Education and Inspections Bill

Public Bill Committee, 18 April 2006.

Standing Committee E

Clause 5

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 17, in clause 5, page 3, line 23, after ‘maintain', insert

‘that is not highly performing'.

No. 18, in clause 5, page 3, line 25, at end insert—

‘(1A) A school is “highly performing” if it meets such standards as the Secretary of State shall by regulation prescribe.'.

No. 19, in clause 5, page 3, line 30, at end insert—

‘(2A) Where a school fails to improve within two years of the appointment of a school improvement partner, a new school improvement partner shall be appointed.

(2B) A person appointed as a school improvement partner who has been replaced twice as a school improvement partner under the provisions of subsection (2A) shall cease to be an accredited person under subsection (2).'.

No. 20, in clause 5, page 3, line 30, at end insert—

‘( ) The Secretary of State shall publish his departmental policies in relation to the appointment of school improvement partners.'.

No. 15, in clause 5, page 3, line 40, at end insert—

‘“coasting”, in relation to a maintained school, means a school which in the previous academic year was in the third quartile nationally of the value added measure of school performance;'.

No. 16, in clause 5, page 4, line 4, at end insert—

‘“under-performing”, in relation to a maintained school, means a school which in the previous academic year was in the fourth quartile nationally of the value added measure of school performance.'.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It is nice to be back after our short Easter break. My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) ably set out our concerns about imposing school improvement partners on all schools, including highly performing schools. One thing that irritates teachers and head teachers alike is time-consuming bureaucratic demands, whether they involve form-filling, reading the latest lever-arch file of partially relevant or irrelevant advice or attending meetings with local authorities or imposed school improvement partners.

School improvement partners are a good idea for raising standards in underperforming schools, but they will put a huge burden on good schools. I met the head teacher of one of the best-performing secondary schools in London, who found her school improvement partner to be an irritant that she could have done without. As far as she was concerned, it brought no added value to the school. Sir Kevin Satchwell, headmaster of Thomas Telford school, said to me that one of the best things about his school being a technology college is that he does not have to attend interminable meetings with the local authority. He believes that a head teacher should be in the school, focusing on raising and maintaining standards.

If all schools are to have school improvement partners, those partners should at least be well qualified and competent. Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 would introduce a mechanism to remove the accreditation of SIPs who are not fulfilling their role effectively and whose advice is not resulting in improvements to the school. Under amendment No. 19, if a school did not improve within two years of the appointment of a particular SIP, he would be replaced. If a SIP were replaced twice, he would lose his accreditation. Nothing can be worse than being advised by someone who is not up to the job. Amendment No. 19 would give the SIP a second chance. To fail once may be regarded as a misfortune; to fail twice looks like carelessness.

Amendment No. 20 specifies that the Department should publish policies on school improvement partners. I am delighted that the Government have published a statement of policy intent, and I shall speak to that policy when we debate amendments Nos. 190 and 191.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

In responding to the Conservative amendments, I note that the answer to the question whether all schools need a SIP depends, as we discussed during the last Committee sitting, on whether its role is to be a critical friend offering advice and support or to be the heavy hand of Whitehall—or perhaps I should say the heavy hand of the local education authority.

During the holidays, the Department issued new guidance on schools causing concern. The guidance, although relevant to amendments Nos. 46 to 60, is predicated on the discussion that we are having now. I should like to place on record my irritation that it was not sent to Committee members before or even immediately after it was issued in the press. We have come to expect things to be floated in The Times before being sent to most Members of Parliament, but we had a right to expect the guidance to be sent to the Committee during the holidays. As far as I am aware, it was not sent to any Committee members, although it was e-mailed to directors of children’s services.

I hope that that will not be a pattern for the rest of Committee consideration. The Government will inevitably issue a variety of guidance, and the Committee has a right to scrutinise and discuss it at the appropriate time. It would have been particularly helpful if we had received this before we began clause 5. It is of some concern that we did not and I should like to place that on the record. May I ask you, Mr. Chope, to request that the Government do not do this in future?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I welcome you, Mr. Chope, and members of the Committee back to what I always think of as the summer term. I suspect that any request to hold the Committee outside in the lovely sunshine would be turned down, just as I turned down similar requests from my pupils when I was teaching.

We return to our discussions on clause 5. I should like first to respond to the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), who does not seem to have been imbued with the sunshine like the rest of us. Given the wealth of regulations and guidance that I have so far made available in ample time for the Committee to consider them alongside the clauses, and as I will this week make available the regulations and guidance relevant to part 4 so that we can consider them when we get to it, her comments were slightly churlish.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

It would have been helpful if the material had at least been published on the Department’s website, but it is still not available there, so it is impossible for us to get hold of it unless a director of children’s services provides it.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

As I pointed out, I will, as I have done scrupulously up to this point, make sure that it is available to the Committee well in time for the discussion on that part of the Bill. It does not directly relate to this clause.

I shall start with amendments Nos. 14 and 17, and Nos. 15, 16 and 18, which are contingent upon them and which seek, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) identified, to limit the number of schools that would have a school improvement partner. I am sympathetic to an argument that might be made about the proportionality of intervention and contact with schools and I will talk about that in more detail later. School improvement partners come within the overall context of the new relationship that we are developing with schools, which is achieving its aim of removing the clutter of bureaucracy in the system while maintaining a suitable level of challenge, alongside the support for schools that I identified when we discussed the first set of amendments on the clause.

SIPs will help all schools to put in place plans for improvement. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) made the important point that even in very highly performing schools there can be groups of pupils who are underperforming. SIPs will have an important role in relation to the underperformance of particular groups of pupils within schools. As we also said in the White Paper, SIPs should hold schools to account for how well they support, for example, looked-after children and improve their educational outcomes. Of course, weare most concerned about schools that are underperforming or not highly performing. SIPs will work with those schools to help build capacity and to agree priorities and targets for improvement, but restricting SIPs to coasting or underperforming schools or those that are not highly performing could create problems.

First, we need to be able to respond when a school’s performance is declining, even if it is acceptable or highly performing in absolute terms. That is the point rightly made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove), who pointed out the need for early identification and challenge where schools are drifting into underperformance. Secondly, even in the best schools there may be concern about the performance of particular groups of pupils or about standards in particular subjects. The purpose of this Bill and the next stage of reform is to ensure not only that institutions perform well, but that every individual child in those institutions has the opportunity to fulfil their educational potential. We would be letting down under-achieving pupils if we did not extend the SIP function to all schools.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The right hon. Lady is right to say that there are few schools in which something is not going right. Similarly, there are few schools in which everything is going right, so she is correct to say that even in the best schools there is room for improvement. Before Easter, however, we said that there will not be a limitless supply of improvement partners—not, at least, of the standard we would all expect. In focusing the limited supply where it is most needed, we should take amore considered view as to where improvement is desperately needed.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Proportionality and focus, which I promised to come to shortly, are not what the amendments imply. Instead, they imply that there would be quite a large number of schools without any school improvement partner. There may well be highly performing schools in which certain groups of pupils are under-achieving, and support in identifying and addressing that problem will be important for such schools. Of those secondary pupils who are in the lower two quartiles with respect to added value, some 39 per cent. go to schools that are in the top two quartiles. We would let down many thousands of under-achieving pupils if we did not extend the SIP function to their schools.

There are measures elsewhere in the Bill—in clause 47(3), for example—relating to schools that are a cause for concern, and we have defined what should constitute low-performing schools in both relative and absolute terms. So there is a valuable function for SIPs in all schools which must be carefully focused on the issues and challenges faced by every school. We shall look in more detail at particular types of intervention for underperforming, coasting and failing schools when we reach the relevant part of the Bill.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am listening to what the right hon. Lady says with some sympathy. What role does she envisage for parents getting in touch with SIPs when they see the problems that she has described—when the school is coasting or when some groups of pupils are not doing as well as they could be?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I am not sure that there is a direct role for the school improvement partner with respect to parents, although it is part of the SIP’s role to make a report to the governing body about the head teacher’s performance. We shall discuss later both the ability of parents to make a complaint to Ofsted when they have concerns about standards, and the requirement for more communication with parents about the progress of their individual children, so that parents may have an impact on overall standards and on their own child’s achievements.

The pupil attainment data, which are now much richer than previously in relation to the achievements of individual children, and are available to the school and the SIP, will enable analysis to take place, together with a focus on actions to address specific issues and challenges. They will ensure that schools make the best use of the additional resources that we are making available for greater personalisation of learning.

The introduction of SIPs to all schools is also about learning from others and sharing good practice. Each SIP will be allocated to a number of schools—maybe even in a number of different local authorities. That will provide an important opportunity for good practice in better-performing schools to be captured and shared in the system.

I said that I was sympathetic to the point on proportionality. I would not expect SIP interactions with schools to be uniform. Our policy is that each SIP should spend five days a year in their relationship with the school—approximately three days in the school and about two outside the school in preparation—but that is an average for all schools. There is sufficient flexibility in the system to allow the days allocated to each school to reflect the needs of the school, and that allocation will not be dictated by my Department. Local authorities will appoint SIPs and allocate them to schools to reflect local context and priorities.

I hope that Opposition Members will feel both convinced by the arguments of the benefits of every school having a SIP and reassured that I acceptthat the scheme will need to be managed proportionately—as we have described it, inversely proportionate to success—and to focus on making the biggest possible difference not just to schools but to individual pupils.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Minister is making an interesting point and concession. Will she be a little more expansive and tell us what the range of days will be? She said that five days will be the average, but how will the range of time reflect the degree of necessity for a SIP in a particular school? Will it be from three days to 10 days, with 10 days being for a school severely in need of advice, or does she not yet have a feel for the range of days that will be recommended?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I was careful to say that the use of SIPs will not be dictated by the Department; it will be for the local authority to determine the deployment of SIPs and to allocate them to schools depending on their priorities. There will of course be different needs for SIP contracts depending on what point a SIP is at in their relationship with the school. At the beginning, we would expect some familiarisation visits, but later perhaps just a quarter or half a day a term would be needed to keep up to date with progress and ensure that the support and challenge offered by the SIP role continued to be available to the school.

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

I refer back to an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East concerning academies. Will the Minister confirm that every academy will have a school improvement partner? Who will pay for the SIP for an academy?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

As I made clear when we discussed this point, the maintaining authority, which is the Department in the case of an academy, will ensure that academies have school improvement partners. The two academies in areas covered by the first wave of roll-out of SIPs will have SIPs provided for them and funded by the Department.

Amendment No. 19 proposes that school improvement partners be replaced every two years. I share the concern, expressed by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and implicit in the amendment and in amendment No. 20, that SIPs need to take seriously their role in securing school improvement. Our policy is that accreditation should be reserved for SIPs who are effective. The amendment would put in the Bill detailed requirements that would be inflexible and undesirable, and therefore unsuitable for primary legislation.

I shall outline the two ways in which a SIP’s appointment or allocation to a school could change. The first relates to local accountability for school improvement. The SIP’s role will not alter the statutory responsibilities of a local authority, which will continue to be responsible for standards and levels of attainment in schools. The SIP will work to support that accountability under contract to the school’s maintaining authority and regularly reporting to it. Authorities will need to manage effectively the SIPs who work with their schools, and they will use a range of approaches to that task according to their circumstances and needs. Those approaches will include feedback from schools on such aspects as effectiveness in providing challenge and support, advising the governors and working with the head teacher. Authorities will seek evidence on the impact that advice from the SIP is having on a school’s performance. The discontinuance of a SIP’s deployment to a school could be one of the available management actions if it was clear that the relationship was not having the desired impact.

Secondly, there will be robust national quality assurance to secure high-quality school improvement partners, and engagement with that quality assurance could be one of the requirements under the regulations to which subsection (3) refers. The procedurefor maintaining or withdrawing an individual’s accreditation is a key element of the measures to secure high-quality challenge and support for schools. The continuing accreditation of SIPs will depend on the quality of their performance and on their participation in continuing professional development once they have been accredited.

It might help the Committee if I outline briefly what is involved in the accreditation of a school improvement partner. The current process is run by the National College for School Leadership. Individuals with headship experience or who are link advisors in a local authority can apply to become a SIP. The college takes up two references for applicants who meet the person specification published in the SIP brief. There is then a two-stage process that includes an online assessment of an individual’s ability to interpret a range of school data and use them to identify improvement priorities. That is followed by two days of residential training and face-to-face assessment that not only builds on the use and interpretation of data, but, importantly, tests individuals’ ability to work effectively with a school to effect change.

In light of all of the relevant available information, a person’s accreditation can be removed if their conduct or competence is unsatisfactory. As I suggested, lack of progress in the school with which they work could be an indication of lack of competence. Concerns about a SIP could come from a school, a local authority or a regional co-ordinator of SIPs. After concerns have been expressed there is a fair and transparent process that leads to a decision on whether to remove accreditation, which would be taken by a board made up of representatives of the National College for School Leadership, of national strategies and of the Department.

I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman that procedures for quality assurance, accreditation, and in fact the ability to remove that accreditation where a SIP is clearly failing, are already in place and will play an important part in maintaining that quality assurance. In addition to those measures, our policy on the allocation of school improvement partners includes a requirement on local authorities not to allocate a partner to the same school for more than three years.

In such circumstances it is neither the role of Government nor that of primary legislation to manage education professionals directly. However, I hope that hon. Members are reassured that we recognise, for example, the possibility that a relationship between a SIP and a school might become too cosy. Provision for that has been built into the process.

Amendment No. 20 would add a requirement onthe Government to publish our policies on the appointment of school improvement partners. I am not unsympathetic to the objectives of the amendment, but I do not think that that needs to be in the Bill because policies related to the appointment of SIPs are published already by the Department, or on its behalf. We intend to continue to do that, which will include publishing the eligibility criteria and person specification for becoming an accredited SIP. The condition of grant letter, which we send as part of our arrangements for funding local authorities in order that they can introduce and administer SIPs, includes the main policies in relation to their appointment, such as the proportion that we expect to be head teachers.

Furthermore, there are requirements for information collecting and sharing, and obligations on SIPs to participate in continuing professional development. I am more than happy to send to members of the Committee a copy of the school improvement partner brief to which I have referred. It identifies many of the issues that I have mentioned.

Finally, we have issued to the Committee already a policy statement on the regulation-making powers in the clause which sets out examples of policies that we may want to include in regulations if the need arises. Of course, I am happy to provide further clarification in Committee. On the basis of my arguments, I hope that Opposition Members are reassured that we have developed a proportional yet sufficiently challenging role for SIPs. They will have a new relationship with schools that will remove bureaucracy and clutter and maintain the challenge and support necessary to be confident that all children, whatever school they are in, are given the support and ability to progress and fulfil their potential. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will withdraw his amendment.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

It is good to be back after Easter and to welcome you to the Chair once again, Mr. Chope, buoyed, no doubt, by a healthy intake of buns and eggs and inspired by the risen Christ.

In that spirit I note the Minister’s generosity in acknowledging that she sees sense in some of the amendments. She is absolutely right to stress the importance of the criteria by which school improvement partners will be appointed, assessed and removed if they are not up to the job. I acknowledge her acceptance of arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the importance of ensuring that the very best people do the job, that there are proper mechanisms to ensure that they are not coasting and that they can be replaced as and when necessary.

The Minister was less convincing on the numbers of people who will be fit for that purpose. In her appreciation of these matters there seemed to be a slightly complacent view that such people will emerge from the ether and be readily available, well equipped and entirely appropriate to perform the demanding role that she rightly identified. I will not reprise the very good debate that we had before Easter, but I am less certain about that and, given the scarcity of those resources, I am convinced that school improvement partners should be prioritised where they can make the most difference, not only in underperforming schools—we all acknowledge that that is where real effort needs to be made—but in coasting schools.

I made it clear in my intervention that I understand and support the Minister’s argument that there is room for improvement in every school. It would be a very bold governing body or head teacher who said that they could not improve their school. As we know from constituency and broader experience, some aspects could be improved even in the best schools, but that is not where we should prioritise scarce resources. Based on the good analysis that can now be made because of value-added measurement, resources can and should be focused on schools that are palpably coasting and those that are desperately underperforming. The argument for the amendments is based not on principle but on practice; it is about the bread and butter issue of how many people will be found who are up to the job and how their skills should be used to best effect.

I shall draw on one or two bits of evidence to support my argument because the Committee, in its usual demanding fashion, will want more than my rhetoric when deciding whether to support Conservative Members in accepting amendment No. 14. The trial of the school improvement partners goes back some way. As the Minister said, the context for it is the “new relationship with schools” scheme. The trial that took place in 93 schools in eight local authorities between September 2004 and July 2005 is of concern to all members of the Committee in judging this aspect of the Bill.

It is true that the overwhelming majority of schools were positive about SIPs, but a significant number of head teachers—nearly 40 per cent.—said that the scheme increased bureaucracy and made life more difficult. There were also profound concerns that there would be difficulty in recruiting heads with appropriate training, which relates to my earlier argument. Indeed, the National Association of Education Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants went further and warned that SIPs could become a second Ofsted. In other words, by applying them as broadly as the Minister wishes, she may be increasing bureaucracy even though it is hard to defend that on the basis of proven needas it might well be said to do in respect of underperforming or coasting schools.

Recruiting school improvement partners is not plain sailing. There are real worries about getting the right people. Under another group of amendments, we shall debate who SIPs should be. Opposition Members are committed to ensuring that they are of the highest possible quality—a view the Minister shares, I think. It does not make good, practical common sense not to allocate the best people to where they can make the most difference. For that reason, I shall invite the Committee to vote on amendment No. 14—the amendment that I moved just before Easter. Although the Minister has moved some way towards our position on such matters and, in the spirit of Easter, has adopted a generous tone in her response to my comments and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, she is not right about where and how we should introduce such an important feature of the Bill.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I beg to move amendment No. 190, in clause 5, page 3, line 27, after ‘unless' insert

‘he has headteacher experience and'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 191, in clause 5, page 3, line 30, at end insert

‘and has undergone training in teaching children with special education needs and disability.'.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The lead amendment suggests that the people whom we appoint to perform the important task of school improvement partner should be head teachers, and amendment No. 191 proposes that they should have undergone training in teaching children with special needs. The Committee will know from earlier debates that the most disadvantaged children are at the heart of the Conservatives’ approach to the Bill and to education more generally. Children with special educational needs are among the most disadvantaged children.

Let me deal first with head teachers. Debating the previous group of amendments, I said that it was critical that the people who perform the important role of SIP are of the best possible quality. There are many people who are not head teachers whom we would not want to describe as being anything less than of high quality, but it seems a useful benchmark to suggest that, if a person is to be appointed to a school to make real changes to its organisation, its teaching and learning practices as well as to its management, that person should have been a head teacher.

Perhaps I may plug the school of which I am a governor. The head teacher of John Harrox school in Moulton in my constituency, Mr. David Munro, does a good deal of work advising other head teachers. He is an experienced head and works with other primary heads to help them to improve practice. I am sure that other members of the Committee know of similar examples from their areas of the country. We know that there are already good models of head teachers working with other head teachers in collaborative ventures of one kind or another, to help them to improve practice in their schools. In broadening the number of people who could be involved in that work, we risk undermining schools’ confidence in that provision.

One reason why we want to focus school improvement partners as I described a few moments ago is that we are of the mind that there will not be sufficient head teachers with sufficient time to perform the task. The provision entails former head teachers—they may have retired or moved on, or be doing something else entirely—allocating significant time and energy to the task. I suspect that the Minister will resist the amendments because she knows that if she continues to say that every school should have a partner, there will not be enough head teachers and it will be necessary to broaden the net to draw in people without experience of running a school—people who are not former head teachers. The amendments are consistent with our approach of maintaining that school improvement partners should be of the highest quality. The right people must be appointed to the job. The White Paper makes it clear, at paragraph 2.62 on page 38, that a school improvement partner should be

“a nationally accredited expert, usually a headteacher”.

We are, therefore, not a million miles from the Government on that matter.

It is made clear in the White Paper that school improvement partners are an extension of the idea of collaboration and federation that underpins the Government’s approach to the sharing of good practice. I suspect that the Government are right that it can make a real difference when a failing school federates with another, more successful, school in its area. A school can benefit from that kind of collaboration if there is good knowledge of the local circumstances, if relationships between members of staff, governors and others associated with the school are good, and if there is real knowledge of some of the challenges facing the school. Such collaboration must be rooted in such local expertise. I am very concerned that a school improvement partner who has not been a head teacher and who may not be from the locality may be parachuted into the school without that that sort of understanding or knowledge of local considerations, and perhaps without the “nationally accredited” expertise that a head teacher would typically have.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

On a point of clarification, does the hon. Gentleman mean that all SIPs should be serving head teachers, or that, as the amendment specifies, they should have head teacher experience? What he is saying seems different from what is in the amendment.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The amendment makes it clear that both are possible. Of course there will be circumstances in which an existing head teacher—as in the example from my area—can play a useful part in supporting the work of another school with challenges that he overcame in his own school. That is why I made the point that it is best for a school improvement partner to come from the same locality, so that he will understand the local challenges and the character of the area and perhaps already have some knowledge of the school. The idea of a serving head teacher travelling to another part of the country and, perhaps, spending many weeks working with a school that has profound difficulties raises all kinds of questions. Where would that head teacher’s priorities lie? Would they lie with the school that he or she had gone to work with, or with the school of which he or she is the serving head teacher? There are issues about that, which is why I am sticking closely to the White Paper. As I have said, the White Paper makes it clear that SIPs are really a development of the idea of local collaboration and federation and good communications showing best practice in a given area.

