Education and Inspections Bill

Public Bill Committee, 30 March 2006.

Education and Inspections Bill - Standing Committee E

Clause 2 - Duties in relation to diversity and choice

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 161, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, after ‘schools’, insert

‘, including a range of provision for children with special education needs’.

No. 178, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, leave out from ‘schools’ to end of line 13 and insert—

‘(b)securing diversity of educational and curriculum provision within schools and colleges;

(c)increasing opportunities for parental and pupil choice; and

(d)value for money.’.

No. 5, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring the spread of best practice adopted in the best performing schools.

(3B)For the purposes of section 14(3A), “best performing schools” means schools in the first quartile nationally of the value added measure of school performance.’.

No. 88, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring that at least 10 per cent. of school places are provided by one or more of the following types of school—

(i)foundation school with a foundation;

(ii)academy;

(iii)voluntary-aided or voluntary-controlled school.’.

No. 97, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring that the education provided in schools in its area shall contribute to social inclusion and community cohesion in that area and promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups.’.

No. 98, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring fair access for all pupils in its area to opportunities for education according to their educational needs and wellbeing.’.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I welcome you to our proceedings, Mr. Chope. I am sure that it will be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this Committee.

We had some good debates on Tuesday and made some progress, although it could be described as being of quality rather than quantity. Nevertheless, we got up to debating the amendments to clause 2, which requires local authorities to have regard to the needs and wishes of parents and local communities when planning on securing the provision of schools in their area. Specifically, they will have to do so with a view to ensuring a diverse range of schools to meet local needs and with a view to maximising the opportunities for choice among good schools for parents. That duty will bite, for example, when the authority undertakes planning through the children and young people’s plan, or when it thinks about specific school organisational planning issues. It will be supported in future by considerable investment in, for example, the “building schools for the future” programme, which will allow local authorities to take a fundamental look at provision in their area and which will give them the opportunity to make radical changes, backed with the necessary capital investment.

Those duties are absolutely key to delivering a school system that is shaped by parents, and for the first time local authorities will have to find out parents’ wishes in relation to schools and extended services and reflect those wishes in their strategic plans. The effect of the clause, taken together with the provisions in clause 1 and in clause 3, which we shall debate this morning, will be to make the system more responsive. Depending on the nature and level of parental demand, that could mean bringing pressure to bear on failing or coasting schools to improve standards; it could mean encouraging schools to federate to improve; encouraging popular schools to expand; and enabling new and innovative school partners to come into the local system by holding a competition for a new school.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister will recall that we had a lengthy debate on school expansion in an earlier sitting. Different views were put; views were put from my left about the need to limit expansion. What limits would the Minister place on the capacity of a popular school to expand?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

We have been clear since the Education Act 2002 that there should be a presumption that good schools should be able to propose expansion provisions. There should be a presumption that the decision makers—the school organisation committees, at the moment, or the adjudicator—should allow those expansions to go ahead. Under the Bill, we are moving that decision-making process to the local authority. Of course, it makes sense when making that decision that the benefits of that particular expansion be borne in mind, just as happens at present, but the expansion should also be considered in the context of overall standards in an area. The Government and I are much more favourably disposed to expansion than the hon. Members for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) and for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) suggested when we debated the subject on Tuesday.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I have heard what the right hon. Lady said about a presumption in favour of allowing good schools to expand. How does that fit with what the Secretary of State said on Second Reading about refusing selective and partially selective schools, which are very often among the good schools, the opportunity to expand?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

It fits very clearly with the position that we have taken as a Government, which is that we do not want new methods of selection by ability. Allowing the sort of expansion that the hon. Gentleman mentions would increase the amount of selection by ability.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I do not see why there should be a presumption in favour or otherwise. Would it not be easier to have a system in which such schools were funded through money that followed the pupil? If the school wanted to expand, it would expand. If it were unpopular, it might contract and, in an extreme case, close. I do not understand why the local authority would have to be involved at all. Why could there not be full parent power?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

We largely have a system in which funding follows the pupil. Since 1997, we have considerably enhanced the ability of the local system to act in a dynamic way so that popular and successful schools are able to expand, and the local authority has a responsibility to deal with the impacts of that in respect of places in other schools.

The hon. Gentleman argues for a completely unplanned local system. I do not believe that a strategic planning authority at a local level should have no role. Such an authority would be unlikely to ensure the sorts of results that we want for young people. That is why we maintain the view that that strategic planning of school places, particularly given the fact that there may well be demographic pressures in certain areas, is a suitable role for a local authority.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

We are not talking about children with special needs. As we know, many teachers, particularly head teachers, and parents would love to see the money allocated—[Interruption.] I am terribly sorry.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I tell you what—I shall carry on for now.

Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East)

The Minister may remember my correspondence with her about a primary school in my constituency. In what circumstances would there be surplus places, for example? They were the reason given for not allowing that local primary school to expand. Would that happen in future?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I shall address the issue of surplus places in a moment.

I shall finish the point that I was making about the dynamism of the local system. Making the system more responsive, diverse and able to meet parents’ choices might also be done by enabling independent schools to join the maintained sector. However, in every case it will mean that local authorities will seek actively to maximise the choice for parents.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The Minister made a very interesting comment about the independent sector. Does she recognise that I and people like me are strongly opposed to social apartheid in education? We want to move to a continental system in which effectively everybody wants to go to a state school, but if they choose to go to a private school, because the state funds such schools—by paying teachers’ salaries, for example, as in France—they are virtually free. So there will be an école privée and an école d’état in a village and they will both be effectively free. There is no social apartheid as in this country.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

We all want to ensure that there is no social apartheid in our school system. Significantly, as the Chancellor made clear in his Budget statement, the Government want to ensure that the opportunities and funding in our state school system reflect those in our private school system.

Was the hon. Gentleman harking back to previous Conservative policies and trying to resurrect the pupil passport? It did sound a little as though he was arguing for giving public money to parents to spend in the private system. In May 2005, we won the argument on that—such a move would mean taking money from the state education system to subsidise the private system. There are some interesting dynamics among Conservative Members in respect of the different orientations that they are putting on their party’s policy at the moment. I am sure that we shall have the opportunity to develop those differences as we go along.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Yes—let us see whether we can get yet another interpretation of Conservative policy.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The Minister makes an interesting case. May I offer a slight word of advice? I do not think that she is in the best place to talk about different orientations of policy in a party, but I shall pass over that.

One of her party’s policies on social segregation which I strongly agree with is the partnership that the Government have sought with the independent sector. Will the Minister tell us how much money has been made available to support that partnership between the state and independent sectors? It is one of her own policies.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I shall not tell the hon. Gentleman now, because I do not know the figure off the top of my head, but I shall write to him and the rest of the Committee to identify not only the money that we have spent but some of the good projects that have been supported through the independent-state school partnership that this Government, as he rightly says, introduced precisely in order to be confident that we are drafting in capacity, good ideas and innovation from wherever they exist in the education system, public or private. We have done so for the benefit of the state education system and the children and young people within it.

We had an interesting discussion on Tuesday about the nature of choice and diversity. It is useful to consider the expected impact of the clause by thinking about how it adds to the current legislative position. What do we expect to be the marginal impact of what we are doing?

We can see a gradual evolution in thought on the provision of schools through the education Acts of the past 60 years. The new duties in clause 2 are imposed by means of an amendment to section 14 of the Education Act 1996, which placed a duty on local authorities to secure sufficient schools. The 1996 Act defined such schools as

“sufficient in number, character and equipment to provide for all pupils the opportunity of appropriate education.”

Now we are adding to that definition the principles of diversity of provision and increased opportunity for parental choice. In the 1996 Act, the standard was to have enough places in schools, largely provided directly by local authorities. The Government no longer believe that that is how we should approach the system. Now we seek to achieve a range of high-quality schools, with new providers and partners supporting schools that local authorities will positively encourage as commissioners rather than providing directly.

I come to the points made by the hon. Members for Brent, East and for Leeds, North-West, who challenged the Government on choice. We came to an important dividing line in the discussion on choice. As the Prime Minister said, choice is not unlimited. However, let us be quite clear: it already exists in the education system; it exists for those who can afford to move house or pay to enter the private sector.

We have a policy choice before us, have we not? We must choose whether to task local authorities with maximising opportunities for parents, children and young people to choose within the state education system or to throw up our hands and say that it is all too difficult, we can never achieve perfect choice, so we ought to back off. That appeared to be one of the approaches taken by Liberal Democrats.

I welcome the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West to his position on the Front Bench. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and I challenged him, because it seemed that he was almost suggesting that we need to constrain choice because something terrible happens if parents are allowed to choose: they want to choose good schools for their children. He seemed to be suggesting that we should not let that happen.

Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat, Leeds North West)

As the Minister well knows, that is not what I said at all. The Liberal Democrats are simply putting a challenge to her. A considerable body of evidence suggests that the kind of increased choice that the Bill would allow leads to increased social segregation. We are asking whether there is a limit and whether she will acknowledge that.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I am saying that social segregation stems more from the fact that we have not succeeded in maximising choice for those who cannot access it. One can go in two directions: one can constrain choice or one can task local authorities, as we are in the Bill, with maximising choice for those who have not yet been able to access it.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I have with me the words of the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West from our previous sitting, although I am sure that he regrets them now. As the Minister noted, he seemed to want to limit choice. He said that choice leads to the greater popularity of good schools, but that that could not possibly “be a good thing” and that it

“must work to the detriment of less popular schools”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 28 March 2006; c. 69.]

He is on the record as saying that, so we have him bang to rights. On this occasion, therefore, I really must support the Minister and I hope that she will accept that support in the spirit in which it is given.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I always accept the hon. Gentleman’s support in the spirit in which it is given; we can always find common ground on these issues.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Before the Minister moves on to another subject, let me pick her up on her comment that local authorities will act as a commissioner, not a provider. That was clearly set out in the White Paper, which says that the role of

“the local authority will change from provider to commissioner.”

Will she explain, therefore, why the Secretary of State, in a letter to the Chairman of the Select Committee, said that

“there may be occasions where a community school might best meet local needs.”?

If so, a local authority could enter such a school in a competition, which would make the local authority not only a commissioner, but a provider.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I suspect that we shall debate the reasons for that at some length on clause 7. Having listened to representations from not only my hon. Friends and Labour local government, but the whole cross-party Local Government Association, we recognise that it might sometimes be most appropriate for a local authority directly to provide a community school to enable parents to exercise a view and to ensure that there is a diverse range of schools—precisely the objectives that we are discussing on this clause.

Incidentally, I was not changing the subject, but moving on to consider hon. Members’ amendments. Amendments Nos. 59 and 178, tabled by the hon. Members for Brent, East and for Leeds, North-West, relate to the important issues of efficiency and effectiveness. It is vital to ensure that local authorities use every penny of taxpayers’ money effectively and achieve the best value for money. Amendment No. 178 proposes that we include the words “value for money”, while amendment No. 178 proposes that we include the words

“Subject always to the overriding requirements of efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of education”,

but it would be superfluous to do so.

Under the Local Government Act 1999, local authorities are already under a duty to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which they exercise their functions and to have regard to a combination of economy, efficiency, effectiveness and the needs and expectations of service users. In addition, the Audit Commission reports annually on local authorities’ use of resources, so they are held to account in that way, too.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

What should local authorities do when those duties conflict, as is quite possible with falling school rolls?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I was coming to precisely the point that the hon. Lady made about surplus places, which has been taken up this morning. Local authorities are responsible for planning school places in their areas and have the duty, as I outlined, to ensure that there are sufficient places and that high-quality education is provided in a cost-effective way. We expect local authorities to take parental preferences into account in that planning. Some spare capacity is necessary for parental choice, but it must be in schools that people want to use, not left pooling in unpopular or poorly performing schools. Maintaining surplus places in unpopular schools does not enhance parental choice. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] The removal of surplus places can sometimes release resources precisely to enable more popular schools to expand, in order increasingly to accommodate parental preference. Opposition Members may say, “Hear, hear”, but it is hard for me to envisage who would carry out that strategic planning function, if not the local authority, which has precisely that role.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The marketplace.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Oh, the marketplace.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. The Minister is speaking. If hon. Members wish to intervene, they must catch her eye.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

As we approach the local government elections, I am looking forward to the slogan “Don’t vote Tory—vote for the marketplace instead, because you don’t need Tory local councillors”.

It is of course the role of local authorities to set acceptable levels of surplus places or to manage them. Those are local matters that need local solutions. In response to the intervention of the hon. Member for Brent, East, I am not arguing that locally elected politicians do not have difficult decisions to make about local priorities. That is what they are elected to do and that is an appropriate role for local government.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

As a former member of an LEA, I well remember grappling with the issue of surplus places over many years. I accept the Minister’s point about the need to deal with such matters strategically. However, I am sure that she will acknowledge that local authorities must be encouraged to take that action where necessary, because there is a history of local authorities dragging their feet over surplus places. What additional measures will the Minister put in place to ensure that local authorities rise to that challenge?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Turning a spotlight on surplus places in different local authorities—as we do annually—is an important way of ensuring public accountability for how local authorities address the issue. Local government has the role in question. Of course it is for central Government to help advise local authorities on how to deal with the issue. That is the reason we published a toolkit—last year or the year before, I think—which provided advice and assistance on dealing with some of the tricky issues associated with falling rolls and what that means for surplus places. The advice contains some imaginative ideas on how to use surplus capacity for extended provision and how to encourage federation to address the problem. The right role for the Government is to hold local authorities to account and to provide that advice. In the end, however, decisions about school organisation should rightly be made locally.

In amendment No. 178, Liberal Democrat Members argue for ensuring

“diversity of educational and curriculum provision within schools and colleges”.

I am certainly not unsympathetic to that amendment, but would resist it because it is not appropriate in relation to the functions that we are discussing and because it is technically wrong. However, the Government are of course convinced of the importance of a broad-based and balanced curriculum in promoting achievement for all. The national curriculum reflects that. We believe that young people must have a rigorous and stretching educational experience at school and we have consistently taken the view that the curriculum must provide a rich and varied context for learning. I strongly agree with the need for diversity, and we have increased the flexibility in the curriculum to enable schools to make significant choices about what they provide and, how and when it is delivered, particularly in 14 to 19 education.

We spelt out our intention to increase considerably the choices available for young people between the ages of 14 and 19, in our 14 to 19 White Paper and the implementation plan that we published last autumn. We aim to do that by developing new qualifications, such as the specialised diplomas—we will have the opportunity to discuss them in more detail when we come to the curriculum clauses—and by recognising that the scope of those new qualifications makes it unlikely that a single institution or school will be able to deliver to those opportunities to all its young people, thereby driving the need for collaboration between schools, and between school and colleges. Later on in the Bill, we will consider a clause that more clearly ensures that that collaboration between FE colleges and schools will happen.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I know that we will debate those matters in greater length when we come to the relevant part of the Bill, but it might be appropriate for the Minister to take this opportunity to say a word or two more on the matter. She is right about collaboration. Does she envisage that that collaboration would be as wide as to encourage employer involvement? Would she look also at ways in which funding could be shared, as well as at jointly managed projects, and perhaps jointly managed institutions, in order to deliver maximum effectiveness and to fulfil our, I think, mutual desire to elevate vocational education in the curriculum?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Yes, all those elements would be suitable ways forward, and, in fact, many of them exist already in some of the pathfinder 14 to 19 projects that we have been supporting. There have been some amazing transformations in the opportunities for 14 to 19-year-olds because institutions are bringing in employers and work-based learning, and finding new ways, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, of co-ordinating and pooling resources. I am sure that we will get into that in more detail.

On an important technical point about the amendment relating to local authorities’ duties, I remind the Committee that post-16 provision is the responsibility of the Learning and Skills Council, not local authorities. That is why the amendment technically is unacceptable.

Amendment No. 88 would specify the mix of provision available in local authority areas, and require those local authorities to allocate at least 10 per cent. of all places to foundation and voluntary schools, and academies. First, the amendment is unnecessary because, currently, only four local authorities have less than 10 per cent. of their secondary level places in foundation and voluntary schools. Already, in several authorities, foundation and voluntary schools are in the majority.

