Education and Inspections Bill

Public Bill Committee, 9 May 2006.

Standing Committee E

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I beg to move

That—(1) during the remaining proceedings on the Education and Inspections Bill the Standing Committee shall (in addition to its meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 9th May) meet—

(a) at 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 9th May;

(b) at 4.00 p.m. on Wednesday 10th May;

(c) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 11th May;

(2) the remaining proceedings shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table;

(3) the remaining proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the second column of the Table.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It is a pleasure to welcome the Minister for Schools, the hon. Member for South Dorset, to the Committee and to congratulate him on his promotion. I have always admired his principled stance on issues such as the Iraqi war. His promotion would be well deserved on that basis alone. I am sure that he will enjoy the Department for Education and Skills just as much as he enjoyed being at DEFRA, if not more so.

Congratulations are also due to the right hon. Member for Redditch. It is unfortunate, but nevertheless true that all the people I have shadowed over the years have been promoted. I think the contrast with me makes them look good. The problem is that after about a year in their new posts people realise that they were over-promoted and they are sacked. I believe that the right hon. Lady will be the exception that proves the rule. She is a very capable and accomplished Minister and it has been a pleasure working with her over the last year. I am sure that she will do very well in her new role as Chief Whip.

I should like to say a few words about the motion before us. It is uncontroversial. After 14 long sittings we are still only a quarter of the way through the Bill. We are now at clause 42 out of 167 clauses and 18 schedules. This is an important as well as a substantial Bill. So far some 563 amendments have been tabled. Admittedly a large number of those are Conservative amendments, but there are a number of Liberal amendments, some Government amendments and many tabled by the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), who has also made sure that we are fully conversant with the arguments behind them.

Considering the importance of some of the issues under discussion, I do not think that there have been any unnecessary or unduly long debates. The Bill has 10 parts, which vary enormously from issues relating to the duty of education authorities to provide a diverse system to those of choice and arrangements for a new trust school or a competition for a new school. It covers the abolition of school organisation committees, the vexed issue of school admissions—that is always controversial when there is a shortage of good school places—and new powers to close bad schools more quickly. There are parts on the school curriculum and entitlements to study certain subjects; the incorporation of the earlier School Transport Bill into this Bill; school meals; and school discipline. The latter incorporates the recommendations of the Steer committee. Finally, there are provisions on parenting orders and 47 clauses relating to the inspection regime and the merging of a number of child-related inspection bodies under the “Every Child Matters” agenda.

It was therefore not unexpected that the programme motion, which we voted against on Second Reading, would not be adequate to ensure that all the components of the Bill received the necessary scrutiny. We are as keen as the Government to ensure the smooth passage of the Bill to the statute book in a timely manner. That is why we will not oppose the motion, and we hope that we make good progress over the next three days.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Redditch on her promotion, which I suspect is long overdue. I am a relatively junior Front-Bench spokesperson, but she is one of the most talented Ministers I have worked with, even if I have disagreed thoroughly with almost everything that she has said. I congratulate her wholeheartedly.

I welcome the Minister for Schools, the hon. Member for South Dorset, to his new role. I have great sympathy with him for the busy weekend that I suspect he has had, because I was reshuffled just a week before Second Reading and I know that this is a big Bill to get to grips with in a short time. The right hon. Member for Redditch is a tough act to follow, but I am sure that he will do very well.

We, too, voted against the programme motion on Second Reading, because we suspected that the time allowed in Committee would not be adequate to scrutinise the Bill. We will nevertheless support this motion and do our best to be as brief as possible, as we have at all times, to ensure that we can complete our deliberations by Thursday as required.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

May I say what a pleasure it will be to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook? I shall briefly respond to the kind words that have been said. I emphasise “briefly” because I am mindful that we are discussing programming and the need to get on with things.

This is my first opportunity as the new Minister for Schools to say how pleased and honoured I am to take on the role. At the heart of it is the aim to raise standards in our schools and ensure that we personalise and individualise the service to make it better for every child, building on this Government’s excellent record.

