that there is a case for an upper limit?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

As the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, the new clause recognises the case for an upper limit, and would provide a framework to introduce flexibility to local decision making, which is the key to delivering the objective that we all share: ensuring that five, six and seven-year-olds receive the best possible education. The hon. Gentleman was a member of the Standing Committee, and knows that we considered a wide range of amendments. The new clause ventilates the principle that the system should be more flexible than the Government's simplistic legal obligation will allow.

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

If the right hon. Gentleman accepts an upper limit, perhaps 35 pupils, why did not his party introduce such a limit during 18 years in government?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The new clause would allow a local education authority that achieved an average class size of three below the Government target—27, for this target group—the flexibility to have class sizes of up to 35. The new clause would deliver the principle for which the Government have an electoral mandate—focusing on reducing class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds—in a way that is consistent with efficient use of resources and efficient delivery of the objective that the hon. Gentleman and I share: securing the best possible education, in local circumstances, for individual children. This is merely another suggestion, originating from the same stable as several others made in Committee, of a means by which the principle of flexibility could be introduced. My first proposition is that local circumstances vary. My second—which must undermine the simple principle that it is always better to be in a class of 29 than to be in a class of 31—is that different teachers perform at different levels. It is patently true that, in a profession the vast majority of whose members are dedicated people doing their best—often in difficult circumstances—to deliver a high-quality service, some will perform better than others. Surely to goodness, when deciding about class size against the background of the different skills and experience of individual teachers, a head ought to take that into account. It is nonsense to say that it is always better to be in a class of 29, even if the teacher is young and recently qualified and has had some difficulty in qualifying, than to be in a class of 31 taught by a very experienced, highly qualified and successful infant school teacher. 4 pm The third principle on which I base my case for flexibility is that parents' priorities vary when they are choosing a school. As a recent recruit to the Roman Catholic Church, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has made a strong case in the newspapers for Catholic parents to be able to choose Catholic education. Some parents will have a strong desire for their children to be educated in Catholic schools; others will have a strong desire for their children to be educated in Church of England schools; others will have an equally strong desire for their children to be educated in secular schools. Although we have an established Church, not everyone wants their children to be educated in schools with a religious ethos. Some people will want their children to be educated in Jewish or Muslim schools, or in specialist schools of other kinds. The Secretary of State is conferring with the Minister. I suspect that he is recording the fact that this week he used the grant-maintained school legislation to introduce a further principle of diversity in the religious basis of education. I congratulate him on that, and I am pleased that our legislation gave him the opportunity. No doubt he has asked himself how he could have done it without that legislation. The important point is that parents want, and ought to be able to have, the maximum opportunity to ensure that their choice for their children reflects such considerations. I am not talking about an absolute consideration—the factors that I am citing must be balanced against each other—but those factors ought to be taken into account alongside the Government's doubtless justifiable desire for infant school classes of no more than 30. Family circumstances are another consideration. Never mind expressions of preference; family circumstances vary. Parents will often be influenced by where siblings go to school. We discussed that in Committee. Parents may want children to go to the same school as their siblings; they may also want them to go to a particular school because the sibling is at another school. That may be more convenient from the family's point of view, because the school concerned is grouped with the school of their choice rather than with their second or third choice. The location of relatives or child care is another consideration. In the real world, parents must bear all those factors in mind when choosing schools. Finally, there are factors specific to rural areas. It was vaguely amusing to see the Minister for School Standards promoting in Committee a Bill whose effect will be to give the adjudicator power to make decisions—which are currently made by the Secretary of State—on the closure of rural schools, and to see him then, on the day before the countryside march, rush off to a television studio, dressing himself in the clothes of a friend of the countryside, to say that the power that he is transferring to the adjudicator should be transferred back to the Secretary of State. Later in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) will move a new clause to give effect to the Minister's policy, and I look forward to hearing his support for that policy, which he announced from Millbank tower on the day before the Millbank march—the countryside march—[Interruption.] The Millbank march is something that the Minister does quite often. The Minister has not yet had an opportunity to table a new clause, so we have done it for him. Undoubtedly our new clause is technically flawed, but he will be able to move his own in another place, to give effect to his policy—which I merely wish to endorse. I merely wish to help ensure that he does not miss the opportunity to include it in the Bill. In the real world, all those considerations have to be balanced against that of class size—a subject on which Ministers, when they are in a corner, betray considerable sensitivity. When the Standing Committee was debating those matters, the Minister issued a press release, which I do not think was circulated to all members of the Committee. None the less, I have—for greater accuracy, as they say—obtained a copy. It stated that in rural schools, extra money will be provided for a new teacher so that a child can attend their local school in a class of 30 or fewer and not be forced to travel an unreasonable distance to go to a school which has empty places. Although I am delighted for rural schools, I just wonder why that applies only in rural schools and not in urban schools. I should not have expected to have to remind the Government that a majority of people in the United Kingdom live in urban communities. Presumably the Government's pledge applies equally to urban communities and rural communities.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The right hon. Gentleman will know why I referred specifically to rural schools, as the issue was raised on several occasions by himself and by other members of the Committee. The press notice to which he is referring quotes my comments in Committee. The pledge applies not only to rural schools but to all schools, but the quotations in the press notice were in response to issues raised in Committee by himself and other members of the Committee.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

That is perfectly true. However, the Minister made considerable play in Committee of the pledge of extra money, which was to be focused on recruiting extra teachers, to ensure that the choice of parents was respected. In his comments both to the Committee and in the press release, the Minister focused that pledge directly on rural schools. I look forward to hearing in the Minister's reply to the debate whether he is saying that there will be special protection and assistance to deal with issues in rural schools—which was the implication of his comments to the Committee and of his press release—or whether he is saying that the same principles will apply to schools, regardless of whether they are in a rural or urban community. That is an important issue, and I hope that he will address it directly in his reply. The press release makes another point, on which I shall conclude: This is a popular policy which the Government intends will be delivered in a way which enhances parental preference. The statement that it is a popular policy designed to enhance parental preference is a form of newspeak of which George Orwell would have been proud. It is simply nonsense to say that the principle is being introduced and that it will have the effect of enhancing parental preference. The reality is that it is a constraint on parental preference and it was always intended to be a constraint on parental preference.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

indicated dissent.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I shall willingly give way to him if he can explain how a limit on class size and a refusal to accept a 31st child into a class, although that may reflect the parents' preference, enhances parental preference. How does it enhance parental preference to deny parents the opportunity to put their child into the 31st place, if that is their choice and if the head teacher believes that it is consistent with the educational interests both of the 31st child and of the other 30? How does the removal of that opportunity enhance parental choice? If the hon. Gentleman wishes to argue that case, I shall give way.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

During our long debates in Committee, my hon. Friend the Minister made it clear that the Government were going to make sure that the initiative was properly funded and that where parental choice was being thwarted—particularly in rural areas, by the distances that children who were the 31st child might have to travel—the Government were determined that funding would be made available properly to deliver our pledge. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain where his principled objection to a fixed figure sits, when his Government supported and enforced a fixed limit on every nursery class in the land? If his party can support a fixed limit of 26 in that respect, what is wrong with saying that a fixed limit should be observed in respect of other young children?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

What I seek to do with the new clause is to respect the Government's electoral mandate for an infant class size of 30 and to suggest a formula whereby that can be made consistent with the other considerations which, in the real world, have to be taken into account when deciding which school an individual child is to attend. The reality, which the hon. Gentleman did not address, is that if one limits class size in all circumstances, one inhibits rather than enhances parental choice. The Government's policy, given effect by the Bill, is that it is better for a child to be in a class of 29, in a neighbouring village rather than his or her own village, with an indifferent teacher, in a crumbling building and in a school of the wrong denomination, which was his or her parents' second-choice school, than to be in a class of 31, with an inspirational teacher, in a new building, in a school in his or her home village that is his or her parents' first-choice school and which is in the denomination of the church that the family attends. That is the Government's policy. It is no good Labour Back Benchers shaking their heads: that is the principle on which the Bill is based and the principle that will be translated into law if the Bill goes through unamended. That is why I seek to introduce an element of flexibility into the provisions of the Bill, to give effect to what I believe should be the key principle in determining which school an individual child attends. That key principle is that, within the overall constraints of policy—I acknowledge the Government's right to do that—if the parent chooses a particular school and the head teacher accepts that that school represents the best opportunity for an individual child, if the parent is happy and the teacher is happy, it is not the Government's role to intervene and say that, even though they are happy, they should not be.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

No, I have finished.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

I tried in Committee—

Betty Boothroyd (Speaker, West Bromwich West)

Order.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak in support of new clause 8. In Committee, we had a lengthy discussion about infant class sizes. It is important to echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) in setting out the framework within which the new clause has been tabled. The Labour Government came to power last May having made a pledge that they would reduce infant class sizes. The figure given at the time was 30 and, although no figure appears on the face of the Bill, we understand that that is the figure which Government will put in the relevant regulations. We accept that the Government came in with that pledge and want to put it into effect in the Bill. In Committee, we discussed the practical issues involved in trying to implement that pledge at a local level. I hope that the Government will think again about the issues, because it is not just the Conservatives who are raising them—head teachers and others have raised them with me when I have visited infant, junior and primary schools in my constituency. They talk about the problem of putting into effect a pledge to have only 30 in every infant class when the resources may not be available to fund extra teachers and put up extra classrooms. As we know, not every local authority is being given resources initially to meet the pledge. 4.15 pm In some schools, including some infant schools in my constituency, it is virtually impossible to find space on the site for the extra classroom that would be needed if the pledge were put into effect with an absolute limit of 30. In new clause 8, we suggest that it would be preferable to introduce flexibility, accepting a limit on class sizes, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood made clear to the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), but providing a band within which a local authority may operate to allow for situations in which it is physically difficult to accommodate an extra classroom. Our proposal would also enable extra flexibility on parental preference. I visited a school in my constituency on Monday morning. After a number of appeals went against the head teacher, she now has an infant class with 36 children. She is concerned about how the system will operate. Local education authorities will have to predict that they may have infant classes of more than 30 and put in a bid for funding to accommodate the extra teachers and classrooms that will be necessary. The Government will then decide whether the bid is appropriate, and the funds should be made available. It is not always possible to predict when extra children will come to a school. If a number of parents move into a school catchment area during the year, the school may suddenly have more than the designated number of children, without the resources to cope with them. The local education authority will not have put in a prior bid and the extra resources to cater for extra classrooms and teachers will not be available. What will happen if the neighbouring schools also do not have room for the children? How will the local education authority cope? The Minister was asked about that towards the end of the debate in Committee, when he brought back his proposals on funding. He did not answer the questions then. I hope that he will be able to do so now. We are not suggesting that the Government throw away their pledge to limit infant class sizes. However, practical concerns remain—raised not just by Conservative Members, but by head teachers—about how that pledge can be put into effect, notwithstanding the Government's proposals on extra funding. There is concern about authorities that will not, in the first instance, receive extra funding. There is concern about whether the money available from the abolition of the assisted places scheme will be sufficient to accommodate the pledge in all the areas in which extra resources will be necessary—an argument of which the Minister will be very well aware. There is concern that tensions will increase between parental choice of school and the Government's decision to limit infant class sizes. New clause 8 does not do away with the concept of a limit; it suggests a degree of flexibility in LEAs.

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

In setting, in effect, a class size limit of 35, would not the hon. Lady, by her own argument, then face the problem of the 36th child—if that is deemed to be a problem?

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

If any limit is set, there can be the problem of the extra child. Flexibility in numbers provides greater ability to accommodate children and enables greater parental choice in an LEA. There would be flexibility because some schools may be under the limit, while others are over it. I fully accept that the hon. Gentleman's point brings into sharp focus the tension between parental preference and class size. We have always thought that parental preference should be given a high priority—although it cannot be met in every circumstance. By providing extra flexibility, parental preference will more likely be met. The Minister has not fully addressed the issue that I and others raised in Committee concerning the soon-to-be LEA—following the demise of Berkshire county council on 1 April—in my constituency. It feels that some parents would prefer their child to be in a class of, say, 31 or 32, but where there was a classroom assistant as well as a teacher, so that contact time with the child was increased, rather than their child being in a class of 30 or 29 in which there was only a teacher. That is exactly the sharp choice described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood. The Government are placing everything on the class size limit and not taking into account all the other factors, such as resources available to an LEA, space available on a school site, the teaching resource and the availability of classroom assistants, who can be extremely important in an infant class. Such factors, together with parental preference, should be given a higher priority in the Bill, which provides simply a single limit on class size. I hope that the Government will be able not only to respond to the points raised but to look again at the possibility of introducing a degree of flexibility, which accepts the concept of a limit but provides leeway for LEAs to help meet practically parental preference and other issues.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I sincerely believe that the Government's response to the new clause will be a good pointer to whether their interest in education derives from a genuine concern about improving the quality of education or from their electoral concern and a fascination with election slogans emanating from Millbank tower. There can be no doubt that the pledge on classroom size was a very effective slogan; it worked very well for the Labour party. Now that Labour Members are the Government, they have to look at the reality. The reality is that not only Opposition Members but teachers, governors and parents are asking many questions about what the policy, strictly interpreted, will mean. We support the goal of smaller class sizes. However, if the annual expenditure of £100 million alone—the Department has costed its policy at that amount—will unlock the key to a better education system, I am sure that the previous Government would have found the money to pursue such a policy. We increased education spending by billions of pounds—not just by £100 million—and, in doing so, we improved the standards and the quality of education. On the other hand, as reported in The Times Educational Supplement, the present Government's policy has led governors to predict a disaster if popular schools are required to expand out of control. I believe that the Minister has boxed himself in by pledging that no child will be forced to attend a failing school. That commitment has been latched onto as a way of forcing the most popular schools to grow even further. As The Times Educational Supplement points out, there are many reasons why a school is popular. One reason is that it has reached an optimum size. If the Minister forces such schools to grow even further, he will reduce standards in those and in other schools. As I said, we are in favour of smaller class sizes, and the new clause seeks to ensure that such an objective is interpreted broadly. In Surrey, we have small class sizes—the average is under 27 per class. We have always devoted additional expenditure, over and above the standard spending assessment, to early years primary schools. Therefore, we are entirely sympathetic with the Government's objective. The new clause seeks to introduce some flexibility so that in an authority area where the average class size is 27, individual schools may have an additional eight pupils in a class. It is not a question of coping with an additional single child, but of introducing the flexibility to deal with an additional eight children. That is surely a significant difference. The school in the village where I live has two classes of just under 30 pupils. The school is growing—indeed, it needs to take on more children in order to survive and pay its way. If that school is to survive, classes may have to include a 31st or 32nd child. Parents prefer to send their children to the local village school rather than braving the peak-hour commuter traffic to take their children to schools in the neighbouring village or in the main town of Guildford. Parents do not make that choice, because it would not be good for their children: it is better for children to be educated with their friends in the village where they are growing up. As a result of the Government's proposals, parents will no longer have that choice. The bias towards smaller class sizes is based on research, but that research also shows clearly that only a significant drop in class size has an impact on educational achievement. No researcher in this area has proved that small variations in class size have any significant impact on the quality of education provided. The environment in which the child learns and the quality of teaching are far more important. Curiously, during the passage of education Bills introduced by the previous Government, the present Ministers were the first to warn of "the dead hand" of bureaucracy, to use the words of the Minister for School Standards. The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment said: We must stop the infliction on schools and children of a bureaucracy that will do no good to anybody."—[Official Report, 9 November 1992; Vol. 213, c. 687.] Yet the imposition of the rigid limit of 30 per class will impose a bureaucracy that will do "no good to anybody". On the other hand, the wider objective in the new clause would mean that the benefit of lower class sizes could feed through, but without the damage that the Government's policy would inflict.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We seem to be working in synchronicity and I hope that I will continue to be in tune with your wishes as I speak briefly in support of the new clause. I am pleased to follow my hon. Friends in commending new clause 8. Many of the hon. Members present have just finished considering the Bill in the Standing Committee and I think that most would agree that it was an exemplary Committee in that it was constructive and Opposition Members did their best to help Ministers to arrive at better legislation. The new clause is a classic example of how the Opposition are seeking again to assist Ministers and ensure that they avoid a damaging pitfall. The rigidity and inflexibility that the Bill would enshrine in law would cause the Government major problems, as they would be held responsible for the chaos that would ensue. There would also be problems for local authorities and schools throughout the country. More important, the Bill would impose enormous problems on parents, who would lose an element of choice. Their choices and decisions would be limited and restricted by the legislation, and their choice of school would be narrower. In many areas, there would be difficulties in meeting parents' educational requirements. Our suggested new clause would provide the discipline that the Government reasonably seek to introduce in requiring an average class size of a certain level and it would certainly enshrine in law the principle of aiming for lower class sizes. It would also allow some flexibility, which would be a major improvement and would help the Government to avoid some of the embarrassing difficulties that they face in the years ahead if they do not accept it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) referred to some of the difficulties that would arise with the Government's inflexible proposals, such as difficulties with siblings and for people with a preference for denominational education in Church schools, which could not be met because of rigid class size limits. The Government must bear in mind the fact that for many parents the most important factor in deciding where their child should go to school is its religious character. No Government should have a right to ride roughshod over that choice and deny parents the freedom to choose a denominational education. The Bill risks doing so. For many parents, it is important that their children should be able to attend their local school. Often, it is a matter of practicality for the family, especially when both parents work. In that case, it can be vital to send children to a school close to home. While the Minister may have given some serious reassurance to rural schools—we wait to hear whether that is the case—as a Member representing a suburban constituency, I must press him further on the criteria that he would apply in allowing extra funding to popular schools in urban and suburban areas that reach the class size limit. It is not good enough merely to say that a school that feels that it may reach or breach the limit would be able to apply for a grant to increase the size of its premises and the number of teaching staff to accommodate the extra need. We need to know what criteria will be used, and whether a popular school in a suburban or urban area will always be given the funds promptly to allow for expansion to meet parental choice. As Labour Members who served in Committee will know, I represent an area which is fortunate in the quality of its schools. I am most concerned about the impact of the Government's proposals on popular schools—I am in the fortunate position of having to defend the popularity of the schools in my area, which attract many applications from outside their catchment areas and even the borough boundary. Any reduction in the choice that is available to parents who live just over the boundary in the Manchester metropolitan borough council area—they are not my constituents—is a serious threat, which would be to their detriment. The Bill is flawed; it betrays an arrogant belief that the Government know better than parents how to choose schools for children, and better than schools and local authorities what is right for children. It puts ahead of parental choice and responsibility the notion that Ministers should set public priorities that will apply throughout the country, regardless of particular circumstances. The new clause would improve the Bill and it would help the Government to avoid embarrassing difficulties in the future. I very much hope that the Minister will accept it.