The second reason that I am unwilling to accept the amendment is that I do not believe that a top-down mechanistic approach to securing diversity—a sort of direction from the centre—is the best way of improving pupils’ outcomes.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I agree.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I am thrown slightly by the warm waves of approbation coming from the hon. Gentleman. He must stop putting me off my stride by agreeing with me—it really is not fair.

We are already, as I suggested, developing a diverse school system. One third of our secondary schools are foundation schools or are voluntary aided. Specialist schools in particular have drawn enormous energy from the drive and expertise of their sponsors in developing their individual character and ethos, and we have announced recently that there are now 100 academies either open or in the pipeline—halfway to the established target of 200.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

On that point—

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I apologise for forgetting—I think that I was asked about that on Tuesday by the hon. Gentleman.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I hope that I have not pre-empted her. She is right to say that the Government have set a target of 200 academies by 2010 as part of what she has described as “choice and diversity”. The question to which I would like an answer, and that I believe I asked on Tuesday is: how many of the new foundation schools does she expect to see?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

If I remember rightly, the hon. Gentleman asked me about academies, and I think I answered him—100 are open or in the pipeline. To a certain extent the hon. Gentleman’s question—and I suspect that he is probably talking about the new trust schools, in particular—belies the centralising tendency of the amendment. We are not setting a target for the number of trust schools, because we believe that it is a choice and opportunity for governing bodies, which links to the local authority role of promoting diversity. It is right that that choice should develop from the empowerment of schools to decide to become more autonomous and make new partnerships, taking account of the needs of pupils, parents and the local communities that they serve.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The regulatory impact assessment’s estimates of future costings are based on 100 competitions a year. Where did the Department get that figure if, as the Minister says, the philosophy behind the policy is that it will just be allowed to happen?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

It is important that regulatory impact assessments take past experience into account. There are two slightly different issues. Competitions will emerge under the provisions of the Education Act 2005 where there are new schools and where there are reorganised schools. It is possible to consider historical trends in relation to primary and secondary reorganisations and new schools to meet new need, and to look ahead, particularly with the addition to the melting pot of the reorganisations that might happen as we roll out the building schools for the future programme across the country, and to posit a figure that will enable us to consider the regulatory impact. That is, as the hon. Gentleman knows, very different from setting a target that we want to achieve. It is right that the Government should consider the likely impact of a policy, but that does not imply setting a target for it. The two things are slightly different, because in the context of trust schools and using the opportunities that they can provide, it is not a question of need for a completely new school, or a competition, or a school that has come through reorganisation; an existing school may decide that it wants to take on the relationship that goes with trust school status.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Does the right hon. Lady therefore accept that the Bill probably does not represent a pivotal moment in the direction of education policy in this country?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Funnily enough, no I would not. The Bill represents an important development. As I identified, the shift in the clause from an emphasis on simply providing the right number of school places to a strengthened emphasis for local authorities in carrying out their duties on responding to parents, developing a diverse range of schools and maximising opportunities for choice in a range of ways, is a fundamental shift in the way in which we think about the local strategic planning of schools and the way in which the system will work.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

May I be helpful again to the right hon. Lady? She really will owe me, at the end of the Committee, if I continue to be so helpful. Would it be fair to say:

“The purpose of the Bill is to secure delegation and to widen choice. We want to see more decision making in the hands of individual schools and colleges ... decisions will be taken at a local level”

and that, taken together, this

“represents a fundamental change in our education system”?—[Official Report, 1 December 1987; Vol. 123, c. 772.]

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Yes, I agree with that.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Those are the words of the Secretary of State on Second Reading of the Bill that became the Education Reform Act 1988. Is it fair to say, therefore, that the Government have learned the lessons that we learned some time ago—that delegating power to schools and widening choice would drive up standards? Does that represent a Pauline conversion?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

No. Perhaps it represents a recognition that 18 years of Conservative Government did not produce the maximised choice and high standards that we want and that it will take the present Government to do that. That is the lesson that I have learned.

Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East)

Does the Minister see any tension developing between parental choice—such as not wanting academies and trusts—and the LEAs’ legal requirement under the Bill to promote diversity?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Did the hon. Gentleman speak of parental choice in not wanting academies?

Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East)

Yes.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

There is no evidence to date that parents do not want academies and the high-quality schools that are developing. A defining characteristic of our academies is that they have replaced half-empty, poorly performing schools with new schools, at which parents queue up to get their children in. All the evidence is that what we are doing is helping to provide what parents want for their children.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

There might be another problem. I understand that trust schools are quite controversial in certain segments of the Labour party. Might not some Labour-dominated local authorities oppose the setting up of trust schools in every way possible? That happened when the Conservative Government tried to set up grant-maintained schools.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

It is not for local authorities to do that. There are two issues here. First, Labour local government leaders have supported the Bill because they think that it gives them the opportunity to drive standards higher in their areas. Secondly, the Bill does not give local authorities the ability to trump the decisions of school governing bodies about developing trust relationships. The political motives that the hon. Gentleman implies are present in Labour local government do not exist, and even if they did, the way in which the Bill is organised means that decisions about developing such partnerships are for local schools and their governing bodies to make.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

That was precisely the case with the Conservative education reforms. We were going to make grant-maintained schools compulsory everywhere, but we were voted down in the House of Lords and parental ballots were brought in. There were massive campaigns in many schools, such as Toll Bar school in Humberside, which were organised by local authorities, although in theory they could not trump the proposal. I suspect that that will happen in many parts of the country. There will be huge campaigns led by left-wing councillors and others to stop schools from becoming trust schools.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

There is a fundamental difference between the trust school model and the GM model that the hon. Gentleman is harking back to. Trust schools could not be more different from grant-maintained schools. We are talking about schools that will be maintained by local authorities with the whole objective of drafting in the widest range of support to schools to the needs of every child in an area. The objective of grant-maintained schools was to take a few schools out of local authority control, to enable them to select a few pupils out of the system and to give them the only capital money that was around at the time. There could not be a more fundamental difference. That is why the trust school model will be popular with not only the schools who will make the relevant decisions, but the local authorities that will recognise its contribution to drafting in external support in their areas.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

In that case, why have there been 50 Labour rebels? Why has the Bill caused the biggest row inside the Labour party for years if it is all so uncontroversial. A lot of people are very angry because they recognise that the Labour party is coming in our direction. It is nonsense to say that the models are completely different. We all know that the Bill makes a fundamental change. The Minister will have huge problems from massive local campaigns to stop schools from becoming trust schools.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

The hon. Gentleman should let me worry about my colleagues. I should think that Conservative Front-Benchers have more to worry about, given the off-beam comments that he has been making about Conservative education policies.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

Perhaps I can intervene to help my right hon. Friend—not that she needs much help—with a quote:

“Hackney has effectively been piloting many of”

the reforms

“over the last few years and they work, it is as simple as that.”

That is a quote from Jules Pipe, the elected mayor of Hackney, whose political vision has helped to drive the measures. In many respects, what is outlined in the Bill is already happening in Hackney.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She identifies that Labour political vision, which will be seen increasingly across the country as we go forward with the reforms.

Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East)

I hope that the Minister is right to say that the trusts will be popular, but, as far as I am aware, they are not supported by the teaching trade unions and there have not been many expressions of interest from schools in becoming trust schools. Can the Minister tell us how many have shown such an interest?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

We have published information about schools and potential sponsors in the private and public sectors who have expressed an interest in this policy. Considering that we are only at the stage of debating the measure in Committee and the Bill is not yet an Act, that is pretty good progress. As my hon. Friend pointed out, local authorities and schools across the country are very interested. I have spoken to many head teachers in the months since the White Paper was published, who are interested in the opportunities that it will bring for their schools.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Let us say that a Labour-controlled council containing Labour councillors who oppose the Bill—we know from our constituencies that some do—receives two bids to establish a school, one from a group of Christian parents and one from the council. How does the Minister think that that bid would go and what would be the Secretary of State’s role in the process? Surely, the Labour-controlled council would want to give preference to its own bid.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

If the hon. Lady had read the Bill in detail, as I am sure she has, she would know that the Secretary of State would not make the decision in such circumstances. If several proposals were received from promoters outside the local authority, it would be for the local authority to decide which of the proposals would best serve the interests of young people in the area—in consultation, of course, with local parents and local interest groups. If the local authority itself were putting forward a proposal, the decision would be made by the adjudicator on the basis of decision-making guidance, which this Committee will have considerable opportunity to discuss.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

The right hon. Lady says that she has spoken to many head teachers who have expressed an interest, but the Department’s only answer to our freedom of information query suggested that only some two dozen schools had expressed an interest in becoming trust schools and that few sponsors had shown any interest in joining the scheme.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Freedom of information queries are terribly exciting and conspiratorial, but that information was already in the public domain. We have already held three very useful seminars at No. 10 at which head teachers, Labour local authorities and private sector sponsors described the opportunities offered by the Bill. Higher education institutions, private sector partners, groups of head teachers and individual head teachers all think that they are very important opportunities. Would it not be nice if, for once, Liberal Democrats lifted their eyes to the opportunities rather than the perceived problems in legislation? They would be performing a better service for children if they did.

David Evennett (Conservative, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

I do not want to defend the Liberal Democrats, but last Friday I had a representation from some hard working teachers, the secretary and some members of Bexley National Union of Teachers. They were fundamentally opposed to the Bill and to all the measures about which the Minister is waxing lyrical. Why does she think that NUT members, whom her colleagues have described in previous debates as tremendous teachers and professionals, are so fundamentally against it?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I should declare an interest. I am an NUT member, and proud to be. In fact, I bet that NUT members do not appreciate comments such as

“I have met many teachers who do not have a clue how to teach or relate to children. Sometimes, those who have been at the sharp end of education know more about it.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 28 March 2006; c. 1.]

The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) has more explaining to do to the NUT than I have.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

It is true.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Well, when in a hole, carry on digging.

David Evennett (Conservative, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

I, too, was a member of the NUT when I was a teacher in the 1970s, so I support the union, which does a lot of good work. However, the Minister has not answered my question.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I was coming on to the hon. Gentleman’s question. There are many things in the Bill that the NUT not only welcomes but argued strongly for—the discipline provisions, for example. I do not suggest that the measures should not be debated inside and outside the world of education. I am simply stating that I believe, as do the Government, many head teachers, and Labour and Conservative local government leaders—I do not think that we have any Liberal Democrats, but we are working on it—that there are many important opportunities in the Bill. That is what is important, and that is why we, a Labour Government, are taking forward the proposals.

Amendment No. 5, tabled by Conservative Members, would add to the clause the requirement to spread best practice between schools, which is not a bad principle. However, my first problem is that the clause bears on the strategic education functions of local authorities in relation to the provision of schools for all children. I do not believe that the amendment could operate in that context, applying to decisions on a wide range of authority functions relating to securing sufficient schools. Even if the scope of the clause lends itself to the amendment, which I do not think it does, requiring local authorities to spread best school practice would not have the effect intended.

School collaboration is one of the most powerful ways in which a strong, successful and innovative family of schools can be developed. There is much good work to be done by and an important role for local authorities to play in facilitating networking between schools and building up expertise. We expect local authorities to use their leadership and influence further to encourage collaborative working among schools—including independent schools, as we touched on earlier—to promote high standards and good behaviour and ensure a pattern of extended services that all children and young people will be able to access. Our proposals for trusts provide new opportunities for such collaboration. As I suggested earlier, although it is for school governing bodies to decide whether to acquire a trust, we expect that good local authorities will play a part in helping to broker relationships between schools and trust partners and that they might, in particular, consider the scope for trusts to support poorly performing schools.

Once again, this is a slightly centralising amendment from the Opposition. I see more benefits for schools and pupils in schools and staff working directly together to improve, because they know what works best for them and which strategies, however good they are for other schools, will translate into their context. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) made an important point: the amendment implies that only the highest-performing schools have good practice to share. Actually, the experience of school collaborations and of the work done through the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and other initiatives shows that the more obviously publicly successful schools and the less successful schools can learn equally from working in collaboration. There is an overly restrictive and centralising feel to the amendment and although I recognise and support the emphasis on sharing best practice, I do not think that it is likely to deliver.

I turn to the amendments proposed by my hon. Friends the Member for Bury, North and for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), especially amendment No. 97, which deals with the important issue of community cohesion and would require local authorities to secure school provision with a view to contributing to

“social inclusion and community cohesion and ... ”

promoting

“equality of opportunity and good”

race relations.

In arguing for the amendment, my hon. Friends referred to faith schools. I believe, as do the Government, that faith schools have played and should continue to play an important role in providing high-quality education with a particular faith ethos for young people throughout the country. We welcome the fact, which has recently been accentuated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, that many faith schools are now operating open admissions arrangements. We explicitly recognise in the existing admissions code of practice the benefits of not having solely faith-based criteria for admissions to faith-based schools. We welcome the fact that last December the faith communities renewed their support for the non-statutory national framework for religious education through a joint statement signed by representatives. Its launch last month represented a genuine step forward for religious education and inclusiveness, particularly as all the signatories then made a further agreement that all children in faith schools will have access to inclusive religious education. This can only have a positive impact on community relations where faith schools are located. The signing of the statement is a good example of the way in which faith schools can work together to contribute to community cohesion. They can promote inclusion by developing partnerships with schools of other faiths, and with non-faith schools. The Government want there to be more of this kind of activity.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I welcome the Minister’s comments on faith schools. However, does she agree with me that much more work needs to be done in both Church of England and Catholic schools to stamp out practices whereby religion is used as a proxy for other aspects to do with economic wealth and ability? Has the Minister seen the research that suggests that in many faith schools—although not those run by the faith for the local community—the number of children taking free school meals is much lower than one might expect given the nature of the catchment area and the community as a whole, or of the faith community itself?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Actually, I have seen research that suggests a much more complex situation. First, let us be clear that, because of the nature of faith school admissions, in many circumstances the admissions area will be much broader than for a school based solely on local catchment. Therefore, I do not think that some of the very crude measures of supposed social segregation necessarily lead to the conclusions that the hon. Lady drew. However, as I have said, I welcome the steps that faith bodies are already taking to ensure that admission to their often excellent schools is as broad and open as possible, and I hope that they continue.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Will the Minister reply to the Liberal party spokesman’s question, because I had great difficulty understanding what she was trying to suggest?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I think that the hon. Gentleman is being a bit unfair—fun though it is to gang up on the Liberal Democrats, he is being a bit unkind—and, in any case, I think I did respond to the hon. Lady’s point.

Let me return to the point my hon. Friends made, which is that despite the good progress in the way in which faith schools operate, there is an argument for legal certainty in respect of certain requirements on schools, such as to promote race equality or to ensure community cohesion. I can give my hon. Friends some reassurance on that. It is already the case that local authorities are under the duty prescribed in the Race Relations Act 1976 to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to promote equality of opportunity, and to promote good relations between persons of different ethnic groups. That duty applies to both local authorities and the governing bodies of individual schools, and in future it will also apply to the trusts that might support schools. Moreover, local authorities will be required specifically to consider the impact of proposed new schools on community cohesion when carrying out their new commissioning role. Local authorities will also be under a duty to have regard to guidance from the Secretary of State when considering proposals. That will make it clear that they must consider the extent to which, and how satisfactorily in terms of the circumstances of the community, proposals for new schools promote community cohesion. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friends that the understandable and legitimate concerns represented by the amendment are taken into account in the policy approach.

Amendment No. 98 would place a duty on local authorities to secure fair access for all pupils in its area. It would specifically insert the words “fair access” into the clause. That—not the intention to ensure fair access—is of slight concern to me. Ensuring fair access for all children is a central theme of the Bill and because that message is so pervasive, and because we did not feel that simply putting the words “ensure fair access” on the face of the Bill would deliver fair access, we decided to take a different approach to ensuring that it is embodied in the range of provisions throughout the White Paper and the Bill.