In the case of former head teachers, there is likely to be a great deal more flexibility. They may have retired or be working part time in rather different professional circumstances and they may be able to move round more freely, allocate more time and play a more dynamic role in the process, without compromising the integrity of this important part of the Bill by diluting the quality of the people involved.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

The amendment is rather prescriptive. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important that a school should be effectively challenged by its school improvement partner and that there should be reasonable flexibility about who should be accredited to do that?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Challenge is important, but it must be based on a good understanding of the issues faced by schools. That is critical. It is important that school improvement partners retain a degree of empiricism—they should be objective; they should be an “honest friend”, as someone described them earlier. Yes, there should be challenge, but it must be in the context of supporting schools’ work in the areas where improvements need to be made. The nature of that challenge will, to some extent, depend upon the scale of the tasks faced by schools and their school improvement partners. None of that, however, alters the essence of my argument that school improvement partners should be of the highest quality. To make the challenge that both the hon. Lady and I seek, school improvement partners must have the respect of those whom they are challenging and advising and with whom they seek to work.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

Does the hon. Gentleman consider that former directors of education, who may have produced extremely efficient and high-quality services in local authorities, may be fitted to the challenge?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

As a member of an education committee, I worked with many local authority education officers and met many people of the highest calibre. I do not disparage the expertise of and the good work done by local government officers. Politicians too often go down that road. However, it is important to make the case for school improvement partners as persuasive as possible to schools that may be sceptical. In coasting schools, for example, I suspect there will be a fair amount of doubt that they need a school improvement partner at all. They are coasting because they do not recognise the scale of the challenge that they face. In making the case, the expertise of school improvement partners in running schools and in, as it were, doing the business locally, will be useful tools.

I understand the hon. Lady’s point and I do not disregard it entirely. I am not unsympathetic to the admiration she has for the good work that is done by many education officers in local government. However, I do not think that it is good enough to broaden the net and trawl in a large number of people, not all of whom will be equally competent in persuading the schools of the merit of school improvement partners. If we are going to limit who can become a SIP, we should limit it to head teachers—people with experience that is highly relevant to the work that they are to do in and with the school.

It is worth talking about, in the pilot, the successful school improvement partnership between George Salter high school and Shireland language college, which is highlighted in the White Paper. Performance at George Salter high school in Sandwell was improved when Mr. Mark Grundy, the head teacher at Shireland—I hasten to add that I do not know him—took over the strategic running of both schools and devised a recovery plan for George Salter. However, the Bill does not stipulate that school improvement partners must have real-life experience of running schools. There is a great danger that if we do not specify who SIPs should be, we will not get the right people, and will not persuade schools that this part of the Bill is warranted or that the work that such people do is desirable.

According to TheTimes Educational Supplement of 21 December 2005, heads who have applied to become school improvement partners have complained about the complex application process. I understand that it includes role-play tests and a data evaluation examination that must be completed within 35 hours of opening the envelope. Will the Minister comment on that? We must get the right people, and the criteria by which we test, appoint and remove them should be rigorous, but if we are going to ask both serving and former head teachers to be involved, we must make the process by which they become engaged as clear and straightforward as possible. We do not want to add bureaucracy where there is already too much, particularly given that the point is made in the White Paper that the Government’s “new relationship with schools” policy is

“designed to reduce bureaucracy and streamline working arrangements”,

so as to release more energy to focus on local priorities.

Our doubts about the Government’s position are not doubts in principle. There is a case for sharing good practice with underperforming or coasting schools in which improvement is urgently needed. We are committed to the idea that the people involved in that should be the best possible people and that they should be able to perform their function by earning the respect of the schools that they work with. That will in part depend on their real-life practical experience, and I am therefore convinced that it is desirable that they have run schools themselves as head teachers.

As more children with special needs are educated in mainstream schools, the need to ensure that teachers have appropriate training and advice on how to meet their needs is increasing. In this Committee, we have made a case for the role of special schools. I am a staunch advocate of their virtues for children with all sorts of special needs, but I acknowledge that many children who are integrated into mainstream schools do well there. There is a good deal of good practice in integrating children in mainstream schools where that is the best place for them. We believe that such matters should be determined by the choice of parents and the needs of children. The best educational opportunities for children should be the driver of policy in that respect.

However, if that is to be how we move forward, it is vital that school improvement partners have a good understanding of the requirements of children with special educational needs. Conservative Members will not hesitate to advocate the case for special needs children, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has done throughout his tenure of his current post, as I did when I held that post, and as I continue to do in my current role. We should not allow children with special educational needs to play second fiddle either in our consideration of the Bill or more widely. SIPs should be well equipped to deal with the needs of those children and amendment No. 191 would make that a requirement of the Bill.

The fastest growing area of special needs is children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Such children present real challenges to schools and head teachers and will present significant challenges to SIPs. EBD children bring with them all kinds of problems, so it is important that SIPs are well equipped to deal with them. There are worries within the profession that teachers and heads are not necessarily receiving adequate training to deal with EBD children or with children with special educational needs more generally. There are real doubts about the level of expertise and therefore about the way that some of those children are being handled in mainstream schools.

Amendment No. 191 would require school improvement partners to have adequate training. No doubt, the Minister will tell us why she thinks that they should not be required to have such training and set out clearly how she sees the alternative working out. If SIPs are not to be trained in this area, we want to be absolutely certain that she has a plan B—another way of dealing with the needs of those children in underperforming schools.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the number of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties and special needs is increasing rapidly? That is not simply because we can now detect those problems at an earlier stage; there are other reasons too. The amendment is therefore essential. The lack of mention of children with special educational needs in both the White Paper and the Bill is worrying.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I mentioned that the number of statemented children with emotional and behavioural difficulties has risen sharply. Of course that is happening in the context of a growing understanding of special educational needs and a recognition of such through the statementing process. I still have real worries that the statementing process is esoteric and bureaucratic and that many children are not statemented quickly enough, with the result that we do not understand their particular educational needs as clearly as we might. The parents of such children often find the system confusing and are bamboozled by the bureaucracy confronting them. Despite that, it is certainly true that more children’s needs are being identified more clearly than was done in the past, which makes my call for proper competence, real understanding and adequate training for those involved in advising on the education of those children all the more important.

As I said, it would be enlightening to know whether the Minister disagrees. I feel sure that she must share my concerns because I remember debating the issues with her at greater length on a previous occasion. If we are to get the sort of education that we all want for the most disadvantaged children, we must set the bar as high as possible for those who educate them and those who work with the schools where they are educated. That seems a reasonable case, which I am sure that the Minister will either counter with a palatable and persuasive alternative, or accept by embracing our amendments. Let us have head teachers and people who are properly trained in dealing with children with special educational needs.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I am sympathetic to the arguments made for amendment No. 190. It is particularly important that we treat senior management within education as a distinct profession that requires skills distinct from teaching throughout the school and from other forms of senior management, although it draws on both of those types of experience. I will listen carefully to the words that the Minister uses to explain why she does not support the amendment.

I am also sympathetic to the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) that there are senior local education advisors who may have particular expertise, but in many cases those people will have had senior education management experience. That is where my concern about the amendment’s prescription lies. It is vital that the people in question have experience of senior education management, but that does not necessarily mean that they must have been serving head teachers; they may have been deputy heads, for example, or had another senior management role in a large school that has given them overall expertise.

On amendment No. 191, I suspect that the training requirements of SIPs will not be confined to special educational needs. They will need continuing professional development in discipline and changes in child protection law. I foresee SIPs from rural Hertfordshire finding it difficult to understand the problems faced by a school in my constituency, where tribal wars from Somalia continue in the playground. The importance of continuing professional development is raised in point 3 of the policy statement that has been issued by the Government with the illustrative regulations. If the Minister puts on record that such issues will be dealt with under continuing professional development, I will be quite happy with that reassurance. If not, wider issues will need to be addressed, not just those relating to special educational needs.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I rise in support of my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who so ably moved the amendment, to make not the same points but one or two additional points. As he said, the amendments relate to the quality and qualifications of the people who are to become school improvement partners. I note from the statement of policy on clause 5, to which the hon. Member for Brent, East referred and which the Minister has helpfully circulated to members of the Committee, that the Government have considered the point. At paragraph 3 it states:

“SIPs will be drawn from serving head teachers, former head teachers and local authority advisors.”

That statement is welcome, except the part about local authority advisors, to which the hon. Lady also referred. I am not sure how well local authority advisors are regarded by head teachers, but I suspect that a head is likely to take the advice of a fellow head more seriously than that of an advisor who has never worked in a school or who has been the head of a school only for a very short time before moving into local authority administration.

Paragraph 4 of the note provided by the Minister states:

“We have not put these requirements into primary legislation because we want to retain flexibility over the development and application of these policies in the light of working with local authorities on their implementation of the SIP programme.”

That is a pity, because there is a distinct likelihood that unless the requirements are explicitly set out in the Bill, there will be a flight from quality as local authorities struggle to find head teachers or former head teachers who are willing to take on the task, as my hon. Friend has said.

Paragraph 3.1 of the regulatory impact assessment says that

“SIPs should be nationally accredited”

and that

“three quarters of an authority’s secondary SIPs should have head teacher experience.”

Why three quarters, and why only secondary schools’ school improvement partners? Surely the same should apply to primary schools’ SIPs as well.

I was also interested by paragraph 3.2 on page 54:

“To enable Ministers to enforce the implementation of the SIP function in accordance with their policies, if necessary”—

that is the purpose of the legislation—

“conditions on SIP funding for local authorities enable the Department to recover or withhold funding but as it is a contribution to costs this would provide insufficient leverage over an authority determined not to implement SIPs in accordance with ministerial policies or not to appoint themat all.”

I quote that paragraph because the Minister often criticises me for being over-prescriptive. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough made the same point earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I have been criticised for being over-prescriptive for wanting synthetic phonics to be used in the teaching of reading, or more setting in the classroom, yet the regulatory impact assessment is littered with hundreds of paragraphs on prescription—how the Government can enforce their policy on this or that body. The Conservative approach is all about exhortation.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that the point of a regulatory impact assessment is to outline why legislation is the most appropriate route in particular circumstances? Of course it proposes a legislative route. Otherwise, the Bill would not be justified.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

In that case, I extend the sentence by saying that the regulatory impact assessment is littered with such paragraphs and the Bill is littered with extremely prescriptive provisions. It is rich for the Minister to accuse the Conservative party of being prescriptive.

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

It seems that the hon. Gentleman is attempting to make the Bill even more prescriptive. Does he agree that some advisers, directors of education, and head teachers—although not all of them—are inspirational? Do we not want the very best for our schools?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Of course we want the very best. It is up to policy-makers to assess how to achieve the best school improvement partners given the limited resources available to us as a country. Amendment No. 191 seeks to do that.

Good education policy can often be implemented by exhortation and dissemination of best practice. Only on issues of major importance—such as phonics, for example—should it be necessary to change the national curriculum by regulation. The Government’s approach is to pile on initiative after initiative that may or may not contribute in some minor way to raising standards, but that will certainly impose time-consuming activities on teachers and head teachers. That is the point that I am trying to make. There is a distinction between important measures that will deliver higher standards and those measures that are burdensome to teachers and head teachers.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

There have been two references to the need to disseminate best practice and the view that head teachers are probably one of the best ways to do that. How does that square with the Conservative party’s policy during the last election of abolishing the National College for School Leadership? Is the hon. Gentleman telling us that that policy has changed?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

All our policies are up for review, of course, at the beginning of a new Parliament. We need to make sure that things such as the National College for School Leadership are effective. If they are not, they must be either abolished or reformed. We will consider that in the coming months.

I should like to deal briefly with amendment No. 191, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings said, would add the requirement that school improvement partners should also have training in teaching children with special educational needs and disabilities. My hon. Friend focused on children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Such matters will be important for SIPs for mainstream schools with pupils with special needs, and SIPs for special schools. There will be little point having a school improvement partner for a special school if he or she lacks the specialised training that a teacher or head teacher at such a school has had—or the experience required for such people to be effective.

I recently spoke to a head teacher of an excellent special school catering for children with severe learning difficulties. He explained how specialised the training of his teachers is and needs to be using the example of a child who not only has severe learning difficulties, but is deaf and blind. He said that, in such circumstances, someone is needed to help the child to develop her faculties. For example, in a swimming lesson, the teacher will let the child hold her swimming costume, so that she associates it with swimming. Once this knowledge has been established in her mind, after a few weeks, instead of giving her the full costume, the teacher will give her a small piece of the same material. After a few more weeks, she will be given a shaped piece of material attached to a card. In time, the shape will be associated in her mind with swimming. The child’s intellect is being developed and she is beginning the process of learning to read. That is one small example of the specialised pedagogy involved in teaching at a special school for those with severe learning difficulties.

A school improvement partner for a special school should have such specialised training and experience. A SIP for a mainstream school with a special needs unit should also have some degree of training in the area of special education. The Special Education Consortium, which is keen on amendment No. 191, says:

“School improvement partners will need training and preparation for this role and this is clearly envisaged, in clause 5, by the requirement for them to be accredited...However, the role of school improvement partners in respect of the quality of provision made by schools for disabled pupils and pupils with special educational needs is problematic. This is largely because the quality of provision in schools is itself variable. Head teachers recruited as school improvement partners are going to bring that variable expertise to the school improvement role...The dearth of expertise in schools in these particular respects makes training on SEN and disability crucial for anyone becoming a school improvement partner....SEC believes that this amendment is essential to ensuring that school improvement partners are equipped to support the improvement of the quality of provision for disabled pupils and pupils with special educational needs.”

Amendments Nos. 190 and 191 are important and will help to ensure that SIPs do not just become tick-box encumbrances, but result in some real value added to the schools concerned.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

May I welcome you back after the Easter recess, Mr. Chope?

The amendments demonstrate that the Conservative vision for SIPs is much narrower than the vision reflected in the Bill. Our vision is much wider because we want all schools to have SIPs, including those that are successful or perhaps only superficially successful. In a speech on 13 April, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out the new interventions intended for failing schools. SIPs are not part of those interventions. They are to act as constant professional, critical friends to schools, and are not merely to be parachuted in when schools are underperforming or coasting. They are relevant to all maintained schools, not only the failing ones. It is therefore relevant to involve a wider group of people in the SIPs initiative than the narrow group envisaged by the Conservatives.

My memory goes back to when head teacher appraisal was introduced in the early 1990s. It was, rightly, introduced rapidly, but sufficient experts were not available and people had to be trained quickly. Some people involved in the scheme were advisers and some came from outside the head teacher profession, but despite the fact that not everyone involved had experience of being a head teacher, the scheme was, and is, a great success. I do not see that there will be any difference with the people who will work as SIPs.

Schools that have good leaders do not necessarily need identikit good leaders from other schools to be their school improvement partners. They may need different types of professionals—perhaps those who have experience of working with certain categories of children or in the particular areas that may not be improving with the rest of the school. It may not be a question of leadership, but a matter of drilling down and considering the areas that may need to be improved.

We are considering a more complex issue than the small number of schools that are either failing or coasting. We need a group of professionals, not just one type of professional, to help schools. As was mentioned earlier, the professionals must be accredited by the National College for School Leadership, and it is that, not whether they have head teacher experience, that should be the test.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady, as ever, is making a persuasive argument, but does she not accept the view that people are more likely to take advice from their peers? Can the hon. Lady think of a single profession in which people would not be most likely to take advice from those who had done their job? It is true of MPs, is it not? If I needed advice on how I could do my job better, I would be more likely to speak to someone who had done the job than to someone who had not.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

The hon. Gentleman is correct: people do like to seek information and advice from their peers. However, I have noticed that my constituents are very free with their opinions and I cannot seem to stop them. [Laughter.] There are a number of people besides head teachers whom head teachers consider to be their peers—for example, the professional group of educators; their deputy head colleagues; deputy head teachers in other schools; and those whom they consider to be good advisers and inspectors.

The peer group of head teachers and deputy head teachers includes good professionals, but we all know that when we visit schools, the head teachers sometimes make comments about their head teacher and adviser colleagues to which we have to close our ears, whereas they are full of praise for other colleagues. The peer group is not confined narrowly to head teachers. It comprises many different people, including up-and-coming deputy head teachers, whom everyone within a group of schools knows will be the next head teachers. Possibly, they are more inspirational leaders than many of the head teachers in that group of schools. We must be very careful about what we consider to be the peer group.

If I heard him correctly, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned advisers who have never worked in a school. I do not know many advisers—in fact, I do not know any—who have never worked in schools. However, I do recall that when the Conservative Government quite rightly introduced the inspection regime, it was mandatory for each group to include an inspector drawn from industry—someone who had no prior experience of a school. That was very useful, but it was useful within a group of inspectors who made a collective judgment on how a school was doing. I can see reasons for involving advisors from outside education, and ways of doing it, but I do not think that such an advisor would be the sole person to be involved in school improvement. In fact, I should be very surprised if such a person were to get through the training given by the National College for School Leadership.

Amendment No. 191 is largely redundant, because I do not know of any initial teacher training that does not include an element of training in special needs. My own certainly did, and I know that many colleges provide that training now. I should be very surprised to learn otherwise. In addition, a huge amount of training in special needs has been provided for teachers in the past 10 to 15 years, particularly with the move to include more young people with special needs in mainstream schools and colleges. People either agree with that or they do not, and I do not intend to rehearse the arguments here, but it is of course up to the National College for School Leadership to ensure that further training, if necessary, is available and is part of the qualification for school improvement partners.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady mentioned the special needs training that many teachers have enjoyed—her phrase “an element of training in special needs” was an interesting one—and I wonder if she agrees with the large number of teachers who feel that many children who have been integrated into the mainstream should not be there. She will recall last year’s survey that found that a significant number of teachers and head teachers thought that about a quarter of the children who have been integrated into the mainstream should be in special schools.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

On my remark about an element of training, of course if a teacher is training as a general primary school teacher or is doing subject-specific training for secondary school it would not be expected that the whole training programme would be about special needs. I do not know the survey that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but my feeling is that we need to consider a balance of what is right for the child and what is right for the school. That is how we should proceed. There are always issues to be considered about integration and getting children into the mainstream. I also feel that we have in the past held many children with special needs back by putting them and keeping them in special schools when they could move faster and further in mainstream schools.

Amendments Nos. 191 and 190 are narrow and do not express the breadth of provision that is in the Bill. That is why I shall not support them.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

We have had a good discussion about school improvement partners. Amendment No. 190 would, as we have heard, impose restrictions on who could be a school improvement partner by requiring that the individual concerned should have head teacher experience. I agree that a central feature of the school improvement partner programme should be the involvement of significant numbers of people with head teacher experience. That is already established, and we have been clear about it since January 2004.Of course, as the hon. Member for South Hollandand The Deepings identified, we reiterated that commitment in the schools White Paper.

The Committee may be interested to know that 70 per cent. of secondary school improvement partners deployed in the first wave have head teacher experience, and that in the primary phase local authorities already use significant numbers of people with head teacher experience. A recent advertisement for primary school improvement partner accreditation attracted 2,000 applications, and 85 per cent. of those were from people with head teacher experience.

However, some important points have been made, largely by my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), to show that we should also recognise that some individuals who have not been head teachers may have important expertise and experience to offer. That case was made eloquently by my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon and for Sheffield, Hillsborough. For example, those individuals could include current or ex-school improvement advisors. It would be inappropriate and the system would lose out if we effectively, in passing the amendment, outlawed those people from becoming school improvement partners and therefore from contributing further to school improvement.

Mary Creagh (Labour, Wakefield)

Has my right hon. Friend analysed the potential impact of the amendments, were they to be made, in opening the Government to challenges under the Human Rights Act 1998 or sex discrimination laws, given that fewer women are likely to become head teachers, particularly at secondary level? Indirectly, the amendments could be discriminatory.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I have to admit to my hon. Friend that I have not made any analysis under human rights or sex discrimination legislation, but she makes an important point—as have other colleagues—about the impact of making legislation on the nature of school improvement partners over-restrictive.

We have been clear about the significant contribution that we expect those with head teacher experience to make, not least because the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is right—head teachers might be more likely to accept that challenge and support from other head teachers. I note as well—not necessarily warmly—that it was a Conservative Government who introduced lay Ofsted inspectors, and, I understand, lay inspectors into the police force. So his argument does not stack up in the way in which he spelt it out.

The amendment confronts the question whether, despite the commitment to have large numbers of people with head teacher experience, we want to outlaw people who do not, from contributing to school improvement. Already, many such individuals are serving successfully as school improvement partners in our schools. To replace those existing SIPs with head teachers and former head teachers would require wholesale change, and in many ways it would be rash to lose the expertise of all of those people.

I reassure hon. Members, however, that we have introduced a national system of accreditation, that I outlined when I responded to the previous group of amendments, that underpins the appointment of SIPs, and, indeed, we have included that requirement in the Bill. I was slightly surprised that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings described as bureaucracy what I think of as a rigorous accreditation process. I make no excuse for the fact that we require individuals to pass the online assessment and meet the person specification, and then to go on to be trained and assessed for accreditation.

In a moment I shall respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Brent, East who identified—rightly—the need for not only rigorous accreditation, but continuing professional development training in some areas. Of course, we are prepared to insist, where necessary, on head teacher involvement in the school improvement partner programme by, for example, making such involvement a condition of funding support. We would do that to help to achieve, as I have said, the policy that we have set out whereby 75 per cent. of secondary SIPs deployed should have secondary head teacher experience.

Hon. Members have referred to the policy statement that accompanies clause 5 in which I spelt out the reserve powers for making regulations which would, if necessary, be the place in which to legislate for more detailed requirements in relation to the appointment of school improvement partners. On that basis, I shall resist amendment No. 190.

There are technical problems with amendment No. 191. As drafted, it would add to subsection (2)(b) the requirement that a person should be trained in the teaching of

“children with special education needs and disability.”

However, that provision relates to the person authorised by the Secretary of State to accredit individuals to be school improvement partners, not to the partners themselves, so technically the amendment does not achieve the aim set out by Opposition Members.

However, I shall address the intention behind the amendment, which was meant to refer to the people being accredited as school improvement partners. I shall mention, first, the organisation that accredits the school improvement partners, secondly, the nature of the SIP role in relation to the children, and, thirdly, our thinking on the role of SIPs in relation to special schools—a matter to which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton referred. The initial training, development, assessment and accreditation of school improvement partners is undertaken by the National College for School Leadership, whose future, at least under the present Government, is secure.