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

What my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) has said is entirely consistent with reality. The recent league tables show that Cheshire and Staffordshire are two of the counties that achieved tremendous school results. There is a remarkable symmetry between what has been going on in those counties, which are, to a great extent, rural counties. From time to time, I have had to fight very hard within the Staffordshire county council educational framework to ensure that the rural schools in my constituency have been sustained. Indeed, I pay tribute to the county council, which has pursued a policy of ensuring that rural schools survive, even though they may have class sizes well below the numbers that are being promulgated at the moment. Such schools perform an immensely important function in sustaining the rural community. It is not realistic to set arbitrary limits that will prevent rural schools, particularly infant schools, from surviving. I thoroughly support new clause 8, which would guarantee arrangements to ensure the preservation of schools that should be preserved. The Government are in power largely as a result of the support—which I think was misconceived, as the Bill betrays—that they received from people in rural areas in the general election last year. If the Government want to maintain that support, they should listen to the arguments that are being advanced by Conservative Members. Rural schools are vital to a community's sense of identity, as was demonstrated by the Countryside Alliance only 10 days ago. Although the alliance's main objectives concerned other questions relating to rural areas, schools are fundamental to rural communities. It is essential that we ensure the survival of rural schools, even if they are undersized. I hope that the Minister will show due regard to the significance of those schools, and ensure that the Bill's measures will do nothing that would lead to their being closed. If the Government make a mistake on this, they will pay the price in the ballot box.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, or is it the right hon. Gentleman?

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

Certainly not.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

It was a Freudian slip. The hon. Gentleman's day will come. I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. Why, during the lifetime of the last Conservative Government, were more than 450 small rural primary schools closed? That was unprecedented. More were closed under the previous Government than under any Government since the war. Is there a response to that?

Bill Cash (Conservative, Stone)

The short answer is that I said that I was not always right. I do not believe that I ever am. Part of the argument was that there was a problem, and many rural schools were closed under the previous Administration. The argument that I address to the new Government, because they are the Government, is that they should have regard to the importance of sustaining the rural communities. It is essential that rural schools are maintained. It does not matter what happened in the past. The key question now is what the present Government intend to do about it. Rural schools must be sustained, even if they appear to be undersized. If the rural communities are at stake, I look to the Government to respond.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I shall be asking the House to accept Government amendments Nos. 79 and 80. As the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) said, we discussed similar amendments in Committee. My recollection is the same as that of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) moved an amendment to change "may" to "shall". Parliamentary counsel has had an opportunity to examine the important drafting issues raised by those two amendments and has agreed that is appropriate to change "shall" to "may". That is all that amendments Nos. 79 and 80 do. Amendment No. 79 imposes a limit on class sizes and places a duty on the Secretary of State to limit them. Amendment No. 80 says that the Secretary of State "shall" pay grant for the purposes of reducing class size. I hope that all hon. Members will be able to accept the two Government amendments, which reflect a discussion in Committee in which there was broad agreement. I am pleased that we can start off the Report stage on something that the whole House can accept and that we can reflect the positive spirit of the proceedings in Committee. That is probably as far as it goes; I shall be asking the House to reject new clause 8. Before I come on to the detail of the new clause, may I say that I listened carefully to the points made to the hon. Member for Stone, who has been a doughty campaigner for schools in Staffordshire for many years. Some exciting work is going on in Staffordshire to harness new technology to benefit rural schools. We can build on that nationally. It will enable children attending rural primary schools to have a breadth of education experience which, in days gone by, might have been denied to them. New technology will provide the opportunity of a good standard of education to children in schools in Staffordshire and throughout the country. I hope that, later tonight, we shall discuss new clause 13, which deals specifically with protecting rural schools threatened with closure. Hon. Members were right to raise concerns about the effect of class size policy on rural infant schools in particular. If it is handled badly, it may also affect schools in built-up and urban areas. I shall go through the steps that the Government intend to take and the safeguards that we shall put in place to make sure that the difficulties to which right hon. and hon. Members have referred simply will not occur. Before I deal with the Government's approach, I shall say a few words about new clause 8. The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) said that a degree of flexibility with regard to class size was vital. The flexibility provided by the new clause would allow larger classes—up to 35—with all the problems that have been mentioned. The intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) made the point well; any cut-off may create difficulties. Whether the limit is 35 or 30, we must put in place safeguards and mechanisms that ensure that we do not create difficulties such as the denial of parental preference, which has been referred to during this short debate. We recognise that class size is not the only factor affecting good quality education. The class can be small, but if the teacher is bad and poorly prepared, the quality of education will not be satisfactory. We need to take steps to ensure that we have good teachers in every class in every school. A good teacher will be helped by a smaller class size. That is why we need a combination of policies. It is not merely a matter of saying that we want to raise standards and we will do that by reducing class size. That will not be enough. The reduction of class size policy must be seen alongside steps to improve teacher training, to provide greater access to literacy and numeracy materials in schools, and to improve the environment through our capital programme and the new deal for schools. All those measures will ensure that, in a variety of ways, we can drive up standards in our schools. In that context, reducing class sizes in the infant years will play an important role. The number of five, six and seven-year-olds in classes of more than 30 has risen dramatically over recent years.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

Will the Minister try to enlighten us by pointing to any research that suggests that the quality of teaching is improved if the class size is reduced from 31 to 30?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The hon. Gentleman was not listening. I did not say that a good teacher and larger or smaller classes were mutually exclusive. The Government are committed to a many-faceted approach to raising standards, partly by reducing class size, and also through good quality teaching. The two must go together. I agreed with the right hon. Member for Charnwood that a range of issues need to be addressed. Class size is one factor which, we believe, makes an important impact on the quality of education provided in infant schools. We want a national scheme, and we make no apology for that. We do not want local variations in class size. We were elected on a clear pledge of classes of no more than 30 for five, six and seven-year-olds by the end of this Parliament, and we are on course to deliver that pledge. It will not be subject to local variations, but will be a national scheme delivered through local partners—through schools, Churches and local education authorities. Working through those partners, we will be able to deliver the pledge.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The Minister is right to say that the Government pledged to introduce a national scheme to ensure that class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds would be reduced to a maximum of 30. Will he confirm to the House what the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), told us in Committee—that, at a national level, there would be no possibility of schools meeting the class size pledge for key stage 1 by increasing class sizes for key stage 2, or in any other way damaging the education of key stage 2 pupils?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The attraction of the method that the Government are using to deliver the pledge is that the money is ring-fenced and cannot be used for any other purpose. By ring-fencing the resources by way of specific grant, we can guarantee that every penny that we redirect from the phasing out of the assisted places scheme will be used for the revenue spending to employ more teachers to meet the class size pledge. We will be able to deliver for five, six and seven-year-olds and, because we are providing additional resources, that should not have a consequence for seven, eight and nine-year-olds, as we are dealing with key stage 1.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The Minister has perhaps not been quite as robust in his response as the House would have liked. Will he give an absolute assurance that no school will be allowed to introduce the class size maximum of 30 for key stage 1 in a way that is to the detriment of pupils in key stage 2, either by increasing their class sizes or by any other method?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I am disappointed that I have not been robust enough in my response—I will have another go and I hope it will be better this time. Delivering the pledge will affect infant classes of five, six and seven-year-olds and we will provide the resources for that. There is no need, therefore, for children at key stage 2 to be affected adversely. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said—and I am happy to confirm—that we will monitor closely the way in which schools use the new regime and we will see how it affects key stage 2 pupils to make sure there are no adverse consequences. We will look carefully at the local management schemes—which the Secretary of State approves—to make sure that no attempt is made to use money for key stage 1 by diverting resources away from key stage 2 pupils.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

Is not the reason why the Minister cannot give the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) the assurance he seeks that, although he says it is the Government's intention specifically to grant the extra money to provide for five, six and seven-year-olds, the Government have no machinery for ring-fencing the budget that is not specifically granted—that is, the whole of the budget currently spent on those pupils? The Government can specifically grant, and therefore ring-fence, the extra money, but it is still open to a school or LEA to withdraw money currently used for five, six and seven-year-olds to use elsewhere. The implication of targeting in the Minister's remarks is something which the Government cannot deliver.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The right hon. Gentleman chose to ignore my final point, which was that there is a safeguard. All local schemes for management, and the delegation of budgets to schools, have to be approved by the Secretary of State. If, within that regime, a local authority seeks to divert resources from key stage 1 pupils—and uses the additional specific grant as an opportunity to do it—it will be thrown up as part of the local management scheme. I can assure the right hon. Member for Charnwood that the Secretary of State will not approve a local management scheme that tries to achieve those objectives. In approving a local management scheme, the Secretary of State will be exercising a power inherited from the previous Administration, who gave Secretaries of State precisely that power. Some play was made of the importance of religious education and the concerns that Catholic or Church of England schools might not be able to meet parental preference. I did not hear from the right hon. Member for Charnwood or any of his hon. Friends the views of the Church education authorities. The reason we did not hear their views is that the Church education authorities support the Government's policy on class size reductions. There have been attempts to try to get the Church authorities to express concerns or reservations about the policy, but that has not happened because they fully support the Government's pledge to reduce infant class sizes. The Church authorities support the policy, which they know will be implemented in a way which takes account of their concerns and views. That is why it is important to deliver the pledge through the LEAs, the Church authorities and the schools themselves.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

rose—

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

We will not wait until the end of this Parliament, which was the pledge—we will start delivering from this September. We will start in constituencies in Devon—such as that of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning)—where we will spend £1 million from this September on reducing class sizes for 6,100 five, six and seven-year-olds. I hope that she will welcome the Government's action.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

If the governing body of a Church school had any concern about numbers—for example, the 31st child, siblings and so on—is it correct that the Church authority would have a veto on the matter?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

It will be for the admissions authority to trigger the additional resource that would follow on from the 31st child. We made the point in Committee that, whether it is a rural school or a popular school, we will take steps to ensure that if there is a 31st child, additional resources will follow to ensure that parental preference is not denied. The additional teacher will be made available. Therefore, the school will be able to ensure that the class will have 30 or fewer children. That will apply across the board, not just in rural areas. We made it clear in Committee that we will ensure that the pledge is delivered in a way that is sensitive to parental preference. That is exactly how we intend to do it.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

rose—

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I shall give way once more, but then I must make progress.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

I am sorry to press the Minister, but it is important. Is it the case that, in such a circumstance, Church authorities have not been promised a veto? I shall be grateful for a specific answer to that question.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

No one has been promised a veto on anything. That would be inappropriate. I hope that that answer satisfies the hon. Lady. We have sought to work with the education service, and we intend to do that. As a result of our class size pledge and the way in which we intend to target resources, we can reduce class sizes and meet parental preference, which was not the case under the regime that we inherited from the previous Government. We are taking steps to ensure that we can do that not just for rural schools but for urban schools that might be popular and offer high standards. They will have the opportunity to reduce their class sizes. The new clause seeks to deny hundreds of thousands of children in our country the benefit of the pledge that the Government made to the electorate in the run-up to the election on 1 May. We intend to ensure that we will deliver on our pledge. The flexibility that the right hon. Member for Charnwood seeks to introduce is for higher class sizes. We reject that. We recognise the value of class size and the crucial part that it will play in driving up standards in our schools. We intend to deliver on our pledge, not from the end of this Parliament but from September of this year. Some 120,000 five, six and seven-year-olds will benefit from this September. By the end of this Parliament, 500,000 five, six and seven-year-olds will benefit because of the Government's commitment. The new clause is destructive. It will deny those opportunities, which is why I urge the House to vote against it.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The Minister has responded to none of the concerns that I expressed. It remains the Government's position that it is more important to be in a class of 29, in a second-choice school, with a newly qualified teacher. In the Government's view, that is a better set of circumstances than to be in a class of 31, with an inspirational teacher, in one's school of first choice, in gleaming new buildings. That is not the experience of the overwhelming majority of Britain's parents. That is why we shall press the new clause to a vote.

EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this, it will be convenient to discuss new clause 20—Special educational needs— '(1) The Education Act 1996 shall be amended as follows. (2) In section 316 (Children with special educational needs normally to be educated in mainstream schools) (a) for subsection (1) there shall be substituted— Any person exercising function under this part in respect of a child with special educational needs who should be educated in school shall secure that the child is educated in a school which is not a special school unless that is incompatible with the wishes of the parent and the needs and ascertainable wishes of the child. (b) subsection (2) shall be omitted.'.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

New clause 14 would establish a clear obligation on local authorities to identify, in education development plans, areas of special educational needs for which they have responsibility. It is important that that is included in the plans. In Committee, we expressed our concern about the general principle of education development plans, but it would be unrealistic for us to assume that they will not be part of the Bill. From that starting point, we tabled new clause 14 for addition to the Bill. Before Christmas, the House had an Adjournment debate on a Friday morning on the Government's policy on special educational needs, based on their consultation document, "Excellence for All Children: Meeting Special Educational Needs". It is clear from the document and the consultation, which has now concluded, that the Government intend to introduce changes to the range of policies that affect children with special educational needs. The Minister has said on other occasions that the Government's recommendations on any changes—which, I understand, will be available in the summer—will not be part of any primary legislation. It is, therefore, important that a local education authority's education development plan, which will be approved by the Secretary of State, should encompass its responsibilities for special educational needs. As new clause 14 makes clear, it is important that local authorities outline the mechanism by which they identify special needs. Many LEAs are unable to say how many children with different types of disability they provide for, and it seems a sensible starting point to have a mechanism for identifying special educational needs and, more specifically, the variety of needs that they have to meet. It is also important that the provision made by LEAs meets current legislation. The Minister has made it clear that the SEN code of practice is likely to be changed—we do not object if it is improved—but it is incumbent on LEAs to show how they intend to comply with the current code of practice. Appeals mechanisms are especially important to parents and details should also be included in LEAs' education development plans. LEAs should also include in their plans details of how they intend to meet the statutory requirements of the statementing process. The Government's Green Paper summarises some of the changes that they anticipate will be made, possibly after the Bill has received Royal Assent. Four key points are set out on page 42 and we believe that they should be incorporated in education development plans. The Green Paper states: A revised version of the SEN Code of Practice will be in place, preserving the principles and safeguards of the present Code, while simplifying procedures and keeping paperwork to a minimum. There will be renewed emphasis on provision under the school-based stages of the Code of Practice, with support from LEAs and greater assurance for parents of effective intervention, particularly at stage 3. The Government claim: The result of these improvements will be that the proportion of children who need a statement will be moving towards 2 per cent. I do not wish to rehearse the debate on statementing that I have previously had with the Minister—and will have again when she makes known the outcome of the consultation—but it is clear that the statementing process will be retained. It is, therefore, important that LEAs identify clearly in their education development plans how they will undertake the statementing process. The Green Paper also states: The great majority of SEN assessments will be completed within the statutory timetable. It is important that that requirement is included in the Bill. The Green Paper states, on page 70: The Government has a central responsibility for raising standards and promoting progress for all children, including those with SEN. We do not disagree. That wording is almost identical to the explanatory notes in the Bill when it describes the responsibilities of LEAs to provide an education development plan for submission to the Secretary of State. The Bill states that education development plans are a statement of proposals for developing provision of education by raising the standards of education and improving the performance of schools. The two definitions are therefore compatible. 5.15 pm It is fair to say that special educational needs were discussed only in passing as they were covered by clauses in the Bill. No section referred specifically to SEN and, although one or two amendments were debated in more detail, it is important that the Government recognise that, in legislating for the future, they should include consideration of special educational needs. From the cases that Members of Parliament take up on behalf of children with special educational needs, it is clear that parents are often in dispute with their LEA over their child's statement or individual requirements. If more clarity can be achieved in making LEAs aware that they have to follow codes of practice and legislation, and submit their plans for doing so to Secretary of State for scrutiny, that can only assist parents and the Minister, especially when we learn the details of her proposals once the result of the consultation on the Green Paper is known. I hope that new clause 14 is non-controversial and that the Minister will accept it in the spirit in which it is tabled. I also hope that its main beneficiaries will be children with special educational needs.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

Liberal Democrat Members support the comments of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning). If new clause 14 is pressed to a vote, we shall support her in the Lobby. I hope that it will not be pressed, because I trust that the Minister supports most of what the hon. Lady said. I begin my remarks on new clause 20 by praising the previous Government. It is unusual to hear such praise in the House, but there have been remarkable advances in working with children with special educational needs over the past 20 years, particularly since the Education Act 1981. It is difficult to think that, 20-odd years ago, we categorised young people in terms of their disabilities for the whole of their school lives. Worse, some children were categorised as incapable of being educated. It is important to put on record the fact that we have come a long way in addressing the problems of teaching children with special educational needs and including them in our education system. I am sure that the Minister supports those comments. We owe Baroness Warnock and her committee a tremendous debt of gratitude for the work that was done in producing their report. The 1981 Act did not bring about all that we wanted to result from the report, but it put into legislation the requirement for local education authorities and schools to meet more effectively their responsibilities to children with special needs. Subsequent legislation and, in particular, the code of practice have embedded good practice towards children with special educational needs in our education system. New clause 20, and new clause 14, would further embed good practice in legislation. The number of statemented children who are in mainstream education has risen to 134,000, which is remarkable. Another achievement in which the previous Government played a part is the doubling since 1991 of the number of statemented children in mainstream schools. Unfortunately, there has been no corresponding decline in the number of children in special schools. There is a feeling that having statemented children in mainstream schools has caused a decline in special schools and the number of places in them. Several hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), have pleaded strongly for the retention of special school provision. Although the number of statemented children in mainstream schools doubled in the 1990s, the number of children in special schools has remained constant at 98,000. I want more children to be educated not in special schools, but in mainstream schools wherever possible, and the new clause deals with that matter.