The measures through which that duty to promote fair access is delivered include the following: the changes that we are making to admissions arrangements; the emphasis that we are putting on personalised learning; the enhanced school transport offer; the advice and support for parents in expressing a preference about a school for their child; and the duty that we discussed in clause 1 to promote high standards and the fulfilment by every child of their educational potential. Alongside the other provisions, that seemed to us the most effective way of ensuring that we attain our shared objective, which is fair access for all children to the opportunities that we think the Bill and our reforms embody.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I appreciate the Minister’s response to the points that I raised in relation to that the amendment, but does not her argument not apply in exactly the same way to the two provisions that are in clause 2 on “securing diversity” and “increasing opportunities”? Simply having them in clause 2 will not, of itself, ensure that diversity and choice are enhanced—it is the provisions elsewhere in the Bill that will ensure that. But that does not undermine the need to have a clause that sets out the basic principles underlying the Bill. There is powerful argument that if clause 2 is necessary to specify the basic principles of diversity and choice, it should also specify the basic principle of fair access.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I disagree slightly with my hon. Friend. Ensuring fair access depends on a broader range of legislative measures than, for example, ensuring diversity, which has a specific impact on and changes the existing legal requirements on school organisation and the provision of places requirement to which the clause relates. I am not unsympathetic to his arguments. I undertake to consider at more length how we might be able to make completely explicit the assurance that I have given the Committee today that fair access objective is fundamental to the whole of the Bill.

Amendment No. 161 relates to the range of provision for children with special educational needs. It would add an additional requirement to section 14 of the Education Act 1996, which sets out local authorities’ duties relating to the provision of school places, to include a duty to secure a range of provision for pupils with special education needs. The Opposition have raised an important issue and it is important that it is discussed in relation to the clause. My argument is not about whether it is right to secure that range of provision, but that the amendment is unnecessary as local authorities are already required, when exercising their functions under the same section of the 1996 Act, to have regard to the need to ensure that special educational provision is secured for pupils who have special educational needs. They also have a specific duty under section 315 of the 1996 Act to keep under review the arrangements made by them for special educational provision.

I fully agree with the sentiment expressed in the amendment that local authorities need to ensure that pupils with special educational needs and their parents have a diverse choice of school provision. That is why the new duty will bear on all their existing duties under section 14, including provision for students with special educational needs.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

The Minister mentioned that the provision is already available, but we know, by the large number of parents and children who are having to access the special educational needs and disability tribunal and go through the tribunal procedure, that what is needed is not happening now. I cannot see anything in the Bill that will improve that situation.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I think that several elements of the Bill do that, some of which I shall describe in a moment, but let us consider what we discussed earlier in the week: the requirement to ensure the educational fulfilment of every child. The emphasis on personalised learning and ensuring the progress and fulfilment of educational potential will very much ensure that the needs of every child, including those with special educational needs, are reflected not just in the range of provision available, but in the way in which teaching and learning is organised and teacher skills are developed. All of those things are very important and part of the overall approach of the Bill and the next stage of reform.

Throughout the Bill, we have made it clear that local authorities should take seriously their duties to provide diverse and high quality provision for children with special educational needs. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), in referring to the support of the National Autistic Society for the amendment, also emphasised the need for a range of provision and support—interestingly, not just for special schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, in reporting on the current inquiry being carried out by the Select Committee, also made that point strongly.

As far as provision for children with special educational needs is concerned, we should start from the point of an individual child’s needs and ensure that we organise a range of provision in the system, including special schools and units alongside mainstream schools, of which we are seeing increasing numbers. Children can benefit from the specific specialised support of such units, the social benefits that often come from mixing with other children and support within mainstream classes as well. Of course, that necessitates a focus on the professional development and training of teachers.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

If the funding allocated to a child with special needs was velcroed to that child and stayed with them when they went to mainstream school, perhaps those objectives could be realised, but it is not and we know that it is not. It disappears into the funding pool of the school, it is dispersed and not allocated to that child, as many head teachers tell me at every school I visit. If there were provision in the Bill for funding to be allocated to a child with special needs and stay with that child, those objectives might be realised, but until that happens, I do not think that they can.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

The hon. Lady will know that there is already a considerable additional investment being made into children and young people with special needs. The way in which we ensure that funding is identified for and spent on support to develop the possibilities for children with special educational needs in mainstream schools is an issue. The hon. Lady used the word velcroed. I am not sure that the tight ring-fencing she describes would be the most effective way in which we could develop the range of that support, but I agree that it is important that where support is identified, it is provided for those children and young people so that they can make the best of their educational opportunities.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am following the discussion with some interest because, as I said when we last met, the right hon. Lady and I sat on either side of a Committee room like this discussing special needs some time ago. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that the critical point in relation to the exchange that the Minister just enjoyed with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire concerns specificity and quantification in relation to what is provided to meet the stated need of the child. There is still some doubt about those matters, which was reflected by my hon. Friend’s intervention.

I wonder whether the Minister will take the opportunity to give us an absolute assurance that she is mindful of the importance of those two things. Perhaps they should be considered again, given what my hon. Friend said. It is a growing view that in some cases specificity and quantification are not what they might be.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

The issues of specificity and quantification relate specifically to the way in which provision is laid out in statements. That is not the point that the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire raised, but I agree that it is an important issue. We have made progress; we made some during the course of the legislation to which the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) refers. Where there are difficulties, as the hon. Lady demonstrated when she came to see me about the case to which she referred on Tuesday, and there is evidence that a local authority is not fulfilling the requirements and determining its statements systematically, the Department can investigate the matter and ensure that it is put right. That is what happened in the circumstances that the hon. Lady outlined.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

Has not the “Every Child Matters” agenda given local authorities a clear duty to ensure that money attached to a special needs child by way of a statement is properly spent by schools on the support necessary for that child? Is it not for decent local authorities to ensure that the money allocated is spent properly by schools, and to hold schools to account?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Accountability is necessary for schools, so that local authorities can ensure that funding is spent properly. In the end, we should measure and challenge the outcomes for children with special educational needs. That is crucial.

Local authorities have an important role to play in school organisation in the broadest sense. The legislation will increase that role. For example, local authorities will be able to propose alterations to existing special educational needs provision, and propose new special schools. Special schools will have the same opportunities as mainstream schools to acquire trust status, and the process for existing non-maintained and independent schools to enter the maintained sector with local authority approval will be simplified. The legislation will make important improvements and changes.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

The Minister is being very generous. Would it not assist proposals for new special schools or special units attached to mainstream schools if the funding were hypothecated—if it could be used only for children with special needs? Would it not assist in the proposal process if the people proposing a school knew that the funding would go towards that unit specifically? Would it not make for a more attractive option?

With regard to what the—

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. That is a long enough intervention.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I have responded to that issue. The statementing process enables the identification of special needs and funding for children and young people entering special schools.

In conclusion, we are determined to transform our school system into one that responds better to the needs and aspirations of parents. Every parent needs to be confident that the system delivers for their child, and every community should be confident that all parents can choose an excellent school. That is why we want a dynamic system, with weak schools quickly improved or replaced, coasting schools pushed to improve, and the best schools able to spread their ethos and success throughout the system. The clause will go a long way to ensure that that vision, which is a reality in some areas, is a reality in all. In light of my arguments, I hope that the hon. Member for Brent, East will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Chope. It will be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in the coming weeks.

I am grateful to the Minister for her clear response and for taking the trouble to go through all the arguments and address them individually. That is important in Committee. She made a jibe at the Conservative party’s range of opinions. I make no apology for that; it is part of the democratic process. However, we are united when it comes to key votes in the House, and we did not have 52 rebels in the wrong Lobby that particular day. We have a clear, overarching approach to policy. This party is determined to see a rise in standards in our schools. We want more good schools and more places in good schools. When 23 per cent. of secondary schools are officially regarded as underperforming—that is the view of the Department for Education and Skills—there clearly is a problem in our education system. We are four-square behind the Government in any attempt that they make to raise standards in those schools, which is my party’s No. 1 concern when it comes to education policy.

I was disappointed by the Minister’s response on the issue of surplus places, which arose in interventions during her speech. She spoke about giving advice and pointing a spotlight on the issue. I hope that she will use the powers later in the Bill to close poorly performing schools as a way of addressing the problem and not just take an insouciant approach to it. I hope that I have used “insouciant” correctly—with my education, I never know. Nor do I know the plural of ethos.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

You do. I told you.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Yes, the Minister told me.

We need to take dramatic action and close poorer performing schools. That would be a good way of dealing with the growing surplus places issue.

There was an interesting discussion about collaboration between schools to enable the establishment of vocational courses, which can be quite expensive, particularly with the large array of vocational courses—10 different categories of vocational training—that we envisage for the future. It makes me wonder about the original vision in the 1960s, when comprehensive schools were established. What thought was given to how a small school—or even a large one of, say, 2,000 pupils—would provide the full array of academic and less academic education that was envisaged in such schools? That is another example of the poor thinking that went on when those schools were established.

On Second Reading, Labour Members commented on the thinking at the time. I believe that it was the Chairman of the Education Committee who said that there should have been more thinking when those schools were established in the mid-1960s and onwards about how they would operate, and he was right. What was the vision for vocational education in comprehensive schools? It is clear that such thinking was not done, and we have suffered from the lack of vision in the 30 to 40 years since.

I take the right hon. Lady’s point on our amendment No. 88. As it was only a probing amendment, I am happy not to press it further.

The Minister said that she had spoken to many head teachers who are keen to acquire trusts. I am sure that there are many of them, and my party will do all that it can to promote trust status and to help her achieve the objectives of the White Paper, which states at paragraph 2.5:

“We will encourage all primary and secondary schools to be self-governing and to acquire a Trust.”

I do not know whether that is an example of the Government’s centralising tendency, but my party would support an exhortation to schools to be self-governing and to acquire a trust.

The Minister expressed support for the principle of spreading best practice but gave technical reasons for not including it in the Bill—that is disappointing—and then went on to say that best practice is being spread through collaboration. However, spreading best practice and collaboration are not quite the same thing. She is confusing two points. Collaboration is important, particularly if there is to be provision for a wide array of subjects, but there may be no schools in the top quartile of the value-added league tables in a particular geographical area. It would be difficult just through collaboration with neighbouring schools to spread best practice, as the only practice in schools in that area is practice that perhaps should not be spread, if those schools are languishing at the bottom of the value-added league table.

The gap between the best state schools and the worst state schools, or even between the best state schools and the average state school, is too wide. The Minister’s predecessor, who is now the Minister of Communities and Local Government, said that the gap was too wide. If one could apply the best practice of the best schools, it would be much narrower. That is the objective of Members on this side of the House.

It was good that the Minister said that the issue of special educational needs is important, that she agrees in principle with the amendment and that there should be a widespread choice of provision. However, I was disappointed by her view that that is already in the legislation. She said that local authorities are already required to have regard to ensuring that such provision is made and that specialist provision and special schools for those with moderate or severe learning difficulties must be kept under review. Having regard to and keeping under review is a weak requirement for local authorities and clause 37, which covers admissions, changes the phrase “have regard to” to “act in accordance with”. If “act in accordance with” is good enough for the admissions code, I would have thought that a more stringent requirement on local authorities to provide a diverse range of provision for those with special educational needs would also be necessary. I do not see why admissions is a more important issue than provision for special educational needs.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

This is an important point. The concerns that have been expressed in the Committee, with understandable passion because of the particular disadvantages faced by special needs children, strongly support my hon. Friend’s assertion. We must understand that provision for special needs children is a fundamental part of our considerations and every local authority must take its responsibility very seriously. My hon. Friend makes a strong point and I hope the Minister will consider it and table an amendment later if she cannot accept the one before us.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important intervention. There is real concern that local authorities are closing special schools, particularly those that specialise in helping children with moderate learning difficulties. One purpose of the amendment is to bring a halt to the closure of those special schools in particular.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

My local authority has closed a number of special schools, but only to rebuild and reorganise them. Surely it is wrong to follow a policy of recommending a moratorium on the closure of special schools when that would result only in stopping the building of new special schools to give the very best to our SEN children.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am always suspicious about closures to reorganise or to rebuild. Schools can be rebuilt without being closed. There are many clever contractors who can rebuild schools while they remain open. It is not always necessary to close them. I am not convinced that that is the motivation for many local authorities when those schools disappear.

Mary Creagh (Labour, Wakefield)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our discussion in Committee on Tuesday and the difficulties that our Chairman had demonstrate the dangers and wrongs of educating people with special needs—he mentioned the closure of schools for the deaf—in a segregated system? People who are educated in a segregated system, as we all were, have no awareness of the need to speak clearly and to remove their hands from their mouths so that people who are profoundly deaf from birth or who acquire hearing loss can hear them. Does he agree that the debate in the Committee on Tuesday and the difficulties of our Chairman illustrate that point exactly? That is why deaf people’s education should not be segregated.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I think it is for parents to decide. I do not know what is best for a particular child with hearing difficulties, nor do I know what is right for a child with moderate or severe learning difficulties. Parents know what is right for their children but if there is no provision for special schools it is difficult for them to exercise a choice.

The brief from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People gives all sorts of reasons for having specialist schools. For example, children might benefit from being in acoustically treated classrooms and I am not aware of any mainstream school that has such classrooms. Parents may wish their child to be in a peer group of other deaf children so that they can become friends and perhaps know each other throughout their lives. They may wish their child to be educated within a signing community, which uses British sign language. The child may have specialist problems such as learning difficulties in addition to hearing difficulties, and the combination of those two problems may necessitate a school that has specialist, trained teachers. It is up to the parents of the child to decide.

We must therefore ensure that there are available provisions that enable parents to make those decisions, and that the local authority makes the parents aware of them. Some parents are not even told of the existence of certain schools when they approach the local education authority about education provision for their children because that authority has an agenda that all children should be in mainstream schools. That may be right for some children but as the hon. Lady hinted, it is not right for hon. Members or local authorities to have an agenda that all children, regardless of their particular needs, should be in mainstream schools because we want to educate ourselves about how to deal with, or talk to, someone who has hearing difficulties. That is not the purpose of education provision; its purpose is to provide the best education for every child’s needs.

Mary Creagh (Labour, Wakefield)

We have talked about education lasting a lifetime. Children in mainstream schools can learn to use sign language. If people are to enter mainstream employment, they will not be in exclusively deaf and signing environments and eventually they will either have to teach their colleagues to sign or learn how to lip read.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. Interventions must be brief. If the hon. Lady wants to make a speech, she will be able to do so in due course.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I have made my point, that preparing children who have very severe problems for life in the real world is a specialist form of teaching, which requires long training and expertise. In many mainstream schools, that expertise does not exist, and even if it did it would be very expensive. Some parents feel that they want that expertise for their child and we should provide it communally, as a state.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

I am concerned about the hon. Gentleman’s comments and the policy of the moratorium on the closure of special schools. Do the Conservatives propose to preserve in aspic exactly the present set-up for special schools? Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that with medical advances there are often different categories of disability that need more specialised specialist schools? There is agreement on both sides of the Committee that we need specialist schools; the question is how they are configured. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that they should never be closed and reconfigured, the better to meet the needs of groups of children with certain disabilities?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Perhaps. The hon. Lady is right, but that does not mean that there should be a policy of closing these schools, which is what is happening. The purpose of the amendment is to extend parental choice.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I have much sympathy with the words of the amendment, but I am worried about some of what the hon. Gentleman said. Can he assure me that the amendment includes giving full support within a mainstream school for a child with special needs if that is the most appropriate way of educating that child? The hon. Gentleman’s words are not making that clear.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I thought that my words were making it clear. Mainstream education is right for some children; there is no question about that. But these are matters for parents, and parents cannot have genuine choice if there is a policy to close special schools. No one is talking about closing specialist provision within mainstream schools; the debate is about whether the special schools for those with moderate learning difficulties should remain open. We believe very strongly that they should, but not necessarily preserved in aspic; they can be expanded and new ones can be provided that have the specialism that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch mentioned. We believe strongly that there should not be a policy of closure, and I will therefore divide the Committee on amendment No. 161.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I shall respond briefly on amendments Nos. 97 and 98. The clause is one of the shortest in the Bill, yet it is arguably the most profoundly important, as it deals with two of the Bill’s central concepts.

Education and Inspections Bill - Standing Committee E

Clause 2 - Duties in relation to diversity and choice

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 161, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, after ‘schools’, insert

‘, including a range of provision for children with special education needs’.