On the points made by the hon. Member for Brent, East on how SIPs are trained, school improvement partners do not focus solely on the academic achievement of the successful or the best. The training and accreditation of SIPs focuses on data analyses of the performance of groups of pupils in schools, in particular on identifying inequitable outcomes that might occur in the school, the factors that contribute to them, and the action that the school should take. That is supplemented by detailed guidance on how the school improvement partnership focuses with the school on issues that might affect vulnerable or disadvantaged groups of pupils—the sort of issues rightly identified by the hon. Lady. I should be happy to supply members of the Committee with the guidance, to identify the scope and the depth of the training.

The guidance includes advice that SIPs should consider in relation to special educational needs, including the effectiveness of systems in the school to identify pupils with barriers to learning; discriminating well between those with learning and behavioural difficulties; whether systems can be used to design appropriate curriculum and pastoral support, monitoring success; responding to changing needs; and focusing on whether there are effective links with other support agencies, to ensure that integrated support structures, which are often so important for children with special educational needs, are in place for pupils with additional needs in the school.

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

Has the guidance been drawn up in association with some of the main organisations such as the National Autistic Society, which wants a special teacher with a full brief on autism in every school?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I cannot give the hon. Lady a commitment that the guidance, which is about the training of school improvement partners, has been drawn up with the National Autistic Society, but the Department has done considerable work with the society about the special educational needs training that my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon mentioned and how we can address such needs in schools.

The guidance is supplemented by a range of questions supplied to SIPs, specifically whether there are effective systems to identify pupils with additional needs and to monitor how well those needs are being addressed. SIPs will therefore be required to identify underperformance of potentially vulnerable groups and be equipped to deal with them. They will raise issues of concern and probe with the head teacher their response to them and the priorities for action.

As well as considering academic attainment, SIPs will also consider any over-representation of certain types of pupils in a school’s exclusion or absence data. There are worries about the representation of children with special educational needs in exclusions, and about the number of exclusions. The SIP will be armed with that information on the school and trained to investigate the matter.

The training and professional development of SIPs does not stop with the initial session provided for accreditation. SIPs will take part in four days of professional development a year, provided in part by the national strategies and in part by the local authorities deploying SIPs. One of the important elements of that training will relate to the analysis of the school’s self-evaluation. That is a key starting point for the school improvement partner in the process of offering challenge and support to the school.

There are specific special educational needs sections in the school self-evaluation form. I can assure the Committee that the SEN self-evaluation framework will form part of the SIPs’ continuing professional development. The thrust of all the professional development for SIPs, both initial and continuing, will be to stimulate the improvements that each school needs. In many schools those improvements include raising the attainment of pupils with special educational needs. That does not mean that every SIP needs the same training. I would argue against including the requirement in the legislation, both for technical reasons and because of the reassurance that I have been able to provide about the nature of the training—initial and ongoing.

Let me say something about the identification and use of school improvement partners for special schools, which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton raised. He is right to say that questions need to be answered about specific elements of work with special schools, and that they are worthy of careful consideration. That is why we are conducting a trial of SIPs for special schools in 26 schools under seven local authorities. That will enable us to consider issues such as how we use and interpret data on the achievement of the pupils, what additional training and development might be needed for the accreditation of SIPs for special schools, and what the most appropriate background of the SIPs should be if they are to be effective in and credible to the sector. The trial is being evaluated independently and I hope to be in a position to make decisions on national roll out, informed by the results of that evaluation, later in the summer.

I hope that, in light of the points that I have made, hon. Members will recognise that our aim in introducing SIPs is to strengthen our commitment to ensuring successful outcomes for all pupils, irrespective of their special needs or disabilities, and that we are putting in place both the accreditation and the initial and continuing professional development necessary to achieve that aim. On the basis of those arguments, and of the technical deficiency of the second amendment, I hope that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am extremely grateful for the Minister’s comprehensive response to the amendments. Let us review where we are in terms of the sort of people who we hope will become SIPs. There seems to be agreement across the Committee that the role is vital and that SIPs should be people of wide experience and the highest quality. There is no disagreement about the need to ensure that schools welcome them as such and understand the role that they can play in their improvement.

As I said at the outset, I do not think that there is much debate about the principle. There are, however, concerns about the practice. We are concerned about the recruitment of SIPs. The Minister was critical of my criticism of the bureaucratic nature of the process. I referred only to comments that have been made independently by those who have been part of the trial process. The test of a recruitment process is that it is effective, not that it is burdensome. It does not have to be long, drawn out and complex to be effective. We are talking about attracting the right people and then assessing their suitability to do the job. I was simply warning the Minister that if she does not get that right, she will not achieve her objective. However, I understand her acknowledgement that the matter needs to be taken into account, so there is little disagreement between us on that.

Indeed, there seems to be less and less disagreement about who will become SIPs. In the early days, it was not clear that there was to be much of a limit on who might become one. As we have moved on, we have gathered that most SIPs will be head teachers. Indeed, the regulatory impact assessment says:

“SIPs should be nationally accredited and...three quarters of an authority’s secondary SIPs should have head teacher experience.”

The Minister went further by telling us that 85 per cent. of those people who expressed an interest in becoming a SIP are head teachers.

There is an assurance that the vast bulk of people involved in this process will be head teachers. Moreover, there is a growing consensus on the Committee that they should have relevant local expertise. That is not to say that they will necessarily be drawn from the locality, but the hon. Member for Brent, East made a sensible point that having some understanding and appreciation of the local circumstances will be critical not just to them doing their job but to their being accepted as the critical friend that we all hope they might be. It would be entirely inappropriate to bring in someone who had not dealt with the challenges of a very rural or a very urban area and expect them to persuade head teachers and other senior managers in the school that they could be a valuable and valued critical friend.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I do not want to disrupt the consensus that has broken out, at least in the early part of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but although I agree with him about the need to understand the local context in which a school works, there may be some benefits in local authorities employing SIPs who come from other areas. A SIP will not always work with a local school.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Indeed, the balance is critical. It might well be appropriate to bring in someone who was not immediately associated with the school, or even associated by implication with the school, but who had experience of dealing with similar challenges in a different place. It would be much harder to persuade a school to accept the advice of someone who had done very good work, but in a very different kind of environment. That is the balance about which I discern the Minister shares my concern.

The comment made by the hon. Member for Brent, East about her locality—we can all make similar comments about our own localities—is important in terms of the kind of work that the SIP is likely to do on the ground in a particular school. I acknowledge what the Minister said about that. Although in a response to an earlier intervention I mentioned that I accepted that good people are involved in LEAs who bring much skill to bear, some LEAs are merely coasting. There are not just coasting schools; sometimes there are coasting authorities. Sometimes schools are coasting because necessary action has not been taken by education officers. In acknowledging that there are good people in all kinds of places who might become SIPs, we must be careful that we do not perpetuate complacency by introducing people into the process who will not offer the kind of challenge that the Minister mentioned.

With the assurances that the Minister offered in respect of her determination to ensure quality and with the absolute certainty that we will continue to press her to ensure that that quality is delivered in practice, we can buy her arguments on amendment No. 190. However, I am less persuaded by her arguments on amendment No. 191. Obviously I accept her technical point because she has an army of civil servants behind her about whom I can only dream. That dream is likely in a few short years to become a reality. When the Minister is on the Opposition Benches, as she will be when that happens, or, indeed, doing another job—she may return to the classroom; who knows?—she will perhaps understand. However, I still think it is important that, to illustrate the Committee’s absolute commitment to the interests of children with special needs, we should go a little further with the amendment.

It is of course true, as the hon. Member for South Swindon revealingly said, that teachers receive some training in how to deal with children with special needs. She said that “an element” of their training involved children with special needs. I do not share her instinct about those children whose progress has been inhibited by being in special schools. She said that they would have moved “faster and further” in the mainstream, but I tend to take the view of the majority of heads and teachers who are not in this place but doing the job, and who suggested, in the survey that she said she did not know about, that as many as 25,000 children in mainstream schools in England and Wales would be better off in special schools.

The survey, which was published in The Times Educational Supplement, was of a very large number of schools. More than 500 classroom teachers and more than 200 head teachers of mainstream schools took part, so it was not a slight investigation. I am inclined to think that many of the children who have been integrated could have moved faster and further had they had the kind of dedicated attention that they would have received in special schools. I take a different view from the hon. Lady, but perhaps she has not quite broken out of the old Warnock orthodoxy that permeated thinking and distorted policy for so long.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

I said that some of the children in special schools were held back, and in my experience that is true. I am not talking about children with severe learning difficulties, but about some of those who attended schools such as schools for the deaf or the blind. The education of our very own right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) was blighted by going to a school that recognised only his disability, not his abilities. That is how I would put it—we need schools that recognise abilities, not disabilities.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Of course it is true—and the amendment does not mean that I demur from the point—that many children integrated into mainstream schools do extremely well. We should celebrate their progress and revere the work of the teachers who educate them. Indeed, where the particular needs of such children can be met without compromise to their educational opportunity or to the life of the school and the quality of the work done there more generally, integration should happen. If it is best for them and it is what their parents want, children should be integrated—we are at one on that. However, when more than 200 head teachers and more than 500 classroom teachers say that they reckon that one in four of the children integrated into their schools should not have been integrated, we must take that seriously, must we not? I wonder whether the hon. Member for Brent, East takes it seriously.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I do indeed. The hon. Gentleman made some interesting points in the early part of his speech about the need for training for teachers. I accept his point that many teachers feel that their training is not adequate for them to deal with all the challenges that are presented to them, but his point is surely about the training of teachers, not the training of SIPs. As the Minister said, the training for SIPs concerns identifying whether certain groups of children are being failed by the system. Providing training to the school is an entirely different question.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady is right. They are different, but they are both important. [Interruption.]

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. We cannot talk through the siren sound because Hansard will not be able to report what is going on.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

As the siren sounds, I shall become quieter. Many members on the Benches opposite would rather hear the siren than hear me. [Hon. Members: “No!”] My modesty is legendary, as you know, Mr. Chope. I am the siren voice for the army of children for whom we all seek to do our best.

The hon. Member for Brent, East is right to say that the two things are different, but both are important. The training of teachers to deal with special needs children is of course critical. I tell her that when I trained as a teacher, which was not a million years ago—there are many still teaching who trained at the same time as me—I do not remember a single element of my training that related to children with special educational needs. In the schools where I did my teaching practice I was given no additional support or training in respect of such children.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

Things have moved on. I do not know when the hon. Gentleman trained—it must have been several decades ago. I reassure him that there is now such training.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I trained in the early 1980s. There will be many teachers still teaching who trained then and before. I freely acknowledge that many of them will have had in-service training that will have affected their abilities and skills in that regard. Things have indeed moved on, but it would be monstrous to imagine a circumstance in which a head teacher, without the specialist skills and experience that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton identified in his short example of special education, were to become the school improvement partner for a special school. I do not think that that is likely to happen, but it would be monstrous if it did. The chances of persuading the senior management team in the special school that that person was able to offer the sort of advice needed to improve the school’s standards would be very slim indeed.

When I spoke initially I made a case not about special schools but about mainstream schools. If such circumstances would be bad in mainstream schools, they are likely to be altogether worse in the kind of special schools that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned. The Minister responded by saying that guidance supports identification, curriculum support, pastoral support, monitoring, assessment, relationships with support structures and a variety of other things. I welcome those assurances; it is clear that they are indicative of an understanding of the need to ensure that such matters are at the heart of what SIPs do and of the self-assessment process, which was also mentioned in our short debate.

It is critical that the matter is added to the Bill, perhaps in a technically amended form. That would send a message from the House and the Committee that we understand the critical role of teachers in helping children who are disadvantaged by special needs to achieve their educational potential. To do less would be to undersell the importance of the matter. I mention again children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, who lie at the heart of the “Every Child Matters” agenda that the Government have put at the centre of their considerations in integrating the work of various governmental and non-governmental agencies to help children who face the challenges about which we have spoken.

Although I acknowledge that the Minister has indicated that she takes this matter seriously, and although I understand that many of the people involved in becoming SIPs may have an appreciation and experience of special educational needs, I believe that it is critical for us to highlight such training, in the strongest possible terms, as being a central requirement of what we expect of SIPs working in mainstream schools with special needs children or in special schools. For that reason, we shall press amendment No. 191 to a vote, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the lead amendment.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 347, in clause 5, page 3, line 30, at end insert—

‘(2A) In the case of a religious school of any denomination or religion, the person employed or engaged by a local education authority under the provisions of this section must be of the same denomination or religion as the school to which he is appointed.'.

The amendment is probing, but covers an important subject. I tabled it to give the Minister an opportunity to reassure those concerned about faith schools that school improvement partners will not interfere with or affect the ethos of those schools. I have been in touch with the head teacher at Our Lady of Victory school, the primary school that one of my children attends, and Paul Barber of the Catholic Education Service. This is a useful opportunity for the Minister to reassure the Committee. The Catholic Education Service is extremely concerned about the possible impact of SIPs on the ethos of its schools. The issue, therefore, is important.

Denominational schools are voluntary of course, and the whole point of them is that the governing body should have the final say. That is particularly important for the protection of the ethos of those schools. At the moment, a committee of the governing body, appointed by the school, carries out the school appraisals and appoints an external adviser. Various mechanisms ensure that those external advisers are properly qualified. For instance, the committee can check a person’s expertise with the Cambridge Education Associates.

A missive has come from the Department saying that those external advisers, who are appointed by the schools and usually are—I would imagine—of the same denomination as the schools, will be replaced by SIPs. I would be grateful if the Minister could make it clear that there is no question of the SIPs having a role in changing the ethos of faith schools, and, indeed, that local education authorities will consult the governing bodies of faith schools to ensure that any SIPs appointed understand the ethos and will work with the school.

Generally faith schools have a very good record, academically and in every other way. Many are over-subscribed, particularly in the London area, but, presumably, some underperform academically. There might therefore be a role for what used to be an external adviser and will now be a school improvement partner to come in and give advice to a school on how to improve its academic performance, which may have nothing to do with its faith ethos.

However, we would not want these people to come in and change the ethos. The Minister may say that that is unlikely, but it is a well known fact that there are many in this House and in the education world who are fiercely opposed even to the existence of faith schools. That is not the Minister’s position and when she responds to the debate she will no doubt make clear her commitment to these schools and that of the Prime Minister, who sent his children to a faith school. I am sure the Minister will say that the Government fully support the schools, want them to expand, and that nothing concerning SIPs will affect the ethos of the schools. However, we need a pretty strong reassurance from her in that respect, because her remarks will be looked at very carefully in the world of faith schools.

I do not suggest that the words in this probing amendment are correct, as I tabled it in an attempt to be reasonable and constructive. It would probably be unreasonable to insist that a school improvement partner was of the same denomination as the school, although when Catholic schools were inspected in the past, the inspectors, too, were usually Catholic, but that was changed some years ago. I may table an amendment to enable us to discuss the matter.

Many people involved with faith schools are concerned about what they perceive to be a gradual attack on their ethos, worried that it may be the thin end of the wedge. How can we ensure that they are reassured? I suggested that SIPs should generally be of the same denomination as the school. For example, in a typical education authority there might be a number of Anglican or Catholic schools and it would not be impossible to find a school improvement partner who was a Catholic or an Anglican, supported the ethos of faith schools and was prepared to give tough and useful advice. However, there would be no question that they were opposed to the ethos of those schools in any way. I understand that the Church of England appoints roving bishops to deal with certain parishes. Perhaps we could have roving SIPs; I do not know how they would work. There must be some way of giving us assurances on this important issue.

I have said enough, as I want to give colleagues a chance to contribute. This is not a complex issue but it is very important and I want the Minister to take the amendment seriously. There is little point in having a debate on technical deficiencies in the amendment; it was tabled so that we could discuss the matter and assure the outside world that nothing we do in this Committee will affect the ethos of these very successful schools.

The reason they are so successful is not that they cherry-pick middle-class students, although that charge is often made against them, but because they have a very strong ethos that is based on their religion.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for faith schools, which I strongly support. It is the clarity of purpose that differentiates faith schools and many others that is summed up by their ethos and we should be loth to lose it, as it benefits large numbers of children, as I hope my hon. Friend agrees.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Yes. It is always worth sharing one’s experience. The school that my son attends, because it is a Catholic school in inner London, attracts children of a huge range of nationalities and many children with great difficulties. Being Catholic, the children are Portuguese, Spanish, Italian or French and come from all sorts of different social groups. The first language of many is not English, but the school has extraordinary success in binding them together and achieving first-rate academic results.

The school is oversubscribed: people want to get their children in to it. That is not because it receives more money, or because it particularly wants to attract middle-class children. Interestingly, however, middle-class people are happy to get their children into the school. If one is concerned about state education in the cities one should be concerned about creating schools that all types of people want to go to. The school is a success because of its ethos of love, discipline, faith and traditional values. That very delicate mixture has been nurtured over many years by dedicated teachers and head teachers.

That school and many others like it want to get on with the job that they know best. They are not failing or coasting; they get good academic results and they do not want somebody appointed by an local education authority to come in and interfere in the way in which they run themselves—the Minister must be aware of that concern. If schools are failing or coasting or there is a problem, fair enough, there is a role for external advisers. However, those schools already have external advisers.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

I am puzzled by the hon. Gentleman’s comments. Is he suggesting that a head teacher or chair of governors of a different faith or denomination might not be good for a school? I can give him many examples of good people coming in to help faith schools who are of other faiths or of none. There seems to be a contradiction in what he says.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am surprised by that intervention. I said for that very reason that this is a probing amendment. I do not suggest that the Committee accept my amendment and therefore insist that a school improvement partner of a faith school be of the same denomination. I made it clear that it is perfectly possible for somebody to give a school good advice without being of the same denomination. We merely want to ensure that the SIP appointed to a faith school that promotes family and traditional values is broadly sympathetic to the ethos of that school. He or she does not need to be of the same denomination.

Above all, the SIP appointed must not have a hidden agenda. I do not suggest that everybody should approve of faith schools—I know that many people do not like them—or that anybody should be forced to go to a school that has or does not have uniforms, or one that is or is not progressive. I am in favour of a rich mixture of schools. All that I am saying is that, particularly in difficult areas, there are schools that are extremely popular with parents and we should let them get on with the job that they know best. I hope that the Minister will reassure the Committee that SIPs will approach faith schools with a positive attitude of mind, so as to ensure that the best go on getting better and there is no attack on those excellent schools.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I accept that the amendment is probing. Nevertheless, its broad thrust is that all SIPs should be of the same religion or denomination as the school.

To try to define “sympathetic” is deeply unhelpful. As the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) mentioned, not all teachers or head teachers belong to the same denomination or faith as their school, and we should not require them to do so. Concern was expressed in earlier sittings about social divisions and the need to ensure that all schools that teach in the context of a particular faith understand the wider social context in which they exist. It is desirable to have teachers in all schools who do not necessarily represent a particular faith or denomination.

We should think about what we mean when we talk about a particular denomination. When we say a person is a Catholic, do we mean that they must have been baptised a Catholic, that they have taken their first holy communion, that they have been confirmed, or that they are practising? How Catholic do they need to be? Are we talking Opus Dei, or à la carte, like the majority of practising Catholics?

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The hon. Lady has not yet mentioned the word “ethos”, which was key to argument made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). I think that he was asking that the person in question be sympathetic to the ethos of the school.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

If the hon. Gentleman sits tight, I shall get to the word “ethos” shortly.

There are various ethoi in the Church of England. An Anglo-Catholic, someone with an evangelical approach, and a person with a more Protestant understanding of the Church of England’s teachings may have different views on the sacrament or the interpretation of biblical texts that would dramatically change the ethos of their approach to their faith and, in that context, their understanding and practice of their faith in education. It is impractical to deal with everything.

Not all lessons in faith schools are taught in the context of religion. It is difficult to believe that maths lessons would be dominated by faith or religious teaching. Perhaps in Reg Vardy’s schools biology might be dominated by particular teachings, but on the whole religion arises in assemblies or in lessons in other subjects on the curriculum. This amendment is deeply unhelpful and needs to be rejected.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I join in welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Chope.

I am sympathetic to the amendment, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough tabled in a characteristically moderate and constructive way. I am slightly surprised by the response of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, because there seemed to be a vigour and vim in her remarks that did not quite catch the mood and spirit of the amendment as my hon. Friend intended it.

I agree with my hon. Friend that religious schools generally perform well. Schools of denominations of the Christian religions and of other religions perform well and are appreciated by parents. That is not a universal trait, but it seems to be a tendency. One of key factors in the appreciation of those schools by parents and in their success is the ethos that a religion or denomination helps to establish. I should have thought that there was a great deal of common sense in my hon. Friend’s approach, which is that the school improvement partner should at least be sympathetic to the denomination or religion in question. I should have thought that such an SIP would, by virtue of their sympathy, have a better understanding of the ethos and be in a stronger position to make a constructive criticism of the school if one were needed and, if necessary, could challenge its performance in living up to its ethos. I should have thought that that was a common sense approach. I should also think that parents could have more confidence in a person of such a nature and that the school and its governors would be more likely to listen to them.

The amendment was tabled in a moderate and attractive way and I hope that the Minister will seek to respond to it as such, not in the rather knee-jerk way that the Liberal Democrat spokesman responded.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

It is no secret that I am an advocate of faith schools. I was delighted to read in The Times recently that the UK is to have its first Hindu school. Whenever and wherever possible, I have educated my children in faith schools, so I can understand the desire of Hindu parents who felt the need for such a community faith school where they could education their children. One of the reasons I support the Bill wholeheartedly is that it will allow groups of parents, such as those voicing the need for the Hindu school, to have a voice, and it will enable and empower such parents to establish faith schools with a greater ease than before.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton made the case for SIPs who have expertise or knowledge in special needs. In particular, he spoke about a special needs child learning to read, stressing that only a teacher with a vocation and infinite patience would have the necessary sensitivity and deep understanding. The same argument must be applied to faith schools. Spirituality is the essence of all faith in whichever God. It requires a deep understanding and openness, if not sensitivity.

For those who do not have faith, the concept is difficult to understand. It is so difficult that, as the hon. Member for Brent, East has just demonstrated admirably, a lack of understanding can create fear that can cause people to criticise or ridicule those who have faith. I am not talking about chav ridicule; I am referring to academic ridicule. I have heard many academics be condemnatory and derisory about faith and faith schools.