Gerry Steinberg (Labour, City of Durham)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Baroness Warnock told the Select Committee on Education and Employment during the previous Parliament that her suggestion of total integration had gone a little too far, and that she had changed her mind slightly? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that so many statements have been issued over the past few years because parents, particularly vociferous middle-class parents, have realised that statementing is a good way to ensure that resources are directed to their child, and have pushed for statementing? When I was head of a special school, it was difficult to get parents to agree to statementing, because they believed that their child would be stigmatised by it. The increase in statementing is a reason for the decrease in the number of special school places.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I agree with both of the hon. Gentleman's points. I have never supported 100 per cent. integration, and do not believe that the Warnock committee meant it to come about, because mainstream education will never be appropriate for some children. I agree that more statements have been issued because of middle-class pressure, which has been the case in my local education authority, but I would like to think that the increase also came about because parents want the best for their children. I do not blame parents for using the system to help them. The number of statemented children who are educated in mainstream schools differs between LEAs. In some, less than 0.5 per cent. of statemented children are educated in mainstream schools, but in others, the figure is as much as 2 per cent. There are stark differences between individual schools. At John Smeaton school in Leeds, where I worked before being elected to the House, 5 per cent. of the 1,600 children had statements of special educational needs, and a further 220 were on level 3 of the code of practice, which is a significant number. We offered specialist provision, particularly to children with severe learning difficulties, and a facility to children with visual impairments. There was a feeling that many schools copped out and encouraged parents to ask my school to admit their children rather than fight for places at local schools which, in many cases, could have provided for the children equally well. I recommend to hon. Members recent research carried out by Mel Ainscow of the university of Manchester, Tony Booth of the Open university, and Alan Dyson of Newcastle university, which shows the advantages that can be gained by children with special educational needs who are educated with their peers. Education is more than learning skills and acquiring knowledge; it is about developing and changing pupils' attitudes and behaviour towards each other, and evidence shows that inclusive education is the greatest force for such development. At one school in Cleveland, I worked on the integration of children with physical impairments. A thalidomide child named Ricky Corner came to the school. He had no arms, and wrote with his foot. At first, that was a great cause of amusement and embarrassment to staff and students, but having him at the school was a great advantage, and the memory of the great joy and the understanding of his problem that he brought to his peer group and to staff has remained with me for many years. It is a great pity that the Secretary of State is not here, because, seven or eight years ago, we had the pleasure of undertaking pioneering work with children who were totally blind and coming into a mainstream set-up. Mark Lister, who was from an incredibly disadvantaged family with immense social problems, came into my school in Leeds. Several years later, that young man went to Keele university to read for a law degree. He had a long-distance relationship with a girl in Poland, and is now married with a child. He spent all his time in a busy and difficult mainstream setting. Thousands of examples could be given to illustrate why the Government should accept the new clause, and make inclusive education a pillar of the structure of raising standards. For parents, there is the immense satisfaction of having their children taught in mainstream education. There is no doubt that, although some parents still prefer their children to be educated in special schools—often for "protectionist" reasons—the vast majority aspire for their children to be educated alongside not just their peers but, if possible, children who live in the same street. That should be the ideal. 5.30 pm In many ways, the barrier to the development of an inclusive education system is attitude—not legislation, and, if I may say so, not even resources. However, the Education Act 1981 gave local education authorities and schools an opt-out by making integration subject to an efficiency clause. Sadly, that has been used all too readily to deny children access to mainstream education. The new clause is intended to make the Government's position and intention clear. It is intended to make it clear that all children should be given the opportunity to be taught in mainstream education, unless that is incompatible with the wishes of parents and the needs and ascertainable wishes of the children. The new clause does not fetter parents' right to send their children to special schools if that is considered best; nor does it give parents an unfettered right to send their children to the school of their choice. Parents would still be subject to the schedules of the Education Act 1996. What the new clause does is provide an entitlement for every child in the country to a mainstream place, and tell every local education authority, every education action zone and every school to plan their resources accordingly.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

I support the new clause, and hope that, given the spirit in which it was moved, the Government will look favourably on it. It sends a clear message about the importance that we all attach to special educational needs, and about our view that every local education authority should include SEN as a natural part of its consideration of the development of education in its area. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) said, when we discussed educational development plans in Committee, valid questions were raised about whether they were appropriate. As the Government want to press ahead with such plans, however, I think it important to send a clear message that it is not simply a question of developing standards and performance targets that relate only to mainstream schools. The Bill should specify that the same criteria will relate to special educational needs, whether they are catered for by special schools or by mainstream provision. If the Government accepted the new clause, they would, indeed, send a clear message about the importance of LEAs' including SEN in their plans. We have already discussed the question of special schools versus mainstream education for children with special needs. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) mentioned that debate and, indeed, made a passing reference to my contribution. The topic is important, and I am glad that it will be focused on, but we need to think carefully about what should be done. I am interested by new clause 20, tabled by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. In the document entitled "Excellence for All Children"—I hesitate to say whether it is a White Paper or a Green Paper, because I always seem to get it wrong—

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

Green.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

I thank the Minister for correcting me from a sedentary position. In that Green Paper, the Government presented their vision of an inclusive policy for children with special educational needs. I am sure that we all agree about the importance of ceasing to assume—it has been assumed in the past, but in recent years our attitude has changed—that the only way in which to teach a child with SEN is to send that child to a special school. We must accept that mainstream education is beneficial where it is possible, and where it is right for the child concerned. I must, however, add a word of caution. I do not want a policy of inclusion to become a mantra, followed purely for the sake of it. We must recognise not only the requirements of children with SEN, but the requirements of other children in the mainstream class and, indeed, the rest of the school. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough spoke of the benefits that could result from educating disabled children in the mainstream system. I have seen those benefits myself. I was a governor of a primary school to which a blind child was brought. My example is similar to that given by the hon. Gentleman. The parents were clear about their wish for the child to be educated in the local primary school, and extra resources were provided to enable that to happen. I well remember the meeting of the governing body at which the head teacher listed the benefits that had been gained not only by the child who had been able to be educated among his peers, but by the other children who had been able to relate to him. Attitudes had changed. Earlier this week, I talked to another head teacher in a school in my constituency. She told me that, when a child in a wheelchair was introduced to mainstream education, a change took place in the other children. Instead of saying, "Here comes the girl in a wheelchair", they said, "Here comes Melanie". They recognised the person. We cannot overestimate the change in attitudes and the benefit to other children, which will stay with them for the rest of their lives. We should not shy away from it. Having said that, I must add that there are some children with SEN for whom inclusion in a mainstream class is not appropriate. The inclusion of some children would cause great difficulty for the rest of the class. Such circumstances are most likely to apply to children with particular behavioural difficulties, who would be disruptive. It might be difficult for teachers to cope with such children; or they might receive the bulk of the teacher's attention, while the others failed to be given the attention that they needed and deserved. While recognising the benefits of mainstream education, we must also recognise that what is right for the child and the school must be taken into account in any decision. It is a delicate balance. We do not want head teachers simply to say that they will not take a particular child with special needs, because they think that it will be difficult to cope with that child in the classroom, and to shut that child out. We want to ensure that the right attitudes are taken, and that inclusion is possible where it is right. I continue to believe, however, that special schools will always be needed for some children. We should not give the impression that we do not think that they are appropriate for anyone. A balance must struck in assessing the specific needs of every child, to determine what is right in each child's circumstances. I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton has moved new clause 14. Special educational needs provision should be clearly dealt with in the Bill, clearly stating that local education authorities must not sweep SEN to the side or believe that it is a secondary consideration. SEN must be part of their work in developing educational development plans for their area. It must be natural for local education authorities to consider, as part of their process of developing education, how they will provide for SEN and how they will develop that provision. My caveats on the inclusive policy proposed in new clause 20 are based on my belief that LEAs should be required in the Bill to give equal consideration to special educational needs, which should be part of their education development plans. I hope that the Government will accept new clause 14 in the spirit in which it was moved.

Gerald Howarth (Conservative, Aldershot)

I agree entirely with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), especially her comments on the importance of spelling out in the Bill the importance of special educational needs and of striking the right balance between mainstream and special schools. I strongly support both new clause 14 and new clause 20, as they would add considerably to the Bill. As my hon. Friend said, they would also send a clear message that education authorities must explicitly consider special educational needs. In my previous constituency, I had experience of a school for dyslexic children, which was in the independent sector, and was greatly concerned to learn of the many cases in which parents struggled to obtain the right education for their child. So often, some education authorities refused point-blank to accept that a dyslexic child had a special educational need, although an independent school could have met that need. Although some authorities—curiously, they were Labour-controlled authorities, such as Derbyshire—were strongly supportive and realised that a certain school could meet a child's needs, other authorities were not supportive. Local education authorities too often feel that they can cope within their own boundaries with almost any difficulty that a child may face, but they cannot. I wish that local education authorities would own up to the fact that they cannot possibly meet every special educational need, as children may have one of many difficulties. I should like there to be much greater co-ordination between local education authorities so that, although they cannot provide for every special educational need, they can join other authorities in providing and rationalising special provision for children. That would not only relieve them from thinking that they must make all provision within their boundaries, but greatly extend provision by producing economies of scale. Consequently, special schools in the maintained sector could attract children from a wider area and become viable, as counties would not be competing with one another. My own constituency is in the extreme north-east of Hampshire and abuts Surrey. For some of my constituents, the closest special educational need provision in Hampshire is 10 or 20 miles to the west, whereas precisely the right provision is available only a couple of miles away, just across the border in Surrey. However, Hampshire county council says, "That school would not be appropriate for that child, and we are not prepared to make an out-of-county placement." I therefore hope that the Minister will use her persuasive powers on local education authorities, so that they realise the benefit of rationalisation, which I am sure is the answer. 5.45 pm I hope that the Minister also appreciates the points made by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) on the role and importance of special schools. There are, of course, advantages in educating children in mainstream schools, not only for children with special educational needs, but for those without such needs. Children with special educational needs in mainstream schools do not feel that they have been separated from other children. However, I agree whole-heartedly with the hon. Gentleman that there is a case for children being educated with their peers if he means that those with a specific disability benefit by being educated with others with a similar disability. At Maple Hayes hall, which is a school for dyslexic children in my previous constituency, I met children who had behavioural difficulties. I met one child who, at his previous school in Essex, had stabbed a Biro through the hand of the child next to him. The act was attributed to behavioural difficulties, but that was wrong. He was expressing frustration because his special educational needs were not being met. Fortunately, he was able subsequently to attend Maple Hayes hall. He told me, "This place saved me. If I hadn't come here, I probably would have ended up in prison." I therefore believe that there is a case for children with some special educational needs to be educated together. They would not have to explain anything to their peers, and would derive enormous self-confidence by being with others with a similar disability. I hope that the Minister will listen to the case that has been made—almost by both sides of the House—for passing the new clauses. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) made an interesting and useful speech. Including the new clauses in the Bill would send a clear signal that, although educating children in mainstream education is preferable, there is a very strong case—educationally and socially—for encouraging schools that provide for specific educational needs.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I support new clause 14. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) generously commented on how greatly knowledge and understanding of special educational needs have increased in the past 20 years—the truth of which is undoubtedly reflected in the emphasis that we are giving to the subject in this debate and have given in other debates in the House in recent months. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) adopted a rather tired and old-fashioned agenda in his concern about which element in society has benefited most from the attention that has been given to special educational needs. It was inevitable that, as awareness has grown of what can be done to improve the performance of children with SEN, some sections of society have become more aware of those needs than others. Although, hitherto, middle-class families may have benefited more from the resources given to special educational needs, those benefits can be extended to all families. It is negative to imply—as Labour Members have occasionally in our debates on the subject—that expenditure on SEN is a middle-class fix and the result of special pleading by middle-class parents for an extra share of the education cake. That is not the case at all: the children have a genuine need and we have to recognise it. The situation would be improved if new clause 14 were implemented, because in the course of agreeing education plans with local authorities, a wider awareness of best practice could be generated. If plans were discussed with a particular focus on special educational needs, there is no doubt that the success stories would spread to other areas and thereby SEN provision could be improved across the board.

Gerry Steinberg (Labour, City of Durham)

I am sorry if I unintentionally gave the wrong impression. I was trying to say that, in many cases, statements were being made for children because their parents had insisted on the resources. I do not want to bring too much politics into the debate, but resources have been scant in mainstream schools because of the unfortunate policies of the previous Government, and statements were one way in which parents sought to obtain extra resources. I was not saying that they did not deserve those resources or that they were cheating the system; I was merely making the point that that was one way of getting resources and that it was the vociferous middle class who realised that.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I am not sure where that leaves the hon. Gentleman's concerns. Certainly on other occasions it has been implied that a disproportionate advantage was being taken, but I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has been able to clear that matter up. Provision for special educational needs in the mainstream falls into three categories. There are children who have some physical handicap but tremendous academic potential. It must help the whole school to learn to cope with, and help the development of, such children and to see them develop alongside their peers. Then there are children who have latent academic ability but suffer from a mental block that needs to be overcome. In such cases, special educational attention within the mainstream ensures that their problem is overcome while in other aspects of their development they continue alongside their peers. There will, however, always be a group of children for whom being in the mainstream is not appropriate. It has to be recognised that it may be appropriate to take them out of the mainstream for a short period. Skills can be developed to enable those children to go back into the mainstream and the objective of many people working in the sector is to ensure that children who come into their care are enabled, so far as is possible, to return to mainstream education. That is where it becomes important that the children's problems are discovered and recognised as soon as possible. The longer problems are allowed to build up, the longer it will take outside the mainstream sector before they are well equipped to re-enter it. One of the objectives of new clause 14 is to improve what might be called the response time of local education authorities when parents alert the LEA to the fact that they believe that their child needs special educational provision. In previous statements, the Minister has indicated her belief that too much money is spent on the assessment of special needs and on the appeals process and that redirecting those funds alone would unlock a rich purse that could be spent on actual provision, although Conservative Members have expressed scepticism about that. What is important is that methods of good practice are promoted by her Department to ensure that there is prompt recognition of need by local education authorities throughout the country. I have received representations from interested bodies who have found that LEAs' response times and willingness to respond is patchy and varies significantly from one area to another. It would be helpful if the Minister clarified the Government's attitude towards the provision of special educational needs by the independent sector. We are not certain about whether the Government are in favour of building bridges with the independent sector or are in favour of blowing them up, as they have done or have tried to do on several occasions. There is clearly an important role for independent schools in special educational provision. A great deal of progress has been made and it is likely that some of the discoveries will emerge from schools that are outside the remit of local education authorities and the state system. It is important that, in developing plans that spell out how special educational needs are to be addressed in any area, a role is identified for such schools so that their innovative work can be encouraged and built on for the benefit of all children with special educational needs.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I support the principle of LEAs having a responsibility strategically to plan special needs provision in the context of their overall plan for educating children in their area. My hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) and for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made a valid point about the significance of the new clause in terms of the message it broadcasts to the wider community, but there is an even more important point about LEAs' overall role in planning school places and admissions, the relationship between special needs provision and the mainstream, and LEAs' critical role in the analysis of individual children's needs. All those factors necessitate LEAs incorporating special needs provision into their strategic plans. One of the good things that have emerged in special needs education over the past 20 years is the statement. My interest in the subject started when I first became a member of an LEA in 1985—I am still a member of that Nottinghamshire LEA. The statement is undoubtedly a positive thing for parents and children. I do not want to digress into talking about the Green Paper, but there are real concerns about the dilution of the statement. It needs to be said that many parents of special needs children feel that the statement is their only binding guarantee of a decent education in line with their child's needs. That is another reason for supporting the new clause; it would require LEAs to consider the definition of need for children with special needs in the context of their overall education planning. I have heard many arguments about integration into the mainstream and I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), whose arguments have been advanced many times. There are many good social and cultural arguments for integrating children with special needs into mainstream schools. Many parents support that and many children benefit from it, but I have to say that cultural and social reasons cannot be elevated above the individual educational needs of the child. It may be socially desirable for a child to be integrated into the mainstream, but not if that is detrimental to the child's educational progress. There are many parents of special needs children who take the firm view that their child's special needs are best met by specialist provision which, in practical and educational terms, can be best met in special schools. I endorse my hon. Friends' comments on the need to retain special schools where those are proven to be the best way of educating children with special needs. Local education authorities have variable records on special needs provision. That is not a party-political point. Some Conservative LEAs have a less good track record on special needs, as do some Labour LEAs, and there are some controlled by both parties that have excelled. There is great variation in how effectively different authorities have addressed special needs provision and how quick they have been in statementing children. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford was, however, too generous in that the issue is not just the time that it takes, but the willingness to statement at all. There is considerable variation among LEAs on that as well, which is very worrying. That, too, is not a party-political remark. 6 pm Like other hon. Members, I should like to mention a constituency case. A child was in mainstream education in Nottinghamshire where, as I have said, I am still a member of the LEA. I was delighted to be able to assist that child, who was suffering bullying at a good mainstream school, not a tough school. I helped the child to transfer out of the mainstream to special needs provision in my constituency in Lincolnshire. The parents uprooted and sold their home to move to Spalding so that their child could be educated in a special needs school and avoid some of the problems that they had encountered in mainstream education, so we must remember that there can be movement both ways. The biggest growth area in special needs provision—this needs emphasising—is children with emotional behavioural difficulties. A range of studies has illustrated that. They can be the hardest to integrate. LEAs must have a coherent policy on dealing with such children. Provision is pretty patchy and variable across LEAs. Some sweep the issue under the carpet, while others have taken imaginative and innovative approaches, dealing with the problem very effectively. We must have an honest debate about how to deal effectively with what is, sadly, a growth area. The new clauses would help by obliging LEAs to focus on the issue and build it into their strategic planning.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

This wide-ranging debate has barely touched on the new clauses in some respects. I do not want to incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or that of hon. Members by spending the rest of the evening debating special educational needs. Suffice it to say that I am grateful to all hon. Members who have chosen to make a contribution on this important issue. I am pleased to join the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) in acknowledging that Governments and local councils of all parties have made tremendous progress on SEN provision in recent years. There is unanimity in the House on the importance of the issue and how much there is to be done. That cross-party approach has been evident today. I shall respond to a few of the points that have been raised and then address the new clauses. I shall not ask the House to accept the new clauses, not because I disagree with much of what has been said but because this is not the time for them. There will be other opportunities to propose them. We should not be having today a further debate on the Green Paper on special needs. There will be a time for that. I do not seek to run away from that debate and I have not done so since the Green Paper was published; I am merely trying to be cautious with our use of time. Our response will appear in June. We are busy analysing more than 3,500 responses from organisations and individuals. Apart from that from the major organisations, I have not even looked at the analysis yet. What I say today should not be regarded as a response to the consultation on the Green Paper. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) talked about primary legislation. I do not yet know whether the consultation on the Green Paper will necessitate primary legislation. We have not analysed all the responses and I do not know what the Government will want to take forward, but I have consistently said that if primary legislation is needed we cannot include it in the Bill. My Department will have to take its turn in the search for parliamentary time.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The Minister has missed the boat.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

We had an important decision to take. We wanted to include SEN provision with other legislation, but we did not feel that we could do it justice in time for the White Paper in June. The two should be regarded as sister papers. I should like to pick up some of the main strands of the debate. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) made a good case for regional planning for SEN. The problem is particularly noticeable for some of the smaller new unitary authorities. With the disabilities and special needs that are increasingly common with medical advances and as more children survive with problems and disabilities that might previously have caused them to die, I am convinced that groups of local authorities will need to join up to plan initially for low incidence disabilities and then, if it works, for more common disabilities. We suggested pilot studies on regional planning in the Green Paper. We intended to run two pilots on regional planning for SEN, but such has been the response from local authorities that we shall run more than two. When I last looked at the issue, four seemed the likely figure. We have already secured the money. We are currently negotiating with local authorities on a regional basis. We shall be able to announce the local authorities in which the pilots will take place soon.

Gerald Howarth (Conservative, Aldershot)

I am delighted that the Minister has taken that initiative. When might she announce the pilot areas?