No. 178, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, leave out from ‘schools’ to end of line 13 and insert—

‘(b)securing diversity of educational and curriculum provision within schools and colleges;

(c)increasing opportunities for parental and pupil choice; and

(d)value for money.’.

No. 5, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring the spread of best practice adopted in the best performing schools.

(3B)For the purposes of section 14(3A), “best performing schools” means schools in the first quartile nationally of the value added measure of school performance.’.

No. 88, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring that at least 10 per cent. of school places are provided by one or more of the following types of school—

(i)foundation school with a foundation;

(ii)academy;

(iii)voluntary-aided or voluntary-controlled school.’.

No. 97, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring that the education provided in schools in its area shall contribute to social inclusion and community cohesion in that area and promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups.’.

No. 98, in clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert

‘and

(c)ensuring fair access for all pupils in its area to opportunities for education according to their educational needs and wellbeing.’.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I shall emphasise the point that I made before the break. The length of clause 2 is inversely proportionate to its significance in the Bill. That causes me concern for two reasons: first because the concepts of diversity and choice need to be defined more fully, and secondly because I am not sure that the Government have adequately distinguished in the Bill between the ends that they wish to ensure and the means by which they believe they can deliver those ends.

I made the point when speaking to amendments Nos. 97 and 98 that there is ambiguity about the concept of choice. It could mean simply the extension of the range of alternatives or it could mean that each parent has the capacity to ensure that their child obtains a place in their first-preference school. I also wish to say a little about diversity. It seems to me that the objective of Government policy is not simply to extend the range of diversity in the governance structures of our schools but to achieve greater innovation in educational practice, which is the most likely way to raise standards.

It may well be that more diversity in the structures of governance and ownership will lead to that innovation, but not necessarily. There are other forms of diversity that could do so equally well or even better. The point about ends and means is significant. Had we been drafting the Bill from scratch and had more time to consider the issue, we might have focused on innovation and quality as objectives of Government policy rather than simply on choice and diversity as the means of achieving those objectives.

My right hon. Friend the Minister responded thoroughly and fairly to the points on fair access that I raised on amendment No. 98. Fair access is an important counter-balancing principle to the focus simply on diversity and choice, because there are enormous risks to a policy that focuses only on widening the range of schools and prioritising an untrammelled version of parental choice. Choice needs to operate within a framework that guarantees not only that all parents have a choice, but that the choice policy works to the advantage of parents and children. My right hon. Friend responded fairly on the issue, and I look forward to seeing the fruit of her further deliberations on it as we move towards Report.

I am not sure that my right hon. Friend has responded fully to the issues of social inclusion and community cohesion referred to in amendment No. 97. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) made an interesting intervention this morning about the importance of ending educational apartheid, on which I completely agree with him. He quoted the French system of education as a model. I share his enthusiasm for many aspects of the public services in France, but it is not an example of the absence of apartheid, given the riots in the northern suburbs of Paris and Lyon last November, the nightly demonstrations against Prime Minister Villepin’s new employment laws over the past few days and the general strike on Tuesday. France is not the best example at the moment of an education system that has produced an absence of social apartheid. I nevertheless strongly support the principles behind the objectives and secular basis of the French education system.

I shall dwell a moment or two longer on the question of segregation and social inclusion and exclusion. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the nature of school governance has a direct relationship to levels of social segregation. As I understand it, areas with a much higher proportion of wholly or partially selective schools, or of voluntary aided and foundation schools, have a higher level of social segregation. Between 1999 and 2004, levels of social segregation rose in 60 per cent. of English local education authorities. During that time, the areas with the greatest increase in social segregation were those that had the greatest proportion of pupils in voluntary aided schools.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Will the hon. Gentleman identify how that conclusion on greater social segregation was reached? By what means was that conclusion arrived at?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

That was a conclusion of recent research submitted to the Department to supplement its own research. In a moment, I will return to the Department’s research.

Significantly, the emerging conclusion is that there is a direct relationship between social segregation and schools that are their own admissions authority—whether they are foundation or voluntary aided schools is less relevant. Admittedly, they operate within the current admissions code of practice, but that code is fairly weak and the Bill includes measures to strengthen it. That relationship is the key factor.

That conclusion cannot be ignored—it is related directly to the debate about the impact of choice and diversity, which is at the heart of the Bill. Given that the Department has received evidence from research that it has commissioned, and that the Department conducted, and continues to conduct, its own research—the conclusions of which will be made available soon—will my right hon. Friend the Minister take it upon herself to make available, if not to the public, certainly to the Committee, the results of the Department’s research on the relationship between own admissions authorities and levels of social segregation, before we end our deliberations on the Bill?

It is absolutely vital that we have access to that evidence before we draw our final conclusions on the extent to which diversity in forms of governance should be adopted in the Bill. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend can take on board those issues in addition to that of fair access.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Chope. It will be a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. We have had an interesting debate. The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) made fascinating speeches today and on Tuesday, and I enjoyed listening to his points.

I thank the Minister for largely responding fairly and in considerable detail to the points so far raised in the debate. I hope that that approach will continue because it is tremendously helpful. I repeat my thanks to the Minister—I like to be generous when generosity is due.

I made it clear from the outset that amendments Nos. 59 and 178 were probing amendments intended to put on the record exactly what the Government meant when they discussed choice and diversity. The points made by the hon. Member for Bury, North were helpful, particularly the link to amendment No. 98 on fair access. The points that he made a moment ago about own admissions authority are critical. On choice, we must continue to ask: choice for whom and by whom? Are we talking about choice for parents, or for schools to choose their own attendance, which is inevitable when parents choose between popular and unpopular schools?

The Minister responded helpfully to the points that we raised about competing priorities and the difficulty for local authorities choosing between choice and diversity, and efficiency and value for money. I thank the Minister for putting on the record her determination to leave that decision up to local authorities. That was particularly helpful in light of the provocation from the Conservative Front Benchers, who talked about a marketplace in education. I shall remember those points and come back to them later, when we discuss the Secretary of State’s veto in respect of the setting up of community schools. It was helpful to hear the Minister discuss the importance of localism in relation to our amendments and amendment No. 88.

However, we have not adequately addressed how a model of diversity between schools will contribute to the end point of diversity within schools—or at least within the education system—which the hon. Member for Bury, North mentioned. The problem with choice at the moment is that there is none, if it is choice between a school that is perceived to be failing and a school that is perceived to be succeeding.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) was trying to make a point about choice; choice will become less important if all schools were perceived locally to be popular and good. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) misrepresented those comments as meaning that parents should not want their children to go to good schools. That was not my hon. Friend’s point; his point was that the result would be less clamour for a particular school and more of a leisurely, thoughtful process of choosing between the ethos or ethoi—or whatever the correct Greek term is—of particular schools. That would be preferable to choosing between a school perceived to be succeeding, and a school perceived to be failing.

Under amendment No. 178 we raised a point about trying to include diversity within schools and colleges. The Minister responded, perfectly correctly, that the local education authority does not make provision for funding for the kind of courses provided in colleges. We put that provision in quite deliberately, because we hoped that later, when the Government came to consider a fair funding system between further education and sixth form colleges—that was mentioned in the White Paper—they might consider making local education authorities fund all that provision for people up to the age of 19, and then perhaps separating that. That is one possibility that they could consider, and we hope that the technical funding group will consider it, too.

I very much support the points made by the hon. Member for Bury, North, under amendment No. 98, but I will not press to a Division our amendments Nos. 59 and 178, which, as I said, are probing amendments. We shall attempt to return to the other points on choice and diversity later.

On the other amendments tabled by Conservative Members, we, along with the Government, have great sympathy for trying to get something about the principle of spreading good practice into the Bill, but we do not consider the wording in amendment No. 5 helpful. It is very specific, and as the hon. Member for Bury, North, said on Tuesday, there is considerable debate about the information that should be included in a statistical analysis of contextual value added, so I suggest that the amendment is perhaps not a helpful form of wording.

On amendment No. 88, as I have already stated, we as a localist party see no reason to attempt to inflict such a centralising diktat from Whitehall on local authorities. As I think the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) said on Tuesday, that would be difficult to do in many areas. I suspect that it would be particularly difficult if we were to include primary schools in that overall analysis.

We support the principle behind amendment No. 161. A difficulty that I had while listening to the debate was that although I was very supportive of the words, as the debate progressed the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) began to talk me out of voting for the amendment. I understand that he wishes to press the amendment to a Division later. I put it on the record that although we are supportive of the wording, which I think has been carefully drafted, in that it offers a range of provision, we do not support the Conservatives’ position on a moratorium; we think that that is unhelpful and, as hon. Members mentioned earlier, it has caused considerable distress.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned to me outside Committee that she had experienced a similar situation; a special school was being closed in order to be refurbished and rebuilt, and it caused considerable angst in the local community when others attempted to make the point that that school was in fact being closed.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I was disappointed by the hon. Lady’s comments on amendment No. 161. I received an e-mail today from the head teacher of a special school for children with learning difficulties. It said that there is a book by Dr. Michael Farrell called “Celebrating the Special School”,

“which is critical of inclusion where it implies transferring pupils from special schools to mainstream schools on ideological grounds rather than by reference to their academic progress and personal development.”

The head teacher said that the book, which has a foreword by Baroness Warnock, should be compulsory reading for all Ministers and civil servants responsible for schools policy. I hope that the Minister will grab a copy of the book and read it before deciding future policy on special schools.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

As I was saying, I am in support of the amendment but not the nature of the debate. We are happy to support the amendment, but I take the Minister’s point. The provision is included in section 14 of the Education Act 1996. The wording of the Conservatives’ amendment would strengthen that, but I should like to place it on the record that we do not support the nature of the debate preceding it. We are quite happy to support the wording, which we think is broadly helpful.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I had not intended to speak again at this stage, but was encouraged to do so by the discussion on special education that emerged from our consideration of amendment No. 161, which stands in my name and the names of my hon. Friends. I have no doubt that Committee members from all parties share my profound concern for the educational opportunities of children with special needs. Of course we all want those children to have the best possible chances, and I know that the Ministers share that concern.

Such concern is not the preserve of our age. When the then Secretary of State Rab Butler introduced the landmark Education Act 1944, he said in the House that

“children with slight disabilities may be taught by special methods adapted to their individual needs in ordinary primary and secondary schools, but for the more seriously disabled we look for an extension of the present inadequate provision of special schools both through local authorities and voluntary endeavour”.—[Official Report, 19 January 1944; Vol. 396, c. 213.]

That was an enormous boost to the development of special schools that took place afterwards.

Despite the consensus and the shared passion that we have for the opportunities of disadvantaged children, to do the subject justice we must be frank about the more recent damage done by the orthodox thinking that led to and followed from the Warnock report and the legislation that flowed from it. We must be honest about it. A view developed that with rare exceptions, children with special needs should be educated in mainstream schools. I remember it well. In Nottinghamshire, the Labour local authority adopted the policy with enthusiasm. I opposed it then, and I have opposed it consistently since.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would accept that it is not policy at the moment to teach and provide for children with special educational needs only in mainstream education. A wide range of provisions are available, from specialist units in mainstream schools to highly adapted special schools.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. That is a long enough intervention.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. She is right. There is good practice in mainstream schools that have developed special units and in special schools. There is good practice in mainstream schools without special units where the needs of the child who has been integrated into the mainstream can be reasonably accommodated without significant compromise.

Let us be straightforward about it. A number of disabled children who would not have been educated at mainstream schools are now educated there to their benefit and, I suspect, to the benefit of the schools. That does not alter the fact that however well intentioned some of the advocates of the policy of integration may have been, in essence the view that dominated after Warnock and after the Education Act 1981 was not inspired by a proper understanding of the best interests of the child. It was an extension of the egalitarian thinking that permeated many of the educational establishment’s preoccupations for too long.

As the hon. Lady says, many children with special needs do well in mainstream schools and there are particular advantages to integration, not least the better understanding of our disabled fellows by children who become their schoolfriends—I think that the point was made earlier. There is no doubt that that occurs and that it is beneficial to all concerned.

However, for many special needs children a special school offers the best chance of achieving their educational potential. I think of schools such as the Garth school in my constituency, which deals with children with profound challenges of a variety of kinds with unparalleled dedication. I think of schools such as the Priory school, which I was able to visit recently when its twin special school from France was visiting. It provides a rarely matched degree of dedication, security and care without ever compromising the expectations of students. I think of Gosberton House school, which is also in my constituency, and the visit that I paid it a few years ago. On meeting me alongside the head teacher, a small child of indeterminate age—I guessed that his development was affected by his disability—raised his arms for a hug, which of course I gave him. Had he done that, seeking reassurance from an older child, for the first time in the playground of many mainstream schools it would have been the last time that he did so.

However much it offends the bourgeois-liberal, politically correct sensibilities of integrationists, many special needs children would not enjoy a happy, peaceful or productive life in the atmosphere of many large comprehensive schools. Special schools work for many and they deserve our support, as do the parents who choose them for their children.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

I thank the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, which I believe is in Lincolnshire.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

It is in Lincolnshire; you must come.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

I believe that the hon. Gentleman might be the MP for a relative of mine.

I remain puzzled by the arguments about special education put by those on the Conservative Front Bench. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether he believes that local authorities and schools should have freedoms over decisions about these issues in their area or whether he believes that such decisions should be determined by Whitehall diktat? As far as I am aware, there is no Whitehall diktat saying that special schools should be closed and that integration is the only way forward.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am making a case for a variety of provision. I hoped that I had made that clear. The truth is that different kinds of schools serve different children’s needs most appropriately. The essence of our argument is that choice should prevail and it should lie with parents. I know that the hon. Lady is an articulate exponent of the bourgeois-liberal cause—[Interruption.] Mr. Chope, I have her number; she is undoubtedly that, if she is anything. I must say to her that we argue for parental choice against a background of many special school closures during the period that I have described—the post-Warnock period. In some areas of the country it is extremely difficult for a parent who wishes their special needs child to access a place in a special school to get one. I am not happy about that and I am sure that she is not either, although perhaps she will now intervene to tell me that she is.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

I want to intervene to ask the question again. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the precise provision of special schools should be set by a Whitehall diktat? Does he not believe that there should be some local decision making based, for example, on analysis of population projections of children with particular needs and collaboration with other neighbouring local authorities to provide excellent schools that serve a number of education authorities? I would have thought that such things would be down to local decision making, not Whitehall diktat.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I do not argue for such things to be determined at the centre. The hon. Lady will have studied the Bill in some detail; there is barely a part or clause of it that does not involve some kind of Whitehall diktat. As we have made clear, we broadly support the thrust of the Bill. However, it does not give all the power of Whitehall to local communities, still less to local authorities, however much the Minister wishes to assuage her critics on the Labour Benches.

Such matters should be determined by demand, the choice of parents and the needs of children. I am sure that, given the assent being offered, we can find a happy compromise around those timeless principles. As I said, special schools work for many. They deserve our support, as do the parents and children who take advantage of them. We should not just save special schools, but build new ones where they are warranted and wanted. Wherever they are needed, we should make a brave and bold case for such special education and inject the same passion into that case as we have on behalf of all special needs children. As I freely acknowledged, this is a non-partisan matter, and a passion shared by people from across the political spectrum, from the Labour party to the Conservative party—

Sarah Teatherrose—

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

—and even, in some of its quarters, the minor party.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 3 - Duty to consider parental representations

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in clause 3, page 2, line 22, after ‘time’, insert

‘, such time not to exceed two months,’.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 7, in clause 3, page 2, line 28, at end insert—

‘(1A)The consideration referred to in subsection (1)(a) shall include consideration by the local authority cabinet member responsible for education, such consideration to be evidenced by a minute signed by such person certifying that he has personally considered the representation and is responsible for the response taken by the authority.’.

No. 11, in clause 3, page 2, line 36, at end insert

‘within the last five years.’.