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Redditch. As everyone has said, she is a tough act to follow. She has done an excellent job. We are yet to debate the clauses on discipline, but I am sure that her understanding of the matter will be used well in her new role. I look forward to working with my doubles partner, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), and to serving on a Committee with such a wealth of expertise. My reading over the weekend, to which the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), referred, taught me that there was such experience and expertise, which is daunting.

This is the third Standing Committee on which I have been the Minister during this Parliament. I hope that my experience of rights of way and, most recently, common land law, will be used to the full. In the Commons Bill we are repealing legislation that goes back to 1285. I do not think that we go back quite so far in this case, but I will be mindful of the historic nature of the Bill and the difference that it will make to every child in this country.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

On a point of order, Mr. Cook. I beg your indulgence in making a point of order at the start of our discussions. During our last sitting, on Tuesday, the then Minister for Schools may unintentionally have misled the Committee. As recorded in Hansard, when the Minister was asked whether city academies had a responsibility to take children with special educational needs, she answered,

“yes they do have to.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 2 May 2006; c. 638.]

In fact, city academies do not have to take children with special educational needs. They have the right to refuse to take such a child; a parent does not have the right to name an academy and neither does the local education authority.

The DFES sent a letter to all chief education officers on 15 November which stated that where the academy is of the opinion that

“the child’s attendance at the school would be incompatible with the efficient education of the other children”

there are no reasonable steps that could be taken to prevent that incompatibility, and consequently it does not consent to its being named in the child’s statement, the local authority should not name the academy. That is because academies have the right to say no to any child with special needs. Therefore, the Minister’s answer to the question should have been “No.” City academies do operate selection; they need to take only those children with special educational needs whom they choose to take.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

That is not a point of order for me. It is a point of debate and argument and I have allowed the hon. Lady to put it on the record.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Further to that point of order,Mr. Cook. I will write to the Committee setting out the situation in full; the effect is the same. My noble Friend Lord Adonis wrote to the Chairman of the Select Committee in March stating clearly that

“if an Academy were to refuse to admit a child following a SENDIST decision and seek support from the Secretary of State for their position, I think it highly unlikely that there would be circumstances where it would be appropriate for the Secretary of State to do otherwise than direct the Academy to admit the child.”

I will give the Committee statistics that show that3.3 per cent. of pupils attending academies have statements of special educational needs compared to 2.3 per cent. nationally and that 27.5 per cent. of pupils attending academies are identified as having special educational needs but no statement, compared with 14.3 per cent. of pupils attending maintained secondary schools.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

I am grateful for that enlightenment.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

On a point of order, Mr. Cook.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

No. There will not be additional debates on matters we have already discussed.

Clause 42

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following: Amendment No. 216, in clause 42, page 31, line 26, at end insert—

‘(1A) In subsection (2) leave out paragraph (c).'.

Amendment No. 52, in clause 42, page 31, line 27, leave out subsection (2).

Amendment No. 54, in clause 42, page 31, line 31, leave out from ‘made' to end of line 32.

Amendment No. 55, in clause 42, page 31, line 39, leave out from ‘arrangements' to ‘and' in line 40.

Amendment No. 53, in clause 42, page 31, line 46, at end insert

‘, provided those modifications are in line with the character and ethos of the school.'.

Amendment No. 57, in clause 42, page 31, line 46, at end insert—

‘(5D) Where the adjudicator makes a decision in relation to the admission arrangements of an admission authority, the admission authority may appeal to the Secretary of State.

(5E) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision in relation to appeals under this section, including provision—

(a) as to the time by which an appeal is to be made,

(b) as to the manner in which an appeal is to be made,

(c) as to the procedure to be followed in connection with an appeal, and

(d) as to the matters to be taken into account in deciding whether to allow an appeal.'.

Amendment No. 93, in clause 42, page 32, line 22, leave out subsection (6).

Clause stand part.

New clause 11—Abolition of adjudicator—

‘(1) The office of adjudicator is hereby abolished.