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I see no reason why I could not make that clear once agreement has been received from the local authorities. We have not yet ascertained whether that is the case, but the latest progress report is that there is a high level of interest. I shall not deliberately hold the issue up. The hon. Gentleman is clearly keen and has a constituency interest. I shall ask my officials and let him know whether his local authority has expressed an interest. I am enormously optimistic about the developments. Hon. Members have talked about local authorities hiding from their responsibilities and being reluctant to go for a statement, or even to acknowledge that there is a need, let alone to begin to find the solution. That has been caused either by a feeling that a single authority's resources cannot effectively be used to meet that need or because the local authority does not have the know-how. Regional planning will be important to ensure progress on that. There is a danger that we will all stand up and say that inclusion is good and feel happy about that because being inclusive makes us feel that we are doing the right thing. All hon. Members who have spoken in this debate started by saying that inclusion was a good thing—and then went on to say "but". The views ranged from those of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, who thought that inclusion was almost entirely a good thing, but not quite, to those of the hon. Member for Aldershot and some of his hon. Friends, who said that it was a good thing "but", and went on to stress the importance of special schools. New clause 20 illustrates the problem. It must be good to integrate children with special needs with their peers in mainstream education. If that can be done well, there is no reason why we should not do it. Some hon. Members say "but" because parents have different wishes and children have different needs. We must avoid integrating SEN children badly. We must not integrate before all the partners in the education service are ready. I shall refer to that later. I reassure the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn), who is not in his place, about the role of special schools in the independent sector. I do not know why I need to, because I have already done so time and again. I suspect that he might not have been listening. I see that he has returned to the Chamber. Quite honestly, we could not manage without the contribution that independent special schools make to overall provision. I remind the hon. Member for Guildford, as an indication of the importance of such schools, that, although they secure capital from independent sources, they rely on local authorities for 80 per cent. and more of their revenue costs. Local authorities refer and buy places in the independent sector, which enables such independent schools to keep going. That partnership between the maintained and independent sectors precedes anything that is being talked about now and is an example of good practice. How it has arisen is for a different debate. Suffice it to say that such good practice and innovative work leaves a bolt hole for schemes such as HIGASHI, which happens overseas, and which some of our parents want to access. Such provision can always be introduced in this country through that channel. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the independent sector's role is vital and will continue, and that we shall continue to make use of it. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, and applaud her for saying, that if we are serious about meeting the needs of special needs children and being more inclusive we must incorporate their needs in all our planning and stop regarding them as extra. That is what we have done in education development plans. Some of the things that new clause 14 asks us to do should not rightfully be in education development plans, not because they concern SEN but because of what they are. Such things should be done elsewhere. I remind the House that education development plans essentially ensure that local authorities set targets for improvement and let us know how they intend to meet those targets and what strategies they will put in place to raise standards for all children. Due to the importance of education development plans, we must be careful to be clear and focused about what we ask them to do. They cannot embrace every responsibility of a local authority. That would be wrong and it would dilute their main thrust. I refer hon. Members to pages 5 and 9 of the draft guidance on EDPs, which states clearly that one of the things about which we will want to know is how pupils with special education needs are supported. The guidance goes on to mention gifted and more able pupils. We debated the definition of special needs. In the section on school population characteristics for each of the main types of school, the guidance states that we will require LEAs to let us know about both statemented and non-statemented children in mainstream and special schools so that there is a clear, year-on-year pen portrait of children with SEN in the area. It is quite clear in the document that targets must be set for special schools and for special needs children in mainstream schools. I have never been entirely happy—I think that hon. Members will share this view—that there is sufficient fine tuning of targets for GCSEs and key stages to help us recognise the progress of special needs children. That is why we have already set in hand work with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to fine tune key stages 1, 2 and 3 so that children who might make progress at those stages will probably have targets set for them by the end of their school careers. Target setting for children with special needs is included, as it should be. I do not want new clause 14 to be accepted because it asks us to do things that are not appropriate for education development plans.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The point that needs to be emphasised is that the target setting process—the development of measurables and deliverables—is intrinsically linked to a particular LEA's view of the number of special needs schools it provides, its school places policy and its strategic approach to SEN. Target setting in individual schools cannot be separated from the overall strategic approach to SEN because the overall approach is bound to impact on it. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) because the point that we are making is that, by trying to separate the two areas—although I acknowledge what the draft guidance suggests—we are not emphasising the interrelationship strongly enough.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

Local authorities need to bring together the different plans that they are required to make. The hon. Gentleman did not serve on the Committee, but he may know that we debated how local authorities and others provide sufficient places for children in their areas. I am sure that he will be reassured to know that we have stated clearly that local authorities must take account of the special educational needs of the children in their area and plan accordingly. Education development plans are essentially about target setting to raise standards. The key element is that children with special needs are explicitly included. If they were not, I would be unhappy. We are consulting on the guidelines and listening carefully to ensure that we get it right for SEN children. We shall obviously reflect on the comments as we receive them. I have tremendous respect for the work that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough has done with his school. He is an evangelist in both his commitment and his trail blazing, which shows where the rest of us can go. John Smeaton school, of which the hon. Gentleman was head, is an example of good practice to which we should all be looking. New clause 20 would remove the provision that we should consider the efficient education of other children. People have talked about sending messages. I have tried to send messages of inclusion and of valuing special needs children. I do not think that we would be doing special needs children any favours if we sent out the message in this debate that their inclusion should be considered without regard to the efficient education of other children. The greatest asset of inclusion is that it benefits both groups of children. We must accept that schools must be equipped and ready in attitude and facilities to meet the needs of SEN children. It can be done; it will be done more, but we must move sensitively and have regard for some of the concerns expressed by hon. Members and in consultation. One thing amused and interested me in our consultation on the Green Paper. One member of my advisory committee attended two consultation meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday of the same week. Both were very well attended. At the first, he was hauled over the coals about why we had not gone for total inclusion. At the second, he faced a group of angry parents who wanted to know why we were threatening the closure of special schools. Those are the two fears; we must do everything we can to make progress without alienating any of those people. Both groups have rights, fears and expressions of interest. I hope that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough will accept that I am committed, as he is, to ensuring that the Government, with the co-operation of others, deliver our pledge to offer children who can benefit—and parents who want it—an opportunity to take their place in mainstream schools as they will in mainstream society. That is the bottom line. This has been a useful debate. I hope that the hon. Members for Tiverton and Honiton and for Harrogate and Knaresborough feel that I have answered sympathetically and that they will accept my assurances that the issues that they have raised ought better to be met in different areas of Government education policy.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

I am naturally disappointed that the Under-Secretary feels that she cannot accept new clauses 14 and 20, and I must seek some reassurances on various points that she has raised. The Minister said that local education authorities will be required to provide a snapshot of their special needs provision. Perhaps that would be more appropriate for conclusions to the consultation. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at disaggregating special needs statistics. I see the Minister wrinkling her nose as she does not like that idea—and I understand why. The problem is that, even now, some LEAs do not recognise specific learning disabilities—they refuse even to recognise the terminology. Unless the guidelines require LEAs to demonstrate clearly how many children with specific disabilities they are making special needs provision for—whether statemented or not—they will continue their current bad practice.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I have noted the hon. Lady's initial comments. I wrinkled my nose because, following previous exchanges in the House, I talked to the advisory group about disaggregating the statistics. It seemed ridiculous that no one could tell me how many autistic children were in mainstream schools, but nothing is as easy as it sounds. The answer that I received from academics—some of whom were mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) and one of whom serves on the advisory group—is that it is not as easy to define groups as we might imagine. It is very difficult to distinguish children with emotional and behavioural difficulties from those who are naughty, disturbed or mentally ill. I shall continue to reflect on that matter, but the task is not as easy as I first thought.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

I fully accept that, but I urge the Minister not to let go. For years, some LEAs have deliberately flown in the face of medical diagnoses. Parents may have pieces of paper from qualified doctors or clinical psychologists stating that their child has been diagnosed with a particular illness, yet that terminology is not recognised by the LEA from which that child seeks education provision. We must address that problem. I urge the hon. Lady to keep at it—I assure her that I shall support her to the hilt. The Minister also said that, when she concludes the consultation process, there may be a need for primary legislation and that her Department would have to wait its turn. Today's national press carry details of the Government's agenda for the next parliamentary year—although I do not know how accurate it is. When education legislation is before the House, the Minister should use that opportunity to introduce primary legislation on special educational needs; otherwise, she may have a long wait. I urge her not to let any opportunities slip: if she feels that primary legislation is necessary, she should do her best to bring it to the Floor of the House at the earliest possible opportunity. We do not want long delays. I am disappointed by the Minister's decision, but she has promised further time for debate on the Floor of the House before any major decisions are made about changing SEN significantly. The Minister will report in June and I hope that, if there are significant changes, she will bring them to the House when it returns after the summer recess. Those changes should not go through during the recess as hon. Members must have an opportunity to voice their opinions and contribute to the proposals. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

ADDITIONAL PROVISION WITH RESPECT TO TARGETS

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. New clause 15 raises the question of target setting and the relationship between individual schools and their local education authorities. The new clause would require governing bodies to consult their local education authorities before setting performance targets. That will be achieved by amending the Education Act 1997. I am delighted that the Under-Secretary will respond to the debate on the new clause. If she checks her records, she will see that, during debate on that earlier legislation, she was a sponsor of amendment No. 208. As new clause 15 is almost identical to the amendment that she proposed approximately one year ago, I look forward to her support when we discuss the issue further. The new clause is about target setting and the relationship between local education authorities and schools. It is now accepted by all hon. Members that target setting can play an important role in helping to raise standards. That is why the Liberal Democrats are prepared to support the Government's initiatives in that regard. However, we are conscious of the fact that target setting alone will not raise standards; other processes must be in place. After all, there is little point in setting a high hurdle unless we help people get over it. A more important issue is the nature of the relationship between local education authorities and individual schools. There was considerable debate about that in Committee. I think it fair to say that Opposition Members were somewhat confused about the nature of the Government's understanding of the relationship between schools and LEAs. That was particularly true in relation to target setting. There was considerable confusion about who would be responsible for agreeing or setting targets. For example, I refer to the contribution by the Minister for School Standards in Committee on 29 January, when he said: The LEA will need to engage in discussion with the school and agree targets for it. The Government clearly believe that the LEA will set the targets and that the schools must accept them. However, the Minister went on: It will always be for the school to agree to the targets proposed by the LEA, but it will be for the LEA to challenge the school to do better and to get it to sign up to those improved standards."—[Official Report A, Standing Committee, 29 January 1998; c. 178.] It is clear that the LEA will set the targets and that the school must agree to them. Later in our deliberations on the same day, the Under-Secretary said at column 191 that the schools would be responsible for setting targets. She went on to say that she believed that it was important that the targets were owned by individual schools. She argued persuasively that, if the target-setting agenda was to be successful, schools had to set and own their targets. The Committee also agreed—I hope the House will accept this also—that, if schools and local education authorities are to have an effective relationship, it is vital to involve local authorities in the target-setting process. If we refer to page 26 of the White Paper "Excellence in schools"—which preceded the Bill—we see that the Government had a clear view of the nature of that relationship. The White Paper states: The Government sets national targets and publishes national performance and benchmark data. Each LEA provides benchmarking data and guidance to all its schools to help them set targets. Each school sets draft targets, taking account of the comparative data and their own previous best performance, for discussion with its LEA. Finally, the White Paper states: Schools and LEAs agree targets, covering a 3-year period and subject to annual review. The crucial phrase is "for discussion" with its LEA. The new clause would ensure that an assurance was written into the Bill that the governing body of a school will consult its LEA before targets for the school, which the body will continue to own, are agreed. Given that the new clause is almost identical to an amendment that the Under-Secretary proposed approximately 12 months ago, I very much hope that it will have her support.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I have to admit that I have never understood the problems that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) seems to have with this matter. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards and I both made it clear where the responsibility for target setting lies. I am happy to reaffirm our commitment to setting targets as an important part of the agenda of raising standards and to reiterate my words in Committee. Ownership of targets by schools is important. The role of the local education authority is crucial. The hon. Gentleman referred to comments made by my hon. Friend that were made in the debate in which Leafy Lane and Park View schools were born. We had a long and interesting debate and those schools stayed in existence until the end of the Standing Committee, with hon. Members on both sides referring back to them at suitable points in our exchanges. My hon. Friends referred to Leafy Lane, Park View and all the rest, because target setting is not merely about ensuring that schools that do not get good results improve, but about ensuring that schools that get what appear to be adequate results improve as well. We commented that there was much under-performance in Leafy Lane schools that needed to be challenged. The crucial role of the local authority in this matter is to provide comparative information about schools' performances in similar circumstances—similar in prior attainment, in the backgrounds of children and in the environments of the schools—which means that, when schools set targets, they cannot hide away and loiter in the middle of the school performance table. That is the role of local authorities—to challenge the target-setting progress of schools and point out to them that they may be happy to set X, but that a school with similar circumstances in the borough has set X plus Y. From our experience of local authorities setting targets on a local authority-wide basis, we know that schools want to meet the best target that other schools in similar circumstances are meeting. The qualitative information that local authorities provide will be helpful to schools in setting targets. As my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards said, and as I repeated later: Responsibility rests with the school and the individual classroom teacher".—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 29 January 1998; c. 178.] I am happy to repeat again that the responsibility for setting targets must lie with the bodies that will primarily be responsible for ensuring that the targets are achieved—schools. It is right that that should happen, but it is also right that schools should listen to what local authorities say. In the vast majority of cases, there will not be a dispute. Schools will welcome the information that local authorities can bring. They will benefit from the exchange of information that they and their governing bodies will have with the local authority. The result will be that the targets set will be sufficiently challenging to do their job of raising standards.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

Does the Under-Secretary accept that there is a possibility of a dispute between a local education authority and a school only if there has been consultation on the issue between them? Will she confirm that it will be a requirement for schools to consult the LEA before they finalise their targets? That is all that the new clause would ensure.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I do not want to avoid the question, but that depends on what the hon. Gentleman means by "consult". If he is asking schools to consult local education authorities and defer to their opinion, the answer is no. If he is asking them to talk to the LEA about their targets, the answer is yes. The real difficulty is—perhaps this has been the source of our debates—that, if the school and the LEA cannot agree, the local authority's targets stand, but the fact that there has been a dispute can be recorded in the plan that goes forward. What is the hon. Gentleman's interpretation of the word "consult"? Does it mean bargaining and schools having to do what they do not want to meet the needs of the local authority? No. Schools must set their own targets. If consultation means talk, we can find accord with that. I do not think that there is a million miles between us on this matter and, my having given him those assurances, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw the motion.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

Towards the end of the Under-Secretary's remarks, we were beginning to get a clear assurance that she would expect consultation of the type which she described—not a one-way consultation in which the LEA is determined to have its way, but a two-way consultation between the school and the LEA. The Under-Secretary wonders why I have continued to be somewhat confused about the Government's position. If she reads in Hansard her contribution to the debate on new clause 14 on special educational needs, she will find that she continued some of the confusion. If I noted it correctly, in her reply to that debate she said: targets must be set for special schools". The confusion about who is responsible for setting targets is part of the reason for my confusion.

Estelle Morris (Labour, Birmingham, Yardley)

I would hate the hon. Gentleman to continue to be confused after this debate. Perhaps I was not clear in my use of words. I was referring to the documentation that is sent to the Department for approval, in which we are asking for targets school by school. The word "for" refers to the fact that LEAs must record the targets for special schools, not that they must do it on their behalf.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for acknowledging that her words were somewhat unclear. I pressed the issue because of that lack of clarity, but given the clear undertaking that the hon. Lady has given about the need for consultation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