Faith schools do not exist to be insular or inward-looking, which are criticisms often levied at them. Their purpose is to protect the young, who are moving forward in faith, and to help one generation pass to the next the culture and religion of that particular group. Statistics show that, quite often, faith schools have better academic outcomes than non-faith schools—

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. I have given the hon. Lady a lot of latitude. The amendment is about school improvement partners in faith schools, not faith schools generally.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I support the amendment to ensure SIPs who will have an understanding of the deep spirituality and objectives and aims of faith schools. I am worried that clause 5 might be used as a tool to limit spirituality and how it is taught in faith schools by pairing those schools with SIPs who do not understand or empathise with their aims. The Minister said that 26 SIPs have been allocated in 27 authorities.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

indicated dissent.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I wrote it down as it was said—perhaps it could be checked. Which of those SIPs were allocated to faith schools? Has an assessment been made of the impact of SIPs on faith schools and on how they will work with faith schools? Will the Minister assure us that the ethos of faith schools and the way in which they operate and imbue children with their spirituality, religion and culture will not be affected by the allocation of SIPs who do not share that faith, understanding or spirituality?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

I shall respond to the amendment in the spirit in which it was tabled. Even the has the hon. Member for Gainsborough acknowledged that strict interpretation of the amendment, which would impose a narrow requirement on local authorities, would limit the range of SIPs that could be allocated to a particular school. It would go against some of the arguments about flexibility that were made to a previous group of amendments. However, I recognise that the hon. Gentleman tabled the amendment as a means to probe the relationship between SIPs and faith schools.

I can give at least some reassurance. First, diversity has always been a major feature of the English school system, and the present Government, far from seeking to iron out that diversity, are keen to develop and make use of it for the benefit of all pupils. That is part of what we hope to achieve through the Bill. We expect all SIPs, whatever their professional backgrounds and personal convictions, to understand that and the way in which it is represented in the school system.

We expect all school improvement partners in their work to be responsive to the individual circumstances and characteristics, including religious characteristics, of the schools with which they work. The national assessment for people who seek accreditation as SIPs, about which we have talked when debating previous groups of amendments, stresses that expectation. It is designed to withhold accreditation from anyone who might work with a school without taking account of its ethos and other features, and it is therefore a key requirement of a SIP that he or she should be responsive to the ethos and context of schools of any type.

At national level the Department has worked with the representative organisations of faith schools to make sure that Government policy developments take account of their concerns and to keep them abreast of developments. For example, my officials have discussed SIPs with the National Society for Promoting Religious Education, which is the education body for Church of England maintained schools, and with the Catholic Education Service. SIPs and other aspects of the “new relationship with schools” programme will be discussed at a meeting of the consultative group that we convene for representatives of all faith groups.

Those links ensure general understanding between the faith organisations and the Government, but of course for the SIP programme there is a specific additional benefit: we are able to encourage faith organisations to recommend that head teachers of faith schools apply for SIP accreditation. That led the Catholic Education Service, for example, to issue a note about SIP accreditation in one of its regular communications with head teachers of Roman Catholic schools. I hope that that will ensure the involvement of more high-quality head teachers and more head teachers who are likely to have first-hand understanding of the characteristics of faith schools.

We are asking local authorities, in their deployment and management of SIPs, to pay attention to the preferences as well as the needs of individual schools. In some cases those preferences may relate to SIPs’ religious beliefs, although as I explained in the debate on amendments Nos. 61 and 63 the choice of a school improvement partner for a school rests ultimately with the school’s maintaining authority, because the SIP is part of the school’s formal external accountability mechanism. Therefore, although discussion is appropriate, a veto or a choice by a school would not be.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am very pleased with what the Minister has said so far. She used the word “responsive”, which is important. Does she also agree that a SIP appointed to a faith school should, without having to be of the same denomination, be broadly sympathetic to the concept of the faith school?

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

The hon. Gentleman is pushing me to go slightly further than I have gone. I think that I made it clear that we expect all SIPs going through the accreditation process to be aware of the significance of diversity in the English education system and to be sympathetic to the diverse ethoi and religious characteristics of schools, so that they understand how such features affect a school. However, it would be difficult to go further and to expect a local authority, for example, to collect and maintain information about the religious convictions of its school improvement partners, or to determine their employment on that basis.

I hope that I have gone far enough to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we recognise the important contribution that faith schools make to the education system and that we have been willing to work alongside representatives of faith organisations to ensure that we recognise their concerns and the relevant issues as we develop the new relationship with schools policy and the SIPs policy.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am very grateful for what the Minister has said. This has been a useful short debate and we have made progress. As she knows, there has been concern among some head teachers and in the Catholic Education Service, but we have received some reassurances from her. We know that the Minister believes that there should be a rich diversity of schools; we all believe that. We know, as we have presumably always known, that the Bill is designed to achieve that. She has said today that she expects SIPs to understand that, and therefore, presumably, not to have their own agenda. It would be wrong for a SIP to have an agenda either in favour of or against a particular type of school.

The Minister said that she wanted SIPs to be responsive to schools’ individual characteristics. I understand that she does not want to go so far as to say in upcoming discussions that particular schools should have a veto or that local education authorities should have resources to investigate a SIP’s background, but she used an interesting phrase. I hope that Hansard has an accurate record of her response to me. I think that she said that she would expect SIPs to be sympathetic to the religious characteristics of faith schools. I have achieved quite a lot today, and I am happy with what we have achieved, and so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 6

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I beg to move amendment No. 183, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, leave out ‘adequate' and insert ‘sufficient'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 185, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, leave out ‘adequate' and insert ‘such'.

No. 184, in clause 6, page 4, line 14, at end insert

‘as may be sufficient according to their needs'.

No. 149, in clause 6, page 4, line 15, after ‘may', insert

‘enter into partnerships with other public, private or voluntary organisations in order to'.

No. 236, in clause 6, page 4, line 18, after ‘centres,', insert ‘field centres,'.

No. 64, in clause 6, page 4, line 29, after ‘provision', insert ‘or commissioning'.

No. 150, in clause 6, page 5, line 30, at end insert—

‘(d) a local authority must have regard to the access requirements of qualifying young persons with a disability.'.

No. 23, in clause 6, page 6, line 27, at end add—

‘(3) Provision under this section shall be restricted to that which can be funded by the revenue support grant separately identified but not specifically allocated or ring-fenced.'.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am pleased to speak to the amendments, particularly to amendments Nos. 183 to 185, which are probing amendments designed to elicit the Minister’s response to clause 6 on local authority functions respecting recreation. I hope that the debate will be slightly less controversial than the debate on probing amendment No. 347.

I welcome the provisions in clause 6 that will strengthen and clarify such functions and update the provisions of the Education Act 1996. Local authorities’ role in providing recreational services for young people is more important now than ever, especially in the context of antisocial behaviour, a growing concern that all Committee members have experienced. It is indisputably one of the most striking social phenomena in the United Kingdom that for the past two to three years or perhaps longer, as the level of serious crime has fallen, the level of unpleasant, unacceptable antisocial behaviour—particularly but not only among young people—has increased. It could be argued that there is a link between the long-term decline in funding for youth services, such as the provision of community recreation facilities, and the declining capacity of some young people to occupy themselves creatively and constructively without resorting to drugs, alcohol, violence or personal abuse. That is the context in which clause 6 is particularly welcome.

My reservation about clause 6 is that it does not draw a sufficient link between local authorities’ responsibility to provide recreational services for young people and curriculum activities in schools. We need to forge a stronger link between what individual schools wish to provide for their young people as part of the national curriculum and wider extra-curricular activities and what services and facilities exist outside the school and need to be provided by local authorities. We have not yet forged that link.

I shall make four brief points. With luck, I shall make them before we break for lunch, to provide a convenient point from which to continue the debate this afternoon.

London’s success in securing the 2012 Olympic games gives the UK a unique, once-in-a-lifetime—arguably a once-in-a-century—opportunity to encourage vastly greater numbers of young people to take an interest in sport. The Government recognise that and have already brought significant levels of new investment into sport. I want to reinforce the absolute importance of using the Olympic bid as the hook to transform attitudes to sport and physical activity of a whole generation of young people.

The current requirement in our schools is a minimum of two hours a week of sport and physical education. I am not sure that that is enough. We need to build on it, and strengthening local authorities’ responsibilities will be a small encouragement.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Gentleman refers to the minimum two hours a week of sport. Does he have a feeling of what proportion of schools are achieving that?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I do not have a feeling of that, but the hon. Gentleman asks an important question. It is something that we should seek to flush out from the Minister. It is important to get an accurate assessment, not just a feeling, of how many schools are fulfilling that requirement and how many are falling short. Let us bear in mind that it is a bare minimum requirement. If we are to transform attitudes among our young people, two hours a week is not really enough. Of course, the two hours a week in school needs to be supplemented by a number of hours outside school. That is where the clause comes in.

My second point is that within the national curriculum, to my recollection, there is an intention that all young people will have learned to swim by the age of 11. I am not sure that we have yet achieved that. My feeling is that we are some way short of it, but it is again important to identify precisely the levels of achievement of young people. It is not just an issue of recreation and pleasurable physical activity; it can be an issue of life or death in certain extreme circumstances. The Olympics give us an excellent opportunity to strengthen the role of swimming in our schools.

Thirdly, I wish to draw attention to the report of the Select Committee on Education and Skills published last year entitled “Education Outside the Classroom”. It contains a number of positive recommendations to strengthen the extra-curricular work done by schools, and I hope that it has contributed to turning the tide in favour of a much more positive attitude towards taking children outside the school, not only on longer-term expeditions but using the immediate environment as the content of educational experience. One or two of the amendments in this group refer to that matter. We need to open a much bigger debate on the way in which the immediate environment outside the school, school visits to places of interest, outward bound centres and, in certain circumstances, overseas visits, can enrich the curriculum and young people’s experience.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

In talking about the important role of sport in schools, the hon. Gentleman draws attention to the amount of time that is available in the curriculum. Will he also say a word about access to facilities? Many school playing fields have been sold, not only under the present Government, but under previous Governments, and I suspect that public open spaces are declining. Many houses are being built with small or non-existent gardens, and the chances of children accessing public or other open space to engage in sport seem to be less than they once were.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

That is correct. I stress that far fewer playing fields have been sold off under the present Government than under the Conservatives, because the criteria for selling them off have been tightened, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We should also point out that in every suburban housing estate, the streets in which children could at one time play freely have been completely occupied by their parents’ 4x4 vehicles. We need to look more carefully at the question of land use planning.

Standing Committee E

Clause 6

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 185, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, leave out ‘adequate' and insert ‘such'.

No. 184, in clause 6, page 4, line 14, at end insert

‘as may be sufficient according to their needs'.

No. 149, in clause 6, page 4, line 15, after ‘may', insert

‘enter into partnerships with other public, private or voluntary organisations in order to'.

No. 236, in clause 6, page 4, line 18, after ‘centres,', insert ‘field centres,'.

No. 64, in clause 6, page 4, line 29, after ‘provision', insert ‘or commissioning'.

No. 150, in clause 6, page 5, line 30, at end insert—

‘(d) a local authority must have regard to the access requirements of qualifying young persons with a disability.'.

No. 23, in clause 6, page 6, line 27, at end add—

‘(3) Provision under this section shall be restricted to that which can be funded by the revenue support grant separately identified but not specifically allocated or ring-fenced.'.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I shall continue from the point at which we were interrupted.

I was referring to a report last year by the Select Committee on Education and Skills that I hoped would be a turning pointing in the debate on the importance of education outside of the classroom. Certain things must be in place if we are going to strengthen and diversify the extra-curricular activities that I think were much stronger in years past. The functions of local authorities and their capacities to provide the facilities listed under proposed new sections 507A and 507B make an important contribution.

There is a link between the importance of physical activity—sport, physical education, Outward Bound expeditions such as hill climbing, and the great range of physical activities in which young people can get involved—and the wider concerns about children’s health. There is an important section in the Bill on health and diet, but it seems to me that that and the matter before us must be considered together as part of a coherent approach to raising standards of health and physical well-being among young people.

Finally, I have a slight reservation about clause 6 that it is important to flag up. The clause focuses on recreation and physical activity, but does not refer specifically to cultural activities and the role of dance, drama and music as important aspects of the wider out-of-school curriculum. I shall draw attention to the success of the creative partnership scheme that the Government initiated in recent years, and from which 36 local authorities—I think—can now benefit. The scheme is directed particularly at parts of the country and schools in which there is not a strong tradition of cultural activity; it enables schools to embark on a range of artistic, cultural and musical activities and to open up areas of experience that children might have not enjoyed previously—visits to theatres and concerts and from theatre groups, poets, writers and artists in residence. That is an excellent activities programme, and I hope that in due course it might extend the principles that underlie the creative partnership scheme to all local authorities and schools in the country. With that I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to the issues that I have raised.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I shall speak to amendments Nos. 149 and 64 together and then amendment No. 150.

Amendments Nos. 149 and 64 make the point that local education authorities do not necessarily have to provide all the positive leisure services themselves. In some cases, authorities might deliver efficiency and choice—that most important of words that we have devoted so many of our hours to discussing—more effectively by commissioning those services from the private or voluntary sectors. It is important to place that on the record because, despite extensive rhetoric about dividing the commissioner and provider roles between local education authorities and schools, the implication appears to be that, although local education authorities should not provide schools, they should provide leisure facilities. We are merely probing the Government on that matter to get some points put on the record.

I can think of many examples in boroughs of services being bought in for one reason or another, such as the buying in of swimming facilities from local leisure services. I can think of many other instances in which youth facility services might be bought in from the voluntary sector. That often works extremely well—indeed, it might work better than if those services were provided directly by the local education authority.

Amendment No. 150 is intended to ensure that positive leisure-time activities are accessible to disabled young people. The amendment is supported by Mencap, which tells me that eight out of 10 young people with a learning disability do not attend any after-school club, that seven out of 10 children or young people with a disability were made to feel uncomfortable at their local leisure service, and that only one in five after-school clubs have any young person with a disability attending.

What do we mean when we talk about accessibility? We mean accessibility to the building, but we mean much more than that. The amendment is important because it is not simply about ensuring that there is adequate wheelchair access; it might also be about ensuring that there is appropriate signage or symbols so that disabled people know where everything is. For example, if they have a learning disability, it might be important to have signage for certain rooms, toilets or specific activities.

The amendment would also ensure that there was a safe environment for young people with a learning disability. Such young people are particularly vulnerable to bullying, for example, which often prevents them from taking part in after-school activities. The amendment would ensure that those young people were given the support that they needed, from their staff or their peer group, to access all the activities that take place. We have a concern that if that is not clearly stated in the Bill, local education authorities might provide or commission leisure activities that are suitable for the majority of young people in the area, rather than make sure that all those facilities are accessible for young people with a disability.

The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) made interesting wider points, particularly about the need to make sure that we benefit from the opportunities the Olympics provide. That is dear to my own heart, as I come from the borough where Wembley stadium is located—if it ever gets finished. It might have many opportunities to provide sporting facilities and to ensure that there is wider accessibility for young people in the area. The hon. Gentleman made good points about the role that sport can play in giving young people more opportunities to take part in sporting activities, and thereby in driving down petty crime. I am very supportive of the sentiments he expresses.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am very sympathetic to the hon. Lady’s amendments. I particularly welcome her comments regarding leisure facilities for those with special needs, and her point that local authorities should play a commissioning role and enter into partnerships with other public and private or voluntary organisations. She is right about that.

I am also sympathetic to the points made by the hon. Member for Bury, North. He is right to say that in recent years there has been a rise in unpleasant and antisocial behaviour. It is of concern that that continues to rise. He is also right in saying that there is a link between that and the lack of things for some young people to do. However, I suspect that there are also deeper reasons than that.

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of the proportion of schools that achieve the Government target of two hours of sport per week. It would be interesting to hear the Government’s response to that point about the minimum level of sport in schools. I would also like to hear their response on what proportion of young people learn to swim by the age of 11; the hon. Gentleman raised that, too.

There is no doubt that the objective of clause 6 is laudable and correct. It ensures that local authorities secure access for young people to leisure and recreational facilities and to other activities in their area. One of the persistent complaints of young people and their parents is that there are insufficient places that are both safe and sheltered where young people can go and meet their friends and socialise.

One reason why young people are often found congregating around bus shelters or on street corners is that they do not have more suitable places to meet one another. That is why we support many of the objectives of the “Youth Matters” Green Paper. It is also why my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition announced his proposal last August for a youth community action programme. Under the programme, every school leaver would be able, if they wished, to do three to four months of voluntary work in the community. As he pointed out, there is strong support for the vision of building something that gives all young people in our country the right to a shared experience that will help prepare them for their responsibilities as adult citizens.

We are behind the clause 6 initiative and the duties that it will introduce. On centralisation, though, the Minister should take care when lobbing stones from her glass house. Paragraph 4.10 of the regulatory impact assessment says:

“Although guidance is useful in explaining the required changes, guidance alone will not receive sufficient local emphasis to achieve the changes required. The legislation contains specific requirements which should not be considered as purely advisory—as implied by non-statutory guidance.”

However, when one reads clause 6 without the advantage of reading simultaneously the Government’s press release of 8 March on the £115 million budget provided through the youth opportunities fund, it appears that a sizeable new duty is being imposed on local authorities without any funding to back it up. The purpose of amendment No. 23 is to ensure that clause 6 is interpreted so that the duties it imposes will not extend beyond the funding from central Government. Otherwise, the funds will have to be obtained either from hefty further increases in council tax or from the reduction of services in other areas. I searched the regulatory impact assessment in vain for an estimate of the costs involved in fulfilling the new duty, other than £2 million to fund publicity for activities.

The statement of policy on the guidance that the Secretary of State will issue under the clause in due course is a little more helpful. For example, paragraph 7 explains that a section of the guidance

“will explain that the duty applies to securing access to sufficient provision for young people in the area rather than securing provision in the area.”

However, the only real hint of the financial consequences of the duty is in paragraph 17, which says:

“The guidance will state that where current provision is failing to meet needs, the authority should re-shape its own provision, commissioning services as appropriate, and work with partner agencies to help them re-shape services as appropriate.”

It goes on to say in paragraph 18 that

“the guidance will explain that the provision available in the local area will be provided by a variety of organisations and that while the duty does require the authority to ensure that sufficient provision exists, the role of the authority in securing sufficient provision is broader than simply providing direct services. Increasingly we expect the authority to act as commissioner and facilitator of services rather than as provider.”

I think that that supports the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather).

Paragraph 22 of the statement of policy, however, says:

“The guidance will explain that in acting upon this legislative requirement, the authority will wish to consider the commissioning of services alongside other measures to secure alternative provision. It will suggest that these other measures include the provision of assistance, financial or otherwise, for alternative providers.”

So there appear to be some financial obligations that will go beyond the £115 million in funding through the youth opportunities fund.

The amendments are probing amendments so that the Ministers can clarify their position on the funding of the duties. While they are clarifying that point, will they also say something about the youth opportunity card? The clause does not refer to it, despite the fact that it is a major feature of the Green Paper and of the Government’s policy, particularly following the announcement of a pilot scheme in 10 areas during the next two years. Can they confirm that it is because the scheme is only being piloted that legislation for the card is not included in the Bill, or that it is not necessary to introduce primary legislation for the card if it is decided that the pilot is a success and the Government wish to roll it out nationally?

We welcome the clause and we welcome the provision of recreational facilities for young people. That is one of the many reasons why we decided to support the Bill. However, some clarification of the funding issues would be helpful.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I begin by referring to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, who pointed to the importance of providing young people with things to do and places to go as one means of tackling boredom and antisocial behaviour among that group. It is important to remember that providing things to do and places to go is not just about tackling the minority who cause problems for the rest of us. Self-esteem and the development of team-working and social skills are also good reasons for providing those facilities for young people. The kinds of activities we are talking about are good for preparing young people for employment in later life. For those reasons alone, they ought to be supported.

The importance of working with a range of partners in developing the provision was mentioned by the hon. Member for Brent, East. I look forward to the Minister’s response, because I feel passionately that it is not the job of local authorities to provide all the services that are of relevance to young people. The voluntary sector, in particular, is much better placed in many ways to provide those facilities; indeed, it is already doing so on a significant scale. In my city, we have many sports clubs working right across the local authority boundary. Let us not forget the usual groups, well established in this country, such as the Guides, the Scouts and the Woodcraft Folk, which was always the great rival to the former—and still is in many ways—in the city of Sheffield. It provides a significant choice for young people. Then there is the Duke of Edinburgh award, which is now made available to almost all school children aged 14 and over in Sheffield; I think that there is only one secondary school there that fails to provide it. The Duke of Edinburgh award is in itself valuable and should be made available to every young person in the country; it deserves our support. There are also all the examples of the voluntary sector and ordinary community groups putting on sports activities; there are football, hockey and ice-hockey clubs and all the rest of it. For all those reasons we must resist the temptation to think that the duty on the local authority to provide is a duty on the local authority to administer the activities itself. It is really important that local authorities work in partnership.

In my city, there are great traditions relating to the Peak district, our greatest natural resource. It is important to remember that every young person deserves the opportunity to experience that resource—to be given the chance to indulge in rock-climbing and other activities that, for many young people, are just pipe dreams and are not made real.

I hope that the Minister will resist the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) on the grounds that whether or not a local authority agrees on funding for extra facilities and services for young people is a matter for local discretion. A local authority may decide that there ought to be more investment in the young people of an area, and I do not think that central Government have the right to restrict local authorities which make that choice.

Also, much of the complementary funding required to meet the terms of the duty on the local authority is already being provided in many ways by activities that are laid on by the voluntary sector and through small contributions from parents towards those activities. Let us not forget that that infrastructure is already in place. The funding that the voluntary sector can tap into means that the duty should not be funded just by local authorities. A range of funding opportunities is available and the packages that will enable the duty to be fulfilled can be put together—indeed, they have been put together by local authorities for many years.