(2) Section 90 of SSFA 1998 shall cease to have effect.'.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

In our last debate, before the new Minister joined this happy breed, we were discussing amendment No. 92. I, too, welcome the Minister and hope that he has an exciting time here. He must not expect the mundane or prosaic; the Committee has ranged widely and considered matters with the appropriate seriousness, which it will apply to this amendment.

To reprise the argument briefly, our case is that complaints should not be vexatious and should have merit. In that spirit, the objector should be obliged to explain fully a detailed case and the adjudicator should have the right to dismiss cases when it is not clear why the objector believes—

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Why do we need an adjudicator?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

You will not let me range too widely on the point, Mr. Cook, because I am responding to what the previous Minister said, but there is an argument that the Bill goes a very long way towards increasing the scope and powers of the adjudicator. Indeed, adjudicators will need to be wise people to deal with all the extra things that they have to do as a result of the Bill. The new Minister may want to focus on that for a moment. However, I do not wish to stray from proper consideration of what the previous Minister said about the amendment. The new Minister will have read that his predecessor acknowledged that there was no desire to encourage vexatious complaints, which is precisely why we believe that they should be covered in the Bill. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will intervene on me to give some feel for the number of complaints currently heard, the percentage that is agreed, and whether adjudicators believe that they are vexatious. The Minister obviously does not want to intervene, but no doubt he will come back to us on those matters.

I was not entirely convinced by the previous Minister’s argument that omitting such provisions from the Bill would not lead to a trend of unacceptable objections. This Minister no doubt appreciates that people make their case based on particular personal reasons—we have all had that in our constituencies. A parent, or even a group of parents, may be unhappy with the arrangements at a school, but their case is not always based on a clear, empirical argument; sometimes it is based on all kinds of other things, and it would not be right to go down the road of clogging the system with unnecessary objections.

That was the case made by the Opposition, and the previous Minister replied. At the outset I said that the amendment was a probing one. For that reason, and also so as not to introduce an unnecessary note of contumely early in the new Minister’s career, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

rose—

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. Clause stand part was debated along with other amendments.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I do not understand.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Let me explain in words of one syllable. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the selection list of amendments, he will see that clause stand part was debated along with a string of amendments and with proposed new clause 11.

Clause 43

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I beg to move amendment No. 450, in clause 43, page 32, leave out line 27.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

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

No. 451, in clause 43, page 33, line 1, after ‘that', insert

‘a balanced intake of pupils is achieved, that is'.

No. 94, in clause 43, page 33, line 8, at end insert ‘(1) or'.

No. 217, in clause 43, page 33, line 9, at end insert—

‘(2B) If the admission authority for a maintained school in England is the governing body, the governing body may only make such provision for selection by ability as is mentioned in subsection (1A) with the consent of the local education authority.'.

No. 452, in clause 43, page 33, line 10, leave out from ‘(3),' to end and insert

‘for “subsection (1)” substitute “subsections (1) or (1A)” and add at the end of the subsection “, in Wales or section 17 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 in England”.'.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I want to speak briefly to amendments Nos. 450, 451, 217 and 452—I am conscious of the time pressure, but the clause is an important one. Amendments Nos. 450 and 452 are essentially technical amendments that would clarify the operation of banding arrangements in England and Wales. They are so technical that I am not sure I can explain precisely how they would clarify the arrangements, but my assistant assures me that they will, and it would be helpful if the Minister could say whether and how he envisages arrangements will vary between England and Wales.

Amendment No. 451 calls for specific reference to the importance of balanced intakes as a definition of the purpose of banding, and amendment No. 217 would require the local authority to agree any new banding arrangements. The advantage of clause 43 is that it builds on the current banding arrangements in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which permit schools to band from within the group of pupils making applications to the school. It has generally been agreed that that is a very restrictive form of banding, because the group is self-selecting. Certain schools have an intake or applicant group of exceptionally high ability, and therefore banding within that high-ability level does not necessarily give a broad distribution of pupils, because of the self-selective nature of the intake.