POWER TO SET LIMITS ON INFANT CLASS SIZES

PAYMENT OF GRANT IN CONNECTION WITH REDUCTIONS IN INFANT CLASS SIZES

ESTABLISHMENT OF EDUCATION ACTION ZONES

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

I beg to move amendment No. 121, in page 10, line 7, leave out from 'purpose' to the end of line 9 and insert— '(a) with the consent of the governing body of every school which it is proposed should be a participating school, and (b) where the LEA is not making the application, with evidence that it has been consulted by the proposers, with a view to being a partner in the Education action zone.'.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: Government amendment No. 85. No. 88, in clause 12, page 11, line 13, at end insert— '(3A) In discharging any function transferred to it under the provisions of subsection (2) of this section an Education Action Forum may enter a contract for the performance of that function with any party, whether from the public or private sector, who, in the opinion of the Education Action Forum, is a fit and proper party to discharge the function or functions covered by the contract. (3B) Any party with whom the Education Action Forum enters a contract under the terms of subsection (3A) of this section (hereinafter referred to as "the contractor") shall be responsible for delivering the service defined in the contract with the Education Action Forum to the standard defined in the said contract and shall be permitted to acquire, employ, and manage, on terms to be determined by the contractor, such equipment, staff and other resources as he believes to be necessary to perform the duties defined in the contract.'. No. 122, in clause 13, page 11, line 35, after 'them', insert 'and where the employer is the local education authority, consult with that local education authority,'. Government amendments Nos. 86 and 87.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The amendment is similar to new clause 15 in that it deals with the relationship between local education authorities and schools, but in this case it deals with schools forming part of an education action zone. I must take this opportunity to place on record in the House what I said in Committee. We Liberal Democrats are very supportive of the Government's proposals for education action zones, at least in principle. In Committee, we had discussions about some of the detailed operations of the zones and had the opportunity to press some concerns. Education action zones are an important feature of the Bill. We hope that, when the Minister examines the bids for the first few zones, he will find himself inundated with exciting proposals for new forms of partnership in education, which will bring together not only schools but other interested bodies, including private businesses and other representatives of the local community, as well as further education colleges and perhaps even universities. We believe that EAZs will above all offer an opportunity for some exciting thinking about how education can develop to meet the needs of children in the next millennium. Because it is so important that EAZs are successful partnerships, we must ensure that all possible partners are involved. In Committee, I tabled amendments to ensure that the local education authority would have the opportunity to be a partner. As was clear from our discussions, the Government expected that, in the vast majority of cases, LEAs would be partners, although, as was rightly pointed out, there might be cases in which it would be unhelpful for the LEA—perhaps because it was deemed to be failing the schools in its area, or because it wanted to propose a different EAZ consortium—automatically to have the right to membership of the EAZ. As I was able to demonstrate in Committee, all the Government's documentation showed that, until the last minute, the Government clearly intended that LEAs should participate in all EAZs. I think that we now understand why they shifted their position slightly. Nevertheless, it is vital that the LEA is at least consulted about the applications for each EAZ, so that it can decide whether to become a partner. Unlike the amendments that I tabled in Committee, amendment No. 121 does not insist on a guaranteed role for the LEA in the education action forum; it merely suggests that there should be clear evidence that the LEA has been consulted on whether it wants to be a partner in the EAZ. I hope that the Minister will recognise the importance of that, as he knows that the LEA will continue to have responsibilities, many of which are specified in the Bill, for the schools in any EAZ that is established. Those responsibilities include setting targets, operating early warning systems, reviewing special educational needs arrangements and providing for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties and for those who are educated out of school. There are many other reasons why the partners in the EAZ will need to understand an LEA's work, not least in relation to local management of schools budget arrangements, the LEA services which are available, the requirement for continuing professional development, the relationship between a school's organisation committee, the LEA and the forum, and the general interrelationship of the LEA and more general local authority educational services. Given that the LEA will carry out many functions that will affect schools in an EAZ, and given the need for schools in an EAZ to know about the work of the LEA, it is obvious that the LEA must be involved in some way in all EAZs. At the very least, the LEA must be consulted about plans to establish an EAZ and given the opportunity to become a member. I hope that the House will agree to the amendment.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I want to speak principally to amendment No. 88, which belongs to this group of amendments but which I shall seek, with your consent, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to put to a separate decision by the House. Its purpose is to tease out exactly what the Government think an education action zone will mean. Like the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), when I first heard about education action zones, I found the idea rather attractive. It was certainly presented as an important new part of the Government's armoury for improving the delivery of service by our schools. At the north of England education conference at the beginning of this year, Professor Barber trumpeted it as an important step forward in introducing a new perspective—it would be an opportunity for new management and new ideas in areas where, for whatever reason, the Secretary of State felt that there were inadequate new ideas. It seemed, originally, that the education action zones would be targeted at problem areas in the school system, but it became clear in Committee that the Minister wanted them to be established not only in areas of low educational attainment, but in any part of the country where he felt that improvement in service delivery by maintained sector schools was possible—he was looking for opportunities to introduce new structures and fresh ideas to any part of the country where significant improvement was possible. All that seemed a rather attractive idea. When I was asked for my reaction to the proposal at the north of England conference, I said that I was receptive to the idea and would look forward to Ministers sketching out the detail. However, in Committee, when we considered the details of what the idea would mean in practice, the excitement started to fall away. It became obvious that the Government were unclear about their intentions for education action zones. It is important that we should be clear about the Bill's provisions. When the Secretary of State has determined that an area should be an education action zone, individual schools' governing bodies will be responsible for deciding whether to participate. I agree with that—a school's participation should be voluntary. When Professor Barber launched the idea, he made it clear that it was explicitly intended that the private sector should be able to play a role in the new structure, to bring in new ideas for the delivery of service. I understand that, at the north of England education conference, he speculated publicly that one of the companies that could be introduced—not only as advisers on a governing body or to provide tangential, relatively detailed advice, but as mainstream managers of the delivery of the schools service—was Procter and Gamble. I admired the provocation that Professor Barber clearly enjoyed introducing to the argument. It was a piece of iconoclasm, although it is perhaps less provocative to those who recognise that Procter and Gamble already runs charter schools in the United States, where it picked up the concept—it is charged with delivering a specialist improvement in the schools service in different American cities. When I heard that the concept was part of the Government's idea, I thought that it was attractive. The name Procter and Gamble is provocative, but a more home-grown company is Nord Anglia, a British company with experience of employing teachers, managing schools and delivering a schools service. The purpose of amendment No. 88, tabled by me and of my hon. Friends, is to probe the Government on whether they intend to create the opportunity for Nord Anglia and Procter and Gamble to manage and deliver a school service in an area where improvement is possible. When we came to this section of the Bill in Committee, it became pretty clear that at the very least there was a question mark over the idea. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) asked the Minister for School Standards: Will there be any circumstances in which a company will employ the teachers and have a form contractual arrangement with them? It may be the Government's vision that Nord Anglia, Procter and Gamble or anyone else should have the opportunity to deliver a new schools management service, as defined by proper public authorities, but it will be hard for a company to do so if it is not allowed to employ teachers. The Minister's response in the Committee was rather depressing. He said: We currently take the view that teachers will be employed by their employing body, be that a local education authority or an individual school. I do not understand how we deliver the objective that Procter and Gamble certainly delivers in some charter schools in America.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I shall deal with this issue at greater length in my reply to the debate, but I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to Government amendment No. 85. He will see that we intend to give legal powers to the forum. That was not the case when we debated the matter in Committee. We recognise that we need to have clarity and that is why we intend to put the education forum in the position of employer. That was not the case when we debated the matter in Committee.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I have seen that amendment and I understand that it is relevant, but in a sense it compounds the problem. The Government envisage that a manager will take over the management of a school where there is a problem—whether it is of low attainment or, to take the Minister's argument from Leafy Lane high, of low expectations, and there is an opportunity for improvement in a school that is complacent. Whatever the purpose of taking a school into an education action zone, if a company such as Nord Anglia or Procter and Gamble is to have responsibility for delivering the improved service that the Government say that they seek, it must have the power to manage all the necessary resources. Government amendment No. 85 merely underlines the timidity of the response offered by the Minister in Committee and repeated by the Under-Secretary. I gave the Government a second chance to deal with the question. The Under-Secretary confirmed that at that stage the teachers would continue to be employed by…the LEA."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 3 February 1998; c. 270–76.] The Government's amendment says that the teacher contract can be converted to an EAZ contract, but that still does not allow an EAZ to decide that a bidder for the delivery of a school service offers to the children of a district the opportunity of a better education that meets their needs better and offers them a better start in life. The Minister will acknowledge that the EAZ concept is based loosely on the ideas that have been shown to work in some very difficult city schools in the United States. I hope and believe that the Government are trying to learn those lessons. I do not believe that they will achieve that objective if they do not give the enterprise with the responsibility for managing the school the power that it needs to deliver its objectives in what will often be difficult circumstances. That is why our amendment makes it clear that, although not in every case—I do not say that this should apply in every EAZ—where a bidder wants to employ, manage and be responsible for all the resources in a school, and the EAZ is convinced that that is the best way of delivering the service in that area, that power should be available. I appeal to the Government to have the courage of their convictions to embrace their own idea and not to run away from their own radicalism.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

I shall concentrate my comments on amendment No. 88, but I shall make passing reference to amendment No. 121, tabled by the hon. Members for Bath (Mr. Foster) and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). It refers to the role that the LEA should play in bringing forward an education action zone. That proposal is interesting. It shows yet again that the Liberal Democrats constantly come back to the role of the LEA as the single deciding body to be involved in every aspect of education. The Liberal Democrats do not simply suggest that where the LEA is not making an application, schools that wish to bring forward an EAZ should show that they have discussed or referred the matter to the LEA. There might be some sense in saying that schools within an LEA, or under two or three LEAs where schools wish to group together, should alert their LEAs to the fact that they are proposing an EAZ. The Liberal Democrats are saying that the schools must refer to the LEA with a view to its being a partner in the EAZ. They intend to remove the considerable flexibility that the Government have built into the Bill. That is why I am concerned. As in so many debates in Committee, the Liberal Democrats seem unable to envisage the provision of any aspect of education without a central and determining role for the LEA. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), I was interested in the concept of EAZs when it was first introduced. I seem to recall that the concept raised considerable interest not only among Conservative Members, but in a number of national newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph, which said that the Government had come up with a radical and forward-thinking idea—very new Labour. However, as with so many new Labour ideas, including several in the Bill, the words and the practice tend to differ considerably. A radical message was put out to the press that the Government were thinking outside any confines about how they provided education, that they would innovate and that EAZs were one of the ways in which they would do so. Suddenly we see that the restrictions placed on the development of EAZs in the Bill mean that they are not as innovative as the Government would have people believe. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood made specific reference to EAZs, and we dwelt on them in Committee. It was not clear initially exactly what the Government's proposals were on employment. I accept that the Minister said that the Government were introducing their own amendment on the employment aspect of the operation of EAZs under the education action forum, but they are still shying away from the true concept of the EAZ as it was first expressed and understood when the Government proposed it. It is important to go back to that point. There have been other misunderstandings. In the initial stages, it was expected that the Government intended to use EAZs purely as a way of helping failing schools to find another way of coming together to produce innovative ideas, to get over their problems. However, it has been made clear, and I hope that the Minister will reiterate it for the record today, that the Government do not intend to put in place EAZs purely as a structure for failing schools. It is a structure that any group of schools can request from the Secretary of State, even schools that are not underperforming, such as Leafy Lane high in the example that we were given in Committee. Schools that are performing well may want to be removed from the rigours of LEA control, to look for new ways of providing education. They will be able to come together with a proposal to set up an education action zone and an education action forum. 7 pm It is ironic that the Bill abolishes grant-maintained schools, yet introduces very similar powers—the same powers in relation to employment—for education action zones. The Government tell us that an individual school cannot set itself apart from the local education authority and cannot remove itself from the strictures of the LEA, although many schools have done that with enormous success. The Government say that individual schools can no longer do that, but if the school gets together with two or three others, they can form what the Government call an education action zone and do that. In the debate in Committee, we were told—by the Under-Secretary, as I recollect—that the EAZ was a new structure for education for the new millennium, and that we must stop thinking in the old way about schools being under an LEA. We must drop those ideas and start looking at new ways in which schools can come together and find new ideas on providing education for the children who choose to go to those schools. Despite all that, we see from the Bill that the Government are not prepared to go that extra step. They say that EAZs are an innovative model and the new way forward, but they are not prepared to give EAZs all the powers necessary to do whatever they—the EAZs—consider appropriate to improve the standard of education in schools in that zone. Amendment No. 88 would put into practice what the Government seem to have been saying in the early stages of the debate on EAZs. It will be interesting to hear how the Minister of State responds. The idea of EAZs and the powers given to them in the Bill are at the boundary between new Labour and old Labour. How far are the Government willing to go, to put into practice what they proclaimed about innovation in education for the new millennium? If they are committed to innovation, they will accept amendment No. 88, give education action zones full powers, especially in regard to employment, and enable EAZs to set themselves up as innovative groups of schools that are ready to consider new ways of providing a high standard of education.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I apologise for not being present for the beginning of the debate, but I was present during the Committee stage and am aware of some of the issues involved. I should be grateful if the Minister clarified a particular point. We shall have a debate later on grant-maintained schools. Having spoken at length to representatives of grant-maintained schools in my constituency, I know that they have severe doubts about the option of having foundation school status. We have discussed the idea of those schools forming an education action zone. Will the Minister confirm that education action zones are not just for areas where the education system is seen to be failing, and that they are applicable to areas where a group of schools are striving for excellence? For whatever reason, those schools may not see control and regulation by the local education authority as their preferred route, and may see an interesting and exciting future in the new EAZ mechanism. Will he confirm that, under the Bill, it will be possible for such a group of schools to undertake that exciting initiative?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I shall start by replying to the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn). I confirm that nothing in the Bill restricts education action zones to any particular type of school, whether it is underperforming, underachieving, or whatever. The Bill provides a mechanism to allow education action zones to be established. The Government are looking to establish five EAZs with effect from September, and increasing that number to 25, probably by the autumn of next year. As we consider the applications that are submitted, we shall want to achieve a good geographical spread of EAZs, mixing urban and rural areas, and different types of school. The important aspect of the EAZ concept—this addresses some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May)—is that we see EAZs as the test bed for the schools service of the next century. That is why we want groups of schools, perhaps in partnership with local authorities or with the private sector, to come forward with new and exciting ideas. We want to examine ways in which we can empower schools. Our earlier debate underlined the fact that schools have the primary responsibility for raising standards. If, through the EAZ concept, we can engage and motivate schools of whatever type, the Government are prepared to facilitate that and support schools that want to take advantage of the freedoms that might be made available in the EAZ. That is why the three Government amendments are important. Government amendment No. 85, which I mentioned in an intervention in the speech of the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), makes the EAZ accountable as an employer for the decisions that it makes in relation to the people whom it legally employs. Government amendment No. 86 gives the Secretary of State the power to approve or reject applications to disapply the national teachers' pay and conditions document. We consider it appropriate for the Secretary of State to have that power, because we want to monitor carefully a new teachers' contract and a new system of remuneration for teachers. The Secretary of State needs to be involved in that process, so that we can see what works and what does not work so well.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

That matter concerns many teachers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) has made clear, we support the general principle of the Government's proposal, but if, after three or five years of an education action zone, when there has been a disapplication of conditions of service and there are new rates of pay, will the Government underwrite those new conditions of service and rates of pay if the EAZ completes its work, or will it be the job of the LEA to do that? How will we assure teachers working in the schools that will move into those EAZs that their pension rights and future pay and conditions will not be jeopardised by what could be a glorious experiment for Nord Anglia?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The Government fully understand those concerns. When we deal with amendment No. 122, tabled by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), we shall state clearly that there will need to be proper consultation with teachers, with their representative organisations and with local education authorities as employers about the changes that a forum might want to introduce in teachers' pay and conditions. We want people to be involved, so that they can express views on those pressing matters. We want a system whereby in three or five years, those teachers will be entering a quite different world from that of 1998. I should be surprised if we did not look differently at teachers' pay and conditions in the light of the experience of EAZs. They are the test bed for the schools system for the next century. Changes will arise as a result of the initiatives that take place in the EAZs. It is interesting to note that the advice that I have from my civil servants is that amendment No. 88 is redundant because the powers that it seeks to introduce are in the Bill as a result of the powers that we intend to give the education action forums. The point of the education action forum is that its powers are ceded from individual governing bodies. That makes the point that governing bodies are agreeing voluntarily that their powers should be given up to the education action forum. The education action forum can then act almost as a collegiate governing body. It will have all the powers that an individual governing body has at present. It could buy in specific services—for example, managing the payroll, running specialist literacy programmes and providing school meals. Those are modest measures, and if this is to be an exciting initiative, we must go beyond them. It is most important that the education action forum is responsible for determining the aims and objectives of the schools for which it has responsibility; for monitoring and evaluating the schools' performance; for raising standards of educational achievement through determining the schools' strategy for improving performance; and for setting targets and taking any necessary action to support them. It will be for the education action forum to decide who is best placed to achieve those objectives. If the education action forum takes the view that Nord Anglia or Procter and Gamble—given its good experience in America—is best placed to deliver those objectives, there is nothing in the Bill to stop the education action forum doing that.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

That is crucial to the argument. The Minister is saying that the education action forum will have no powers that are not currently vested in governing bodies, because all the powers of the education action forum will be delegated to it by the governing body. Is he therefore saying that any governing body in the maintained system already has the power, if it chooses, to subcontract the management of its school to Nord Anglia?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

It depends on exactly what the governing body wants Nord Anglia to do. At the moment, it could put payroll management or specialist literacy services out to Nord Anglia. The framework that we have inherited from the previous Administration places restrictions on exactly what governing bodies can do. As a result of the new framework, an education action forum will have the power from September next year to contract out to Nord Anglia or Procter and Gamble, to deliver those services and to meet objectives. Legally, it will be able to do that.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

As the Minister recognised, subcontracting the power to run payroll services can be useful, but it is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the management of the school, the delivery of education services, deciding whom the school employs, deciding the terms and how their time is used, and the experience of the child in the classroom. Does an existing school have the power to subcontract those functions to a commercial company? If it does not, the Minister has not shown how the power can be vested in a forum. He said that the forum has only the powers delegated to it by the governing body.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The governing body will be responsible under the new framework that we are introducing in September next year. The education action zones will operate on a voluntary basis, depending on when the Bill reaches the statute book—probably five will operate from this September—and they will have full legal powers from September next year. If an education action forum has powers ceded to it by the governing bodies, it will be able to engage the private sector or the local education authority to meet its objectives. That is why education action zones are an exciting initiative—there will be flexibility. I hope that that meets the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Maidenhead, who thought that this was a modest proposal. The powers are there, which is why my officials state that amendment No. 88 is unnecessary.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

Would the powers to be ceded include the power to suspend pupils? That would be an interesting departure from the norm. For the first time, the power to suspend a pupil would be given to a private company, which would not be in the same contractual relationship with the parent as a school.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The powers of the education action forum are derived from governing bodies ceding the powers that they have at present. We do not foresee a situation in which some of the exclusion powers would be handed over to a third party. Technically, that might be possible, but there are provisions elsewhere in the Bill, which prescribe the circumstances in which exclusions can and cannot take place.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

For the avoidance of confusion, can the Minister confirm that once an education action zone is set up, the staff currently employed by the schools within the zone will continue to be employed by the LEA, and only new staff chosen by the forum will be employed by the forum? Can he confirm that it will not be possible to send on to a third party the responsibility for the delivery of the curriculum?

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

It is more complicated than that. Under the framework, certain schools—for example, foundation schools—will be the employer of their staff. It is far more complicated than just saying that there is a blanket approach. One of the powers to be given to the education action zones will be to disapply the provisions of the national curriculum, so that they have greater flexibility. I am afraid that there is not a simple answer to the hon. Gentleman's complicated question. Amendments Nos. 121 and 122 were tabled by the hon. Member for Bath. I understand his concerns about the need to involve LEAs, which will still have the underlying statutory responsibility for ensuring that children in their area receive an adequate and suitable education in terms of their age and ability. There is a difficulty with the way in which amendment No. 121 is worded, because it talks about consultation, but then refers to the LEA as a partner. The amendment states: with a view to being a partner in the Education action zone". There is a legal difficulty with that. I might be able to help the hon. Member for Bath by referring to the guidance sent to the interested parties that might want to promote an education action zone, in which we make it clear that different zones will be run in different ways: In many cases, the LEA will be the driving force behind the proposal… In such cases there would still be a central role for business and for community and voluntary organisations. The hon. Gentleman is concerned about situations in which the LEA may not be the driving force behind the proposal. The guidance states: In others, a proposal to create a zone might come from a business, community or voluntary organisation, in conjunction with a group of schools"— addressing the situation that was referred to earlier. This allows for new and exciting groups to become involved in running an Action Forum, bringing with them fresh ideas on school improvement. In such cases, the LEA would be consulted in the development of the proposal, and we expect that LEAs will want to work closely with any successful bids which come through this route. That is more appropriate than requiring that to be so, because there may be circumstances in which, for one reason or another, the LEA is not happy with the group of schools with approval for education action zone status. We can guarantee that consultation will be required before a proposal is approved by the Secretary of State, but we do not feel that it is appropriate to go further. Amendment No. 121 talks about the LEA, as of right, being guaranteed a place as a partner in the proposal. That would be inflexible and would create a range of possible difficulties.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The Minister seriously misrepresents the amendment when he says that it states that the LEA would, as of right, expect to have a place on the forum. I hope that he will accept that the amendment's wording is clear and does not have the interpretation that he has given it.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

Legally, the hon. Gentleman's amendment can have that interpretation, which is why I shall ask the House to resist it. Education action zones are an exciting initiative. They will allow schools to raise standards in new and imaginative ways. For those reasons, I ask the House to reject the Liberal Democrat amendments but to endorse Government amendments Nos. 85, 86 and 87.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

Although I am delighted that the Minister has acknowledged that there is a need to consult the LEA in the vast majority of cases, given the many roles that it will continue to have in respect of schools that may form an education action zone, it is vital that we have a much clearer indication that the LEA will be consulted and that it is given an opportunity to consider whether it is appropriate for it to become a member of the education action zone. As we have not received sufficient assurances, we wish to press the amendment to a Division.

FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION ACTION FORUM

DISAPPLICATION OF PAY AND CONDITIONS ORDER IN RELATION TO TEACHERS AT PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS

ARRANGEMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT OF NEW SCHOOLS

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 4, 5, 9, 1, 81, 6 to 8, 3, 14 to 22, 66, 67, 11, 23, 24, 10, 2 and 28.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

It gives me great pleasure to deal in detail with the new clause and each of the Government amendments. New clause 1 and Government amendments Nos. 1 to 11 and 81 to 82 concern the governance of new schools and set out in greater detail the position of temporary governing bodies of new schools. The greater clarity provided by new clause 1 and the Government amendments will help both governing bodies and local education authorities. Government amendments Nos. 14 to 24 provide for transitional arrangements so that we can ensure a speedy and smooth transition when governing bodies are set up and we move to the new structure under the Bill. Government amendments Nos. 28 and 67 concern expenses for governors. Under schedule 11, regulations may allow governors of schools with delegated budgets to be paid expenses, other than for travel and subsistence, if the governing body believes that to be appropriate. The amendments allow for regulations to give local education authorities the same latitude in their schemes to pay expenses along similar lines. Government amendment No. 66 concerns meetings and proceedings of governing bodies, and allows governing bodies to regulate their own meetings and proceedings on any aspect not covered by the regulations.