Amendment No. 236 is simple: it would insert the words “field centres”. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to the amendment or at least come back to it on Report and Third Reading. Learning about the environment in which they live is surely an important part of every young person’s experience. The links to citizenship are strong—a young adult who learns to appreciate his or her environment, the importance of biodiversity and the wonders of nature will surely be much better equipped to make a civilised contribution to society.

The hon. Member for Brent, East said that local authorities should be commissioners of services, and this is one area of provision in which they should be. Many schools and colleges have already experimented with the concept of the outdoor classroom. They have tried to develop their own field centres; indeed, one of the primary special schools in Sheffield has developed a classroom for the future, available to all children in the city, that exploits the natural environment and develops environmental science study via the great pond just outside the school boundary. All that is great, but it does not go far enough. Only local authorities can develop the field centres that we are talking about on a scale that would enable all young people in a city to learn something significant and worth while about the environment and biodiversity and how to respect the natural environment.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Is the hon. Lady saying that only local authorities can develop ponds, school farms and external Outward Bound-type activities from which children can benefit? Does she not think that the independent sector could do that as well?

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I am surprised at the hon. Lady’s comments. I was going to say that schools in Sheffield have already developed such provision, but I am talking about field centres on a much larger scale. Local authorities could commission, organise and develop such centres, but that does not mean that they would have to run them; I am sure that voluntary organisations such as the RSPB would be only too willing to do that. However, the onus and the responsibility for developing and possibly putting in the initial funding for their development should lie with the local authority.

We need more field centres and other such provision to ensure that the experience available to our young people is as rounded and broad as possible. I congratulate the Under-Secretary on clause 6, which represents a wonderful commitment. I am delighted that we are placing a duty on local authorities to develop such provisions. In my last year as cabinet member for education, I worked really hard to ensure that my local authority implemented such provision on a comprehensive scale, drawing in a partnership of voluntary sector bodies, sports clubs and so on. The Government now say that local authorities do not have the choice but have the duty to do that. I welcome that duty.

As I said, I hope the Under-Secretary will take on board the points about field centres and the importance of the outdoor classroom and of fulfilling the commitment that we made at the last general election to delivering on that point.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I want to speak briefly to amendments Nos. 183 to 185. I support many of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North. I, too, congratulate Ministers on the inclusion of this important clause. It has not had adequate praise and its potential has not been fully recognised. It builds in an important way on the “Youth Matters” agenda.

In my constituency, we have undertaken a wide-ranging consultation exercise with young people, based on that agenda. Two facts that came out of it were that young people wanted a wider range of services to be made available to them and that they wanted to be actively involved in the development of those services. Therefore, it is important that the clause should cover the inclusion of young people in the development of their services.

We are also lucky to be piloting the youth opportunity card in my constituency. A couple of weeks ago, I met a group of young people and their representatives. They were really interested in this part of the Bill and very pleased that the Government are making it statutory a duty on local authorities to provide a range of services for them and with them.

I acknowledge and support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North about the importance of giving young people facilities to keep them from engaging in antisocial behaviour and to help them to develop. However, we should be careful that we do not concentrate merely on preventing antisocial behaviour. We want to encourage all young people to be good and active citizens. If we are to do that, we have to invest in them, and that means providing services for them; that is critical to their social and cultural development.

In conclusion, I welcome the measure. I hope that local authorities will take it on board wholeheartedly and will come up with exciting provision for young people across a range of services.

Mary Creagh (Labour, Wakefield)

I echo the comments made on this clause by colleagues from all parties and will speak specifically to amendment No. 236. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) said, it is impossible to overstate the importance of the fact that the clause places an obligation on local authorities, for the first time ever, to provide something for young people and to consult with the users—the young people themselves. Now, instead of having things done to them, young people will see things being done with them. That is key in dealing with teenagers—anybody with teenage children will testify to that. Fortunately, I have a few years to wait before the hormones hit my household.

That is important, and it links to the national youth voluntary service that was announced in the Budget, in respect of which public and private funding will be used to provide models of active citizenship for young people. It is an exciting time to be a teenager, with the youth opportunities fund in place and so many different provisions being made. We should avoid the patchwork approach that has been taken in the past, which has meant that some local authorities have provided youth services and others have chosen not to, resulting in unequal provision across the country.

On the field centres provision, I should like to hear how the Under-Secretary sees the manifesto for education outside the classroom developing. I know that there has been consultation on it; perhaps he can lift the veil on what he might promise us. We cannot overstate the importance of out-of-classroom learning in developing the creativity of young people. Nordic countries are developing forest classrooms, in which young people are educated almost wholly out of doors, weather permitting, and I have a friend in Dorset who runs a nursery with a forest classroom. I shall talk to Ministers about that afterwards. The children in such classes have an incredibly rich learning experience.

Those in the forefront of educational thinking are beginning to see how classroom learning can interact with the real world. It improves motivation, nurtures social skills and creates active and politically engaged young citizens, as well as healthy ones. I am sure that when we come to the clauses on school food and tackling obesity, there will be amendments to reinforce that approach. It can certainly be an inspirational way of giving children a mentally and physically healthy start in life.

I would just like to share with the Committee the experiences of Sandal Magna in my constituency. As far as I am aware, it is the first school in the country to have won a green flag for its award-winning work with out-of-classroom learning. It started by going for healthy school status but then realised that through the development of its wildlife garden and whole school environmental policy it could teach children all about the best ways of looking after the environment. I visited the school earlier this year. A teacher told me that it can be slightly annoying because sometimes staff can be sitting marking work in the afternoon and children will come in and say, “Miss, are you sure you need the light on?”. They switch the lights off and the teachers find themselves in the dark.

We could all feed an over-zealous approach to energy efficiency into our office environments. Those people are working from a Victorian school building, which, thankfully, is about to be totally redeveloped by a £2 million building programme. The experience of the healthy school status and the environmental school scheme is even feeding into the project for the new school. People are thinking about how they can incorporate the outdoor learning environment into the new school, how the community, which is a very disadvantaged one, can be encouraged to come into the school, and how their science lessons can involve the wildlife area and things such as that.

Finally on clause 6, we could be witnessing a flourishing of some of the more traditional youth organisations. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) about the Duke of Edinburgh scheme and Outward Bound. Sadly, however, the Youth Hostels Association has been in almost terminal decline for many years. Some of its hostels have had to be shut down because people now want en suite bathrooms and the like. There is something character building about being on Kinder Scout in the middle of a snowstorm, with not much electricity, and then staying in a youth hostel that could encourage adults and young people to count their blessings when they return home.

Jonathan R Shaw (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

Would we all have to share?

Mary Creagh (Labour, Wakefield)

I make no comments about sharing with my hon. Friends.

Situations such as those I mentioned are character building. I have been saddened by the decline in youth hostelling and the lack of independence of young people; they do not put their backpacks on and go climbing in the Peak district any more. There is a timidity about the outdoors. Engaging with the outdoors is about young people and children engaging with themselves and finding out about their own limits and boundaries. I welcome this landmark clause in the development of a young persons policy in this country.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Two or three things have emerged during the discussion of this group of amendments that deserve amplification, not least because the hon. Member for Bury, North deserves our thanks for drawing the Committee’s attention to the important area of school sport. He highlighted several questions that he wants the Under-Secretary to answer and focused particularly on the amount of time that is devoted to school sport in the curriculum.

I shall add to those questions—helpfully, I am sure the Under-Secretary will agree—by asking him to talk about the type of participation in sport. This is not just about the amount of time devoted to sport; it is about its quality and the nature of what children are involved in. It will be interesting to hear whether he can offer any facts on that. If he cannot do so at the moment, he might want to follow the matter up when he has had a chance to do some research.

I am also interested to know what the level of engagement between schools is, and particularly whether they play matches against other local schools and are involved in soccer, cricket or another sport. I am often told that it is difficult to get enough schools to participate in a given locality to make such things possible. I would therefore be interested in the Minister’s perspective on the interaction between schools regarding competitive sport.

I would also like to know how much sport takes place in schools, and to what extent schools take advantage of other facilities. Swimming, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bury, North, is a good example of that. In most cases—certainly in primary schools—swimming will be provided by access to the local public baths. Secondary schools might have their own swimming facilities, but that is more of a rarity than the norm. The ability of schools to access relevant local resources conveniently, practically and affordably is critical to achieving the objectives set out by the hon. Gentleman at the beginning of his sensible comments.

Such information should be given to the Committee so that we can consider the matter more carefully. By the time it comes to us, we might already have had to make a decision on this amendment, but I am sure that we will return to these matters in some form later. We will go on to discuss some aspects of school life, what motivates people and the need to encourage them to engage in school life. Sport plays an important role in all of that, not just because it is about fitness, but because it is frequently a vehicle for endeavour and achievement, not least among those young people who are not very academic.

We must lift our sights beyond the narrow understanding of education as being wholly academic. We on the Committee know that that is not so. I know that the Under-Secretary feels as strongly as I do on this, because I have discussed it with him. We need to emphasise aspects of education that allow children to engage in different experiences, to fulfil all kinds of potential, and to acquire and have the opportunity to use different skills. Sport plays an important part in that, as well as providing opportunities to improve physical fitness and prowess.

I shall elaborate slightly on my earlier point about public open space, because there seem to be contradictory notions emanating from the Government—I did a bit of research on that. While the Committee was adjourned, I had tea at the Savoy. It was a most splendid affair, but that did not prevent me from doing a little research on the subject that we discussed this morning. It is important to be able to multi-task in this modern world, and while simultaneously researching and dining I was able to dig out some information that I hope will be as efficacious as my tea was.

The Government have argued that they are protecting the sale of school playing fields—in answer to a parliamentary question in 2001, they suggested that they have introduced a number of new initiatives to fulfil their commitment to avoid the loss of playing fields—while also arguing that the sale of school playing fields has provided resources to invest in sporting facilities, as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said in response to a subsequent parliamentary question. So the Government argue both that they are trying to stop playing fields from being sold and that their sale is helpful because it provides resources to invest in local community sport. I want the Government to make their view on this clear. It is important that we understand that access to open space—ideally in the school itself, but, as my example regarding swimming shows, that is not always practical—is vital if we are to achieve the objectives set out by the hon. Member for Bury, North.

This issue is about both timetabling and resources. Children need access to open space to use the energy that they have so much of. I have something to say about the planning system in that respect. Over lunch I was also able to read a booklet that I first read some time ago, published by Policy Exchange and called “Bigger Better Faster More: Why some countries plan better than others”. It draws a comparison between the planning system in the United Kingdom and that in other European countries, particularly Germany and Switzerland, and paints a graphic picture of how green space in conurbations differs in different countries as a result of their planning systems. I do not want to digress too far. You will not allow me to do so, Mr. Chope, and I see your owl-like gaze, which may anticipate an owl-like swoop on me if I do not draw my remarks to order. However, it is important to say that, increasingly, in some of those other countries green space and open space is more available than in some of our conurbations.

That has a direct impact on children’s activities in school time—because of the need to gain access to spaces beyond the school gate—and in leisure time. Much sporting activity takes place, of course, outside school. Once we have stimulated children to get involved in school sport, as we all want them to, it is vital that they should have other avenues by which to pursue those interests. My five-year-old son is about to start junior cricket in the next few weeks with the local club in our village. We are lucky enough to have a cricket ground at the bottom of our garden. It does not belong to me, I am sad to say, but it is easily accessible as a result of being there.

That opportunity is provided by the sort of bottom-up, community-oriented activity that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough talked about. I wholly agree with her—to turn my attention to the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats—that the solutions to the issues and challenges of civil society are often best provided by the voluntary sector. Communities seem to me to be natural, organic things—the consequence of fellowship born of shared interest. It is in people-sized institutions that much of the best work of civil renewal takes place. It is of course important that local authorities should play their part in facilitating and encouraging that, and removing obstacles to such civil renewal, but it is often the bottom-up approach that the hon. Lady described so well that is likely to provide solutions to some of the problems besetting our communities.

I am sympathetic to the hon. Lady’s view that what we are considering is a partnership between such voluntary local effort and what the Government and local government can do. Sometimes the Government should step forward and at other times it should step back so that others can step forward. She is right about that, and I should be interested to hear the Liberal Democrat response to her helpful critique of their perspective on those matters.

Our useful debate has illustrated what I hope will become a theme in our considerations in coming days and weeks—that the best education has the spirit of co-operation, as well as competition, at its heart. There is no better example of how to do both things simultaneously than sport. Sport is a fine example of how children can be taught those important, lifelong lessons. My remarks about public open space were really about situations in which private interest is not enough to bring about the kind of healthy, strong and vibrant communities, with active, participating citizens, that we all want as we move, beyond the Bill, into the future. What matters is what we share, because we are in this together, not out for ourselves. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Bury, North tabled the amendments so that we could have a short debate with so many useful contributions.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The hon. Member for Bury, North has done the Committee a service by drawing our attention to the difference between the words “sufficient” and “adequate”.

I have three questions for the Under-Secretary. Will a great deal change on the ground as a result of this excellent clause? Is there any possibility that the standard of sport in state schools will rise to that in the independent sector? As far as my children or anybody else’s are concerned, I have no angst about the state sector or the independent sector—I am neither for nor against—but it is quite obvious to us all that the standard of sports facilities at day schools and boarding schools in the independent sector is a great deal higher than at state schools. It is perhaps a question of resources, but it is also a question of will-power. My first question, therefore, is whether this excellent clause will make a difference, or is it just apple pie and motherhood?

Secondly, what will the clause do to reverse the catastrophic decline in the number of sports fields and the amount of team games played? Some of my children attend state schools, and I am conscious of the fact that although swimming, which the Committee has debated, is widely available, team games and other sports apparently do not exist during school hours. My boy often had to travel long distances and do extra-curricular activities to engage in any kind of team sport, be it rowing or anything else. Incidentally, he is now in a private school, so the whole thing is laid on, and he does games every afternoon, which he loves. Therefore, there is a difference. What will the clause do to reverse that catastrophic decline?

Lastly, which local authorities are not taking the steps set out in the clause? We would like to know. Presumably the provisions mean something and will make a difference, so the Under-Secretary, or rather those who advise him, must have a list of the local authorities that are not doing all the excellent stuff referred to in the clause. We surely have a right to know.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I asked the Under-Secretary to break down the figures for young people’s participation in sport. We need him to do that so that we can to get to the bottom of my hon. Friend’s point. It is not enough to say that young people are doing sport or physical education; it is important that we know what kind and what quality it is. Let me just tell my hon. Friend—

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. I think that that is long enough for an intervention.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

That is a pity because my hon. Friend’s intervention was fuelled by gargantuan teas, lunches and much else. Of course, I cannot afford tea at the Savoy because I have all these children. Anyway, I think that I have made my point. Let us name and shame the local authorities that are not doing what is set out in the clause.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Let me mention the state school that my daughter attends. The average house price in the area is quite high and there are a lots of middle-class parents. The school partakes in an amazing array of sports. Indeed, my daughter amazed me last night when she asked where her swimming costume because she was doing synchronised swimming today, although it is debatable whether that is a sport. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that the clause should concentrate on areas where there are state schools, but where parents are not so affluent, motivated or energised? Similar schools in areas with motivated middle-class families and high average house prices would probably do quite well.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am sure that there must be something in that. Presumably, it cannot be a matter of resources. The Under-Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but the same resources presumably go into a school whether it is in a deprived area or a middle-class area, so it cannot be a question of resources. Why are some schools underperforming? Is the problem the fact that the onus is put on the parents, some of whom simply cannot afford to encourage their children to partake in these extra-curricular activities? [Interruption.] I see that my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) is pregnant with advice.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I want to finish my earlier intervention. We need to get the issue in perspective. Most people who represent England at international level are not public school boys and girls, are they? How many of our national soccer team or top athletes went to a private school? There is a lot of nonsense talked about these things. There are some good state schools doing some very good sport. We now need to ensure that all state schools do good sport.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

There may be a lot of truth in that. I suspect that it varies from sport to sport. It would be interesting to know where a lot of our Olympic medallists were educated—whether at state or private schools. Anyway, we await the Minister’s comments with interest.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

As we debate the clauses dealing with young people, looking around the Committee I am remind of the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, who said:

“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”

We have both on this Committee, and hon. Members can decide which category they belong to.

Before addressing points made by Committee members, which have ranged fairly far and wide given the nature of the clause, I should like to take a moment to introduce the clause and explain its importance to young people and local communities. In essence, it will ensure that young people are able to access constructive things to do and places to go in their leisure time. We know—we have heard testimony about it this afternoon—that participation in constructive leisure activities, such as playing sport and joining groups and taking part in cultural activities, including art, music, drama, and all the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North and others, are vital. They offer young people lasting benefits, including, as my hon. Friend said, improved health, the chance to develop their skills, as the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings said, as well as personal confidence and social development.

The clause is so important because six out of 10 young people and 8 out of 10 parents believe that there are not enough of these activities in the area in which they live. For some young people, the result of such a lack of activity is not just the personal cost of missing out on voluntary learning opportunities: the absence of things to do and places to go also leads to boredom and, inevitably, to nuisance. Given the comments of Committee members, it is interesting to note that 70 per cent. of young people believe that a lack of provision leads to more youth crime. Young people’s opinions are supported by evidence that being involved in positive activities helps prevent teenagers from being drawn into antisocial behaviour and crime, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North and the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said.

Andrew Gwynne (Labour, Denton and Reddish)

Is it not also the case in respect of antisocial behaviour that people’s general tolerance levels have also changed? Whereas a few years ago people accepted children and young people playing ball games on grass verges outside houses, now they do not, and that raises the need to open up sports facilities to the general public outside school times.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is interesting that in the British crime survey 49 per cent. of people in deprived areas identified teenagers hanging around on the street as a problem, reinforcing my hon. Friend’s point, which is that our attitudes have changed and work needs to be done.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

To add to the point made by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), the Football Association raised a particular concern about the rise in the number of “no ball games” signs in estates. That point was made by another hon. Member earlier. There needs to be far more consultation, when setting up estates, to ensure that there are defined areas where young people can play ball games, because the FA identified that as a particular problem in encouraging people to take part in football.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Lady is right. Indeed, the clause is partly about putting a duty on local authorities to consider the needs and provision locally and find ways to meet those needs. Perhaps local authorities might want to look at such things as the point that she has just made when considering the facilities available for young people.

I want to emphasise how young people and hon. Members think that engagement in such activities helps reduce antisocial behaviour. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham made the important point that it is also about positively engaging young people, not just to reduce their antisocial behaviour but to promote positive behaviour—I believe that active citizenship was mentioned earlier.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Further to the hon. Gentleman’s point about the duty on local authorities, it is about ensuring adequate public space, as the hon. Member for Brent, East pointed out, but is it not also about the way we build houses and gardens? In our proper understanding of the need for more affordable housing, we are building a number of houses without gardens even when children are located in that area and would want to play in gardens. That is partly why children are spending less time engaged in the activities that he and I engaged in with our friends—in my case in the ‘60s and in his case earlier, I would guess.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I would not like to guess the sport that the hon. Gentleman participated in when he was at school—perhaps it was draughts or chess. We are ranging wide across the piece when we start to think about designing out crime when we develop houses, local estates and so on. In my former role as a Minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, I did a great deal on the issue of creating communities that are cleaner, safer and greener, and I am pleased to say that there are huge extra resources, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas, to ensure that that is the case. In other words, communities that help in such a way are being designed. However, those points are not covered by clause 6 so I will not stray too far from the task before us.

Why do not many young people participate in the activities that we are describing? We know that young people experience a variety of barriers in accessing positive activities. Although sufficient provision is essential to participation, other factors such as a lack of information about what is available or the unsuitability of the provision are often the reasons behind young people’s non-participation.

We know that young people wish to do more. Some 19,000 young people responded to the Department’s recent consultation on the Green Paper, “Youth Matters”, a huge response reflecting the importance that we place on the matter. Of those young respondents, 71 per cent. said that they would do up to four hours of activities, including sport, in their spare time each week if they had the opportunity. Those figures and the sheer volume of young people who responded to the consultation attest to the importance that young people, as well as members of the Committee, attach to the matter.

I was pleased to hear that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham carried out her own consultation with young people. I dare say that other members of the Committee and Members of Parliament should follow her example and go out and talk to young people and listen to their views, so that they can play their part as MPs in responding to the needs of young people.

By giving strategic responsibility to local authorities to ensure that young people have access to sufficient provision, clause 6 will ensure that a single responsible body will review access and act as commissioner, facilitator and, where appropriate, provider to ensure that young people can benefit from participation in positive leisure time activities.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned the youth opportunities card; the clause is wide enough to embrace that. He is right to say that it is being piloted and that we will consider the outcomes of those pilots before we go forward. The legislation will allow the youth opportunities card to be delivered by local authorities if they wish to use that mechanism.

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

I want to ask a question about the potential for local authorities to charge and perhaps swallow up the youth opportunities card. There are two references in the clause where the expense may be defrayed or financial assistance may be given, but they are imprecise. Will there be any guidance about not setting high prices that would take such worthy activities out of the range of many of our most deserving young people?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

There will be guidance and, indeed, some illustrative descriptions of what the guidance will cover will include that. Lack of finance can be a barrier for some young people, particularly those from low-income families, so it is important that when a local authority conducts an assessment of the needs of young people and their access to activities, they take into account potential financial barriers. I shall say more about barriers when I come on to disability, but there are barriers of that kind and it is up to local authorities to ensure that financial barriers do not prevent young people from accessing the sort of facilities and recreational opportunities listed in the clause.

The clause ensures that young people are themselves central to the fulfilment of the new duty. It requires that local authorities establish young people’s views on the current provision of positive activities, their access to it, and the need for any additional activities and facilities. It also requires that authorities take into account young people’s views. Local authorities will need to consult young people and take into account their views on positive activities.

I emphasise that the legislation will be supported by the youth opportunities and youth capital funds that have been mentioned already, and which will be worth some £115 million over the next two years. Both funds will be youth led, support the engagement of young people in decision making, and be an important additional resource to help to achieve the intended outcomes of the new provisions. It is important that local authorities take into account young people’s views, which will be critical in ensuring that the provision made is of interest to and meets the needs of young people. In turn that will result in increased participation by young people.