In clause 43 we have three new forms of banding, two of which will be generally welcome. I have some queries about one of them. First, schools will now be able to band in accordance with the national average distribution of ability. Secondly, they will be able to band in accordance with the distribution of ability within the local authority in which they are situated. Thirdly, they will be able to band in accordance with the distribution of ability of the applicants to their own school and one other school. It remains to be seen why it is only one other school and what the implications will be for the nature of the intake of the school that chooses to band.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

As I understand the hon. Gentleman’s amendment and argument, he is suggesting that banding should be effectively separated from applications. That would perhaps lead to the circumstance where the admission rate for a school bears no relation to the choice of local people about that school. Is that possible in practical terms?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

It is in the nature of banding that it implies some limitations on the exercise of pure parental choice. It goes without saying.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The hon. Gentleman misses my first point. The banding arrangements in the clause, which he describes as better than the 1998 Act, link banding to applications, so the school is making a judgment about applicants and people who have already expressed a choice. What the hon. Gentleman is describing, as I understand it, is banding that is dissociated from such choice. That might lead to an extraordinary situation in which a school was obliged to band before it knew who wanted to go to the school, and it might not be able to draw people from the relevant bands if they did not exercise the choice that the school hoped they would.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I think that I understand the point now, but it relates to the provisions in clause 43. Under the arrangements that I am describing the situation that the hon. Gentleman described would not arise because banding would be used only as an over-subscription criterion, so pupils would already have made their application to the school before the banding arrangements were brought into play. I do not think that his point is valid for that reason.

The issues to which I wish to draw attention are as follows, starting with amendment No. 217. If a number of schools within a local authority area are allowed to band according to any of the three criteria or methods in clause 43, together with the method that still applies in the 1998 Act—that is, banding from within the pupils applying to the school—there is inevitably the possibility of a large number of schools within the same local authority area choosing different banding systems. I question whether this is going to lead to efficiency in the administration of admissions or to a multiplicity of different tests being taken by pupils. It is a legitimate criticism of our system already that pupils here are tested to a far greater extent than those in many other countries. The banding arrangements described here would be likely to result in even more tests being taken by children as part of the process of primary to secondary transfer.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I wonder what thoughts the hon. Gentleman hasabout children with special educational needs and whether he thinksthat banding should apply to them also.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I see no reason why it should not. The bandingwould apply to all children.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that once academiesthat use the fair banding system have completed their allocation ofchildren with special educational needs by selecting the ones that theywant to take, no more children with special needs can go there? The banding allocation has been fulfilled. That means that theremainder of the community of maintained schools has to take far morechildren with special needs than thoseacademies.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I think that that is a question for the Ministerto answer. His earlier reply on the proportion of children with SEN,with or without statements, and the proportion who get free schoolmeals, probably answers the hon. Lady’squestion.

There areproblems inherent in the clause. It raises the prospect of a largenumber of schools within a local authority area choosing differentmethods of banding. That would mean children who wish to apply to anumber of schools having to take several different tests.

Neither the clause, the Billnor the skeletal code of school admissions specifies the number ofbands considered to be best practice. I know that the Specialist Schoolsand Academies Trust has either made a statement or distributed acircular to its member schools suggesting that a 10-band system wouldbe the preferred model. That would gain a general consensus amongschools interested in banding, but it is not made clear in the clause.The option is therefore open to schools to adopt a five-band orthree-band system. The arrangements are inclined to lead to greatercomplexity, administrative confusion and an increase in the number oftests that children transferring from primary to secondary schools willhave to take. Many Labour Members would strongly encourage bandingsystems as a means of getting a fairer distribution of intake, butlocal authorities should approve banding systems and have a role inco-ordinating them to iron out the potential administrativeinefficiencies.