No. 8, in clause 3, page 2, line 36, at end insert—

‘(3A)Where a local authority receives a representation that appears to it to be frivolous and vexatious in accordance with subsection (3)(a), the authority shall, within a reasonable time, provide the parent with a statement setting out the reasons for being of that opinion.’.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I now realise that amendment No. 6 is a pale imitation of the one I should have tabled. It seeks to define the time within which the local authority has to respond to representations from parents. Some local authorities might simply sit on such representations for months on end and not bother to address parents’ concerns.

Clause 3 is excellent and in many ways ought not to be necessary. In theory, it should not be necessary to prescribe that an elected body has the duty to respond to representations, but the reality is that some local authorities have become divorced from society and the concerns of parents, and that they have become nothing more than state-run bureaucracies.

This clause is one of many in the Bill that one could describe as prescriptive and centralising. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) has said that the thrust of her party’s policies is against that, but the Bill is full of many similar clauses that do precisely that. This clause forces local authorities to respond within a reasonable time, and this amendment defines that reasonable time as two months.

However, having read the illustrative guidance the Minister sent to all Committee members, I have learned that I and my hon. Friends were wet when we proposed that period of two months. Paragraph 23 states:

“As a minimum we would expect local authorities to respond to any parental representations within four weeks”—

in other words, in half the time we propose in our amendment. I simply ask the Minister to agree to add to the clause a reference to that four-week period. If she were to do that, that would certainly receive our support on Report. Can she give a commitment now to introduce such an amendment? This shows how useful and valuable it is for the Government to issue such guidance alongside Bills.

There are other useful statements in that illustrative guidance, and some of them are so useful that it would be helpful if they were added to the Bill. For instance, there is the issue of what constitutes a parental representation. Is that a letter, or a generalised complaint, or does it have to be a formal representation in some specified form? The guidance points out:

“Research on parental preferences carried out in 2001 showed that almost 3 in 10 parents ... did not apply to their nearest state school.”

It also points out that

“the local authority should exercise its judgement in considering whether the approach is a representation from parents requiring a response under the new duty.”

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

On the point about three in 10 parents not applying to their nearest school, presumably part of the reason for that is that their nearest school has selective admissions criteria of one kind or another that exclude their children. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a powerful case to enshrine in law the right of every parent to have their child attend their nearest school?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

No. This research says that they did not apply to their nearest school. [Interruption.] No, it does not imply that they applied and were turned down because of the criteria of the school, or because they had been interviewed and found not to be of sufficient calibre to go to the school. These parents decided, on the basis of what they learned and experienced of the school—for example, its results and the behaviour of its pupils as they arrived and left, and what they heard from parents of children who are already at the school, which is the best form of information about schools—that they did not wish even to apply to that school because they were not happy with it.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. I am concerned that we are getting into a clause stand part debate. This is a narrow group of amendments. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will return to the matters that they address.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am happy to do that. I will turn from the point of the hon. Member for Bury, North, but I believe that this is about dissatisfaction with the schools.

The guidance states:

“Given the wide range of circumstances applying in individual local authorities, we do not believe it is appropriate to specify a minimum number of parents whose representation would ‘trigger’ the new duty to respond. As a general rule, we would expect parental representations and local authority responses to be monitored by the authority at the highest official and political levels.”

That brings me on to amendment No. 7, which specifies that the representations should be considered

“by the local authority cabinet member responsible for education”,

and that he or she should sign a document stating that they had “personally considered the representation” and that they had agreed with

“the response taken by the authority.”

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

This seems to be absolutely vital because it engages politicians in a process that might otherwise be the preserve of officials. From your long experience in local government, Mr. Chope, you will know—as will other Committee members—that too often officials take decisions without the full understanding of politicians. This is an excellent clause in that respect, and I hope that my hon. Friend will make that case rather more fully.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Of course, many such decisions have been deliberately delegated by the full council to executive officials of councils; the amendment would prevent that from happening. It would mean that the decision must be considered personally by the cabinet member responsible for education. Such an approach ensures that representations are taken seriously by a senior elected official, not just dismissed out of hand by an official lower down the chain. The idea of having such documents signed comes from the United States. There are some decisions about which the US President has to be briefed personally for a specified length of time, or at least that is what “The West Wing” says happens occasionally. [Interruption.] Wherever the idea comes from, I think that it is a good one. I am delighted that the guidance insists on consideration at the highest official level. It says:

“As a general rule, we would expect parental representations and local authority responses to be monitored by the authority at the highest official and political levels.”

I fully agree with that guidance, but it would be better to have it specified in the Bill.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of this, but in my local authority area of Hackney, the council is not also the education authority. We have the Learning Trust, which was set up as the education authority to deal with the day-to-day management of schools. There is a cabinet member for education, but her job, along with the elected mayor, is to set strategic direction of education in Hackney and to take parents’ representations about that issue. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that that divide between the political direction and the existing structure for running schools should be broken?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Those matters are for locally elected people to decide, but my view is that too often in local authorities, decisions are not taken at the highest level. When that happens there is no mechanism for parental concerns to be reflected in the education strategy of their local authority. It is terribly important that it should do that because otherwise there would be no democratic method by which parents can express their concerns and see action taken. It is that lack of connection between parental concerns and political action that leads to people getting disillusioned with politics and the democratic process. They say, “What is the point of voting? It does not have any effect on the decisions that are taken that affect my life.” We have to ensure that we make that connection again between what people are concerned about and what happens. That is why I mentioned the proportion of parents who do not apply to their nearest school. That relates to dissatisfaction with the quality of the school more than anything else, rather than the school excluding applications from certain categories of children or parents.

Amendments Nos. 11 and 8 deal with the issue of repetitious and frivolous representations. The Bill says that the local authority does not have to consider representations from parents that it considers frivolous or vexatious. The dictionary definition of frivolous refers to “trifling; not serious”, while the definition of vexatious refers to “causing annoyance or worry”. The legal case of the Attorney-General v. Barker in 2000 suggests that it may be reasonable to treat as vexatious a request that is designed to subject a public authority to inconvenience, harassment or expense. That could be an open door for a local authority to regard all representations by parents as frivolous because many parents understandably get very emotional about their children’s education. Such representations might easily be regarded by an unsympathetic official as vexatious.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. Like me, he knows that there are many good local councils and good local councillors, who give their time to the service of their communities. Is it not more the case that local authorities and parents who have a concern might find themselves in dispute? Without clarity in the Bill, we might see an unhappy tendency for cases to be challenged, for matters to go to court and for parents to become dissatisfied. Even when a local authority is doing its job dutifully, the lack of clarity in the Bill might lead to that sort of unhappy circumstance, which is not in anyone’s interest.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend makes a good point very well, and I fully agree. Amendment No. 11 insists that if the local authority takes the view that a particular representation is vexatious or frivolous, it has to set out its reasons. There is precedent for that approach in part 64 of the criminal procedure rules:

“If the judge considers that the application is frivolous, he may refuse to state a case and shall in that case, if the applicant so requires, cause a certificate stating the reasons for the refusal to be given to him.”

The judge has to write, saying why he regards the action as frivolous. The same approach should be taken in respect of local authorities that refuse to consider a parent’s representations.

Paragraph 38 of the guidance gives a little bit of help:

“The local authority is not under an obligation to respond to representations which appear to it to be frivolous or vexatious, that is, which are clearly and evidently futile or misconceived or that are brought forward from a mischievous or obstructive motive. Nor is it obliged to respond to a representation which is the same or substantially the same as one received previously from the same person. The authority is expected, however, to exercise reasonable judgment in deciding whether to consider a parental representation.”

The guidance says that it is good practice to reply to such a representation, even when the local authority believes that it is unreasonable to determine it.

The amendment would also limit the exception for local authorities not being required to respond where the representation came from the same person, or was similar to a representation sent for a different purpose within the previous five years. I hope that that limitation will be too lax and the Minister will insist on two or three years, which would be welcome. In some ways, the guideline is better than my amendment, because it refers to “changes of circumstances” as sufficient reason to allow parental representations of a similar kind. Of course, that could be within a significantly shorter period than five years.

The guidance also sets out some helpful expectations about the help that parents can receive from the local authority:

“Where the level of parental demand for a new school appears to be considerable and where a group of parent promoters come forward then the local authority should offer help and support for parents in developing their proposals. The presumption is that the local authority should not respond to parents on the basis that, although a proposal for a new school appeared to have backing from parents, the actual proposal was under-developed, unworkable or in practical respects sub-standard. It is the responsibility of local authorities to work with parents to bring viable proposals through the”

decision-making process.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

That last point is vital. There will be many circumstances where an embryonic school will develop only if it has the sort of advice and support that my hon. Friend recommends. It is right that that provision is included in the Bill, but it needs to be given emphasis and teeth, because where parents and the community are seeking to develop a new school, they will desperately need such guidance if their ideas are to come to fruition.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend is right. If parents came forward with a representation that was not fully costedand did not have tax schedules or technical specifications, it could be regarded as frivolous. However, that would be wrong. Parents should not have to provide that level of detail; they should express their concern as consumers and users of local facilities. It is right that the guidance sets that out, but it would be nice if we had something of that kind in the Bill. According to the guidance:

“The kinds of material help and support which local authorities should offer includes dedicated consultancy support to work through the process of arriving at a proposal and steering it through the decision-making process.”

That is welcome. The guidance also says:

“Many school proposals fall at the most basic hurdle—finding suitable buildings and site, and, where needed, securing sufficient capital funding.”

Local authorities should assist parents with those sorts of things, including locating a site—perhaps one that it already owns, or even an existing school that is underperforming. That information is helpful and needs to be highlighted as much as possible for parents. Perhaps local authorities do not publicise the fact that they are going to offer such assistance to parents who are concerned, but they should.

The guidance also sets out a useful complaints procedure:

“If parents believe that their local authority has not taken proper account of its duties under section 14A of the 2006 Act”—

I think that it means the 1996 Act—

“then they may complain to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State might ask the Schools Commissioner to investigate whether the authority is in default of its duties and advise her on the use of the powers of intervention.”

That gives me the opportunity to ask the Minister to say something about the schools commissioner. The regulatory impact assessment mentions the commissioner at paragraph 1.17. It says:

“The Schools Commissioner will be charged with monitoring local authorities’ effectiveness in carrying out their modernised role, and in particular their new duties to promote choice and diversity and respond to parental demand.”

So far as I can see, there is no reference to the schools commissioner in the Bill, yet the post features strongly in the guidance and in the regulatory impact assessment. Will the Minister explain the statutory basis for the commissioner? Will he or she operate under existing law, or will he or she simply be an appointed civil servant in the Department for Education and Skills? Is the commissioner a job description within her Department rather than a new officer with duties to Parliament?

The amendments would significantly strengthen the Bill. They operate in the same direction as those provisions that the Government seek to deliver. The amendments would encourage if not force local authorities to take representations from parents seriously, to respond rapidly to them and not to get into the mindset of dismissing such representations as frivolous or vexatious, just because they happened to be inconvenient to local authorities in the conduct of their affairs.

We have too many underperforming schools. Some 23 per cent. of schools are underperforming. It is less than but similar to the percentage of parents who do not apply to their local school. That is no coincidence; the two are related. I hope that the Bill will deal with that. The amendments would strengthen rather than weaken the clause.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

This is another set of highly centralising amendments from the Conservatives. I do not have a particular problem with the clause, but it is largely superfluous. I should have thought that any local authority worth its salt would do what is laid out in the clause anyway. There is nothing wrong with it, but I wonder whether we have begun from a perspective of not trusting local government whatever. If local government is not up to the job, it will get voted out. That is the point of democratic accountability. If an authority fails to respond to enough parental complaints, it will get a reputation for it.

Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 are very much in that vein. They attempt to teach grandmothers to suck eggs, and they are entirely superfluous. Amendment No. 8 is largely good practice and it seems to be perfectly acceptable. I do not have a problem with it, but its provisions are common sense. The Conservatives begin from the perspective of wanting to put everything from the guidance in the Bill. The point of guidance is that it is different from legislation. Things can be written into guidance which cannot be in the Bill. I should like to test the Conservatives’ presumption that people are more likely to obtain the information easily if it is in the Bill, than they are if it is written into guidance.

We were happy to support amendment No. 9, because it is important that the Government publish their guidance. Personally, I am not bothered whether they stick it in the Library, on the website or anywhere else, but it is important that it is published and that the expectation is that as soon as it is published, it is made available so that people know where to get hold of it. It is important to note that there is a role for guidance. We do not have to have everything enshrined in legislation. It would be highly over-regulatory.

From a legal perspective, I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether it is possible to act in accordance with guidance anyway. I suspect that from a legal perspective, it is not.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The hon. Lady is addressing amendment No. 9, which we shall consider in the next group.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

Forgive me, Mr. Chope. You are entirely correct. I think that we have changed the order. I am most terribly sorry—I have muddled all my amendments and have them in the wrong order. We shall return to the helpful point that I was making. On a point of clarification, are we considering amendments nos. 6, 7, 11 and 8 and then stopping? [Hon. Members: “Yes.”] That makes life a lot easier.

Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 are superfluous, amendment No. 8 is good practice, and I have a problem with amendment No. 11, which removes power from parents. It is possible that parents will have more than one child at a school and may wish to complain about a systemic failure more than once. Saying that any complaints made more than once

“within the last five years”

should be treated as vexatious or frivolous is unacceptable and would prevent parents from campaigning to improve standards in their local areas. Therefore, we oppose amendment No. 11.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Clause 3 is important and useful. It is drafted in the context of concern about the lack of responsiveness of some local authorities and the lack of capacity of some to raise standards in their schools. Therefore, the shift towards giving parents greater power and influence is useful. Some of the Conservatives’ amendments are attractive—the ideas to set specified time limits and to have certifying documents signed by local authority cabinet members have some merits.

The point is, however, that the shift of influence to parents would take place in the context of the strength of local democracy and the growing disengagement from it of some citizens. I am not sure that under the guise of devolving greater power to parents and enabling them to use other mechanisms to bypass the normal democratic process, we would necessarily strengthen trust and confidence. In reality, we would be encouraging a form of direct action. Although direct action has a place in democratic societies, it should not be allowed to override the normal process of the ballot box. I mention that because it is a risk involved with policy to strengthen the role of parents.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Gentleman is right that we are determined to give parents more authority. The Government share that view. Indeed, when challenged on the contrast between decentralising power through the established mechanisms of local government and giving power directly to the people, the Prime Minister made the case that decentralisation of power can take many forms and that enlivening and empowering people is not necessarily achieved by conventional means. It can be achieved through other means.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I agree completely. Decentralisation of power can take many forms, and I am in favour of diversification. However, giving a smaller number of people the power to achieve change through a mechanism other than the ballot box can undermine the majority of the population’s confidence in the use of the ballot box. I make that point in reference to amendment No. 10, which would—

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. Amendment No. 10 has not been selected. It is not in order for the hon. Gentleman to refer to it. Perhaps he will wish to speak to the next group of amendments because, at the moment, his remarks do not relate in any way to amendments Nos. 6, 7, 11 and 8.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Although I take your point on board, Mr. Chairman, I am trying desperately to find a way round it to allow me to make mine about amendment No. 10. Perhaps I should phrase it in more general terms in regard to amendments Nos. 6, 7, 11 and 8.

In the context of parents making representations and the time that local authorities have to respond, we must draw the distinction between a group of parents getting their own way and securing their personal and fairly limited objectives and the community’s being able to influence the shape of the provision of education in the neighbourhood or district as a whole.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept, though, that the amendment is about trying to insist on best practice? When he is elected at a general election, he does not just disappear for four or five years and then come back and stand again. During those years, he and I and all members of the Committee spend a lot of time talking to all kinds of people in the constituency to ensure that we are aware of opinion on every subject on which we must debate and vote in this place. The intention of the amendment is simply that that is how local authorities should act, and that in matters of education policy they should, in particular, talk to local parents.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I understand that, and I agree and sympathise; but the process of democracy would be undermined, not strengthened, by a proposition such as the one included in amendment No. 10—which has not been selected for debate with this group of amendments—that lobbying by a minimum number of parents for a particular change in the structure of the local system should give rise to an absolute right.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman gives way to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton it might help if I drew his attention to the fact that when we reach clause 7 we will come to an amendment very similar to amendment No. 10. It is on the selection list, and it may be better to rehearse this debate then, rather than now.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am grateful for your advice, Mr. Chope, but perhaps I may make a further, different point in response to the hon. Gentleman’s earlier remarks about the proportion of parents who do not choose that their children should attend the local school—the three out of 10 figure that he quoted earlier. Those parents’ reason for not sending their children to the local school may be their preference not to do so. My point is that it is not possible to conclude from the figures that that is the only reason.