To tackle the lack of information on existing provision the clause requires that local authorities publicise appropriate positive activities and facilities available locally to young people. Guidance issued under the clause, to which local authorities will need to have regard, will clarify how that can be achieved to greatest effect, and will address the information needs of specific groups such as disabled young people.

For too long, parents in this country have complained that their local area provides nothing for their kids to do. That is what I hear on doorsteps in my constituency, and I am sure that it is replicated across the country. Young people want things to do and local communities want young people to engage in positive activities. For those reasons I believe that the duty contained in the clause will be fulfilled with vigour at local level.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) raised an issue regarding sport. Will the clause make any difference? I believe that young people and local communities will demand that local authorities respond to their duty to secure access to such activities. That will be a major driver, led by young people and the communities themselves, in the delivery of those activities.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Gentleman might be right to say that young people want things to do, but he will know that in the last 15 years almost half of the UK’s playing fields have disappeared. Many of our conurbations and cities are becoming increasingly grey. It is okay to say that young people have the will to do such things, but unless there is the opportunity they will not be able to fulfil that will.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Perhaps that will give me the opportunity to respond to some of the points that the hon. Gentleman and others have made about participation in sport and the availability of public playing fields, although I hope not to stray far from the clause.

The Government are firmly committed to competitive school sport. Learning competitive games such as football and hockey is compulsory at all key stages, and the percentage of young people taking part in competitive sport has been rising steadily year on year. We have introduced new measures to successfully promote participation in competitive sport. I have some figures for the hon. Gentleman. Competitive sports such as football, hockey and athletics remain popular and are offered by almost all schools. For example, 97 per cent. of schools offer football, 91 per cent. athletics, 85 per cent. cricket, 81 per cent. netball, 82 per cent. rugby, 74 per cent. hockey and 71 per cent. tennis. That is a high percentage of schools offering exactly the kind of competitive school sports to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned inter-school sporting competition. In partnerships that we developed in 2003-04 the level of participation has risen from 33 per cent. to 36 per cent. I am pleased to say that the figure is going up. In a typical week, a quarter of pupils in partnership schools are involved in inter-school competitive activities. That percentage has risen from 22 to 28 per cent., an increase of six percentage points. There has been a welcome growth in participation in competitive sport.

The subject of playing fields has come up on a number of occasions. I shall briefly mention some facts.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I want to be absolutely clear on the figures that the hon. Gentleman just offered us, because they are important in the terms established by the hon. Member for Bury, North. The Under-Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that he is telling us that 28 per cent. of schools, up from 22 per cent., are involved in inter-school competitions. Is that right? He then gave us another figure of 36 per cent. I did not understand the difference between those two. Will he clarify it? Whatever the clarification, however, it seems to me—

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Order. Let us wait for the clarification.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The figures are for partnership schools in which participation has taken place. I was talking about pupils, not schools.

I should like to make it clear that the Government are investing some £978 million between 2003-04 and 2007-08 to deliver the PE, school sport and club links strategy, which aims to increase young people’s take-up of sporting opportunities. As for the figures on partnership school pupils taking part, the 2004-05 school sport survey found that 69 per cent. of pupils in partnership schools spent at least two hours in a typical week on high-quality PE and school sport. With the addition of the lottery funding that is enhancing school facilities, some £1.5 billion will have been invested in school sport during the five years up to 2008. By any standards, that is a remarkable achievement in promoting school sport.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I wonder whether this is the right point to pay tribute to our right hon. Friend the Minister for Sport, who has been instrumental in securing much of that investment, which will facilitate the implementation of the duties laid down in clause 6.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight our right hon. Friend’s contribution. We can be proud not only of the new duty, which will improve facilities and access for young people, but of the wider opportunities for participation both in and out of school in a wide range of sporting and cultural activities.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Under-Secretary has been extremely clear about the kind of sports that young people are involved in—he gave us a comprehensive breakdown of figures for each sport that he listed—but I am still not quite clear about how many schools and how many pupils, in percentage terms, are involved in competitive sport. He has spoken about different percentages and different types of schools. Can we have a clear answer on how many schools are competing against one another, and what percentage of pupils is involved? If he cannot give me that clear answer, perhaps he could come back to me.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I shall try again. If this does not satisfy the hon. Gentleman, I will write to him.

I listed the percentage of schools offering each sport. I thought that that was a helpful contribution. In the context of the sporting partnerships that are being developed, I mentioned that 35 per cent. of pupils in those partnership schools were involved in some form of inter-school sporting competition. Well over a third are involved in some kind of sporting competition.

Questions have been asked about school playing fields. Section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 delivered our commitment to ending the policy of forcing schools to sell off playing fields. Since then, all local authorities and governing bodies of maintained schools in England have needed the Secretary of State’s consent to dispose of a school playing field or any part of one. Since 2004, the assessment criteria have been strengthened so that the sale of a playing field is an absolute last resort. Local authorities must demonstrate that they have exhausted all other sources of funding. When possible, sale proceeds must be used to improve outdoor sports facilities, and any new sports facilities must be sustainable for at least 10 years. I am pleased to say that the number of applications for disposal has shown a steady decline since the Government introduced that policy. In 1998-99, there were 41 applications; by 2005-06 the number had fallen to 17, which demonstrates that we have made significant inroads into the legacy of a flawed policy That has made a real difference by ensuring that young people have the opportunities, and the necessary access when theyneed it.

Andrew Gwynne (Labour, Denton and Reddish)

May I give my hon. Friend an example of best practice in my constituency in Labour-controlled Tameside? A major retail development was proposed in Denton town centre that involved the removal of a slice of the school playing field at Edgerton park arts college. Not only did the school secure financial compensation for the loss of the playing field, which it reinvested in a multipurpose floodlit sports pitch for the community, but it received replacement land attached to the playing field of exactly the same size as it lost. It was win-win for the school and the community.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

That is an excellent example of a local authority delivering what we require: it delivered better facilities for young people rather than ignoring the opportunity to meet those needs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North and others mentioned swimming. I remind the Committee that swimming has always been a compulsory element of the PE national curriculum, and unless completed at key stage 1 swimming and water safety activities are statutory at key stage 2. I can tell the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings—I know that he likes interesting facts—that in 2000 an Ofsted report on swimming at key stage 2 found that 83 per cent. of pupils could swim the 25 m standard. We think that the figure could still be improved. An advisory group was set up and a pilot programme was carried out. As a result of the success of that pilot, and with a positive consultation, we intend to implement a national programme, with £5.5 million being allocated to support what is known as a swimming charter between April 2006 and March 2008.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Will the Minister confirm that 69 per cent. of pupils are spending two hours or more on high-quality PE and games, or did that figure relate to a special kind of school? If the latter, could he give the overall figure of the proportion who spend two hours on PE and games?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The figure that I read out is correct. The 2004-05 school sports survey said that 69 per cent.—the figure is up by 7 percentage points on the previous year—of pupils in partnership schools were spending at least two hours in a typical week on high-quality PE and school sport. As we are drifting into territory not covered by the clause, I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the other information that he has asked me to provide, if wehave it.

I turn to the amendments. Clause 6 contains two new sections applying only to England that are to be inserted into the Education Act 1996. Proposed new section 507A is a re-enactment of the existing section 508 of the 1996 Act in its application to children under the age of 13. Proposed new section 507B is a new provision that replaces the LEAs’ existing functions under section 508 of the 1996 Act with regard to young people over the age of 13. The two new sections deal with two age groups. It is important to note that the majority of the amendments would change new section 507A; they would therefore amend existing provisions. Local authorities already fulfil that duty; we are re-enacting it. The amendments would change that.

Amendments Nos. 183, 184 and 185 would amend the wording of the provision to require that local authorities secure “sufficient” rather than “adequate” facilities for children’s recreation and social and physical training. In the context of clause 6, we believe that “adequate” provides a more challenging duty. In order to secure “adequate” provision, local authorities would need to have regard to the quality as well as the quantity of its provision, but the amendments would risk communicating to local authorities that in fulfilling the provisions of new section 507A they need consider only the scale of provision without taking into account its quality. I do not think that that is what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North intends.

It is also worth noting that the new section is based on the provisions of section 508 of the 1996 Act, and that LEAs are already clear as to the meaning of “adequate” in that context because they have been fulfilling the duty for some time. In addition, existing section 508 will continue in respect of local authorities in Wales. Those authorities continue to be required to ensure that there are adequate facilities and so on. Any difference between the wording of section 508 and the new section 507A will create doubt as to the extent of the LEAs’ functions under these provisions.

It is not necessary to require that the duty be fulfilled “according to their needs”, as the amendment would do. As I have explained, the new section imposes a duty on LEAs to ensure that there are adequate facilities. LEAs are already under a duty to secure primary and secondary education for their areas that are appropriate to the needs of their pupils, so it would be inappropriate to impose an additional burden on them in respect of that aspect of their primary and secondary education provision.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North made an important point, and I want to assure him that in fulfilling the duty, local authorities will have to consider the needs of the child population, and of specific groups of children. That will include the consideration that is given to recreation and social and physical training facilities as part of the analysis that is undertaken by local authorities and their partners in respect of children’s trusts, as set out in the children and young people’s plan. For the reasons that I have outlined, I hope that my hon. Friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Amendments Nos. 149 and 64 seek to enable authorities to form partnerships with other organisations to secure adequate facilities for children’s recreation and social and physical training. I appreciate the intentions behind the amendment, and I agree that local authorities should consider co-operating with other organisations in fulfilling the duty, but I do not think that the amendment is necessary. Subsection (2)(a) of new section 507A makes it clear that the local authority may

“assist the establishment, maintenance and management of”

provision, thereby supporting the actions of others as part of a partnership. In addition, subsection (3) requires local authorities to consider

“co-operating with any voluntary societies or bodies”

that provide or organise similar activities.

We have heard many examples of the excellent work done by local voluntary bodies and others in fulfilling those responsibilities. Local authorities already operate in a new environment, following the “Every Child Matters” reforms and the framework that was established by the Children Act 2004. Those require greater partnership working, and for local authorities to plan and commission with other bodies within local children’s trusts arrangements. I am pleased to say that that approach is now firmly embedded around the country, and it is supported by a joint planning and commissioning framework for children, young people and maternity services, set out by the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health.

Within that framework, local authorities are developing a more strategic approach to planning and commissioning. That includes making sure that suppliers and providers are encouraged to develop innovative approaches to delivering services and achieving outcomes. Section 507A provides significant flexibility to local authorities in their approach to securing provision, and that includes their ability to enter into partnerships with other organisations, which we know can be successful. I hope that the hon. Member for Brent, East will not press the amendments, because they are unnecessary, although they have provided a helpful opportunity for us to welcome the contribution that voluntary organisations and others make towards the provision of services for young people.

Amendment No. 236 would include a specific reference to field centres as one of the facilities that authorities may establish, maintain or manage, or may assist others in establishing, maintaining or managing as part of their local provision. Committee members who were unaware of the benefits of field centres heard some of them articulated here this afternoon. They offer young people important opportunities to participate in outdoor education, often concentrating on the natural sciences, the physical sciences and environmental education. Depending on the centre, they might also offer activities aimed at personal and social development, such as outdoor pursuits.

In my previous life, I took many young people away on such trips, both as a teacher and as a youth worker. I am sure that other hon. Members have done the same. We all know the benefits that such activities provide, as the examples given by my hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and for Sheffield, Hillsborough demonstrate. I am also aware that there are many disaffected young people; that kind of learning provides opportunities that can help to re-engage them with mainstream education.

Not all the activities provided by field centres are likely to fall within the concept of recreational, social and physical training as identified in new section 507A, although in many cases they will. It would be reasonable for a local authority to use field centres to provide certain services as part of the fulfilment of its duty under subsection (1). However, the list of activities and facilities referred to in subsection (2)(a)(i) is indicative, not exclusive. We should not seek to name in subsection (2) all the excellent facilities that authorities may seek to provide or support. The subsection already provides local authorities with significant flexibility on the type of facility that could be employed in the fulfilment of the duty. For example, outdoor education centres could be used; the list of the types of centres that might be appropriate could go on and on.

The Department and a range of organisations are undertaking a wide range of work to ensure that all children and young people have a variety of high-quality learning opportunities away from their classrooms, but as part of their lessons. We aim to publish a manifesto for education outside the classroom that will seek to create a joint undertaking through which providers, voluntary organisations, youth groups, schools and local authorities will work together to make what are often unique experiences a reality for all children.

That manifesto is yet to be published, although a draft of its vision and aims is on the DFES website. The issue is subject to a lot of consultation at the moment. I am confident that the manifesto will communicate adequately the message that my hon. Friends seek to pass to local authorities—the message that field centres are important. The manifesto will also help field centres to work together more effectively to deliver improved services to schools and increase teachers’ confidence in taking children out of the classroom. I ask my hon. Friends to consider not pressing the amendment. It is necessary neither in the legal sense, nor, because of the work being done on the manifesto, as a means of communicating the importance of field centres.

I have been speaking about provision for children up to the age of 13; the amendments that I was discussing related to new section 507A. I now turn to new section 507B. As I said, it was first proposed in the Green Paper “Youth Matters”. We think it central to ensuring that young people have things to do and places to go to during their leisure time. I emphasise that positive activities include any leisure time activity connected to recreation or education that improves young people’s well-being. They include sport and cultural activities as well as youth work, which will be essential to the delivery of many of the positive activities in which we want young people to engage, and to empowering young people to access and influence the nature of the provision.

As we have been reminded, such activities are provided by a wide variety of bodies across the public, private and voluntary sectors. The duty under new section 507B reflects that. However, local authorities will be an important source of positive activities, both as providers and, increasingly, as commissioners of services. For example, a significant youth work contribution from the local authority will be central to the fulfilment of the new duty to secure young people access to sufficient positive leisure time activities. In fulfilling the new duty, local authorities will need to consider whether their current youth work contribution is appropriate, following consultation with local young people.

I turn to amendment No. 150, which concerns disabled young people. We are sympathetic to its intentions; it is vital that young people with disabilities should be able to access the positive leisure time activities that the clause seeks to ensure for all young people. It is also true that young people with disabilities often face additional barriers, and the clause has been written with such young people in mind.

Young people with disabilities are already included in the duty on securing access to sufficient positive leisure time activities. The authority will have to take into account its responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. However, it is important to recognise that many other groups of young people could be mentioned in the Bill. They also face barriers to participation; they could be physical, cultural, social or—as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned—economic. We believe that local authorities should determine the relative needs of each group in their area, and also the actions they should take following local assessment and within the planning and commissioning process led by the Children’s Trust. Section 17 of the Children Act 2004 requires local authorities to work with other partners to produce a children and young people’s plan, and the need of disabled young people to access positive leisure time activities should be included in that plan.

I emphasise that proposed new section 507B(8)(a) requires the local authority to consult young people and to take their views into account. That consultation will inform the local authority’s planning. Statutory guidance issued under that new section will make clear the expectation that the local authority should consult and consider the needs of disabled young people. That is vital, and it will be stated in statutory guidance.

Finally on this point, subsection (9) of the proposed new section requires local authorities to

“publicise information about positive leisure-time activities, and facilities”

to young people. The provision of information on those activities is vital for young people with disabilities, who have additional information requirements. The National Youth Agency has advised the Department on how the requirement can best be fulfilled, and we will set out in guidance that the information requirements of disabled young people should be clearly addressed.

I hope that I have reassured Members that not only does the new duty include disabled young people, but that the accompanying statutory guidance will specifically address the needs of disabled young people. On that ground, I request that the amendment will not be pressed to a Division.

Amendment No. 23 raises important questions about funding, and how we expect local authorities to resource any actions they take in fulfilling the new duty. The clause places a duty to secure access to sufficient positive activities and facilities. Some of that provision will be supplied by the authority itself, but, as we have heard, much will be provided by others—for example, extended schools, voluntary sector bodies, or private providers.

Those organisations are not in receipt of the revenue support grant. Therefore, it is not meaningful for the legislation to require their provision to be funded by it. However, even setting aside that legal point and considering only the services provided by the local authority itself, the amendment still fails to offer sufficient flexibility to local authorities with regard to the various funding streams available to them. For example, it would preclude local authorities from making use of local area agreements funding, despite the fact that that contains some £50 million over the next two years that was previously ring-fenced for the “positive activities for young people” programme. It would also prevent local authorities from making use of funding streams that are explicitly designed to help them deliver this duty. I have mentioned the £115 million youth opportunity fund and the youth capital fund. Amendment No. 23 would negate the new power in the clause that allows local authorities to charge, as it would prevent local authorities from using money raised by such charges to offset the costs of provision.

The revenue support grant represents only 6 per cent. of the total external funding received by local authorities from central Government. If we were to restrict the scope of funding in this way, the amendment would require local authorities to severely cut back the provision of leisure time activities and facilities—which, I stress, are often shared by the wider community.

Finally, I remind Opposition Members that the funding restrictions proposed by their amendment would be fundamentally at odds with the increasing discretion accorded to local authorities to judge the best use of their finances, and to be judged according to the outcomes they achieve. Practically speaking, it is also impossible for authorities to identify how much revenue support grant they receive, as that forms an unspecified part of the larger formula grant. Authorities will not therefore know how much they could spend in the fulfilment of this duty. For all those reasons, the amendment is unhelpful, and I invite hon. Members not to press it.

I think I have covered most of the matters Members have raised, including a variety of points about sport, swimming and education outside the classroom, and issues to do with the youth opportunity card. This is an important clause that makes a significant contribution to the Bill and to the provision of services and facilities for young people. I hope that the clause will be supported as an act of cross-party consensus so that we can provide better facilities for young people.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

This has been a useful discussion and I thank the Under-Secretary for his very positive response to the points that have been raised. Points that were made about our amendments Nos. 149 and 64 were particularly helpful—especially the extra information and constituency experience that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough brought to the debate. In the light of that I shall not press those amendments to a vote.

As to amendment No. 150, I am sympathetic to the Under-Secretary’s point that it is not just disabled young people who face barriers in gaining access to leisure facilities, or, indeed, many services in a local authority area, and his points about cultural differences are particularly apt in the context of my constituency. However, I am also pleased to hear him say that young people with disabilities—particularly learning disabilities—face particular barriers to access. I was reassured by the information that he gave about the issuing of statutory guidance on that matter, and I shall, again, not press the amendment.

In relation to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole raised about charging, will the Under-Secretary specifically address the issue of children in care when he publishes guidance? That is one particularly vulnerable group whose access to such facilities should be specifically considered.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Two matters have been made less, not more, clear by the Under-Secretary’s response. I do not want to be too pedantic about this, but it is vital to get a clear answer to the question that the hon. Member for Bury, North posed at the beginning of this debate about sport. I hope that the Under-Secretary will also be able to answer my supplementary questions. He was crystal clear, I thought, about the breakdown of sports in which young people are engaged, but he said that 35 per cent. of pupils are involved in inter-school sport at partnership schools. That is a bit of a Sir Humphrey answer, because we do not know which those partnership schools are, or what proportion of the total school population is represented, or where in the country they are distributed.

What we really want to know—what I imagine the hon. Member for Bury, North wants to know, although he will make his own judgment about it—is what proportion of children in all maintained schools spend two hours or more a week on school sport. What I wanted to know was what proportion of children in all maintained schools, whether those are in partnerships or not, are involved in competitive sport or sport that involves a relationship with other schools. Those seem to me pretty straightforward questions, and I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary could answer them so that we could at least agree on that point. I know that he is trying to be helpful; I am trying to be helpful too.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I hope that I shall be helpful. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that 80 per cent. of schools in England are in a school sport partnership. That gives him some idea of the scale of the response. All schools will be in a partnership by September. At the time of the survey 50 per cent. of schools were in a partnership, so the figures are based on that proportion.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

That is helpful, because we now know that 69 per cent. of children in 80 per cent. of schools engage in school sport for more than two hours a week, and that 35 per cent. of children at 80 per cent. of schools engage in sports that involve inter-school work—participating with other schools in competitive or collaborative ventures. I conclude from that that we have a problem, because a lot of children are not involved in physical education or sport for two hours or more a week. That suggests that a large number of children engage in school sport or physical education for a very short time, which underpins the concerns outlined at the beginning of the debate. At least we know where we stand now. I fully acknowledge the Under-Secretary’s desire to do something about that.

This debate has been conducted in a spirit that shows that we are all interested in doing our best by children in respect of physical education and school sports. Following this Committee, I should be interested to take the matter further and to consider how we could measure the trend over time, what difference we could make to the figures, what targets we might set, and what ambitions we might have for ensuring that more children participate. I hope that that will arise from this debate and from the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bury, North, which have been discussed at some length.

The other matter on which there was lack of clarity was access to playing fields. I want to be as generous as possible: it is true that the Government recognised the problem as early as 1998 and changed the guidance—and, indeed, the legislation—to try to deal with it, as the Minister for Schools will remember. However, the Under-Secretary and the Committee will be aware that the outcome was not entirely happy for the Government. In 1999, there were 590 applications to build on playing fields, but by March 2003 the figure had more than doubled to 1,297 applications per year. It is hard to imagine, is it not? At that time, the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills was asked to decide on 176 applications to dispose of school playing fields that were larger than 0.2 hectares, which is the size of a sports pitch. Of those applications, only two were turned down; so there were only two cases in which the Secretary of State intervened in favour of Sport England’s objection to building on those fields.

The Government recognised the problem and by August 2004, as the Under-Secretary will know, the then Secretary of State announced further protection for playing fields, because he recognised that, as a study conducted by University college London revealed—that is where I have drawn my figures from—there was a big problem in terms of school playing fields. I would be interested to hear from the Under-Secretary what the position has been since 2004, as we have not heard that today. We would hope that the series of tighter measures introduced by the then Secretary of State—now the Home Secretary—had to some degree stemmed the tide of building on playing fields, but I have not seen any figures to date or, indeed, today.