AmendmentNo. 451 demands a “balanced intake” of pupils. It isimportant to clarify the nature of intakes. As defined in the clause,banding refers simply to ability, not to other means by which a broadand balanced intake can be achieved. It does not refer to a genderbalance, so it is possible that a school could operate a banding systemand still have gross inequality between boys and girls. That wouldobviously depend on the availability of single-sex education elsewherein the neighbourhood, but it is a possibility. Slightly moreworryingly, a school could operate a banding system and still havegross inequality and a lack of balance in the proportion of childrenfrom different religious or ethnic groups. The concept of balancedintake needs to be put into the Bill, to demonstrate the objective thatthe Government seem to be moving towards: a fairer distribution ofpupils in our schools, not just in terms of academic ability but interms of a wider social mix and a gender, religious and ethnicbalance.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The hon. Gentleman hasput his arguments clearly. He has moved on quickly from banding byability to admission according to other criteria. How does he proposeto overcome the difficulties that might arise in an area where there isa preponderance of people of one religion or ethnicminority?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The answer to that question is contained withinthe skeletal code of school admissions. It continuously stresses the importance of admissionsauthorities using the admissions process to avoid the worst excesses ofsocial and ethnic segregation. The hon. Gentleman and other members ofthe Committee will know that that is not an easy matter. He will alsobe aware of the enormous dangers if we, by default, allow ouradmissions system to make our schools increasingly segregated alongreligious and ethnic lines. I cannot give him an answer. My amendmentsimply flags up the importance of ensuring that our schooling systemavoids becoming more and more segregated. We all know the dangers towhich that canlead.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Amendment No. 94 looks like a technical draftingpoint, but it seeks to make an important point on the power of a localauthority, as the admission authority for a maintained school, over thequestion of whether a school adopts a banding arrangement. Clause43(1)(b), which inserts proposed new subsection (1A) into the SchoolsStandards and Framework Act 1998, sets out the three types of bandingthat a school can adopt. Those are based on the ability range of theapplicants, the current type of ability selection permitted by law, orthe two new ones: the ability range of the local authority area and theability range across the age group in England as a whole.

Clause 43(1)(d) insertsproposed new subsection (2A) into section 101 of the 1998 Act. It saysthat where local authorities are the admission authority, the authoritycan introduce banding only if the school’s governing bodyagrees. It seems that the requirement applies only to the arrangementsin proposed new subsection (1A) and not to arrangements on the statutebook in section 101. The purpose of the amendment is to maintain thatsafeguard for the section as a whole so that all three types of bandingarrangement will require the authority of the governing body and cannottherefore be imposed on a school by the localauthority.

I suspectthat the amendment may not be necessary, but I want to put on therecord how important it is to ensure that local authorities cannotimpose a banding arrangement of any sort on a school without theexpress approval of the governing body. On banding in general, theGovernment should tread that route with extreme caution. It is born outof the left’s obsession with the intake of a school and thenotion that the quality of a school is determined by its intake ratherthan by the quality of its teaching and leadership.

Results will in part bedetermined by the intake, but whether children achieve their fullpotential and emerge from the school as fully educated as their abilityallows will depend absolutely on the quality of the teaching, the headteacher and the ethos of the school. Most parents simply want to beable to send their children to the local school and they want the localschool to be good. That aim should be the objective of policy and notsome complex form of bussing arrangements, where a bright child isdenied access to her local school because the quota for her abilityrange has already been filled, forcing her to spend an hour or more aday travelling travel across town, away from her friends, to anotherschool that is short on her ability group.

That bears all the hallmarks ofthe worst social engineering experiments of the 1960s and ’70s,which is presumably why it is so popular with Lord Hattersley. He wrotein The Guardian on 10 October2005:

“The ideaof ‘banding’ was pioneered by the ILEA... At thetime it was derided as a futile socialist attempt to make non-selectivesecondary schools work. The new scheme goes far further than anythingthat the London Labour party ever dared tosuggest.”

He went on tosay:

“A‘banding’ system diminishes prospects of parentalchoice.”