RATING OF MAINTAINED SCHOOLS

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause concerns rate relief. It does not affect the existing provisions for rates which would be outside the Bill's scope. It simply mirrors the existing provisions as they affect schools and simply rolls forward the existing arrangements into the new framework. It does not affect schools themselves financially, but simply clarifies the position and introduces a degree of certainty which the Government feel will be of benefit. This is a technical new clause.

CONTROL OF DISPOSALS OR CHANGING USE OF SCHOOL PLAYING FIELDS

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 77, 76 and 78.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

The new clause is intended to fulfil another of our manifesto commitments, this time to ensure that the wholesale sell-off of playing fields is at last put to an end. We have agreement across the House. In 1991, the then Department of Education and Science went out to consultation; seven years on, that consultation is gradually coming to an end. The previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), promised to put a stop to the sale of playing fields, having sold 5,000 of them over the years. In fact, about 40 playing fields a month are still being lost to us. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that, tonight, we can join together to say that enough is enough, and today is the day when we agree to put a stop to this environmental vandalism. In rejoicing in doing that, we can also ensure that common sense prevails. Where it is appropriate for a swap to be done to provide facilities, that can be agreed. Where the criteria need to be worked out, that can be done in conjunction with the Sports Council, the National Playing Fields Association and others. We can apply common sense, work together, ensure that everybody gains, and provide children with adequate facilities for play and for sport. We must ensure that the environment in which they find themselves is acceptable as we approach a new century. As I am totally against waffle, I shall sit down.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I am as opposed as the Secretary of State to waffle, so I do not propose to speak for more than a few moments on the new clause. The right hon. Gentleman correctly anticipated the reaction of the Conservative party. I welcome the provision being written into the law, not least for the various reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman relating to the history of the proposal during the lifetime of the Conservative Government. In my year as Secretary of State for National Heritage, I was responsible for the early drafting of a White Paper that was then published by my successor, and which contained exactly this proposal within it. I am pleased to support the new clause.

Paul Keetch (Liberal Democrat, Hereford)

The Liberal Democrats will not engage in waffle on this subject, either. However, I want to make a few brief remarks. The physical fitness of those undergoing education is vital. We are concerned that so many playing fields have been sold, but a number of swimming pools are also being closed. We all know of examples of that in our constituencies. When I visited the Army recently in Germany, I was told that the physical fitness of new recruits is bad. One reason for that is the selling of playing fields. We must remember why playing fields are sold—to raise cash because schools are short of money. The underlying point is that if schools are not to be forced to sell them, they must be properly financed and receive the right amount of support from the Exchequer. We hope that that will be the case under this new Government.

GRANT MAINTAINED SCHOOLS

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The House will recognise that new clause 4 deals with the principal occasion of the Bill. The Government would say that the purpose of the Bill is to raise school standards, and we all share that purpose—but the occasion of the Bill is the Government's determination to abolish grant-maintained schools. New clause 4 would offer some protection to those schools whose parents, through a parental ballot, have voted to accord to them GM status. It would entrench their right to remain GM schools and prevent the Government from removing that status without first securing the consent of the parents. In terms of the delivery of children's education, the new clause is the most important that we are likely to consider on Report. It goes to the heart of the central purpose that led the Government to introduce the Bill—the determination to abolish GM status. When the Secretary of State introduced his White Paper in the summer, he included as one of the guiding principles of his education policy the proposition that standards matter more than structure. No one in the House should disagree with that principle. However, in the months since that White Paper, the right hon. Gentleman's policy has given the lie to any suggestion that it motivates the way in which, day to day, he carries out his functions. The Bill is called the School Standards and Framework Bill and it devotes 50 clauses to establishing a new framework for the management of schools. The right hon. Gentleman's principle, when it is converted into legislation, amounts to the substitution of the word "framework" for the word "structure", and then a commitment to redesign the framework of the management of schools. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said, it is even more ironic than that. Through the Bill—the central purpose of which is the redesign of the framework for the management of schools—the Government are withdrawing the principles of local responsibility and accountability as they have been accorded to GM schools, which have used the opportunity to deliver successful education to their children. Yet in an earlier debate, the Minister for School Standards—with our support—wanted to introduce new flexibility and new opportunities to escape from over-prescriptive local education authority control for any school that opted into an education action zone. It is extraordinary that, within the same Bill, the Secretary of State is asking the House to endorse two flatly contradictory principles—first, the principle of withdrawal of local responsibility and the reimposition of LEA control; and, secondly, the principle of enhanced flexibility and the removal of LEA control, where that can be shown to be in the interests of children. We agree with the Secretary of State on his second principle; we disagree profoundly with him on his first. We believe that we can adduce arguments of practice and of principle to show that when the right hon. Gentleman seeks to reimpose and reintroduce over-prescriptive LEA control, he is wrong. First, The right hon. Gentleman is wrong on the basis of the results published by his Department on the delivery of service by GM schools. In November last year, the Department for Education and Employment listed the 240 most improved schools in Britain. The Secretary of State was embarrassed by having to admit in interviews that, of the 240 schools that he listed, a third were grant maintained. It was pointed out to him that it was a bit of an own goal to issue a press release effectively praising schools whose status he was about to abolish. Eight of the top 20 schools on the list were grant maintained.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that those figures are all the more striking in view of the fact that grant-maintained schools account for only 6 per cent. of all state schools in England and Wales?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

That is exactly right. The Secretary of State says that grant-maintained schools account for about 20 per cent. of secondary schools, but, even taking that figure, the grant-maintained sector is over-represented by a factor of roughly two in the list of most improved schools. In the table published in The Sunday Times following last year's A-level results, 50 of the 100 best-performing schools, including the top three, were grant maintained. That is the track record of the structure that the Secretary of State wants to abolish, while saying that standards are more important than structure. How can the two halves of his personality be reconciled?

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

Does the right hon. Gentleman attribute the success of those schools to good management and efficient use of their delegated budgets, or to the favoured funding that they received as against other schools in the same area, many of which lost funding as a result? If the answer is the former, that will be unaffected by the legislation; if it is the latter, most people would believe that our schools should be fairly funded.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The answer is the former, but the hon. Gentleman is completely wrong to say that it is unaffected by the Bill. If it were true that the Bill left the grant-maintained school with the same authority over its own affairs, and the same freedom to decide which resources are spent by the school and which are retained by the local education authority, I would have no problem with it; but that is not what the Bill delivers. The Bill consciously and deliberately reasserts the principle that the grant-maintained school should receive the resources allocated by the local education authority after the authority has decided which resources to use within its own bureaucracy. That is the principle that the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) will be asked to support. He may shake his head, but that is the principle in his party's manifesto.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

The right hon. Gentleman wants to defend what he regards as essential management powers. Which of those powers will not be available under the Government's proposals?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I am about to deal with exactly that subject. The House should concentrate not only on the results achieved by grant-maintained schools but on the principle that lay behind their establishment. The Government are asking their Back Benchers to throw over that principle and substitute the principle that the powers should be vested in the local education authority. The Minister for School Standards says that it is his view that the key responsibility for the delivery of standards rests with the school. He is right to say that, but the problem is that he then advocates taking powers away from the school and vesting them in the LEA. The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) asked which powers. One was mentioned earlier: the power of the school to determine its own priorities. The structure of the education development planning process that we discussed in Committee requires the school's targets to be agreed by the LEA, and the LEA's education development plan to be agreed by the Secretary of State. The Bill transfers power from the school to the LEA, but that power rests with the LEA only as long as the Secretary of State is satisfied, week by week and month by month, with the way in which the service is managed. The Secretary of State is seeking powers over the maintained sector that are indistinguishable in principle from the powers that the Secretary of State for Health has over the national health service. The key difference is that the national health service was always intended to be a national service, accountable to Parliament through the Secretary of State, whereas we sought, first, to have a school system that is accountable through the local education authority—an elected assembly to a local body—and then, more recently, to have direct accountability from individual schools, through the governing body, to parents and the local community.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

I fail to understand how the Secretary of State's insisting on the setting of standards and targets interferes with a governing body's ability to achieve higher standards.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The hon. Gentleman is now asking me a totally different question. He asked how power was taken out of the school, and I answered his question. The school should be responsible for deciding its priorities for the community that it serves, but the Bill takes that power out of the school and vests it either in the LEA or in the Secretary of State. It is not true, as the hon. Member for Waveney loves to argue, that there was a distortion of resources in favour of grant-maintained schools. Resources were allocated to the school rather than to the local education authority, and it was for the school to decide whether they should be used within the school or to buy services from elsewhere in the bureaucracy.

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

rose—

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

Before the hon. Gentleman embarrasses himself again, he should remember the words of the Minister for School Standards, who is on the record as saying that he wants to raise the level of delegation in the rest of the maintained sector to that achieved in grant-maintained schools. If that is the right principle, why abolish grant-maintained schools? Why not leave them there and raise the other schools to their standard? Why begin the process by levelling down, rather than—as the Minister for School Standards might have said, but did not—using the grant-maintained schools as a gold standard by which to raise the attainment of other schools?

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it may well have appeared that grant-maintained schools got extra money, but that they could spend what they needed to spend only because they were given directly money that many local education authorities had not passed on as they should have done?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is a question whether decisions about resources should be made by LEAs, or should be vested in schools and governing bodies. Sometimes, schools and governing bodies use resources to buy services from LEAs—and that is fine by us, if it is in the best interests of the school concerned and the children in it. We argue—and it is the implication, which is never faced up to, of the remarks of the Minister for School Standards—that resources should go into the school. It should then be for the head teacher principally—but also for the teaching staff and the governing body—to make decisions about how those resources can best be used.

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I will give way once more.

Bob Blizzard (Labour, Waveney)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. In the light of what he has said, how does he explain comments frequently made to me by head teachers of schools that became grant maintained? Effectively, they said, "I did it for the money." Head teachers often persuaded their governing bodies to become grant maintained in pursuit of extra money—not just a greater share of the annual revenue resource taken from the LEAs, but priority in attaining capital funding from the Government. Most of those schools took the carrot that was dangled before them—extra capital resources—in what appeared to be, in the light of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, a deliberate attempt to break down LEAs altogether.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The hon. Gentleman says that they did it for the money. In fact, they did it to control the budget that was available for the children anyway. I say that the budget was available anyway, but, if the schools were not grant maintained, the money did not get into the schools. Labour Members love to claim that extra resources went towards the education of children in grant-maintained schools, but that is not true. As Labour Members know very well, resources were divided on the basis of local spending decisions. That is why, in the early stages of grant-maintained status, spending levels in individual GM schools with similar needs varied: they reflected the circumstances of the LEA. The hon. Gentleman's interlocutors said, "We did it for the money" because they wanted to control the money that they knew was supposed to deliver education to their children, but which, in their opinion, was not being used properly. It is true that many GM schools have used the extra authority that they have had over resources to improve their capital stock, but they have been able to do that because the money that was previously stuck in the bureaucracy got to the schools, and the schools were able to make decisions about the best use of that money. The Government are committed to the abolition of GM schools. I remind Labour Members who defend the abolition of GM schools that the Bill introduces the same principles in regard to education action zones. At least we are consistent: we voted for the principles regarding education action zones against which Labour Members have just voted, and we shall vote for the principles regarding grant-maintained schools as well. We shall do so because the principles are right, whether we refer to education action zones or to grant-maintained schools. Labour Members are wrong in their vendetta against grant-maintained schools. They are wrong because they have not looked at the evidence that such schools are successful, and they are wrong in principle. They are not adhering to a principle that the Minister for School Standards loves to proclaim, but then violates in the way in which he discharges his function: maximum delegation. When the Minister proclaims maximum delegation, he is right; when he pursues a policy that inhibits and, indeed, reverses his principle for grant-maintained schools, he is wrong. We do not claim that the grant-maintained system was perfect or incapable of improvement; nor have we ever said that grant-maintained status is right for all schools. What we say is that grant-maintained status moved power into schools, and that the result was a dramatic improvement in the education that those schools gave children. We make another key case. Grant-maintained schools do not exist as a result of a fiat issued by the Secretary of State or his predecessors; they do not exist as a result of a private agreement between heads and governors, or local education authorities. They exist within the law as it currently stands, for a simple reason: parents supported the principle of grant-maintained status in a ballot. 8.15 pm That is what the new clause proposes. Given the Government's determination to remove the concept of grant-maintained schools from the statute book, the least we should do is accord schools that voted for grant-maintained status within the last 10 years the same protection that the Government are prepared to accord to grammar schools. The Government's attitude to grammar schools and grant-maintained schools is remarkably consistent. Both are successful institutions, and there is clear evidence that they have widespread parental support, but the Government are plainly opposed to both. The grant-maintained sector is uniquely exposed, however. At least the Government have said, in principle, that they will not abolish grammar schools without securing consent in a ballot. The new clause applies principles which, as I said in Committee, I do not find hugely attractive in themselves, but which provide some protection for grammar schools. I simply ask this question: why do the Government not give grant-maintained schools, when parents have voted for GM status, the protection that they are prepared to accord to grammar schools? That is the challenge which the new clause presents to the Secretary of State. I hope that, in his reply, he will recognise this: a school that can claim in its support, first, that the system works because it delivers high standards, secondly, that it is right in principle because it reflects the principle that the right hon. Gentleman himself is introducing in education action zones, thirdly, that it is backed by parents, governors and teachers, and, fourthly, that it has already been supported in a ballot of parents is entitled to expect the protection of one of Her Majesty's Ministers. The Secretary of State should not have the power to abolish grant-maintained schools unless he can show that parents have changed their minds, and have voted in a ballot to reverse the decision that they made in a ballot only a few years ago.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) has outlined the ultimate irony that lies behind the Bill very well. It is clear that the Bill is fundamentally about changing the framework of schools. Whatever the Government say about its being a Bill to raise standards, most of it is about school structures. It is about changing the framework of schools; it is about development plans for organisation committees. It is not about standards in themselves, but about the structure within which schools operate, and the sort of schools that we have under local education authorities and education action zones. The irony is that, in two ways, the Bill discriminates against grant-maintained schools—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood pointed out. On the one hand, the Government say, "Fine. We may not want to create new grammar schools"—we disagree with that, but it is the Government's position—"but if parents have said that they want grammar schools to stay, we will allow it. As for grant-maintained schools, no thank you—goodbye." As for education action zones, the Government envisage certain powers in an innovative new world. The Minister for School Standards confirmed that in a debate on another new clause. The Government look ahead to the provision of education in the new millennium. They want radical thinking from schools and, to bring it about, they will set up a structure enabling schools to free themselves from LEAs, to apply different terms and positions to the employment of teachers and to have extra, favoured funding. Those are the principles that lie behind education action zones. However, the principles that schools should be free from local education authorities and have the freedom to say "No, we do not want to retain standard terms and conditions for teachers", are precisely the same principles that were applied to grant- maintained schools. The Government are saying, "Fine, we accept that schools might not want to be under the local education authority and might want to have new thinking. We think that that's a good idea, but they can do it only if they do it under the structure that we set up and not under the previous structure. If it is a Labour idea we like it, but we don't like the idea if it was introduced by the previous Government, despite the fact that they are exactly the same." There is also a great sadness behind the Bill.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

It is small-minded.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

Yes, that is an excellent description of the Bill. In Standing Committee, we were told that the Bill is about looking forward to the new millennium, about free thinking and about saying that the structure of schools under a local education authority is not right. Let us make no bones about it: the Bill will lead to the demise of local education authorities. By establishing education action zones, Ministers are saying that they want to abolish LEAs, but that they do not want to come out and say so. They will create a new structure and abolish LEAs by subterfuge. In Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), made it absolutely clear that the Government think that, very soon, there may be 400 education action zones. The Government have created the new structure not to deal with failing schools but, ultimately, to take over the education structure of the United Kingdom. That is how the Government perceive the way forward to the new millennium.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the GM experiment was divisive and that it—unlike action zones—fostered competition rather than co-operation? Despite what she says, by no means will action zones be anti-LEA. They are a way forward. Now we shall be able to get on with raising standards, rather than continuing the sterile debate of the past 10 years on the GM experiment.

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

That intervention was up to the hon. Gentleman's usual standard. He said that it was divisive to give a school GM status, but he thinks that it will not be divisive if schools band together as education action zones and receive extra Government funding. He has defeated his own argument. I should like to disabuse the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner), and suggest that he think through very carefully the implications of the provisions that he has voted for in the Bill. He should spend some time thinking about the likely ultimate result of the education action zone experiment. In Committee, Ministers said that, in the new millennium, the modern school structure and modern education in modern Britain would be education action zone led and not local education authority led. Ministers made that quite clear in our Standing Committee debates, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should go away and have another look at those proceedings. Ministers' statements on that point were very interesting. The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk and other Labour Members have voted for the concept of schools being freed from local education authorities, but they are saying that schools can do that only if they are in an education action zone and are not grant maintained. Grant-maintained schools were very successful precisely because they gave power to schools to make decisions on their own future and on how to provide education in those schools, without being under an LEA's authoritative hand.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Is not the extraordinary illogicality of the Government's position that failing schools can be freed from the authority of local education authorities, but that successful schools cannot be so freed bizarre, even by new Labour standards?

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

The Government have moved forward and accepted our argument, as they will allow successful schools to become part of an education action zone and thereby free from the local education authority. However, my hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that Ministers believe that, whereas groups of failing schools should be given those freedoms, successful grant-maintained schools must have those freedoms removed.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that, by any other name, the provision is an insult to local education authorities? Our local education authorities—be they successful or unsuccessful—are being told that they are incapable of running schools. Are local education authorities being told that the democratic accountability that they offer is no longer relevant? Moreover, are we being told by Ministers that differential funding, which various Labour Members have argued against in this debate, is now acceptable?

Theresa May (Conservative, Maidenhead)

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. I think that every Labour Member needs to think through the Bill's consequences for local education authorities and the Government's views on them. I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) that there is an even greater illogicality in the Government's position. The Government have said—the Minister for School Standards has confirmed it in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn)—that if a group of grant-maintained schools wishes to join in an education action zone, it will be able to do so. The Government are, therefore, saying that a group of grant-maintained schools can form an education action zone—with freedom from the local education authority and, should they wish, from the national curriculum, and with powers on how to employ their staff—but that they cannot have those powers or freedom if they maintain grant-maintained status. The Government are interested only in abolishing something called "a grant-maintained school". They are interested not in the principles underlying grant-maintained schools or in how grant-maintained schools can and have raised standards, but only in the name "grant-maintained school". It is sheer envy of that name. Ministers believe that it is perfectly acceptable for the Government to allow education action zones to have extra funding to free themselves from local education authorities because they will not be called grant-maintained schools. That is what that provision in the Bill is all about. I suggest that the Minister and the Secretary of State should themselves think through the illogicality of saying no to grant-maintained schools, but saying yes to the very powers that grant-maintained schools provided.