It is important for the Under-Secretary to reassure those Committee members who have expressed an absolute determination that sports should be given a prominent position, both in school and outside the school gate, that that sale of open space has not continued unabated. I do not think that it has, and I am sure that the Under-Secretary does not think so, but let us have the facts and figures before us so that we can make a judgment. Once again, this has been a helpful debate. I repeat my thanks to the hon. Member for Bury, North, for giving us the chance to hold it.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s dogged tenacity in extracting those important figures from the Under-Secretary; they reveal that there is a problem. Even in the partnership schools, a large proportion of pupils—the Under-Secretary said 31 per cent.—are not getting two hours a week or more of high-quality PE or games. We have a problem that we need to address together, as a Government and as a Parliament.

The debate has been interesting. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough, is right that the duty does not necessarily require local authorities to provide the recreation facilities themselves; they can commission the voluntary and private sectors and other bodies to provide those facilities. It was refreshing and encouraging to hear that from a Labour Member, and even more so to hear it from her. I think that the Committee is reaching consensus on some important points of principle.

I am grateful for the Under-Secretary’s full and informative response. He pointed out that 70 per cent. of young people believe that lack of provision leads to antisocial behaviour and crime. Again, there is consensus in the Committee on that point, which was first raised by the hon. Member for Bury, North. I think that the Under-Secretary confirmed my understanding that the funding for the new duty comes principally from the youth opportunity fund, although he also mentioned local area agreements and other sources of funding to which local authorities have access. From what he said, however, I understand that the fund is the principal source of funding. That was a helpful note of confirmation.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I do not want the hon. Gentleman or the Committee to be misled. Local authorities have a duty to secure access as I described, but they should not use the youth opportunity fund, which is there to help to engage young people and ensure that they are involved in decision making regarding needs assessments and in giving their views about existing provision.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful for that clarification. We support the clause, but that explanation demonstrates the general problem with what we do in this House. When we impose duties on local authorities without providing funding to discharge them, they have a problem: they must either raise council tax to fund the new duties or divert resources from other services. Our amendment is only a probing one, but discussions on it have revealed a problem faced by local authorities. Too often, we pass laws without thinking through the consequences that new duties and facilities will have on those who have to discharge and provide them, or how they will be funded. We have to take a serious approach.

We want many things from our public services—I reiterate that we support clause 6—but we have to be serious about the problem of introducing legislation and imposing new duties and responsibilities on local authorities and leaving the funding of those new duties to them. Sometimes there is a disconnect between the elected representatives who impose duties and the elected representatives who have to raise money from the public to pay for new services. We have had a revealing and informative debate on our probing amendment, and I do not intend to press it to a Division.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for his long and detailed response to the amendments. It should give us food for thought that had the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings not taken tea at the Savoy, we might not have had the opportunity to explore these detailed issues, and might already have been well into our discussions on clause 7 and the Secretary of State’s veto, but that is a side issue. I am pleased that the brief amendments in the group have opened a debate on a clause that might otherwise have been unfairly neglected.

I have two brief points to make. First, the Under-Secretary has described an impressive level of commitment and achievement in encouraging school sport, in particular, and a stronger focus on education outside the classroom. I very much support the imminent publication of the manifesto on education outside the classroom. With legislative support for local authorities, we can look forward to further advances in that area, but the existence of sporting and other cultural facilities alone will not automatically develop the wider levels of participation that we all want. We must reinforce the argument that we need a coherent approach. On one hand, there should be a strong role for local authorities in providing or commissioning new facilities. On the other, we need stronger encouragement for schools to place far more emphasis on the importance of sport and cultural activities in the curriculum.

This is a debate for another occasion, but it is important to flag this point up now. I fear that the constricting effect of the national curriculum in recent years has had an adverse effect, whereby in subjects such as sport, dance, drama, art and music, some activities that do not contribute directly to a school’s record of achievement as defined by GCSE results have been squeezed out of the curriculum. I know that the Government have recognised that and are taking steps to free up the national curriculum and gradually reduce the burden of assessment that the national curriculum has triggered. However, that process must continue if we are to see the full flourishing of sport and the arts in our schools. Although many youngsters in surveys say that they want to spend more time on such activities during the week, they need guidance from an adult in a school setting because the capacity creatively to use leisure time does not come about by chance—it is taught, encouraged and facilitated, and we need time in the school day to do that.

My second brief point is that the hon. Member for Gainsborough, who is not in his place, drew attention to the sometimes substantial differential between sports facilities in private and state schools. I do not want to over-emphasise that point, because it is not true in all circumstances, but it is true in many. I simply flag up the question of whether the Charities Bill, which is wending its way through the other place and which grapples with the public interest criteria for continuing the VAT exemption for private schools, might provide a way of reducing that differential, which all members of the Committee see as unacceptable. However, that is a debate for the other place, and with those few words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

New Clause 2

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

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

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 3—Education of children in immigration removal centres—

‘When a local authority has within its boundaries an Immigration Removal Centre it shall ensure that all duties and powers pertaining to education of children are applied to any child resident within an Immigration Removal Centre.'.

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

When we discuss children in custody or asylum seekers’ children in detention centres, we talk much about “Every Child Matters”. I often feel, however, that those two groups are excluded in many ways, so the two new clauses are important in the context of education. There have been had long debates and, indeed, High Court cases about the position of social services as regards children in custody, but education is the topic today.

I turn first to new clause 2. On 31 March 2005, 2,204 15 to 17-year-olds were in prison and 234 12 to 15-year-olds were in privately run secure training centres. As we are all aware, many children in prison have a background of severe social exclusion. Of those of school age in custody, more than a quarter have the literacy and numeracy levels of an average 7-year-old. Sadly, more than half of those under-18-year-olds have a history of care into the bargain. In young offenders institutions, just under a third of the population has basic skills deficits, while the reading ability of 48 per cent. of the overall prison population is at or below level 1, compared with 21 to 23 per cent. in the general population.

Education is important because it gives us the opportunity to put an end to that revolving door syndrome. Otherwise, the problem builds up, with that basic lack of literacy and numeracy still showing itself in the adult population and making some contribution to reoffending.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am listening with interest to hon. Lady and I am sure that I will agree with almost everything that she says. What is interesting and alarming, however, is that 23 per cent. of the general population are not at the required reading level. That is the real figure to worry about. Of that group, a large chunk will go on to commit crime. Although I am unlikely to disagree with the hon. Lady’s conclusions, should we not focus on dealing with that 23 per cent. illiteracy rate?

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

I am concerned about the education of all children and all adults. Obviously, I am concentrating on new clauses, because by not covering education for children in custody the Bill has a deficit.

New clause 2 seeks to address that deficit. I understand that section 562 of the Education Act 1996 effectively permits the Secretary of State, local education authorities and parents to opt out of any obligations under the Act if the child is detained by the order of a court, although the LEA may make arrangements for such a child to receive the benefit of educational facilities provided by it.

I do not apologise for referring yet again to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. The UK’s second report to that Committee said that it was particularly concerned that children deprived of their liberty in prisons and juvenile detention centres do not have a statutory right to education, that their education is not the responsibility of the Departments responsible for education, and that they do not have support for special educational needs. I am sure that Opposition Members will be particularly supportive of this special educational needs aspect, which is heightened, yet again, among children in custody.

Prison Service order 4950 stipulates the requirements for prisons holding children. It specifies that education should be provided for all young people under school-leaving age for at least 15 hours a week but the remaining 15 hours of constructive activity that are not spent in education must be spent in accredited educative activities, which may include work-based learning. That is in line with the requirements of the Youth Justice Board with whose work much progress has been made. However, according to the chief inspector of prisons, in 2004, no juvenile establishment had yet succeeded in meeting the target of 30 hours per week in education and training.

I have further concerns relating to an answer provided by the Under-Secretary to a parliamentary question in July last year. It did not answer the question but it provided me with some useful material for today, for which I am grateful. A table shows the weekly average number of hours of education and physical education undertaken by 15, 16 and 17-year-olds at each young offender and juvenile establishment in 2004-05. On average, each institution provided just eight hours of education per child per week. If every child matters, surely we must do something about that. The situation needs to be addressed and it should not be omitted from the Bill.

A further point, raised by youth offender teams, is that when a child or young person is released from custody, it is difficult to reintegrate them into full-time education. It might take time to find a placement and there are gaps, all of which adds to the severe problems. Surely education in a secure estate should not mirror that provided in the main community; it should be better than that. Children in a secure estate often have been failed by mainstream education, and custody presents a valuable opportunity to make up some of those deficits. Why do we not make them up? I hope that we can establish a statutory right to education for children in custody and feel that we have made a great contribution, perhaps not in terms of large numbers but in the impact on the individuals involved and on society.

New clause 3 is, in many ways, designed to probe whether the duties placed on local authorities under the 1996 Act apply to children in immigration removal centres. This is a difficult issue, but what emerges time and again from inspections of such centres is that the provision for children’s education is unsatisfactory and depressing. A March 2005 report on Yarl’s Wood said:

“Accommodation for older children was poor, and the broad range of ages and abilities prevented effective work. There was an over-reliance on agency staff, insufficient resources and no system to measure the quality, rather than the amount, of teaching. Three children had been removed from school just before GCSE examinations, to the great detriment of their education.”

A report from Amnesty International has a case study repeating that important point. Jean

“was kept in detention with her son pending the granting of a travel document by the authorities of her country. Her son, who is of school age, received little education at Oakington. He had been assessed by an educational psychologist prior to being taken into detention after concern had been raised about his disturbed behaviour at school. No further steps had been taken because he stopped attending school as a result of being taken into detention.”

As a consequence, we have stoked up a large range of problems for that child.

The Amnesty International report also made the point that during detention children have a right to education, which should optimally take place outside the detention premises to facilitate the continuation of their education upon release. A September 2004-August 2005 report from Her Majesty’s inspector of prisons reiterates that point:

“M, aged 16, had been at his local college since 2001.”

At the time of his detention, he was

“due to sit his GCSE examinations imminently. Both he and his 13-year-old brother, removed from the school at the same time, had excellent records of school performance, attendance and behaviour.”

The college believed that his education

“had been seriously affected by his removal at such a critical stage.”

I am pleased to say that the family was released from detention after inspectors raised the case, but obviously inspectors cannot go in day in and day out.

That report makes the point that

“the quality and range of education provision for children also caused concern. Resources to support teaching were generally inadequate.”

The same point comes up over and over, but what are we doing to improve things? Teachers work hard to deal with groups that are very mixed in language needs, age and ability. In one establishment, one small, cramped classroom accommodated 12 young people aged between 5 and 17. That is what we currently provide. Save the Children’s report makes a further relevant point that we encounter in surgery cases: children whose age is disputed are treated as adults. That has a knock-on effect for education.

I have spoken at great length. I normally speak briefly in Committee, but these are such important and serious points. Both groups are in danger of being overlooked. There is evidence that education is not being provided at an adequate level, let alone a compensating one. We should be compensating in both cases. Will the Minister give some assurances that the right of children in immigration removal centres to education is safeguarded by their inclusion in the relevant local authority duties? That is important. If not, what steps could be taken?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I do not intend to detain the Committee by speaking at length. The hon. Lady makes an interesting and powerful point reflecting the argument put forward by the Children’s Society, which has made clear its concerns about children detained under court orders. The hon. Lady will know that local authorities are able to make provisions for educational provision for such children. I hope that the Under-Secretary will tell us of their record for doing so—it would be useful if the Committee had some feel for how local authorities typically behave in that regard—and perhaps give some examples of best practice.

Secondly, the hon. Lady and I—and, incidentally, the Under-Secretary—are concerned about the education of young people in prisons. The Government recently reviewed their position on prison education. The Under-Secretary and I have discussed the matter at length, and he will know that there is a broad measure of consensus between the Government and the Opposition on the need to ensure that those who are detained receive the opportunity to be trained and educated to best effect.

The Under-Secretary will know that one of the big weaknesses of the existing system—the hon. Lady did not mention it, but I know that the omission was not deliberate—is inconsistency in provision. From time to time people are moved around, and having started education of one kind or another, they have it broken or disturbed by such moves. I speak of people in custody, so there may be considerable disruption both in the course that they are studying and in the person who is teaching them. I know that the Under-Secretary is aware of this, and I would be interested to hear his views, particularly in respect of the very young to whom the hon. Lady referred.

I would also be interested to hear the Under-Secretary’s perspective on the amount of time for which young people in custody are involved in education and training. Evidence highlighted by the Children’s Society and others suggests that young people in custody receive quite a small amount of education during the day or the week. I wonder why that is and what the Government intend to do about it.

As for new clause 3, to which the hon. Lady also referred, I fully appreciate that the Government need to retain the power to detain; it is an essential part of protecting the integrity of and public confidence in the immigration controls, which we all believe should be in place. However, if children are involved it is important that their welfare is high on our list of concerns. I want assurances—I am sure that the Under-Secretary will have no trouble in offering them—that all staff working with such children have undergone enhanced criminal record bureau checks, that any other staff are subject to the appropriate checks, and that full training is available to those involved with children and families.

We need a robust system for monitoring the process and for regularly checking whether the circumstances that apply in detention facilities serve such children adequately. I appreciate that the purpose of the centres is short term; we must therefore ensure that there is no perverse incentive for their being anything other than that. We should not put in place things that provide an excuse or an incentive for keeping people for longer than desirable in circumstances that are not ideal. I imagine that there is a fair amount of agreement on that point between the Government and the Opposition.

With what I hope have been helpful questions, and knowing from my discussions with the Under-Secretary that he takes the matter seriously, I welcome the amendments as an opportunity to explore whether the Government have got their act together. The Under-Secretary would not expect anything less, and the Opposition would not let him off the hook if the Government had not got their act together.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I shall not detain the Committee long, but merely put on the record my support for the two new clauses moved ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. Many Committee members will have met similar examples of young people who have moved from care to prison and back to care again, with a consequential disruption to their education. That has a lasting impact on their future life opportunities, but is a notable deficit in the Bill. Opposition Members take that issue seriously and are likely to push the new clause to a vote, although I shall listen to the Minister’s response to the points raised by my hon. Friend.

With respect to new clause 3, I meet many families in my constituency who have to wait for lengthy periods to hear from the Home Office about their asylum cases, and consequentially may have to spend time in detention. Often, those families, and in particular the young people, already have serious psychological barriers preventing them from accessing fully the opportunities that education may provide. Many of them have travelled across the world, and some may have travelled independently of their family—I have met many young people, some aged 11 or 12, who have travelled independently, and whose family may arrive at a later date.

The distress caused to, and the long-term impact on, those young people, who may have lost family members in their country of origin or lost touch with family in the United Kingdom, is enormous. The young people who manage to overcome such barriers and succeed in the school system often have displayed huge courage. I have met many such individuals at schools in my constituency. Of course, they face barriers relating to the English language, as well as disrupted housing provision, particularly if they have moved between housing provided by the National Asylum Support Service, detention and, possibly, private accommodation. It is tremendously difficult for those young people to keep up with their education, so it is particularly important that when they are in detention, education provision is thorough and seeks to meet their needs, which may be considerable because of their difficulties.

In particular, I echo the point that my hon. Friend made about age disputes. It is common for young people, particularly those who have travelled alone, to find that their age is disputed by the Home Office when it is considering their asylum case. That leads to extensive problems in their ability to access education which may have a considerable and long-lasting impact, so that it becomes difficult for them to overcome those problems, even if they eventually win that dispute.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole spoke movingly. Clearly, she is committed to the vulnerable and challenging groups of young people in the systems described in new clauses 2 and 3. That was reflected in the contributions from the hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Brent, East.

The Government have sympathy with the new clauses. I shall speak first to new clause 2. Each year, an estimated 70,000 school-age offenders enter the youth justice system. I think that we all agree that keeping those young people engaged in education and learning is a critical part of helping them to stay away from crime and to thrive.

There are genuine issues of concern for the 900 or so young offenders under the school-leaving age who are in custody at any one time. The education of young people in custody is delivered to a demanding specification set by the Youth Justice Board, but evidence from Ofsted inspections—the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole herself gave evidence—and the Youth Justice Board’s monitoring reports suggest that delivery in young offender institutions is patchy, particularly with respect to literacy and numeracy.

I shall elaborate slightly on the figures that the hon. Lady quoted from an answer that I gave to a parliamentary question. She is right to say that the figures for 2004-05 suggest that young offenders have received an average of eight hours of education per week. However, that includes young people age 15 to 17, and those aged 18 to 21, because often young offender institutions house both age groups, but separately. So the figure hides the fact that those of school age will have been receiving more education. The fact that there are many more offenders over 18 helps to account for the low average numbers of hours of education per week. The good news, such as it is, is that the Youth Justice Board report for 2004 says that young people under 18 in young offenders institutions were receiving at least 24 hours of education per week, compared with just seven hours in 2002. There has been quite an improvement in the past two or three years.

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

I accept that correction, but would the Minister not agree that there is a deficit in the skills of those 18 to 21-year-olds, so they need more than eight hours per week?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I was dealing with the issue of people under school-leaving age—the 15 to 17-year-olds. Nevertheless, she is right: levels of illiteracy and innumeracy among the prison population aged over 18 are high. To address the point made by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, a major programme that the hon. Lady will know about—our “skills for life” strategy, launched in 2001, for which I have responsibility—has led to dramatic improvements. I have visited prisons and spoken to older offenders working with other offenders to increase their literacy and numeracy levels. However, there is a huge mountain to climb and it is important that we do that.

I am pleased that some 3.5 million adults took part in “skills for life” courses and that 1.25 million have received their first level 1 qualification since we launched the strategy. I will not go into other figures now, but will try to stick to the new clause. There is a huge need and there is work to do if we are to achieve our goals of reducing illiteracy among the adult population as well as reducing the numbers of young people, with poor levels of literacy and numeracy.

I agree with the hon. Lady that there is a challenge, but there is cross-party support for addressing it. However, simply removing the sections in the Education Act 1996 which disapply the powers and duties that the Act confers on the Secretary of State, local education authorities and parents to anyone detained under the order of a court, as has been proposed, is not the right way forward. A range of detailed duties are already in place to condition the education provided to children detained under an order of court, and those will require substantial unpicking and reconsideration. Simply inserting the new clause will not do that; in fact, it would create inconsistent and, in some cases, conflicting duties for the Youth Justice Board and LEAs.

We addressed the issue clearly in the Green Paper, “Reducing Re-Offending Through Skills and Employment”, published jointly by my Department, the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions last December, with which I am sure the hon. Lady and other Opposition Members will be familiar. We acknowledge that there are problems with the current arrangements and we set out clearly as a key priority our commitment to consider the issues affecting school-age offenders and their education. We said that we will involve relevant Departments and agencies in developing a new strategy to develop these issues and that we would publish proposals in the second half of this year. That commitment holds good and it is, I think, a better way of addressing the issues raised than simply accepting the new clause.

We are putting forward a comprehensive proposal that I hope will persuade the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment, knowing that we have an active process under way, with proposals to be published later this year.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I alluded to that document when I spoke. The Minister will recall that the discussion that we had about it highlighted the problem of disrupted provision. Often, people are moved when they are on courses, or their regime or teacher may change, which is particularly critical in respect of the younger people to whom the hon. Lady referred. Will the Minister give us any perspective on that?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Gentleman is right. The Green Paper’s proposals are wide-reaching and will have a huge impact throughout not only the prison system, but the probation service and the new National Offender Management Service that is currently being developed. There will be dramatic changes. A thorough educational assessment programme will be carried out at the start for the small proportion of young people who go into custody. On the basis of that initial assessment, young people go through intensive programmes to address the deficits that might well have developed as they have gone out of school and into care or some form of custody.

In 2002, the Youth Justice Board produced the national specification for learning and skills, which requires that the service provided in custody matches that to which young people will be entitled in school or college provision. The new investment that the Youth Justice Board has put into prison education has improved the provision to achieve the change in performance that I have mentioned.

I turn now to new clause 3. We need to recognise the scale of the issues. Of the three immigration removal centres that hold families with children, two hold families for a maximum of 72 hours. One is in Scotland, and so the Bill does not apply to it. The capacity of any local authority to react to the frequent movements into and out of those centres and to provide a personalised learning experience for the children held there is likely to be extremely limited.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole referred to the immigration removal centre at Yarl’s Wood. She is right that, where necessary in individual cases, families with children are held there for longer periods. Most will be held for just a few days prior to removal from the UK. As part of the requirements on the operator, the centre provides education based on the national curriculum, which is tailored to the needs of the individual children in the centre. Efforts are made to link the learning provided with that received by the children in the schools they may have attended prior to detention in the centre. The inspectorate of prisons’ inspections of Yarl’s Wood are supported by Ofsted.

To extend local authorities’ duties to the children held in those few immigration removal centres would place a significant burden on a few authorities. The arrangements for providing education in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre are established through the contract by which the centre is operated and run. Although the most recent inspection report on the establishment identified some significant areas for improvement, providing an education service specifically tailored for the small but inevitably diverse population of the immigration removal centre through the contract rather than as a small adjunct to a local authority’s general responsibilities remains, I believe, the better way forward.

I assure the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that of course all staff with access to children have appropriate CRB checks, training and so on, so that they can provide the services that are required. I hope that the new clause will be withdrawn, on that basis.

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

I thank the Minister for his comments on new clause 3. I said clearly that it was a probing clause, because it is difficult to see how to solve the problem when we are still locking up children who have done nothing wrong. It seems to me to be a mistake in our society that we should do that at all. However, I look forward to the next inspector’s report and hope to see those improvements coming forth and achieving results. It is important that MPs continually raise the issues that affect asylum-seeking children, who can be forgotten children.

I accept that the wording of new clause 2 might not be appropriate. However, the principle is so important that we would like to push it to a vote. We do not wish to withdraw the clause, on the premise that there is so much more to be done. We would be failing in our duty if we did not keep highlighting those problems and keeping them at the top of the agenda. It is good to hear that things will improve in some months’ time, but since I became an MP we have said many times, “Things will get better when such and such happens”. We want to make the statement today that the Bill should cover all our children and improve all their educational prospects.