There are other reasons why people cannot send their children to their local school. They may be specifically excluded by the admissions process. Alternatively, the parents may not choose those schools, because they judge that their children would be excluded by it. I wanted to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he agrees that it would be of great benefit to most parents if an absolute right for children to attend the nearest school were enshrined in law.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

It is worth reminding hon. Members that clause 3, as we have heard, requires local authorities to consider and respond to parental representations about how they carry out their duties under section 14 of the Education Act 1996, including the new duties to secure diversity and increase opportunities for parental choice in the provision of schools.

With those provisions, the clause forms the legislative basis for the new role of the local authority as parents’ and pupils’ champion and as the commissioner, rather than the provider, of a range of quality schools. We are determined that the duty should give parents the right to be heard by their local authority on the subject of schools provision in their area, and to receive a considered and proportionate response.

The effect of the clause, and associated statutory guidance, will be to give a greater voice to parents who are concerned about the choice of schools available to their children. It does not—to allude to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North—cut across the democratically accountable role of local authorities. In fact, it is precisely our emphasis on the local authority as parents’ and pupils’ champion that strengthens the argument that it will be necessary for electors to consider whether their representative will be likely to be able to fulfil that role.

We have, of course, explicitly covered the other issue that was a part of my hon. Friend’s concerns, of whether we are effectively allowing a few articulate parents to bypass the system. The argument is a little like the one I made about choice this morning. It is already much easier for small groups of articulate parents to have their views represented in the system. We are trying, through this clause and the associated guidance, to ensure that local authorities actively look beyond such parents. I refer hon. Members to paragraph 16 of the draft guidance, which says that many local authorities are successfully reaching out to the majority of parents in their areas. Some are leading the way in innovatively engaging the full range of their local residents. In future all local authorities will need to think creatively about capturing the views of socially and economically disadvantaged parents, fathers, mothers and other carers, those who are not fluent in English and those who are otherwise hard to reach.

It is because we want to broaden the reach in that way that we are emphasising the clause and the guidance that goes with it.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I welcome the tone of the Minister’s remarks. Does she agree that the measure would be of significant benefit if it were to get more parents interested in the education of their children? That would benefit their own children and other people’s children as well.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If there has been a key theme throughout the development of the White Paper and the legislation, it has been the engagement of parents. We need a more sophisticated understanding of how that engagement would work but it would encompass everything from what we have said about the rights of parents to have better information about the progress of their own children and their ability to engage with the school through to how we can ensure that local authorities fulfil their new duty to be responsive—in general terms—to parents’ representations about the system. The hon. Gentleman’s analysis is correct.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I was heartened to hear what my right hon. Friend said about needing to think more creatively and to engage more widely with parents, given my recent experience of the opening of a city academy. That had been vociferously opposed by parents who lived nowhere near the catchment area of the proposed school, but when it came to consulting with those inside the catchment area, there was 100 per cent. support for the proposal. Does that not underline the importance of the proposals in the Bill?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The strength and significance of parents’ views is not always matched by their ability to organise a campaign. We need to ensure that we involve a wider range of parents. There has been some discussion about a particular element of parental representation—for a new school, for example. The clause does not mean that parents have an automatic right to a new school—proposals for opening a new school are always considered on their merits—but it will make it easier for groups of parents to make their case for a new parent-promoted school.

The guidance makes it clear both how those issues should be responded to and how authorities should actively seek the views of parents on the school provision in their communities. Parents should not have to want a particular school or have a particular gripe in order to become engaged through this duty. Authorities might find new ways in which to engage parents in the context of drafting and updating the children and young people’s plan, or when planning capital investment through the building schools for the future programme, or when considering school organisation proposals.

Local authorities will also be required to support groups of parents in working up their proposals. That support could take the form of local authority officer time, money for consultancy advice—from, for example, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust—or access to existing foundations to learn from their experience. It could, as hon. Members opposite have identified, include local authorities’ making available suitable sites or buildings, or giving parents access to information about land in the area. If they were to do that, they would go considerably beyond what most local authorities do at the moment, but they would be right to do so. Decisions about new schools proposed by parents should be made on whether they would be good for local children. Such proposals should not be scuppered at the first hurdle by the parents’ lack of knowledge or ability to formulate their ideas and put them to the local authority.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, I am not unsympathetic to the general thrust of the amendments, not least because in many areas, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has identified, we aim to go further than the amendments propose. The question is whether defining such matters in primary legislation is the right approach. Although she was not addressing the right amendment, the hon. Member for Brent, East made precisely the correct point: it is often more appropriate for such matters to be set out in statutory guidance, to which local authorities will need to have regard, than to be stated inflexibly in legislation. There may be alterations in local government organisation, for example, which would then mean changes would be necessary in primary legislation. The issues are important, but they are most suitably addressed in the statutory guidance that we will publish.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has done much of my work for me. Speaking to amendment No. 6, which calls for a two-month limit on response time, he identified that paragraph 23 of our guidance says that local authorities should respond to any parental representation within four weeks setting out their initial response and, where appropriate, a timetabled plan of action.

Circumstances will of course vary from authority to authority and from case to case. There will be occasions when a representation can fully be answered within the four-week deadline and others when a complete response will require more work by the authority, for example an investigation to establish the profile of parental concern, a public meeting or other forms of local consultation or further discussions with parents to establish a way forward. That process could take longer than two months, for entirely legitimate and productive reasons, but we are clear that the local authority will indicate within a month when it will produce a final response. It will also have the responsibility to keep parents informed about action and progress and update them at key points agreed in advance.

Amendment No. 7 would require

“consideration by the local authority cabinet member responsible for education”.

I do not quibble with the idea behind the amendment, but I am concerned about whether it is appropriate for it to be in the Bill and whether we should completely remove local flexibility in determining how a consultation would happen. We will of course expect local authorities to involve their cabinet members for education in the vast majority of cases, but it should be as they deem appropriate. We understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns on the matter, and as he has identified we specify in paragraph 19 of our guidance that parental representations and authority responses should be monitored at the highest official and political levels.

I am also a fan of “The West Wing,” but I am not sure that analogies with presidential responsibilities get us very far in the circumstances. I hope that the profile that we have given to the issue in the statutory guidance reassures the hon. Gentleman that what he seeks to achieve in the amendments will be instead be achieved through that route.

Amendments Nos. 8 and 11 relate to “frivolous and vexatious” representations and the resubmission of representations. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument that it is key to ensure for the first time that local authorities are obliged to listen and respond to parental voices. The clause and the statutory guidance robustly set out how that response should be undertaken and delivered. However we all accept that there may be occasions when local authorities receive correspondence that is, as paragraph 38 of our guidance puts it,

“clearly and evidently futile or misconceived or that are bought forward from a mischievous or obstructive motive”

Some of us as MPs occasionally get correspondence that falls into that category, too, but just as I am sure that we are all assiduous in responding to all our constituency correspondence, our guidance makes it clear to local authorities that it is good practice to acknowledge receipt of all correspondence with a short explanatory reply. It is not necessary to place that sort of good practice in the Bill. The guidance makes it clear that that is what we expect.

On the point about resubmitting representations, the crucial point for parents and authorities is not whether a certain number of years have elapsed, but whether the situation has changed in a way which would warrant a reconsideration of the issue. The hon. Gentleman is right. In some circumstances, five years might be too long to wait, but it is not easy to determine a set period of time within which resubmission should be considered. There may be times when we would not wish local authorities to expend public money in investigating and answering a parental case simply because five years had passed since it landed on the authority’s doormat.

We have made it clear in the guidance that the authority must apply its judgment on resubmission and consider whether it is reasonable to respond, given changes in circumstance. There may be times when it is appropriate to respond much more quickly than within five years, perhaps because circumstances have changed or because it is clear that there is a strengthening of parental views on a particular issue. There are safeguards for parents in relation to the new responsibilities. Where parents believe that their local authority has not taken proper account of its duties under new section 14A of the Education Act 1996, they can complain to the Secretary of State. The schools commissioner could investigate whether the authority was in default of its duties and advise her on the use of her powers of intervention. If it appeared that the authority was in default, the Secretary of State could direct the authority to reconsider its decision.

That is one element of the work of the schools commissioner. I am very aware of your careful chairmanship this afternoon, Mr. Chope, and I do not want to go into a lengthy explanation of the role of the schools commissioner, but perhaps in the spirit of consensus that we are aiming to achieve on the Committee, I can offer to write to all members of the Committee with some of the details about how we envisage the role and the operation of the school commissioner, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton requested. I hope that on the basis of those arguments, and the illustrative guidance that we have published, that he will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It is clear from the Minister’s response that we are very much in tune with one another on the thrust of the Bill and the clause in particular. That is why we were so keen to support the Bill on Second Reading. The amendments were tabled before the publication of the illustrative guidance on Monday. It shows that we are driving in the same direction. She said that I had done some of her work for her when I introduced the amendments. I am happy to do more of the right hon. Lady’s work for her if she wishes. In fact, I would quite like to do all her work for her at some stage.

I was pleased that she agreed with the idea that I stole from “West Wing” about having a cabinet member sign in blood a statement that they had listened to and read the representations. I also agree that it should not be in the Bill. The amendments were tabled as probing amendments to try to flush out how seriously the local authorities will take their new duties. I was pleased with the Minister’s answer today and with the helpful guidance that she published. I was particularly pleased when I read that illustrative guidance. On that note, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 12, in clause 3, page 2, line 38, leave out ‘have regard to’ and insert ‘act in accordance with’.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 9, in clause 3, page 2, line 39, at end insert

‘, such guidance to be placed in the Library of the House of Commons and notice given of the publication of the guidance by written Ministerial statement.’.

No. 22, in clause 6, page 6, line 13, at end insert

‘, such guidance to be placed in the Library of the House of Commons and notice given of the publication of the guidance by written Ministerial statement.’.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Going through the illustrative guidance in relation to the previous group of amendments, it became clear how useful and effective that guidance will be in ensuring that the Bill’s provisions are implemented properly at local authority level. We leant on the wording used in clause 37 when drafting amendment No. 12, which would replace “have regard to” with “act in accordance with”. If that is good enough wording for the admissions code and for Labour rebels—all but 52 of them—it should be good enough for those of us who want the key drivers behind the Bill to be implemented as effectively as possible.

One of the key elements of the Bill—probably the most important one—is the ability of parents to make representations for a new school or for a better quality of education provision. During deliberations on the last group of amendments, we discussed the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Brent, East which was that it is unnecessary and wrong to provide for such issues in the Bill, and that, somehow, guidance is enough.

In some ways, I disagree. Over the years, a new form of legislation has developed that is neither primary nor secondary—made through a statutory instrument—but is almost a tertiary form of legislation that applies to all areas, be it guidance to magistrates or to local authorities. It is almost quasi-law, to which local authorities must have more than regard—they have to explain themselves if they do not obey the guidance issued to them by the relevant Government Department—yet that guidance is never scrutinised by the House. It is never considered in Committee as would be a statutory instrument, or on the Floor of the House. On many occasions, in fact, guidance is slipped out and we are unaware of it, thereby making it difficult for the Opposition to scrutinise the guidance as part of our routine procedure. We are unable therefore to raise issues with Ministers when that guidance is wrong or is not serving the best interests of the public.

I have tabled an amendment, which I and my hon. Friends tabled also during deliberations on the Childcare Bill—we are making the same point in relation to this Bill. On the previous occasion, I detected that the Minister in question was sympathetic to our view, but she assured me that guidance would be placed in the House of Commons Library, although she was not sure whether we would be alerted by a written ministerial statement. That statement is important to make us and outside bodies aware that the guidance has been issued, so that people can read that guidance and decide whether it is in the country’s best interests.

That is all I wanted to say on the issue before us—it is a general concern regarding parliamentary scrutiny of an increasing amount of Government diktat to all kinds of bodies in this country. That should be scrutinised and examined—not necessarily voted upon, but at least looked at by hon. Members so that we are aware of what the Government are doing.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I shall see whether I can manage to speak to the right amendment this time. I suspect that I have said all that needs to be said on the matter before us, so I will be brief as always.

I support amendment Nos. 22 and 9. It is important that guidance be placed where people know they can get hold of it, and that we are alerted to its publication. There is a tendency for things to appear on Department websites without any notice: that is not good enough, so I support those two amendments. However, will the Minister say whether, from a legal perspective, it is possible to “act in accordance with” guidance? I am concerned about whether that is possible.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

The current code of admissions contains the phrase “have regard to”, which is probably why the top 200 performing schools in the United Kingdom have no children taking free meals or children with special needs. All the schools have to do is to have regard to, and then they carry on as they wish. I fully support amendment No. 12. Stronger wording such as “act in accordance” should be in the Bill, because it will ensure that a local education authority adheres to what the Secretary of State says. There have been 23 written ministerial statements today, so perhaps we should have something stronger than that, such as oral ministerial statements.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I am sorry, Mr. Chope, I was just choking on my water at the idea that Ministers should stand at the Dispatch Box to announce every piece of guidance that was published by the Government.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

But, of course, each piece of ministerial guidance must be read by certain people, so it is not terribly inconvenient for the Minister to raise such issues on the Floor of the House. Each piece of the guidance that the right hon. Lady issues must be read by 173 people in each of the 173 local education authorities throughout the country. It is not too inconvenient for her to have to raise such matters in the House. However, if she does not wish to do so, I shall have to do it in her place.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I was about to be reasonably consensual about the hon. Gentleman’s response. Of course, the guidance is important, but there are a few other important issues to be dealt with, too. The vision of Ministers standing up each day in the House of Commons and reading out a series of announcements about what guidance they had issued that day is ridiculous. It would not be a good use of time in the House.

I shall now be more constructive in my response to the amendments. Amendment No. 12 aims to make local authorities act in accordance with guidance in respect of considering parental representations. During our discussion on the previous group of amendments, I outlined the importance of the clause. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman that it is a fundamental part of the Bill and that it is crucial that the change in practice for many local authorities that the clause and its guidance represent is considered. There is, however, a fundamental difference between what we are proposing under the guidance and the admissions code to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Each community and school is different. It is right that, within a framework set out by the Secretary of State, local authorities should be able to determine their own arrangements to make sure that they work for their parents and their community. A duty to “have regard to” guidance means just that. It must be taken into account, but case law has found that it is possible to have regard to a provision, but not to follow it in a particular situation.

More importantly, the guidance to local authorities on responding to parents will necessarily cover a wide range of situations. For example, in some circumstances a new school may be the right response to a group of parents who want a specific provision in a particular area, whereas an expansion may be right for another group of parents who want more places at a good school. The guidance cannot be exhaustive, as it would be impossible to anticipate each type of representation that parents might make. It would be similarly impossible to prescribe in guidance what might constitute a reasonable response by a local authority in all eventualities.

Members of the Committee will appreciate that a duty to have regard to guidance is the normal formulation and is appropriate to most of the guidance that the Department issues. As the hon. Gentleman has identified, when something is a clear duty and is applicable universally, it goes into primary or secondary legislation. When we are recommending good practice, it goes into guidance and it is for local bodies to take it into account sensibly in their local situations.

Primary and secondary legislation is subject to parliamentary scrutiny before becoming law. The hon. Gentleman is right, guidance is not usually subject to parliamentary scrutiny so we believe that it is inappropriate to compel schools and local authorities to comply with it, as if it were a piece of legislation. Even if it were possible to make guidance more strongly statutory than it is, guidance by its very nature is not normally intended to be mandatory or binding in the same way as primary and secondary legislation.