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

I endorse everything said in this debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell). I should also declare an interest, as my daughter attends a grant-maintained school. She is very proud to attend such a school, and I am very proud that she attends one. We have a number of grant-maintained schools in Tewkesbury, and I have spent much time at them.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to accept from me—having met his excellent daughter at Conservative party conferences—that she is an admirable advertisement for the continuation of grant-maintained schools?

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

As they say on the television, "You may think that, but I couldn't possibly comment." Nevertheless, I thank my hon. Friend for that very kind intervention. I suspect that more unfriendly interventions will be forthcoming as I make my speech. I have spent much time at those grant-maintained schools, and base my remarks not only on those visits, but on my experience, some years ago, as a chairman of governors of a primary school that had about 200 pupils. At that time, primary schools of that size could not opt out; they could not apply for grant-maintained status. I tended to find that, as chairman of governors, I spent at least half my time fighting the nonsense of the socialist LEA in Bolton, and very little time doing what I was supposed to do. The headmaster found himself in a similar position. The LEA adopted a sinister and arrogant attitude to that primary school, because it knew that, at that time, we could do nothing about it. It—and other LEAs—adopted a very different attitude to secondary schools that could opt out, because of the constant threat that those schools might leave the LEA. I do not like to use the word threat, but, when dealing with socialist LEAs, especially in the north, it was necessary to use every available weapon to run a school decently. 8.30 pm That experience persuaded me to put pressure on the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), to allow smaller primary schools to apply for grant-maintained status. I was proud to take part in that campaign, and the Secretary of State authorised the change. I felt that smaller primary schools needed financial and managerial autonomy. The schools that have opted out have enjoyed success as a result. The then Government wanted schools to become grant maintained because they wanted to give parents a choice about which schools their children attended. There were grant-maintained schools, Church schools and grammar schools—a range of schools—so the opinion of parents, the people who really take these decisions, mattered. However, I have one criticism of the then Government: they made it far too difficult for schools to opt out. An enormous turnout of parents in the ballot was required. That requirement, and the terrible campaigns that LEAs carried out against schools that appeared likely to opt out, made it difficult for schools to opt out. Before any hon. Member says that there are not that many grant-maintained schools, I should say that that is hardly surprising, because there were no depths to which the LEAs would not sink to prevent schools from opting out. That is why there are not as many as there should have been.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

Would my hon. Friend care to reflect on the position of many grant-maintained schools that faced sinister and unpleasant campaigns by their LEAs, which tried to oppose GM status? Many of those schools are in great fear of the prejudice that they may experience from predominantly Labour LEAs when they are forced back into the LEA sector.

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

My hon. Friend is right. Those schools do not know what will happen and they are afraid of being returned to that situation. Some disgraceful campaigns were mounted against schools that proposed to opt out. I attended St. James's school in Farnworth, Bolton which I believe, became the second school in the country to opt out. It was interesting to watch how the LEA acted to try to prevent the school from doing so. It let it be known that the school might close. That made parents slightly dubious about sending their children to the school, so the rolls started falling, and the LEA then considered closing the school. The Bolton LEA thereby put the school in a position where it had no option but to opt out. The campaign that the LEA waged against the school was disgraceful. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) is absolutely right. The previous Government should have made it easier for schools to opt out, especially given the success that grant-maintained schools have had. I ask a single question. Those schools—

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The hon. Gentleman has just suggested that the grant-maintained school experiment has been some sort of success. I appreciate that this is the last gasp of an attempt to save them, but will he enlighten the House with his knowledge of evidence that demonstrates that the grant-maintained school sector has led to overall benefits? Specifically, will he draw our attention to any research that he knows of that has shown that the grant-maintained school experiment has led to a raising of academic standards?

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

I can only quote the figures that I have been given. [Laughter.] Well, I shall not quote the figures that the Minister gave me because, when I did so this morning, having had them in writing from the Minister, he denied that he had given them to me—so I shall not quote the Government's figures, because I may be corrected. They may change later this evening. However, I understand that 92 per cent. of grant-maintained schools have appointed additional staff, 91 per cent. have increased their spending on books and equipment and 54 per cent. have increased their spending on new buildings. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) suggests that I am talking only about cash. I am actually talking about what that cash bought, which seems to me to be quite important.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to those extra measurements of input, but measurements of output are also relevant. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) said, measured by examination results, by university entrance or by any of the standard criteria for academic success, grant-maintained schools are way above and beyond a success; they are a towering success. I know that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) was a friend of city technology colleges and grant-maintained schools before he entered the House.

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

As usual, my hon. Friend makes the point better than I could. If, now that opted-out schools are about to lose their status, I were to ask them, "Would you, by choice, revert to your previous status under the LEA?" I am not aware that any school would choose to do so. We should listen to what those schools are saying. It is all very well for us to talk about the subject in the Chamber. Should we not listen to what the schools are saying? They opted out voluntarily, and they would not revert to their previous status. They have had success because they have been able to control their finances. They have more teachers, books and buildings. Grant-maintained schools have also been a success in less tangible terms. When one walks through a grant-maintained school, one can feel its liveliness, balanced by discipline. I believe that that is unique in such schools.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

I wonder whether my hon. Friend is wondering just how wrong a Prime Minister can be. Labour Members are all gesturing from sedentary positions to suggest that everything that my hon. Friend is saying about academic standards and discipline in schools is wrong, and yet the personal preference of the Prime Minister of this land—

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Cheap.

Angela Browning (Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton)

It is not cheap; it is fact. It cannot be denied. If the Prime Minister of this land, who has the choice of any school that he wishes—including those in the private sector—decides to send his son to a GM school, is his judgment out of accord with that of the members of the Labour party, or is it that they are right and he is wrong? I wonder what my hon. Friend thinks of that.

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

I am grateful for that intervention. The Prime Minister is absolutely right to exercise his choice about which school he sends his children to—I wish them the best of success—but he is wrong to deny that choice to other children. Of course, he is only following what many other Labour Ministers have done. They have attended schools that, at a later date, they have wanted to close. It is a matter of "Do as they say and not as they have done." They have benefited from a far greater education than many Conservative Members have done, but have then wanted to close those very schools. It is hypocrisy. I am sorry that that is the case. I spoke of the success that resulted from financial and managerial autonomy. I spoke of the intangible success of a disciplined and lively atmosphere in grant-maintained schools. That has led to the academic success that Conservative Members have mentioned.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying that local authority schools do not have discipline and standards? Is he aware that only a handful of schools chose to opt out in areas such as Labour Lancashire? Is he also aware that the Labour-controlled Lancashire county council transformed its inheritance from a Conservative administration to raise standards of numeracy and literacy, as well as well-being and discipline?

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

Having spent 33 years in Lancashire, I do not recognise the success that the hon. Lady describes. I am not suggesting that there is no discipline in schools that are not grant maintained. I am saying that the grant-maintained schools that I have experience of have successfully balanced a great fun atmosphere with good discipline. If the hon. Lady is suggesting that there has not been a discipline problem in our schools, she has lived in a different country from me. There have been serious discipline problems at many schools in Lancashire. The financial autonomy, managerial autonomy and intangible atmosphere of grant-maintained schools have led to great academic success. That success is clear for all to see. It is a tragedy that the Government want to scrap those schools. What will happen to grant-maintained schools when they return to LEA control? Like other schools, they will have to queue up for money from LEAs. That is difficult for many schools. Many councils have a lot of bureaucracy and top-slice the money, diverting it from schools. I pointed out to the Secretary of State at Education and Employment questions a few weeks ago that the Labour group in Gloucestershire did not want to passport the Government's extra money to schools. That money is being passported only thanks to the Conservative group, with the support of the Liberal Democrat group. The Labour group voted against it.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

Disgraceful.

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

Absolutely disgraceful. If something is not broken, we ought not to be fixing it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead asked, why are the Government making the changes? It is another vain attempt to look dynamic. If there had been no grant-maintained status, the Government would probably have introduced it, just to look as though they were doing something. Their behaviour is spiteful. Many Labour Members still consider good education to be an elitist concept. I did not have the education that I might have wanted, but I respect those who did and I respect organisations that provide good education. It is a pity that the Government do not. Their socialist principles are in good health and are here for all to see.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

I am delighted to follow many of my colleagues who have spoken eloquently in support of grant-maintained schools. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is chuntering from a sedentary position, as he was when my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) was speaking. My hearing is very good. I could tell that he was suggesting that my hon. Friend had had the good fortune to attend a grammar school, as I did. I saw the palpable disappointment on his face when he discovered that that was not the case.

Laurence Robertson (Conservative, Tewkesbury)

I am happy to correct the Secretary of State. I am not proud of the fact, but I had the distinction of failing the 11 plus. I went to a good secondary modern school and did not go to a grammar school until I was 16.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

We may come to selective education on the second day on Report. I point to my hon. Friend as a perfect example of how a selective education system can work for the benefit of all. My hon. Friend was not traumatised and made a failure for life by failing his 11 plus. I accept that the Deputy Prime Minister may have suffered from that more significantly. We shall doubtless come to the issue on another occasion. I am proud to defend grant-maintained schools, but I am sad that we have to do so. The Government's actions regularly contrast with their policies. They say that intervention should be in inverse proportion to excellence. That sounds fine and we all support the principle. However, their actions oppose it. To abolish grant-maintained status when grant-maintained schools achieve so much is a disgrace, as is the Government's intention to damage grammar schools, which are another mark of excellence in our state education system. The Government should be proud of them, as we are. The Government have moved some way towards understanding the logic of giving greater freedom and independence to schools. That is evident in the education action zones proposals, principally for failing schools in inner-city areas, which will be given greater freedom and flexibility. At the same time, as several of my hon. Friends have said, the Government's policy on grant-maintained schools runs in entirely the opposite direction. By creating foundation schools, the Government have moved a little way. The measure is a sop to grant-maintained schools and the idea that independence and autonomy in schools are a good thing; it is very half-hearted. By going so little of the way towards a system that we have seen work so effectively, the Government risk throwing out all the benefits of grant-maintained status. Parents in many parts of the country will have cause to criticise the Government for that in years to come. 8.45 pm The imposition of LEA representatives on boards of governors, the removal of articles of government of schools, the imposition of a standard new form and the control over admissions policies all point to a major erosion of independence. Changes in funding arrangements, which have been discussed to some extent, are entirely inadequate and have not been made sufficiently explicit. We need far greater transparency and a far fairer settlement in transitional arrangements—not only over one year—particularly for schools that only recently became grant maintained, such as Altrincham girls' grammar. It is vital that such schools should be able to continue and complete their restructuring, expecting that special purpose grants will be available and without having to do so in a concertina time scale. To change the teaching force and the profile of staff over one year would be very unsettling. It would be appropriate for the Government to consider extending the transition period to allow such schools to take a longer view and to smooth out changes as they otherwise would have done. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) referred to the academic success of GM schools, which I was going to do only in passing. I am pleased that, in contrast to their performance in Committee, Labour Members did not take the trouble to try to suggest that the performance of GM schools was not as good as we claim. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) challenged one of my hon. Friends, however, so I shall give him some of the figures that ought to be on record in this debate. The figures are very clear; they show the percentage of schools in which pupils achieved, for instance, five-plus A to C grades at GCSE. In the grant-maintained sector, the figure is 53.3 per cent., the national average is 42.6 per cent. and the LEA performance is 39.8 per cent. That difference is maintained even in areas where there are no selective schools. GM schools in those areas achieve a performance of 45.6 per cent. against an LEA performance of 38.4 per cent. Before Labour Members talk about social differences across the country, I should point out that the same difference in performance is borne out even in areas where many free school meals are provided. In areas where more than 30 per cent. of school meals are provided free of charge, GM schools deliver a performance of 29.4 per cent. of pupils achieving five-plus A to C grades, against an LEA performance of 21.7 per cent. I know that the hon. Member for Bath is itching to get to his feet, so I shall allow him to intervene.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right; I was itching to get to my feet. If grant-maintained schools were the success that he described, presumably the prediction of the former Secretary of State, Mr. John Patten—that by about four years ago, the majority of secondary schools would be grant maintained—would have come true. He said that if they were not, he would eat his hat, garnished; we are still waiting for him to do so. On statistics, does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is important that we are concerned about results across the country? He must, therefore, demonstrate that the growth of GM schools—what growth there has been—has led overall to an increase in success at GCSE level, for example. Does he acknowledge that, in LEAs where there has been a growth in the number of 15-year-old pupils who have gone to GM schools, there has not been a commensurate increase in the average GCSE point score? That is statistically correct.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

rose—

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

Some GM schools have done better because they have received additional funding and they should have done better. But, overall, there has not been an increase.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

I am beginning to become confused about who is intervening on whom. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) sought to intervene on the hon. Member for Bath. I feel as though, by rising to my feet, I am merely giving my hon. Friend an opportunity to speak.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My hon. Friend displays characteristic courtesy in giving way on this point. Does he agree that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) imposes far too great a burden of responsibility on grant-maintained schools? It is surely not necessary for grant-maintained schools, which constitute a tiny minority of maintained schools, to show that they have improved standards in all other schools. In order to retain GM schools, we must simply demonstrate that they do not damage other schools.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

I thank my hon. Friend. I agree that it would be unfair to place such a responsibility on any one grant-maintained school. The argument advanced by the hon. Member for Bath—like those put by Labour Members—reveals a manifest failure genuinely to grasp the importance and benefit of competition. That fact emerged earlier by way of intervention. Grant-maintained schools have played, and continue to play, a critical role by setting a gold standard to which other schools can aspire. Amidst all the rhetoric, the Minister for School Standards occasionally recognises that fact by saying that he wishes to bring all schools to the standard of grant-maintained schools. However, the reality will be entirely the opposite. There will be a process of levelling down—removing the successful grant-maintained schools and returning to a mixture of local authority control, in one form or another, which will erode standards. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood revealed that 30 of the top 100 improving schools are grant maintained. That is further compelling evidence of the key role that grant-maintained schools can play in raising education standards in this country. It is a tragedy that the Government will prevent that progression. New clause 4 will not only greatly improve the Bill from a technical point of view, but be a vital step towards a fairer approach on the part of the Government. It is impossible to justify the new Government's decision. Parents have voted—in some instances by overwhelming majorities—for grant-maintained status, but the Government have decided to wave them aside and push legislation through the House of Commons.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

Yes, with some reluctance.

George Turner (Labour, North West Norfolk)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there was a vote on the policy which was thrashed out before the general election? The electorate gave the Government the mandate to introduce the compromise that was trailed in the White Paper and which is brought forward in this Bill.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

The hon. Gentleman reveals his Stalinist tendencies. Although he may have enjoyed the brief period of success thrust upon him by the election result last year, some parts of the country did not vote for the kind of policies that he supports. In my constituency—where the electors clearly did not vote for the Labour manifesto—the figures speak for themselves. Parents wish to retain grant-maintained schools in my constituency. At my old school, Altrincham grammar school, 78 per cent. of the parents voted and 75 per cent. voted in favour of grant-maintained status. At the Ashton upon Mersey school, 73 per cent. of parents voted and 76 per cent. of them voted for grant-maintained status. At the Blessed Thomas Holford school, 64 per cent. of parents voted, but 84 per cent. of them voted in favour of grant-maintained status. There is a very real demand for grant-maintained schools in my constituency. Such schools were, and are, popular and they are doing a good job. They were always good schools, but they have improved dramatically since they became grant maintained. The quality of grant-maintained schools shines through not only in selective educational areas. That is an important point as Labour Members often try to attack grant-maintained schools on the false premise that they are all selective. I will refer once again, as I did in Committee, to a school of which I am particularly proud—Ashton upon Mersey school, where 23 per cent. of the pupils have free school meals. It is by no means in an area of great social standing or privilege, but it achieves a remarkable outcome for any school. Possibly—the Minister may be able to correct me—it is the only school in the country that has twice achieved an outstanding award from the Office for Standards in Education and a charter mark, and has recently been made a sports college. It is not a selective or grammar school, but a classic and fine example of a grant-maintained school—in this instance a secondary modern, which is using the freedom to control its own resources, decide its own policy and create its own ethos to generate a proud and effective school which serves the local community well. Ministers would be wise to reflect on the lessons that can be learnt from schools such as Ashton upon Mersey and countless other grant-maintained schools, and they would be wise to remember the popular mandate that many GM schools received from parents who voted for them in overwhelming numbers.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

We have heard some excellent speeches from Opposition Members in praise of grant-maintained schools. As my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) said, it is depressing that we have heard little in response from the Labour side—not even a gracious acknowledgement of how successful those schools have been. Anyone who is interested in raising academic standards has surely to begin with that acknowledgement. I ask the Government to acknowledge another home truth; that academic excellence is for the few, not the many. Not all of us can have a first class degree. In fact, not all students should go to university and not all school leavers should try for A-levels. Different approaches and levels of education are appropriate to different individuals and if we accept the logic of that, we accept that inevitably, in a fair education system, society will invest more money in some children than in others and yet it will still be a fair system. If we accept that, we are not outraged by the idea that the resources devoted to some schools are slightly higher pro rata than those devoted to others. The real test of the record of grant-maintained schools is not whether they have achieved a marginal increase in the resources that go into them, but how they have achieved far more than a marginal increase and improvement in the academic success of pupils. In the area I represent, we have a number of grant-maintained schools. They are not selective, as we have a non-selective system throughout our county, yet they have consistently achieved outstanding academic results. Today, they are asking what they have done wrong. Why are they being forced into the yoke built by this Government in the Bill, which will force them to conform to the branding exercise that new Labour is carrying out? As my hon. Friends have said, we know that the Government accept the principles of GM schools. Indeed, on 5 February I recall the Minister for School Standards telling us how he intended to build on the experience of those schools. Welcome though that was at the time, as with much that we hear from the Minister it was an ambiguous statement. So much has been reserved in the Bill to be controlled by regulation and decree after it is enacted that it is deeply ambiguous throughout. Conservative Members may be in for a pleasant surprise, whereas some Labour Members may be in for a shock, when education action zones are extended to include clusters of GM schools that know how to take advantage of them. Our difficulty with the Bill is that, because it will give so many discretionary powers to Ministers, it gives little away to hon. Members who are being asked to agree to it. The new clause would tie down the democratic accountability that is needed for any legislation that introduces as many new powers as this Bill does. 9 pm As I said, there is a non-selective system in Guildford, yet the achievement of the schools there is significant. Recently, I met the heads of GM schools in the area, who asked me why they should choose foundation status and what it would achieve, as it would mark them out as former GM schools and would not provide them with their previous independence, either financially or from LEA governors. Fortunately, there is a Conservative LEA in my area. The response of people throughout the country who are in favour of GM schools will undoubtedly be reflected in local election results—more and more local authorities will return to Conservative control as people realise that that is the only way in which they can be sure of the approach to local education that is represented by the excellence achieved by GM schools. Because Guildford has a Conservative LEA, I can reassure the heads of GM schools in my area, but I understand their concerns for schools where there is not a Conservative LEA. They are worried that, in an area that has a Labour LEA, foundation status will be used as a mechanism to discriminate against GM schools and that a political project will be launched to try to force those schools to give up foundation status and return to the mainstream. If that project succeeded, it could be heralded as a political victory for the Government when in fact it would be a cynical exercise in undermining the morale and success of some of the best schools in the country. Earlier, we were asked to provide evidence of the success of GM schools. Last November, The Independent published research showing that barely 5 per cent. of schools exhibited an improvement in standards for each of the previous four years. Of that 5 per cent., one in three were GM schools. Moreover, as we heard, eight of the top 20 schools in the country are grant maintained. There can be no doubt about GM schools' ability to raise standards. Because of the Government's retrograde step, GM schools are being denied the opportunity to build partnerships. Labour Members often talk about the need for local partnerships; GM schools are ideally placed to build them. They could show other schools in the area how to build forms of co-operation that go way beyond what the LEA can offer through its bureaucratic and stratified systems and means of delivery. Why should not local schools go out to tender in a group bid for financial and auditing services? Why should not groups of schools pool their transport or sports facilities? Very few schools adopt such an approach, but if any group of schools is capable of doing so and developing these ideas, it is GM schools. They should do it because, in doing so, they would produce a better quality service that releases resources to put into education. It is a great regret that, as a result of the passing of the Bill, there will be no opportunity to develop the independence of GM schools in setting their capital budgets. It was a matter of resentment to the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) that GM schools had some freedom on their capital budgets, but let us not forget the context in which that freedom was given. The capital spending of GM schools was outside the public sector borrowing requirement. We learnt only by chance in Committee that the Government had allowed that favourable status to be lost. It appears that they are incapable of doing anything to resurrect it. They appear to be happy to see £l1 million of capital spending by GM schools come back within the PSBR and to deny such schools the opportunity, under whatever status they might be granted, to regain that freedom on their capital budgets. The Minister told us in Committee that his Department had examined the problem and was unable to come up with any answers, but surely the fact was that it was unable to come up with any answer that would meet the Government's objective of getting rid of GM schools.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

I am reluctant to intervene because the House wants to make progress, but the hon. Gentleman has been misleading in his description of what I said in the Standing Committee. For the record, he should accurately reflect the fact that the decision was taken by the Office for National Statistics. I made it clear that the Government were making representations for it to change its decision. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that that is an accurate reflection of what was said in Committee, unlike what he has just said.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I believe that there is a misunderstanding. I was trying to explain to the Minister that he would have immense difficulty changing the ruling of the National Audit Office precisely because he had constrained his freedom of manoeuvre by the way in which he has designed the Bill.