According to theregulatory impact assessment, since 1999 just 15 secondary schools havepublished proposals to introduce banding, 13 of which were approved,with two rejected. I hope that we shall not see many more schools goingdown that route, and that head teachers will focus on raising standardswithin their schools rather than concern themselves with intake andsocialengineering.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I have some sympathy with the view that there arecertain situations in which social segregation is so considerable andunhealthy that action needs to be taken to break it down. However, I amuneasy with the concept of banding and with the idea of moving childrenover wide distances, often away from their community. I am far moresympathetic to the idea of lotteries. I am happy for local authoritiesto have freedom to experiment with different methods and to see howthey work, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that if we are to usebanding, it needs to be used across a wide area. If schools are allowedto use banding in small areas, middle-class schools could easily removethe ability of other schools to join in the system, and socialsegregation could beworsened.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I want to refer to the effects of banding onchildren’s special educational needs, and I shall quote somefigures from schools that operate a banding policy. Obviously, they arecity academies, and the effect of the banding policy on children withspecial needs is that such children have to travel out of the boroughto receive their education. In Southwark, the academy at Peckham takeschildren with special needs at a level of 28.7 per cent.—aboveits banding requirement of 18 per cent—but the local maintainedschool, Kingsdale secondary, takes 65.6 per cent. and Bacon’scollege takes 33.87 per cent. So the maintained schools take far morechildren with special needs than academies, and I could list academyafter academy—though I am sure you do not want me to,Mr. Cook—for which the figures stack up the same. That isbecause of the banding system. Academies do not have to take childrenwith special educational needs. When they do, and once their quota isfilled, the children have to travel further. From the point of view ofsuch children, I oppose banding. They suffer more than mosteducationally, and banding would make thatworse.

Schools shouldreflect the community in which they are based, and not be sociallyengineered to look the way a political party wants them to look. TheConservative Administration did things wrong with education, as I amsure that this Government are doing now and as every Government will infuture, but we should plan education on a long-term basis, rather than on the basis of short-term ideology. We should think about how itwill look in 20 or 40 years’ time for the children of thefuture. Banding will make things worse for children with specialeducationalneeds.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

We all recognise that the issue is difficult,and I recognise the care and thought that the hon. Member for Bury,North has given to it, but I agree strongly with the reservationsexpressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis andLittlehampton (Mr. Gibb). Applying banding too rigidly and putting toomuch emphasis on it carries real dangers for parents and children. Twoexamples spring to mind. First, there is the danger of thinking thatthe only way to improve a school is to change its intake, as the hon.Gentleman implied, rather than examine the quality of leadership andteaching, the school’s ethos and everything else that makes agood school. There is a danger that rigid, mechanistic application ofbanding doctrines causes those steps to beoverlooked.

I paytribute Wroxham primary school in my constituency, which I visitedrecently. Not that long ago, and with exactly the same intake, it wasmoving in the wrong direction, but with different leadership anddifferent teaching it has achieved excellent results which are nearlythe best in Hertfordshire. It has, I understand, had advisers from No.10 beating a path to it to see what can be done to turn a schoolaround. As I said, that was with no change whatever to thatschool’s intake. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides ofthe House know of similar examples. If the first thing we looked at wasa school’s intake, we would not draw lessons from it, so we needto consider other things first.

The second problem with bandingthat springs to mind—in particular the wider from of bandingadvocated by the hon. Gentleman, which is not just banding by abilitybut according to religion, membership of ethnic groups and otherfactors—is that parents simply will not go along with it. Theywill go to ever more elaborate and extreme measures to avoid therigidities of banding being imposed on them. They have gone to theextent of moving to different areas and taking the extreme step ofeither they or their children having to travel substantial distances togo to school. That is simply not the way to get parents into schools.The way to attract parents to schools is to provide good schools withgood teaching and good leadership. That is what parents are lookingfor, and that is what will get them beating a path to the door of theschool.

There areadditional dangers from the social segregation that the hon. Gentlemanadvocates. It could in some cases lead to even more movement away fromurban centres to more development in the countryside. It is a dangerouspath to go down, and is too rigid an approach. It could be entirelycounter-productive and have the opposite result of what is planned. Ihave a distaste for social engineering, and would much rather providepeople with opportunities and good services in the firstplace.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

In responding to these interesting amendments, Ihope that it will help if I make a few initial comments about theclause as a whole, to put it into context.