Clause 7

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 24, in clause 7, page 6, line 34, at end insert—

‘(1A) A local authority shall publish a notice under subsection (1) in circumstances where 35 per cent or more of school places are in schools that are underperforming.'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 179, in clause 7, page 6, line 34, at end insert—

‘(1A) A local education authority must publish such a notice if they receive representations from 50 or more parents of qualifying children in connection with the establishment of a foundation, voluntary or foundation special school or an academy.

(1B) In subsection (1A) “qualifying child”, in relation to a local education authority, means any child in the authority's area who is of or under compulsory school age.'.

No. 193, in clause 7, page 6, line 34, at end insert—

‘(1B) In subsection (1A) a maintained school is “underperforming” if, in the previous academic year, it was in the fourth quartile nationally of the value added measure of school performance.'.

No. 25, in clause 7, page 7, line 1, after second ‘a', insert ‘reasonable'.

No. 65, in clause 7, page 7, line 2, at end insert—

‘(ca) specify appropriate qualifications for persons other than local education authorities wishing to establish the new school,'.

No. 27, in clause 7, page 7, line 20, at end insert

‘, such time not to be less than a period of two months,'.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Clause 7 is probably the key provision of the Bill; it is certainly the major factor in persuading the Opposition to support it. During his speech on 24 October last year—the day before the publication of the White Paper—the Prime Minister said:

“In our schools, as I shall go on to describe, the system will finally be opened up to real parent power. All schools will be able to have Academy style freedoms. All schools will be able to take on external partners. No one will be able to veto parents starting new schools or new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there are local surplus places. The role of the LEA will change fundamentally.”

In the White Paper itself, the Prime Minister stated:

“While parents can express a choice of school, there are not yet enough good schools in urban areas; such restrictions are greatest for poor and middle class families who cannot afford to opt for private education or to live next to a good school, if they are dissatisfied with what the state offers.”

Many parents are dissatisfied with what the state offers; the recent National Audit Office report into improving schools stated:

“As at July 2005, there were 1,557 poorly performing schools in England, which represented around 4 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools...We estimate that these 1,557 schools educate around 980,000 pupils, or 13 per cent of the school population.”

The clause has been important in eliciting support from the Opposition, but it is also a major reasonfor Labour rebels’ opposition to the Bill. In their alternative White Paper, “Shaping the Education Bill: Reaching for Consensus”—I wonder how they got on trying to reach that consensus—they state:

“We propose that local authorities be empowered to assess and if necessary refuse or restrain the expansion of schools where this would not be in the overall interests of pupils in their area...Local authorities should retain the power to decide whether to function solely as commissioners, and not providers, of education...The Trust concept must be more fully developed and discussed before it could be enshrined in primary legislation.”

Before Easter, I was accused by the Minister of doing her job for her in citing the draft regulations in support of clause 3. In giving this explanation of the reasons for amendment No. 24, I may be in danger of being accused by the hon. Member for Bury, North—although he voted for the Bill—of doing his job for him. The amendment adds strength to the power of parents by triggering a competition for a new school and inviting proposals in circumstances in which 35 per cent. of school places are in schools that can be regarded as underperforming. I cited the concerns given in the alternative White Paper about what the provisions that became clause 7 do. Despite those concerns, the letter from the Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee still makes it clear:

“A key part of the vision set out in the White Paper is that the local authority increasingly acts as a commissioner, rather than a provider, of schools.”

Given the huge majority, as the Minister indicated, that the Bill received on Second Reading, I hope that that remains a key part of the vision. The amendment seeks to strengthen that vision by creating an automatic trigger for a notice to be issued under clause 7 inviting proposals for the establishment of a new school when 35 per cent. of school places are in schools that are underperforming. We defined underperforming schools in amendment No. 193 as those schools that appear in the bottom quartile of a value-added league table.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Why 35 per cent.?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I shall answer that now. This is a probing amendment, and I have not been able to calculate precisely how many local authorities would be forced to issue notices as a result of such a provision. If the figure were 25 per cent. then presumably, given that the definition of underperforming schools in amendment No. 193 is schools in the bottom quartile, most local authorities would be forced to initiate a competition.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case. Would it not be a shame if we were to tolerate a situation in which there were large numbers of pupils in underperforming schools because we are arguing about numbers and where lines should be drawn? Surely the point is that we are not prepared to put up with large numbers of pupils in such schools.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is precisely the purpose of this probing amendment. Later amendments are a bit more specific. It was hoped that the choice of 35 per cent. would result in not all local authorities having an automatic trigger, but fewer. I am willing to accept from the hon. Member for Bury, North or from the Minister a different figure—higher or lower—that would achieve the objective of triggering an invitation to propose a new school should too many school places in a local authority area underperform. If that figure is different from 35 per cent., I am sure that the Committee can come to a compromise.

Clause 7 is similar to section 66 of the Education Act 2005, except that this clause applies to all schools, not just secondary schools. However, section 66 has not yet, so far as I know, been implemented. Can the Minister confirm that, and explain why it has not? Can she also reassure the Committee that clause 7 will not languish for years on the statute book without being implemented? Clause 164, the commencement clause, does not seem to include clause 7, which means that it will come into force by order. Can the Minister say when that order will be made?

Amendment No. 24 seeks to strengthen clause 7, assuming that it is implemented, making it more likely that the Bill will achieve the objective set out at page 25 of the White Paper, which says:

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

That quotation leads me neatly on to amendment No. 179, which seeks to make it even easier for parents to trigger a competition under clause 7. The current position is that parents need to make representations to the local authority under clause 3, and then the local authority has a duty to consider those representations. Despite all the safeguards set out in the illustrative guidance, at the end of the day, the local authority can turn down the request to publish a notice for a competition based on those representations.

The Prime Minister said in the foreword to the White Paper that

“the local authority must move from being a provider of education to being its local commissioner and the champion of parent choice.”

The amendment will make the publication of a notice under clause 7 by a local authority obligatory if the local authority receives representations from 50 or more parents. It therefore gives force to the Prime Minister’s aspiration by requiring local authorities to set up a new school when large numbers of parents demand it.

The White Paper stated:

“We will ensure that...parents are able to set up new schools supported by a dedicated capital pot.”

On capital funding, it would be helpful if the Minister clarified what capital will be made available to parents or other bodies who want to propose a new school. Schedule 1 to the draft regulations states at paragraph 10 that the notice published by the local authority under clause 7 must contain a

“statement that the local education authority will meet the capital costs of implementing the proposals to the extent required by any enactment.”

The Minister’s explanation of that paragraph would be extremely helpful and would clarify the position for many groups who might want to set up a school under the proposals.

The press release when the Bill was published stated:

“Parents will be able to ask for new schools to be set up to reflect local need and demand.”

If 50 parents independently make such representations that is clearly evidence of an enormous groundswell of concern in an area. It is very difficult to achieve 50 representations that are co-ordinated, and that will happen only if there is widespread concern in a community about the quality of education provision in the area. That is a large number of parents to garner, I assure the Committee.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I challenge the idea that 50 is a large number of parents. Fifty parents could be 25 families, who could live on the same street. When a school might, typically, have 1,200 children and 2,500 or more parents, how can the hon. Gentleman seriously argue that 25 families could have the power completely to destabilise the education system throughout the local authority?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I think that 50 is a large number to garner. Only once has a group of that number of parents come to me with concerns about anything specific in a school. Once 25 parents did come to me about one school, which was put into special measures two years later, but generally I have not found groups of that size approaching me as the Member of Parliament on an education issue. I do not think that people will sign up to such representation as easily as they would, say, sign a petition. People take those issues seriously and getting that number of parents sufficiently concerned to make such representations would reflect a community concern much wider than that of the 50 parents taking part.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

In deprived areas with many families from lower socio-economic groups, getting 50 parents to come forward is an even greater achievement than it is for other kinds of schools.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend makes another important point.

The hon. Member for Bury, North said in an earlier sitting that giving parents the power in question would give them greater democratic power in their area than other people who must rely on the ballot box every four years. I do not accept that argument. Exercising rights under the clause as I would want it to be amended would be the equivalent of exercising any other right to which the law entitles a person—using a complaints procedure, for example, or any of the services provided by a local authority in exchange for money. Indeed, making any representation to a local authority—particularly if it is to be acted on—could be regarded as a similar right. The new right would simply be a service provided by the local authority to which 50 parents acting together or individually could gain access. It would have no effect on the composition of the council or on what party or group ran the local authority.

Amendment No. 180, in the next group of amendments, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Bury, North, states:

“The Secretary of State may not refuse consent under subsection 5(b) (ii)”

in circumstances where the proposal for a community school is

“supported by parents in such numbers...as may be prescribed”.

Is that provision not exactly the same as amendment No. 179, although it relates to the establishment of a community school? Amendment No. 179 will, however, introduce a much more responsive approach to local parents’ needs and eliminate the insouciance and inertia that affect some local authorities. It will also go a long way towards achieving the Government’s stated objective of ensuring that all secondary and primary schools are self-governing and have acquired a trust. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman believes that the Government do not have an electoral mandate to deliver their objectives, because they certainly do.

Amendment No. 25 would insert the word “reasonable” in subsection (3)(c), which relates to the content of the notice that a local authority will publish under the clause. Subsection (3) states:

“A notice...must

(a) identify a possible site for the school,

(b) specify whether or not the proposed school is to be a special school,

(c) specify a date...by which the proposals must be submitted”.

The amendment states that that specified date must be reasonable to give potential proposers of a new school sufficient time to put together their proposals.

The Minister kindly circulated to the Committee the draft School Organisation (Establishment and Discontinuance of Maintained Schools) (England) Regulations 2006. Regulation 4 states:

“For the purposes of section 7(3)(c), the prescribed interval is an interval of 4 months from the date of the publication of the notice inviting proposals.”

Four months appears to be a reasonable period in which to put together such proposals, although their complexity might make the time scale far from generous. However, there is a balance to be struck: we must not only allow sufficient time for proposals to be put together, but remember that insufficient good schools will be available during that time. Every month that we give to reply to a notice is another month in which a school will continue to underperform. I would be grateful if the Minister said how she decided on four months and what consultation she had with potential proposers of new schools on how long it might take to put a proposal together.

Amendment No. 27 also relates to time periods. Under subsection (5), the local authority must publish proposals for a new school that are submitted to it as a result of the notice to invite proposals. Subsection (6) says that regulations should prescribe such a period. I hate to say this, but as with other amendments on time periods that we submitted before the publication of the draft regulations and before the Government made their policy clear, we have been far too easy-going with local authorities. The amendment specifies two months, but regulation 7 of the draft regulations specifies three weeks. I applaud the Government’s determination to press ahead at full speed with proposals to establish new schools. It would have been better to have the time periods in the Bill, but that is a small grumble compared with our delight at the tight time scale under which local authorities will have to publish proposals—a time scale that we support.

Liberal amendment No. 65 would enable the local authority to specify the qualification that it requires from those who propose a school. It seems to be designed to frustrate the establishment of new schools, because the requirement could be drawn up in a very restrictive manner. The schedules to the draft regulations set out detailed requirements as to the information that should be included in any proposals, including the type of school that is proposed and the school’s proposed ethos or ethoi. Paragraph 9 of schedule 2 to the draft regulations refers to

“Evidence of any relevant experience in education held by the proposer, or proposers.”

Precisely what experience the proposers have in relation to education will therefore be perfectly transparent to those who make decisions about proposals and those who might want to submit comments or objections to them, and those involved will be able to form their own judgment based on that information.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene on what is a comprehensive and typically well researched appraisal of the amendments and the Government’s position. Will he invite the Liberals to make it absolutely clear what additional information they think a local authority could usefully expect? The Government have made it clear that they want a great deal of information; what do the Liberals want that goes further than what the Government want in terms of information from those who wish to establish a new school?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend puts his finger on the point. My concern is that a local authority could have a very restrictive requirement in respect of the qualifications that it seeks from a proposer of a school—a requirement that is designed, in effect, to rule out any realistic chance of a group of people setting up a school. I am slightly baffled by the Liberals’ amendment because of their professed support for localism and opposition to centralised prescription. It is odd that their amendment is so prescriptive.

Clause 7 is important. It will enable, and make it easy, for parents and non-profit groups to establish a new school in an area that is underprovided with good schools. The Conservative party is committed to ensuring that we have more good schools and more places at good schools. It is unacceptable that any child should have to attend an underperforming or coasting school. Today, almost 1 million children attend poorly performing schools, and it is likely that a similar number attend coasting schools. We will support any measure the Government propose that we believe will raise standards or increase the number of good schools.

The clause helps to achieve that, and amendments Nos. 24, 179, 193, 25 and 27 would help to make it even more effective, and make the reforms even swifter.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I shall first speak to amendment No. 65, then turn my attention to the Conservative amendments.

Amendment No. 65 is a probing amendment that is intended to test what the Government would regard as appropriate qualifications—or, more specifically, what they would regard as inappropriate qualifications and backgrounds of those who wish to provide a trust. We have been trying to probe the Government on these matters for some time. I was pleased when the new draft regulations arrived today, and I eagerly scanned them to see whether they give any more information on who the Government consider to be unsuitable for providing trusts. They do not; they shed little light, saying only that the details of foundations’ charitable objectives should be published.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) is a member of the Education and Skills Committee, and he asked the Secretary of State if she would rule out McDonald’s, for example, running schools through this model of trust schools. She did not.

Jacqui Smith (Labour, Redditch)

Can we put this one to rest? No private company could form a trust. As we have pointed out on numerous occasions, they will be charitable organisations.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I accept that point, but that does not mean that McDonald’s could not set up a trust—that the company could not set up a charitable organisation and then run schools. That is the point we are making.

In January, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) tabled a parliamentary question about whether a range of companies might be involved in setting up such trusts, such as tobacco companies, fast-food companies or supermarkets. Again, the Government declined to answer. Instead, the Minister replied:

“We welcome the involvement of partners from all sectors of the community and across the economy”.—[Official Report,31 January 2006; Vol. 442, c. Column Number 349W.]

In March 2006, my hon. Friend asked the question again, and related it more specifically to fast-food companies. The answer came back from the Government that it was not open to any organisation to set up school trusts, but they did not say specifically whether they had a particular problem in respect of this point. As I said, we are simply trying to probe the Government on what they consider to be suitable qualifications in that regard.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Lady seems excessively—I was about to say cautious, but that is the kindest word I can use; one might say paranoid. The organisations in question would have to establish trusts. Those trusts would have to be charities and be established under the normal criteria for any charity. We are not talking about a supermarket—and I am a doughty opponent of supermarkets, by the way—setting up a body that does not fit any of the perfectly proper terms in the legislation, so what is the hon. Lady really getting at?

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I would be delighted to watch the hon. Gentleman tell his constituents that he would be happy for a fast-food company to be involved in forming a trust, because I suspect that his constituents would feel rather differently on the matter. As I have said, the amendment is probing. These are questions for the Government to answer, not us.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

So that we can understand the background to the hon. Lady’s point, if a person came forward whom she regarded as being of a suitable character to run a trust, would she allow them to form a trust and set up a school under the provisions ofthe Bill?

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

Those are questions for the Minister to answer, not me. I shall quote the National Union of Teachers, because I know that that always gets Conservative Members excited. The NUT said today that it was particularly concerned about fast-food companies being involved in forming trusts. The Department for Education and Skills is on record as describing that as “codswallop”, but there does not appear to be anything in the Bill that would prevent it from happening. I merely wish to probe the Government on what exactly they feel are the boundaries, or indeed on whether they have any boundaries or any specific concerns at all.

Let me turn to the Conservative amendments. In relation to amendment No. 24, we will need to address exactly why schools are underperforming. There is not, as yet, any evidence to suggest that if a new school is set up under a trust model, that will raise standards. It is not a question of simply having that kind of trigger and setting up schools on the back of that automatic presumption. There is no adequate evidence base. If the evidence base showed something different, I could see some reason to support the proposals, but it does not.

Although I have considerable concerns about the way in which amendment No. 179 is drafted, I do not wish there to be a knee-jerk rejection of it; there is the germ of something interesting in the idea of allowing parents, through a petition, to trigger some kind of response. The question is what that response should be. Should it be the automatic publication of a notice and a competition to set up a new school, or would a review or inquiry, which could take any number of forms, be more appropriate? That might be something done by officers in the council, or a review process undertaken by the oversight or scrutiny committees. Any of those might be another option.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Bury, North, that 50 parents is really a very small number indeed; I have no problem getting 50 individuals to sign a petition in my neighbourhood on many issues. There is something interesting in the idea of making sure that petitions trigger some kind of response beyond a mere press release in the local paper and leaflets on the back of that. That is an interesting point that needs exploring, although I would not be prepared to support the amendment in its current form.

On amendment No. 25, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, the regulations define what is considered to be reasonable. I have no problem with the term set out in the regulations, so I would not support amendment No. 27. I feel that my concerns as regards supporting amendment No. 25 have been adequately addressed.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

First, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for quoting so generously from a document that I had a hand in writing. When he read the extracts, it seemed even more balanced and reasonable than when I contributed to it.

I rise to speak against amendments Nos. 24, 179 and 193. In doing so, I am conscious that my criticisms might ultimately help the hon. Gentleman, because he might come back on Report with slightly improved amendments that are more acceptable.

In amendment No. 24, the arbitrary figure of 35 per cent. of school places being in schools that are underperforming completely invalidates the concept for which the hon. Gentleman argues, because he has presented no evidence as to why 35 per cent. is the magic figure. Nor has he done the research—perhaps he should take tea at the Savoy—to tell us how many local authorities would fall into the relevant category. I accept that it would not be the first time that an arbitrary figure has appeared in legislation, but the hon. Gentleman does not do his argument much credit by simply plucking that figure out of the air. If he could tell us that at 25 per cent., x number of local authorities would be brought into the threshold, and that at 35 per cent., y number of local authorities would be brought into it—if he could give us some reasons for the figure—his argument might be more valid.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The point is surely the principle. My hon. Friend made it clear that there is no magic number, but the principle of that sort of popular engagement in the process is one that we could usefully debate. Does the hon. Gentleman support the principle of the community playing a role in that way? Does he think that there should be a popular element triggering the process?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I support the principle underlying the basis of our democracy: local decisions should be made through the ballot box, not through an arbitrary proportion of individuals triggering actions that could have untold consequences.

That leads me to amendment No. 179 and the figure of 50 parents. As I said earlier, 50 parents could represent 25 families. Indeed, in some parts of the country, with some minority ethnic groups in which the extended family is still dominant, it could mean one family. I can think of one or two large extended families in my constituency that could summon up 50 parents, all of whose children could, theoretically, go to the same school, and they could trigger the process. Clearly, that is a nonsense. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and Conservative Members would realise that it is a nonsense if they thought about it a little more. If they were to propose a higher figure, there might be the germ of an idea there, but I reiterate my point that if we are to set in motion a process of change to deal with underperformance, it is better to do that through normal democratic procedures and the ballot box than through the action of a small number of people.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton tried to draw an analogy with other services that local authorities provide or a complaints procedures—saying that x number of people can trigger a formal complaints procedure—but those are utterly different processes. The consequences of closing schools and opening new schools, and of changing the ownership and management of schools, will go far wider and impact on far more people. The effect is not limited simply to the number of people signing the petition calling for the change.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

It is a noble concept that people can use the ballot box to change things, but when people in Bury, for example, go to vote in a few weeks’ time—if they are going to do so—and there are Labour, Liberal and Conservative candidates, does the hon. Gentleman really think that the particular problems of a particular school will make any difference to their vote in that huge election? The matter is far more local than that is it not?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because it touches on an issue in my constituency involving a school closure. I am confident that the issue will be resolved through the ballot box on Thursday 4 May. In my constituency and in the constituency of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), two school closures have been passionately opposed by a small number of parents. Those two high-profile campaigns generated a lot of noise and much passion and anger. The question is to what extent campaigns by comparatively small number of parents are representative of the parent body as a whole. It seems that the only way to get an answer to that question is through the collective voice of the people of Bury, North and of Bury, South in the municipal elections on 4 May. I am confident that the people will endorse the local authority’s proposal, which will settle the matter—if not once and for all, at least for the immediate future. It is important to support the normal procedures of democracy rather than invent devious ways to subvert them.

Amendment No. 103 deals with the definition of underperforming. It is important that the Bill should define it. We—I mean the Government, Ofsted and we as Members of Parliament—use the term “underperforming” rather loosely, as we do the concept of a “good” school. It is important to have criteria. The question is whether the criterion of a school appearing in the

“fourth quartile of value added measures”

for the previous academic year is in itself an adequate definition of underperformance. I do not think that it is, and I mention two points in support of my contention.

First, there are all sorts of reasons why a school that has been in the first, second or third quartile for several years might slip into the fourth quartile for one year. Those reasons could range from a change of management and leadership at the school to problems with a particular cohort in one year, and all kinds of external circumstances. Choosing the year immediately previous before as the single reference point is not adequate. Secondly, there is the nature of a quartile. It is in the nature of quartiles that one group of schools will always be in the fourth quartile. It does not necessarily mean that, by being in the fourth quartile, a school is underperforming.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman has said he does not think 50 is a representative number of parents in a school and that he does not agree with the criteria to determine which schools are underperforming. What number would be a good number of parents; and if he does not agree with Ofsted, what would he class as an underperforming school?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

My point is that there is a needfor a serious debate about what constitutes underperformance in schools. This is the moment for it, but it is not necessarily for the Committee to determine today. It should appear in legislation at some point, but to pluck an arbitrary criterion out of the air and try to insert it into primary legislation is not the way forward.

My next comments apply as much to amendment No. 193 as to amendment No. 24. The difficult with such arbitrary thresholds is that they are easily manipulated. For example, for a director of children’s services or the chief executive of a local authority faced with the prospect of 35 per cent. of its school places being in underperforming schools, the easiest way to avoid the action that the Opposition want to trigger would be to manipulate and increase the number of school places, thereby bringing the local authority below the threshold. That is a simple example of how such things can be done. Although the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton focused on the value added measure rather than the raw scores of league tables as his criterion for underperformance, I am absolutely confident that, as the value added methodology becomes established, it will be subject to the same kind of subtle manipulation as the raw scores in leagues tables are now. For those reasons, I oppose the amendments.

Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Cawsey.]