Stephen Byers (Labour, North Tyneside)

The hon. Gentleman needs to be aware that the National Audit Office has nothing to do with the matter, which involves the Office for National Statistics. He needs to be aware that the ruling affects grant-maintained schools as it applies to their present status, regardless of the new framework in the Bill.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I stand corrected, but I must point out to the Minister that he has an opportunity in the Bill to create a structure for GM schools that would still be recognised as providing them with a capital budget outside the PSBR. He has failed to take that opportunity.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I need to put it on record that the House does not have the facility to overturn the Office for National Statistics. It is important for the hon. Gentleman's sake and the sake of his Front-Bench colleagues, who know that what I have said is correct, to state that we are not in a position to do that.

Nick St Aubyn (Conservative, Guildford)

I am grateful to correct the impression created by the Secretary of State. We are talking not about overruling the Office for National Statistics but about creating a new structure into which GM schools could be fitted that would satisfy the requirements of that office and enable the favourable capital budget treatment to continue—but that would involve maintaining the independence and integrity of GM schools, which is anathema to the Government. As a result, the capital spending of schools in general and former GM schools in particular will be constrained in a way that is due purely to dogma and the Labour party's blatant approach to GM schools. The Bill is all about conformity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said, there is a contradiction between the Government's desire to attack individual grant-maintained schools and the possibility that, through the education action zone, they may be prepared to sanction a cluster of GM schools. The reason for the contradiction is that the Government seek conformity. Through conformity, they may achieve some improvement in the performance of the laggards—the schools that are performing least well—but they may at the same time undermine the spirit, energy and enterprise of the best schools and thus the service that our education system should provide for the best of our children.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

New clause 4 addresses the contradiction that lies at the heart of the Bill. The Government are sending out a confused message about their appreciation of the role of the local education authority, individual schools and the Secretary of State. I do not argue with those who say that LEAs should take a strong, perhaps even a dominant, role. That is a logical and acceptable position. I do not argue with those who take the view that all schools should be encouraged to opt out, that LEAs should wither away and that schools should work independently. I do not even argue with those who say that the entire system should be governed centrally—that there should be an all-powerful Department for Education and Employment, that LEAs should cease to exist in all but name and that powers should be removed from the schools. All those positions are at least coherent. The problem with the Government's approach is that it is a mix of all those positions. The Bill gives the Secretary of State more powers than any Secretary of State has enjoyed before. Labour Members who complained about the centralising tendencies of Conservative Governments over the past 20 years would do well to consider the new powers that the Bill gives the Secretary of State in a range of areas that would have scarce been thought of by Conservative Secretaries of State. Had such powers been proposed before the general election, they would have been roundly condemned by Labour Members. The Secretary of State is a winner out of all this. LEAs take back some extra responsibilities, but their role is confused. We have already heard of the confusion about education action zones and their relationship with LEAs, and there are other contradictions in respect of the role of LEAs. The schools are, by and large, losers—and none more so than grant-maintained schools. I shall deal with grant-maintained schools in the context of that general confusion about the future management of education. There has already been some talk in the debate about academic success, which I shall not repeat. I shall not take hon. Members on a travelogue around Windsor, Guildford, Altrincham and other fine places. I mean no disrespect, but I shall not focus on interesting schools in bizarre parts of the country, or bizarre schools in interesting parts of the country. Given that we all accept that grant-maintained schools have achieved excellence in academic performance, I want to try to analyse the reasons for that success. Even the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) has acknowledged that in GCSE results, university entrance and A-level results, grant-maintained schools have performed disproportionately well. The question is why. The answer can be summed up simply. It is about liberty, which breeds confidence; confidence, which breeds higher expectations; and higher expectations, which breed success. If there is one thing that my experience in education has taught me, it is that higher expectations are the key to improving educational performance. That are precisely what liberation from the LEA delivered. I have no prejudice about that; I say it on the basis of my conversations with heads and teachers from grant-maintained schools all over the country. All of them—including those who would not vote Conservative—conclude that liberty has bred a spirit of energy and enterprise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) said. That intangible matter of ethos has changed the expectations of schools, staff, parents and pupils, and raised standards. The new spirit, energy and liberty is at risk from the Government's policy, and that is a cause of great regret and sadness. 9.15 pm I said that I would not give the House a travelogue, but I want to say something about a particular school in my constituency—I would be condemned roundly if I did not. The grant-maintained Sir John Gleed girls' school is in Spalding in Lincolnshire which, I am pleased to say, retains a selective system of education. I am a grammar school boy; I make no bones about the fact that I believe strongly in selection. Sir John Gleed girls' school is a secondary modern in a town with a good grammar school for girls that is taking a significant and growing proportion of the brighter girls in Spalding, yet it is achieving results equal to or better than many of the comprehensive schools in other parts of Lincolnshire. I was lucky enough to distribute the prizes at the Gleed last year and I can tell you that its success is largely about expectation, ethos, energy and enterprise. It is largely about what is expected of the girls who go to the school—a school which, bear in mind, has many children with learning difficulties. It is a secondary modern that takes a mixed catchment. I can tell you—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman means that he can tell the House.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I can tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—and through you, the House—that the school is a testament to the fact that grant-maintained schools that are non-selective, that deal with difficult catchments and that have no great advantages, can achieve outstanding results. The school has improved consistently over five years, with none of the apparent advantages mentioned by the hon. Members for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) and for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard). The school is joined to another secondary modern—not just on the same site, but in the same building—which is not grant maintained; Sir John Gleed boys' school. It is an excellent school, but it is not as yet achieving the results that the girls' school is achieving. This is not about new buildings, greater capital investment or some disproportionate funding mechanism that gives undue and unreasonable advantage to the school; it is about spirit, enterprise, energy and liberty—it is about being grant maintained. There will be those—imperialists always say this—who say that the schools would have been better off under LEA control. There will be those who make light of the intangible concepts I have described. Having visited grant-maintained schools not just in my constituency, but all over Britain, I have scarcely found one that would willingly give up that status. I have scarcely found a head teacher who would honestly say he regretted going grant maintained—even those who initially had reservations, who were not natural supporters and who were not Conservatives but socialists or Liberals. That is why they are so concerned and bitter about the proposals. With a degree of empiricism, I can genuinely say that grant-maintained status has been a success. Given that empiricism, it is hard to imagine why a fair-minded and objective Government would want to snuff out that success—but that is precisely the prospect we have before us tonight. It is not, I am happy to say, a proposal with which I wish to be associated. Given the initial failure of this confused and mixed-up Bill, I look forward to the Government clarifying their position on the future of education as they perceive it; clarifying how they see the role of LEAs and how they will develop; clarifying how they see the freedom of individual schools developing and, of course, clarifying what direction needs to emanate from the Government. The Bill does none of those things. It is a poor start. Ultimately, because we all want a good education for our children, in a spirit of generosity I hope that the Government will do considerably better in the future.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

A number of my hon. Friends spoke eloquently of the success of grant-maintained schools. In each case, they cited schools in their constituencies that have performed, and continue to perform, exceptionally well. To date, none of the evidence that my hon. Friends adduced in support of the proposition has been disputed by any hon. Member. It should be placed on the record that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), whose long-standing hostility to grant-maintained schools is well understood, seeks to obscure the realities by posing a challenge to grant-maintained schools that it is wholly unreasonable for the House to expect them to fulfil. The point bears examination. He asked in all sincerity whether successful grant-maintained schools had contributed to the greater success of all schools. The implication was that, unless they could demonstrate that they had, their raison d'etre would disappear. I disagree. It is clear that these schools have succeeded by themselves. I have four in my constituency that are dramatic beacons of excellence. They are thriving at all levels, including key stage 2, GCSE and A-level, in providing facilities, in satisfying their requirements in sport, in achieving excellence in pastoral care, and so on. Each and every one of them is a success. If the hon. Member for Bath challenges me to prove that those schools have also raised the standards of all other maintained schools in Buckinghamshire, I will readily concede that I cannot—of course I cannot—but equally, and more important, he cannot prove that successful grant-maintained schools in Buckinghamshire have in any way damaged the educational attainments of other schools. That is the point. The onus of proof is not on a grant-maintained school to demonstrate that, as well as educating successfully its own pupils, it has managed somehow to achieve the extraordinary feat of educating successfully pupils of other schools. At most, all that is necessary is for it to be able to demonstrate that it has not undermined the quality of education provided in other institutions, and on that I very much doubt whether the hon. Gentleman will be able to provide evidence. It is uncharitable of the hon. Gentleman in a sense to smear grant-maintained schools by requiring of them achievements that he would not require of ordinary maintained schools. The record of grant-maintained schools compares favourably with that of other schools. I would be no more likely to assert that all state schools should be grant maintained than any other Opposition Member. I have never argued that case. Many such schools do not wish to be. However, many have chosen to be grant maintained and, having escaped—I use that word advisedly—local education authority control, scarcely any of those of which I am aware now wish to go back into that control. I am a fair-minded fellow, charitable even—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—as my hon. Friends' ready enthusiasm in greeting my observations testifies. I am not making a party political observation. I could point to all the examples of Labour local education authorities that have been so incompetent, malign and manifestly unsuitable that schools have rushed to escape their clutches—but I will not. I point instead to the schools in my constituency and elsewhere in the county of Buckinghamshire that have opted to become self-governing outwith the control of Buckinghamshire county council. I am happy to describe and to criticise again and again the outrageous antics and consecutive failures year after year of left-wing education authorities, and I point to their passion for political correctness. I make no such charges against Buckinghamshire county council. It is an estimable local education authority, so schools in my patch are not trying to escape the council's control because it is extremist or politically correct, is opposed to standards or has a track record of failure. None of those charges would be true. Indeed, the opposite is true in every case. The county as a whole is dramatically successful, and many of its thriving schools are within LEA control. Those that have opted to become free of that control—to go their own way, make their own decisions, allocate their own funds, organise their own priorities and determine their own successes—have, without exception, upon my visiting them or via correspondence, told me that they welcome that state of affairs and wish it to continue. That leads me to my second and final point.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me, especially before he moves on to his second point—for which I can scarcely contain my anticipation. He has made an eloquent case for the excellence of grant-maintained status, in that, even in such a good local authority area as Buckinghamshire, schools still see its value. Grant-maintained status is not a negative thing, adopted merely to escape from bad local education authorities. I have an even better example of the quality and merit of grant-maintained status. Two independent schools in my constituency have opted for grant-maintained status, because they believe that they will continue to enjoy the freedom that they had as independent schools, while being able to give the same quality of education to people regardless of ability to pay. Is it not a disgrace that the Government seek to destroy that state of affairs?

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Perversely, the Government could end up by expanding the fee-paying sector as a result of their dogmatic hostility to the self-governing sector of the British education system. They would not want to do that, and they did not anticipate or plan for it, but that could be the outcome. It comes down to a question of democracy, and whether people have a right to have their schools run by people whom they do elect and can remove, or whether they should suffer the fate, of which the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) regularly reminds us, of affairs being run by people whom they do not elect and cannot remove. Let there be ballots; let people have a say; let the cross be placed on the paper to determine the outcome. If that can happen for grammar schools, I ask the Secretary of State why it cannot happen for grant-maintained schools. I have said before, and I say again, that Conservatives can be forgiven for thinking that, just conceivably, the reason why the Government do not want ballots—

Rachel Squire (Labour, Dunfermline West)

Get on with it.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

No, I am afraid that I shall have to extend the hon. Lady's pain, because the embarrassment that the point causes the Government needs to be emphasised. The reason why the Government do not want ballots is that they know that, in almost every instance, they—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire) has clearly had her day and it is obvious that she is suffering from an illness from which I hope she will in due course recover. The Government will lose and we will win. Let democracy speak. Allow the parents to vote.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

It is a charitable person who seeks to find some good in even the most misguided of people. I enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), but I disagreed with it fundamentally. However, I agreed with one point, and that was his reference to the need for us to have high expectations of the children in our schools and of the schools themselves. He was right to draw our attention to that. I suspect that, in the past, some LEAs have not had high enough expectations of their schools, and that some teachers have not had high enough expectations of their pupils. I even find some good—very little, but some—in the contribution of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). The hon. Gentleman at least made the point that there are some good grant-maintained schools, and I agree. There are many good grant-maintained schools. My constituency has two excellent grant-maintained schools—Beechen Cliff school and Oldfield school. They are both excellent schools with excellent staff doing a good job for the pupils whom they serve. To say that there are good grant-maintained schools does not mean that grant-maintained status itself is a good thing. The one other thing which I share with the hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Buckingham is a disagreement with the Government's plans, but my disagreement comes from a completely different direction. Both hon. Gentlemen and the official Opposition oppose what the Government are doing because they want grant-maintained schools to continue. My party and I are clear in that we have no desire whatever to see that continuation. Our disappointment with the Government is that, instead of doing as we would wish them to do, which is to bring grant maintained schools back into the light strategic planning framework of LEAs, they are continuing to give those schools a sop by allowing them to stand outside the LEA framework. We believe that that is wrong. At least the Government have recognised the need to get rid of grant-maintained status, and we are delighted that they have done that. As I said earlier in an intervention, grant-maintained status has not been popular. It was born out of Mrs. Thatcher's handbag back in 1988. We were told that it would be extremely popular and that, before long, the vast majority of schools would be grant maintained. That did not prove to be the case, despite the numerous bribes that were given to schools to become grant maintained. Year after year, the Tory Government came up with another new attempt to persuade schools to become grant-maintained, even requiring every governing body to consider annually whether to become grant maintained. The one bribe that grant-maintained schools were given was the additional sums of money. When official Opposition Members tell us about some of the successes of some grant-maintained schools, the House should never forget that that is hardly surprising, as schools were given significantly increased sums to enable them to carry out the various things that led to some of those successes.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

Given the hon. Gentleman's conviction that grant-maintained schools are so desperately unpopular, presumably he would have no qualms in agreeing with our new clause, which would allow parents to get rid of grant-maintained schools by voting to get rid of them.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The interesting thing about the hon. Gentleman's intervention is that it was the Conservative Government who, year after year, refused to allow the two-way option for grant-maintained schools. They were allowed to opt into grant-maintained status, but the Government refused to give them the power to vote to opt back out. It was the Conservative Government who wanted a simple one-way street and, once in, a school was stuck in it. Grant-maintained schools have had significant amounts of additional money; there is no doubt about that. I have been challenged about the education results of GM schools. Anyone who has responsibility for education provision must look at the impact of any change in the system on the overall educational setting across the whole country. I would argue strenuously that the introduction of GM schools did huge damage to the education system. It set school against school, parent against parent and governor against governor. That led to great tension and problems in the system. Giving additional money to GM schools has been to the detriment of all other schools. That additional money was taken from other schools.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

No, I will not as time is short and other hon. Members—

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

rose—

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

Of course, I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

In Committee, the hon. Gentleman voted for a clause that would require the Government to secure the consent of parents before abolishing grammar school status. The hon. Gentleman approves of that principle. Will he explain why he does not support the same principle for grant-maintained schools?

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

If the right hon. Gentleman checks the record, he will see that I made it clear that I did not believe that such decisions should be taken on a parental ballot. They should be taken by the local education authority. The right hon. Gentleman is well aware that the one major difference between GM schools and grammar schools is that GM schools are outside LEA provision.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

I have Hansard in front of me. The hon. Gentleman voted for clause 95 to stand part of the Bill.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

I explained that afterwards.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

It is not a question of what the hon. Gentleman said afterwards. Even the Liberal Democrats must occasionally defend the votes they cast and explain why one case is different from the other.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to continue to read Hansard—

Julian Lewis (Conservative, New Forest East)

The hon. Gentleman is squirming.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

No, I am not squirming. Immediately after the vote, I realised that I had made an error in my voting.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

rose—

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

The right hon. Gentleman and I can continue this debate outside the Chamber. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] No—others wish to speak.

Stephen Dorrell (Conservative, Charnwood)

The hon. Gentleman remembers a time when he mistakenly cast his vote the wrong way, but it was not in the vote on clause 95 stand part, dealing with the principle of the grammar school ballot. If the hon. Gentleman did vote the wrong way on that, he did not tell the Committee so at the time.

Don Foster (Liberal Democrat, Bath)

If the right hon. Gentleman looks through the record, which he needs to do, as he was not with us during the discussion on that particular issue—

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.