To support his argument, the hon. Gentleman prayed in aid our approach to the school admissions code. The code is different from the parental representations guidance for the following reasons. First, the admissions code has always been subject to parliamentary scrutiny before coming into force. That provides an important safeguard. If it is rejected by Parliament, it cannot be issued and the existing code remains in force. By contrast, most guidance, even statutory guidance, is simply approved by the Secretary of State. Secondly, the school admissions code will contain some admissions practices that we wish to rule in or out irrespective of circumstances, but which would be extremely difficult to define accurately in regulations. Those parts of the code will be mandatory, high-level statements of principles with which authorities will always be required to comply. That is of a different order of exhortation than the guidance arising from the clause.

For those reasons, we do not believe that the words “act in accordance with” would be appropriate for the guidance. We want to ensure that local authorities have sufficient flexibility to respond to local needs when setting up their arrangements. It would not be possible to produce a document that provided such flexibility and had the mandatory basis that the amendment demands.

Amendments Nos. 9 and 22 aim to ensure that statutory guidance issued under the clause is placed in the Library of the House and signalled to Members by a written statement. I fully agree that the documents should be placed in the Library. It is now a matter of custom and practice for every Department, irrespective of what party is in power, to ensure that that happens. I am assured that no example can be found in recent years of a failure by the Department for Education and Skills to place a copy of relevant or important documents in the Library of the House of Commons. Officials further assure me that that is true of other Departments.

As I pointed out, I have laid a draft copy of the guidance before the Committee, and local authorities will be notified when the final version is published. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree that guidance has an important role to play in helping schools and local authorities carry out their day-to-day functions efficiently and fairly while trusting people to respond appropriately according to their local circumstances.

I hope that Conservative hon. Members will take seriously my assurances about placing guidance in the Library. The only bit of advice I shall offer to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is that in the unlikely event that he ever does my job, his top priority will not be standing in front of the Dispatch Box and reading out a list of the guidance published that day. I urge him to withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The right hon. Lady is almost certainly right on that last point. There will be a lot of issues to deal with. The 23 per cent. of secondary schools in this country that are underperforming will almost certainly be the No. 1 priority of an incoming Conservative Schools Minister.

I am heartened by the Minister’s agreement that clause 3 is a fundamental part of the Bill. I agree with her that it is, which is one of the key reasons why we supported the Bill on Second Reading. I shall not push the amendments to a vote, because they are essentially probing amendments. We have tabled amendments with the same principle on previous occasions, because of the concern that guidance is becoming a form of tertiary legislation. We need to take great care to ensure that it has political scrutiny at some level beyond Ministers.

I take the Minister’s point about the difference between the admissions code and general guidance—the admissions code is a statutory instrument that receives scrutiny in the House—but I hope that local authorities will adhere strongly to the guidance relating to clause 3, because it is very effective guidance. I hope that they will pay particular attention to the parts of the guidance that relate to how they should respond to parental representations—they should be taken seriously—and to the aspects relating to the assistance that local authorities should give to parents when they are putting together a proposal for a new school. It is difficult for parents to find the resources and the specialist knowledge to put together such plans, and to obtain information about available sites. I hope that local authorities will take it seriously, devote resources to enabling such things to happen and not act as some schools organisational committees have acted in the past—as though they were there simply to preserve the status quo.

I agree fully that guidance has been placed in the House of Commons Library in recent years. I am delighted to hear that no examples can be found of guidance that has not found its way to the Library. I accept the Minister’s assurances, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 4 - Duty to identify children not receiving education

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, at end insert—

‘(1A)A local education authority must make arrangements to enable them to establish the identities of children in their area who—

(a)are of compulsory school age,

(b)are registered pupils at a school, and

(c)are not attending school on a regular basis, andthe authority shall publish the numbers of such pupils.’.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 89, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, at end insert—

‘(1B)In exercising their functions under this section to establish the circumstances of children in their area a local education authority may consult any relevant information databases.’.

No. 90, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, at end insert—

‘(1C)In this section “information databases”, in relation to children and young people, refers to those databases mentioned in section 12 of the Children Act 2004.’.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

When I spoke earlier, I inadvertently failed to welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Chope. I hope that you will not hold it against me. I know that in your usual benevolent spirit, you will chair our affairs with erudition, courtesy and, I hope, kindness.

Our considerations bring us to the duties of local education authorities to make arrangements to identify children not receiving education: those who are not registered at school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. However, as we know, there is a growing problem of children registered at schools who regularly play truant and therefore do not receive a proper education. Amendments Nos. 13, 89 and 90 draw attention to that problem. They follow a theme.

You will have studied the amendments in detail, Mr. Chope, as will other Committee members, but it is worth drawing attention to them. They would extend the scope of the Bill to take account of children who are registered but who are in effect not receiving an education because of their truancy.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

I welcome you to the Chair as well, Mr. Chope. Clause 4 does not deal just with young people who play truant. The illustrative guidance also identifies 13 vulnerable groups. I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to vulnerable groups, such as young carers and looked-after children, who are also at risk. I do not want the Committee to think that we are talking only about truants.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I do not mean to be unkind, but the hon. Lady did not quite understand what I said. We do not wish to dilute the Bill in any sense respecting the groups that she referred to; it is absolutely essential that it should deal with those people. Our concern is that it should deal with more young people—that is, those playing truant. We are not seeking to replace the aspects of the Bill that address vulnerable groups; we are adding children who are registered but not attending. We should not underestimate the scale or depth of that problem. I hope that she does not underestimate it, although I find it hard to believe that she would. I think that she wants to reassure me.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

I do wish to reassure the hon. Gentleman. I beg his pardon if I misunderstood him. I have looked at the amendments and the section quite closely, because it places a new and welcome duty on local education authorities. The regulatory impact assessment suggests a figure of 10,000 children falling into the category, but it is a difficult assessment to make. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but the amendment would seem to turn the clause about-face. I interpret it as giving the LEA a duty to consider the 8 million children who are currently registered, rather than 10,000.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. I think that the hon. Lady has had long enough; the point has been made.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady’s interpretation—I am trying to choose my words as gently as I can—is perverse. The amendments are worded with the formula “at end insert”. They would add groups of children that we consider should also be the Bill’s and local education authorities’ proper concern. We are quite content with the idea that looked-after children and other vulnerable children should be the proper concern of the Bill and local authorities, but we are most worried about those children who are registered and who are not receiving an education, who are, in effect, in similar circumstances to those who are not registered, because they are playing truant.

I was about to say that I invite the hon. Lady to re-examine the matter and that I consider the difference between us to be a happy one, and not born of anything sinister. We may come to an agreement about it in debate on the group, but I return to my theme. Truancy is a profound problem and, as I was about to say, it goes back some time. The Prime Minister recognised it early in his time as leader of his party and our country, and has regularly promised, before and since becoming Prime Minister, to deal with it. The Government have recognised the problem and promised to do something about it.

I refer hon. Members to a question asked at Prime Minister’s Question Time by the then Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard):

“He promised to cut truancy by a third. Figures yesterday show that truancy has gone up by nearly a third: 1million children play truant each year. How does he explain that failure?”

The Prime Minister, honestly enough—the Under-Secretary shakes his head, but the Prime Minister was rather more candid—said:

“In respect of truancy, it is correct; we have accepted that we have not met the truancy target.”

He went on to say that there were

“extra pupils attending school today, which is important.”—[Official Report, 15 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1661.]

I shall come to the figures a little later, but the story continues, because once again, with typical diligence, my right hon. and learned Friend raised the matter on 9 February last year. He drew attention to a report by the National Audit Office that said

“that the Government had spent nearly £900million on improving behaviour in schools and reducing truancy”.

But, he said,

“as we know, behaviour in schools has not improved and truancy has increased.”

The Prime Minister, on that occasion, was a little more defensive, and said:

“The amount of money that was spent on truancy specifically was a tiny proportion of the £860million.”—[Official Report, 9 February 2005; Vol. 430, c. 1492.]

Perhaps it was too tiny a proportion, if there was some relation between cause and effect. He went on to acknowledge once again that the Government had failed to meet their truancy target.

That sad saga continues, because later last year my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), after pointing out that in 2001

“the Labour party manifesto pledged to cut truancy in our schools”

asked the Prime Minister about the issue again.

“ What has happened in the intervening years,”

said my hon. Friend, with typical boldness,

“and who is responsible for the gross failure”?

The Prime Minister, with frankness for which he should receive our praise, repeated:

“It is true that truancy has not been cut”. —[Official Report, 15 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 261-2.]

He went on, as he often does when under pressure in such circumstances, to talk in general terms about investment and spending.

Given that sorry history, the Committee will understand our focus, in proposing the amendments, on children who are registered at schools but are not receiving an education. I have some even more shocking news for the Committee, and I hesitate to bring it to its attention because I know that hon. Members are looking forward to their hot cross buns and eggs and do not want to be disturbed too much before that happy time with family and friends. However, the Minister—who has briefly exited the Committee for a sojourn—revealed just a few weeks ago, in response to a parliamentary question that I asked on 19 January, that 774,347 pupils played truant from secondary schools in the academic year 2004–05. The figure was 566,644 in 2001–02.

Ms Angela C. Smith:

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I will when I have finished my sentence. That is an increase, as the right hon. Lady, with her razor-sharp mathematical mind, will already have calculated, of more than 200,000. I wonder whether she is as worried as I am—and perhaps a little guilty, which I am not—about that.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

The fact that the hon. Gentleman is able to quote such numbers suggests that procedures are in place to ensure that data on children who play truant from school are readily available. In other words, local authorities are collecting such data and publishing the figures and the good ones are taking action to reduce the numbers of children who do not attend. Does he not agree?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

There is no suggestion on this side of the Committee that there are not good local authorities doing good work. The right hon. Lady will already have heard me say that. I fully acknowledge that hard-working councillors across our country do excellent work. It is long overdue that people in this place should pay tribute to the work of councillors of all political parties and authorities up and down Britain who do that work diligently and effectively. It is also true that local authorities play a valuable role in all kinds of ways, including in dealing with this sort of problem. However, it is the responsibility of this House to provide the appropriate legislative support for that energy, and we seek, through the amendments, to strengthen the Bill where it applies to children who play truant.

Given the figures that I have quoted from a very recent parliamentary answer from the Minister who is presiding from the Government Benches over the Committee stage of this Bill, we have real cause for concern. The problem is not easy to deal with; no Government would find it easy. However, there are concentrations of truancy in some of our most deprived areas and the problem is still more profound in poorly performing schools serving disadvantaged areas. There are schools in which a substantial part of the school population regularly truants. The teachers and governors of such schools and their local authorities deserve our support through the emphasis that we place on the matter, and that is precisely what we seek to give them.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I was heartened by what the hon. Gentleman’s hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough had to say about local education authorities. Does he not therefore disagree with his hon. Friend’s new clause 14, which would abolish them?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. We cannot debate new clause 14.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

My hon. Friend is a dear man with whom I have many discussions long into the night about many subjects, which it would be entirely improper for me to air in this Committee, and entirely out of order. If they are selected, we might have a chance to debate my hon. Friend’s amendments, at which point the similarities and differences between us will become clear and cause excitement in Committee.

The Government have acknowledged the problem of truancy and, as a result, there has been a succession of campaigns to reduce it. In 1998, the Department for Education and Skills accepted a public service agreement target to reduce unauthorised absences by a third by 2002. In 2002, it agreed to a less ambitious target to reduce absences by 10 per cent. by 2004. The Minister, with the same honesty that the Prime Minister displays when answering questions from his right hon. and hon. Friends, said in answer to me:

“Neither of these targets was met.”—[Official Report, 13 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 1575W.]

Surely therefore it must be reasonable that the duties established under clause 4 to identify children not receiving education should be extended to children registered at a school, but who are not attending it regularly.

I draw the attention of members of the Committee to amendments Nos. 89 and 90. We want information to be shared whenever possible and we want to enable a local education authority to consult any relevant information database referred to under section 12 of the Children Act 2004. I rushed out to my office for a copy of “Every Child Matters”. As the Committee can imagine, I study it daily. It makes it clear that the Government intend to create a synergy among those agencies with shared or similar responsibilities for children in a fresh way. That is a noble aim.

We support the idea that, whenever possible, the agencies should share relevant information.We all know from experience in our political lives and in our real lives—we all have real lives—that sometimes that is not the case and that those disparate agencies with responsibilities for young people do not always act as co-operatively or collaboratively as they might. That is especially true when dealing with sensitive information that can be pivotal to the welfare of children and their education. We seek through the amendments to strengthen the Bill in that respect. I have every confidence that they will be readily accepted by the Minister. The Under-Secretary with his usual affable smile has nodded in agreement with almost every word that I have uttered. If the Government accept the amendments, it would be to their benefit and, more significantly, to the benefit of those children who play truant and the others to whom reference has been made in this short debate and who deserve our assistance in every way.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

This is a very welcome clause. As other members of the Committee have suggested, it attempts to safeguard young people such as Victoria Climbié who did not attend school and basically fell through the net. There are far too many cases of young people who are trafficked or who arrive on visas from other countries and disappear, especially in London.

As for amendment No. 13, I am not clear what Conservatives Members want to achieve. The amendment would not implement a new policy to tackle the problem of truancy. It attempts merely to make it an obligation to publish truancy figures. It is my understanding that truancy figures are already published, which makes amendment No. 13 rather superfluous.

Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 are helpful, and I urge the Government to consider them seriously. However, what would happen with independent schools? Who would be responsible for updating the databases with information from schools outside the state sector? Who would be responsible for monitoring them? Those issues must be addressed. Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 are helpful and could serve as a safeguard in addition to clause 4, which is very welcome.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I do not support amendment No. 13. At an earlier sitting we discussed children who are not in education and have not been identified. The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) commented that there are children under the radar of the education authorities. As they are outside education and other normal structures, it is hard to see how the Bill addresses their needs. It seems to me that clause 4 addresses the categories covered by Kids Company, which was mentioned. I would like the Minister to clarify that.

Clause 4 is welcome. It would enable local authorities to identify the children of Travellers, homeless people and those asylum seekers who have been given leave to remain in the country, and it would give a much clearer indication of those children who are not receiving the education that we would like.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

I am concerned about amendment No. 13 in particular. I welcome the spirit of the remarks by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, and as a former teacher I am concerned about young people playing truant. However, clause 4 seeks to go much further than young people playing truant. It identifies the vulnerable groups that I mentioned during an earlier intervention. I am concerned that amendment No. 13 could tie up local education authorities and schools in a lot of bureaucracy, which is not what we want to do.

There are approximately 8 million children between the ages of five and 16 in full-time education. In my interpretation, the logical outcome of amendment No. 13 is that rather than concentrating on the 10,000 young people who the regulatory impact assessment estimates to be out of education, either because they are wilfully truanting or belong to one of the vulnerable groups identified in the illustrative guidance, schools would have to register and education authorities would have to investigate each of the 8 million children in full-time education.

The illustrative guidance rightly draws attention to the sensitive issue of children who do not attend school but are, quite properly, educated at home. The guidance states that there must be sympathy:

“The parent does not have to inform anyone if their child never starts school. If the child’s name is provided to the LEA as a child who may be missing education, then the LEA should contact the parents to find out if the child is receiving an education. It is in the interests of the child, parents and the LEA if the initial contact is clear, but not threatening. A collaborative partnership between parents and the LEA will be more effective for the child than one that is based on mutual mistrust.”

Although I understand the reasons for amendment No. 13, I fear that its phrasing would threaten that delicate relationship. I wonder whether the amendment was drafted before the illustrative guidance came out.

Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat, Leeds North West)

The hon. Lady raises a valuable point on home education. Will the Minister specify whether the clause covers children who are educated at home and whether they would be affected by the amendment?

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

I am sure that the Minister will deal with that point. As it was in the illustrative guidance I had assumed that that was so. We need to be very careful about those young people and ensure that their needs are treated sensitively.

The issues raised in amendments Nos. 89 and 90 are, in my reading, also covered by the illustrative guidance. Is it really necessary for them to be in the Bill? I will listen to the Minister with interest when he comes to the matter. It is extremely important that we deal in the Bill with this group of young people, who are vulnerable whether they are truanting or missing school for another reason. We must deal with them sensitively in the Bill and also in the guidance that goes out to schools. I am not entirely convinced that the amendments would help us to be sensitive to those children.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I do not want to go over the same territory as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who ably moved the amendments in the names of myself and my hon. Friends, but the clause is important. The Lord Laming inquiry found that Victoria Climbié was not attending school, and if the social workers involved had realised that that was an important point and followed up on it, perhaps she might be alive today. Anything that can be done to identify children who are missing from education—that does not just mean through truancy—is important as it could be a life-or-death matter.