Clause 43 enacts our WhitePaper commitment to make pupil banding easier to implement and to giveadmission authorities the flexibility to adopt the most appropriate form of banding for their circumstances. To right a misunderstandingthat has been referred to in Lord Hattersley’s article, bandingis by no means going to be compulsory. The provision enables individualschools to band, or provides for two or more schools to adopt jointbanding arrangements. In addition, it enables them to band and securean intake that is representative of the range of abilities of allapplicants to the school, or an intake that reflects the local area orthe national ability profile. Provision in the 1998 Act already permitsadmission authorities for schools to introduce banding of the firstkind that I referred to, and we are looking to extend that.

Amendment No. 94 proposes thatwhere the admission authority for a school is a local authority, itshould be required to consult governing bodies before introducingbanding to admission arrangements. However, local authorities mustalready consult the governing bodies of community and voluntarycontrolled schools before making any changes to a school’sadmission arrangements. So, if the local authority wishes to introducebanding on the basis of applications made for an individual schoolalone, it would, under current legislation, have to consult thatschool’s governing body. We therefore believe that the amendmentisunnecessary.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I know of two comprehensive schools in inner west London that are very similar. One uses banding and the other does not. There is at least a suspicion that the school that uses banding may do so to increase the academic excellence of pupils entering the school, because it can work out how clever its pupils are before it offers them a place. There is at least the risk that banding can be criticised not just because of social engineering, but because it makes schools less comprehensive.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

We have certainly been mindful of that risk, which is why we are seeking to introduce fair banding, so that it reflects the whole ability range. We have set out elsewhere in the Bill that there will be no new selection by ability. Once the ability assessment has been made for banding, schools cannot then cream off the best scores of ability within each band. They will have to take evenly, according to the criteria within each band which are set out in the legislation. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

On a point of clarification, after the assessment process, will young people and families know what band they fall into? Will they be given that information or will it be confidential? If it is intended to be confidential how do we ensure that families do not find out that information?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I understand that the information is not disclosed but I will reflect on the hon. Lady’s point in respect of whether safeguards are needed. The substantive point is that the information is not disclosed.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Does the Minister agree that under the banding system he described, schools will turn into a sort of McDonald’s of education? All schools will perform the same because they will have the same social, academic and special needs intake. There will be a levelling out of schools’ performance throughout the UK. Will not the schools all look the same?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I suggest that the hon. Lady visits Greenwich or Lewisham, which are not far from here, where there is banding across the borough, and she will see that there is diversity in the schools. We are offering more flexible banding arrangements to improve choice, which is a key driver in improving standards in schools. That is at the heart of the Bill. It is the opposite of what the hon. Lady might describe as the McDonald’s approach. I am not a great fan of McDonald’s in schools.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister gives two suburban examples of Greenwich and Lewisham, both of which I know extremely well as I was brought up in south-east London. What about an area that is less densely populated? Would that mean bussing children over a wide area in order to achieve the mix that has been described, particularly with the addition of the two extra kinds of banding proposed in the Bill?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I was born in south-east London but, like the hon. Gentleman, I represent a largely rural constituency and I have asked the same question myself. The reassurance I had, which is logical, is that banding is not compulsory; for example, it would be inappropriate if a school was on an island, as is the case with a school in my constituency. We are considering situations in which schools are over-subscribed, and ensuring, through local determination, that the arrangements are appropriate for such schools. If I am allowed to continue with my comments, I will set out how the structure might work to bring that about.

Although the adoption of the existing form of banding has proved uncontroversial, it is appropriate for governing bodies to have a say in the adoption of new forms of banding, especially as it may alter the profile of the school’s intake and effectively widen its catchment area.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I was slightly concerned about the Minister’s statement that the local authority, as an admission authority, would consult a governing body rather than the governing body having to approve a system of banding, as I thought was the case with the first type of banding. Can the Minister assure me that the governing body will have to approve any system of banding proposed by the local authority and that it is not just a consultation process which can then be overruled?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

As I shall go on to describe, the use of the admission forum is crucial. The admission forum will produce an annual report; there will be a consultation process and there is the right of appeal to the schools adjudicator. That provides the safeguards that the hon. Gentleman wants. I shall try to sketch it out a little further as we go on.