The regulatory impact assessment and the illustrative guidance point out that there are no official figures for the number of children missing education, but Ofsted puts the figure at about 10,000. If we look at the school census returns and compare the number on the school roll at the age of 14 in 2003 with the number on it at the age of 15 in 2004, there is a gap of about 7,000 children who did not return in 2004. That indicates that the Ofsted figure is probably about right.

Ofsted also reported that good practice in this area among local authorities is patchy and that there are significant weaknesses in the overall pattern of support. The regulatory impact assessment says that an alternative to clause 4 would be to implement the non-statutory guidance issued in July 2004, but when local authorities were asked whether they would meet the duties under the guidance, 11 per cent. said that they would not, due to a lack of funding, and 14 per cent. said that they would only partly meet them, for the same reason. Twenty-five per cent. of local authorities would not be able fully to implement the guidance on children missing from education due to a lack of funding. The Government’s conclusion, on the basis of those findings, is that they should simply make the duties statutory, forcing local authorities to do it regardless of their funding position. That is my interpretation of the regulatory impact assessment. Will the Under-Secretary address that point when responding to the debate?

Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 have the support of the NSPCC. They are intended to make use of the databases that are being established under the Children Act, to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred. Whether or not one agrees with the establishment of such databases for all children regardless of the degree of risk that they face, if they are established and they function well it makes sense for local authorities exercising their duties under clause 4 to have access to that information. As the NSPCC has said about the amendment:

“We recommend local education authorities should refer to the information-sharing child index set out in section 12 of the Children Act when attempting to identify children not receiving education. This will ensure that the information database is updated to reflect the child’s educational circumstances and also that awareness is raised of any information which highlights any cause for concern in relation to the child.”

On those databases, paragraph 2.16 of the regulatory impact assessment mentions the issue of home schooling, which the hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) also raised. That paragraph reads:

“The Government is engaging early with this group to find ways of improving relationships between home educators and local authorities, stressing that the Government is not seeking to introduce a compulsory registration scheme.”

Will the Under Secretary put it on the record that the Government do not intend to introduce such a registration scheme? With those few remarks, I look forward to his response.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I shall speak to amendments Nos. 13, 89 and 90. This is the first opportunity that I have had to contribute to the Committee’s proceedings, and I am looking forward to your supportive stewardship, Mr. Chope. I am reminded of the words of my head of education at Wandsworth comprehensive school in the 1970s—

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

Don’t come back on Monday. [Laughter.]

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

He said that too, but during rehearsals of a school play in which I had a minor part with no lines, I was stood looking frustrated and he told me to remember the words of Keats: “They also serve who only stand and wait”. Those words could be paraphrased for Committee members: “They also serve who only sit and vote”.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I just wanted to point out that I think that it was Milton not Keats who wrote that. [Laughter.]

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

That is why I took biology and maths at A-level rather than English literature.

I am glad to be part of my right hon. Friend the Minister for School’s Labour team in Committee this week. It is a little known fact that my right hon. Friend is an Aston Villa supporter—indeed, she is a season ticket holder. I know that Opposition Members support other teams—Arsenal was mentioned earlier. I hope that I can be Luke Moore to her Milan Baros, although perhaps with more success than they are enjoying at the moment.

As we have heard, amendment No. 13 appears to place a new statutory duty on local authorities to make arrangements to identify children of compulsory school age who are registered at a school but who are not attending regularly, and to publish the numbers of pupils involved. We believe that the amendment is unnecessary because schools already monitor attendance through the daily attendance register and can access support from the local authority education welfare service when there are attendance issues. Furthermore, local authorities have access to school attendance registers, so they would be aware of pupils with attendance problems. At local authority level, annual data on the number of pupils of compulsory school age who are recorded as absent for a half-day session are published in England and Wales—that point was made earlier by the hon. Member for Brent, East.

It might be helpful if I explained to hon. Members that although the parents are primarily responsible for ensuring that their child is registered at a school and attends regularly, when there are school attendance problems, it is at the school level that the biggest direct influence can be brought to bear in to raise levels of attendance. When intervention at that level fails to bring about an improvement in attendance, a referral can be made to the education welfare service, which will have in place arrangements with schools in the area to assist them in tackling attendance issues. That would involve referral monitoring and review. Education welfare officers will work with schools and families to help identify the causes of poor attendance in individual cases and to resolve them. For example, where necessary they will arrange home visits to assist parents in meeting their responsibilities of ensuring that their child, if registered at a school, attends regularly.

I should like to emphasise that, contrary to the picture painted by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, the arrangements that I have just described are working well. School absence has fallen for four consecutive years: the overall absence rate in England in 2004–05 was 6.44 per cent., which is the lowest since records began. However, I do not want to let any of his points go unchallenged, because we take school attendance seriously. On average, 10,000 fewer pupils every day were absent from school in 2004–05 than were in 2003–04, and 60,000 fewer than in 1996–97 under the Conservative Government. That is a massive improvement.

I acknowledge that there was a minor increase in unauthorised absence in 2004–05, but the hon. Gentleman is wholly mistaken to equate unauthorised absence with truancy: the terms are not interchangeable. There is no evidence to suggest that the majority of those recorded as having missed one half-day session were truanting. While some unauthorised absence is clearly truancy, the term also covers a range of other reasons such as lateness, term-time holidays taken without the school’s permission and unsatisfactory or unexplained absences.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Those all sound like truancy to me. Does the hon. Gentleman condone parents taking their children on holiday during term time?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Far from condoning it, we have taken direct action to deal more effectively with that problem. A significant factor behind the minor increase is the fact that schools are taking a stricter line as a result of Government action on authorising absence—for example, term-time holidays—and are marking pupils’ absence as unauthorised unless a valid reason is given. The average amount of time lost to unauthorised absence per pupil has fallen. That suggests that much of the additional unauthorised absence is for very short periods and is therefore likely to be due to one of those non-truancy causes.

In case that is open to challenge by the hon. Gentleman, we have figures from South Gloucestershire local authority about term-time holidays. In 2003–04 on average each day 320 pupils were on a term-time holiday, 12 of which were unauthorised. The following year that was reduced to 291 pupils a day on holiday—a reduction of 39 pupils. Those pupils were back in school as a result of the action taken by that local authority following our guidance. Although 12 of those absences were unauthorised in 2003–04, 15 were unauthorised in 2004–05, resulting in a 25 per cent. increase in unauthorised absences because of the stricter line that the local authority was taking on what is recorded as an unauthorised absence. By explaining the figures in that way, we give the lie to the Tory allegation that we have not been tackling truancy. Far from it, we have been successfully bearing down to increase the numbers of pupils who are now attending school and doing so more regularly.

Amendment No. 89 appears to introduce legislation that enables local authorities to consult “any relevant information databases” to help them to identify children not receiving a suitable education. Amendment No. 90 gives a definition of “information databases” as the information sharing index as provided under section 12 of the Children Act 2004.

We recognise the importance of amendments Nos. 89 and 90. Local authorities should be able to access appropriate information in order to identify children who are missing education. However, the amendments are unnecessary as through statutory guidance—hon. Members have referred to the draft version before us today—we will encourage local authorities to make use of local databases and information held by their partners. That is in keeping with the Children Act 2004, which already gives local authorities duties to promote co-operation between each of their relevant partners, for example the police and primary care trusts and to make arrangements with them to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

Local authorities are expected to work with all schools to determine whether a child is in the school. The hon. Member for Brent, East can be assured of that point. She mentioned the independent sector as well as academies. We want the independent sector to play the same role as the maintained sector in sharing information. Independent schools will be subject to the same safeguarding duty as maintained schools. We have started discussions with the Independent Schools Council on how details of attendance at independent schools can be collected. So we are taking that point firmly on board.

Amendment No. 90 is also unnecessary. The information sharing databases provided under section 12 of the 2004 Act databases contain certain prescribed information, which, under the existing legislation, the local authority will be able to access for certain purposes. Section 12 specifically allows for the creation of an information sharing index which will be operational in all English local authorities by the end of 2008. It will be an important tool to support local authorities in their duty to identify children not receiving education. The index will contain basic information on all children aged up to 18 in England, including where they are being educated.

My only confusion is that the Opposition have prayed in aid and supported the information sharing index, yet three days ago on 27 March in a debate on a statutory instrument Conservative Members voted against measures to trial the development of the very same information sharing index. Do the Conservatives support the information sharing index or not? They voted against it three days ago; I assume they will vote for it today, as part of the guidance. Indeed, the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), who is not in his seat, voted against the regulations to test the data-matching system as a precursor to introducing the full information sharing index.

I assume from the absence of any intervention to clarify their position, that the Opposition have changed their mind in the past three days and there have been more—what do we call them? [Hon. Members: “Flip-flops!”] Very good. I could not quite remember the phrase. Obviously, we now have support for the measure in the future. It has been designed to help to support improved communication between practitioners working with children and young people.

I think I have clarified all the matters that hon. Members raised. The guidance covers parents who educate their children at home. We respect the right of parents to educate their children at home and we have no current plans to introduce compulsory registration of parents who choose to do so. However, the guidance will ensure that the mechanisms I have described captures children who are missing education but are not in that category. I hope that hon. Members will ask leave to withdraw their amendments.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

It is a great pleasure to hear the Under-Secretary speak in the Committee for the first time. I hope that my response will do justice to his contribution.

First, let us bottom out the matter of truancy. Ultimately, I am not the one who is disappointed with the Government’s performance on truancy; it is the Prime Minister who is disappointed. It is he who said:

“It is true that truancy has not been cut.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 262.]

It is the Prime Minister who said:

“In respect of truancy, it is correct; we have accepted that we have not met the truancy target.”—[Official Report, 15 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1661.]

It is the Prime Minister who acknowledges the severity of the problem and the Government’s failure thus far to address it.

The Minister for Schools is back in the Committee. I would never want to embarrass her, but I must draw her attention once again to the straightforward written answer that she gave me which showed that the number of pupils absent for at least one half-day due to unauthorised absence in maintained mainstream schools had risen from 566,644 to 774,347. The Under-Secretary says that that is a small matter—a minor increase, a slight blip in the figures—but it is more than that.

The Under-Secretary said, properly, that not all those children were, in his terms, playing truant, and in her answer the Minister for Schools went on to say that those figures covered all unexplained or unjustified—that is the phrase—absences. I wonder if the Under-Secretary or the Minister for Schools would like to intervene to tell me what estimate they have made of the number of children among the 774,347 who in their terms were playing truant. Do they want to enlighten me or the Committee?

Clearly, they do not want to do so, so we must assume that they have not done that analysis and do not know whether the figures could be broken down more precisely, or that they acknowledge my point that none of those absences are acceptable. As the Minister for Schools said, they are all unjustified.

I do not want to make too much of this—[Laughter.] I speak, as ever, with the moderation that I have learned from my peers in this House. However, these are serious matters. There are parts of our country with schools in considerable difficulties, facing circumstances in which a large number of the children registered are playing truant. Our amendment says that that needs to be taken account of.

Let me make it clear to the hon. Member for South Swindon that that in no way affects our concern, which she shares, for those children who are not registered. She is right; to use the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, who put the matter graphically and with appropriate emotion, there is no doubt that there are children below the radar, who are outside all the normal estimates of welfare and reasonable expectation. Those children deserve our wholehearted, cross-party concentration and effort. We do not make light of that, but we do say that many of the children playing truant require extra support and concentration; they also need our effort on the non-partisan basis that I propose.

Milton was mentioned earlier, and the Under-Secretary’s comments on truancy reminded me of what Milton said about speech and conversation. Just as I do not want to be excessively harsh with the Minister for Schools, I do not want to be excessively harsh with the hon. Gentleman, either. However, Milton wrote:

“But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

The better”.

The Under-Secretary has attempted to make the worse appear the better, for on truancy the Government have a sad record that he should not want to defend. We need to accept that we must do better on truancy. We are attempting to do that through our modest amendment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has mentioned that the amendments are supported by the NSPCC, which recommends that local education authorities should refer to the information sharing child index set out in section 12 of the Children Act 2004. The Under-Secretary mentioned that and said that in another Committee at another time colleagues of ours took a particular view on that database; they may well have thought that it is too all-encompassing. But if that database is to be created, it is right that the Bill, on the basis of consistency and coherence, should take account of what it contains. That is our case. I shall not get into a debate about the efficacy of a database—you would not let me do so, Mr. Chope. I simply say that if that information is available, it is vital that we take account of it in the Bill. In that respect, I support the NSPCC.

I mentioned “Every Child Matters” earlier and I shall mention it again, because it is highly relevant to the amendment. On page 5, in the executive summary, it says:

“From past inquiries into the deaths of Maria Colwell and Jasmine Beckford to recent cases such as Lauren Wright and Ainlee Walker, there are striking similarities which show some of the problems are of long standing. The common threads which led in each case to a failure to intervene early ... were poor co-ordination”

and

“a failure to share information”.

That is precisely why the document goes on to say, on page 101:

“By the end of September 2003 local authorities should ... have a named individual to whom agencies and professionals working with children and young people can pass details of children and young people found to be missing from education. The individual would take the lead in brokering support for such children and young people through the most appropriate agencies”

and, indeed,

“audit of current practice including identification of information-sharing protocols, assessment processes, strategies for securing the engagement of stakeholders and mechanisms for ensuring that children in need of support receive appropriate services at the earliest opportunity.”

It goes on to talk about local authorities and information sharing in considerably more detail, but I shall not tire the Committee by going into that detail at this stage. The important point is that the amendments are designed to be helpful in that they add to the Bill in the way that I have explained.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that all children in a local authority area should be on information databases in order to ensure that all children are registered?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady says that as though that would be some unbearable imposition on local authorities. Indeed, her hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said in respect of our amendment No. 13 that it would impose unbearable pressure—that it would be bureaucratic and too difficult for local authorities. Too difficult? Let us read the amendment so that we are clear about the scale of that difficulty and the extent of that imposition on local authorities. The amendment states:

“A local authority must make arrangements to enable them to establish the identities of children in their area who ... are of compulsory school age,”

Is that unreasonable? Is that an expectation beyond the capacity of local government?

“are registered pupils at a school,”

Is that unacceptable? Is it an unbearable imposition on the agencies concerned?

“and ... are not attending school on a regular basis, and the authority shall publish the numbers of such pupils.”

None of that seems unreasonable to me. I should have thought that that was good practice. Although the hon. Member for South Swindon considers that it would be excessively bureaucratic and too much of an imposition on local authorities, few outside this place would share her view.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

I do not think that I said that it would be too difficult for local authorities; that is the hon. Gentleman’s interpretation of my words. However, it would be bureaucratic on top of the systems that are already in place. That is the issue. The Minister told us that there are systems in place in local authorities and in schools to do the very thing that he wants to do. The hon. Gentleman is asking schools and local authorities to put an extra layer of bureaucracy on top of that. I understood that he and his party were always trying to prevent local authorities from being bureaucratic and employing too many people to push bits of paper around. That is what the amendment would do. I want the measure to concentrate on the 10,000 children in the relevant category.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady must use her extensive cerebral capacity to think slightly more carefully about her contributions. When I invited the Minister for Schools to break down the figures in her parliamentary answer, she chose not to intervene on me. It is unlikely that the Government know precisely how the figure of 774,347 children breaks down into the various categories that the Minister described. When the hon. Lady says that what we want is already happening, is she referring to our paragraph (c)—the requirement on the local authority to make arrangements to establish the identities of children who are not attending school on a regular basis and to publish the numbers of such pupils—and telling me that local authorities already do that, but that Ministers do not know about it? Or is she telling me that local authorities publish the information and can break down the figures, but the whole of the great edifice of the Department cannot? I find that hard to believe.

We have had a healthy debate—with no acrimony, I hope—but there are differences between us. I wait to hear the Minister’s response, if he wants to say more.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

He doesn’t.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.