I turn now to the helpful amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North. Amendment No. 217 proposes that governing bodies which are their own admission authority—foundation and voluntary aided schools—should have to ask the local authority’s consent before introducing banding. Of course, they should have to consult; they are already required to when considering any change to admission arrangements. We shall make that clear, but we do not agree that a local authority should have a veto on whether schools introduce banding.

I cannot see why the introduction of something that will ensure a more comprehensive intake into voluntary aided or foundation schools would be considered undesirable by the local authority, so that it would need that local authority’s consent. However, as the introduction of banding will come within the annual admissions consultation process that I have just described, local authorities, other schools and the local admission forum will all have the right to lodge an objection with the adjudicator if they disagree with the adoption of banding or with how the admission authority intends to operate it. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that his amendment is unnecessary.

I turn to amendments Nos. 450 and 452. In response to my hon. Friend’s opening comment, I should say that the provisions would make no change to the position in Wales; they apply only to England. The amendments would result in our having to retain the existing position in England—any admission authority wishing to introduce banding has to do so through the formal statutory proposal process.

Statutory proposals must be published when local authorities and governing bodies propose to open, close or expand a school, but we do not think it appropriate to continue to require them to go through that route to introduce banding. As banding constitutes an integral part of a school’s admission arrangements, approval of its introduction sits better within the existing admissions process, which I have described. That gives all schools and local authorities an opportunity to make comments and go to a schools adjudicator if they disagree. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend that the admissions consultation process, like that for statutory proposals, offers plenty of opportunity to discuss and comment on proposals to introduce banding, as well as the right of objection.

Finally, amendment No. 451 would ensure that all banded intakes were “balanced”. I assume that my hon. Friend’s intention is to ensure that no ability group is over-represented in a school that bands its intake. That is unnecessary because the clause already ensures that the intake of a banding school is balanced in that it represents all levels of ability across applicant children, the local authority area or the ability range nationally.

However, my hon. Friend may intend to ensure that a banding school achieves a balanced intake from among its applicant children. It is important that we should allow schools the flexibility to band across the profiles that I have described, as well as across the ability profiles of applicants. That will, for instance, encourage schools situated in areas of traditionally high academic attainment to send a positive message: that they are there also to serve less able pupils, who might not gain entry if the school simply banded across the ability range of local residents.

However, there is a problem with adding the word “balanced” to that part of the clause. The word would be open to interpretation, which could lead to a conflict of interpretation with other provisions in the clause that require the pupils admitted to be representative of all ability levels.

If it were not disallowed by another part of the clause, a school with five bands could, for instance, achieve a “balanced” intake by admitting a very small minority of its pupils from the highest and lowest ability bands and the bulk of its pupils from the middle range. That would ensure that it did not have to take many pupils of below-average ability, provided that it did not take many pupils from the highest ability group. We want to see an even—I shall not use the word “balanced”—distribution across the ability range. We seek to ensure that schools achieve such an intake by taking abilities across all bands. The amendment could also lead to conflicts of interpretation within the clause, as I have said. I hope that, on that basis, my hon. Friend will not press the amendment.

In response to a couple of other points made, I should say that we will set out in the code that it is good practice for local authorities and admission authorities to choose similar approaches, such as a common test, to banding and testing. The admission forum will consider and facilitate that.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister just said that he will state in guidance that local authorities should adopt a similar practice on banding, but in reply to my earlier intervention he made it clear that he shared my concern that if a similar approach were adopted in rural areas, it would lead to the bussing of children across very wide areas. That seems to be a contradiction.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I think that the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood me. I was referring to the testing arrangement, on which we will seek guidance so that there is some conformity. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North was concerned about the effect of having a multiplicity of approaches.

On the matter raised by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, a governing body would have to approve new forms of banding. It would be consulted on existing, norm-based banding and could object to the adjudicator.

I hope that I have responded to all the points made in the debate and that, on that basis, hon. Members will not press their amendments.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s responses, and I am afraid that I am not reassured by them, particularly the last. There is a very good proposed new subsection on page 33 that says:

“If the admission authority for a maintained school in England is the local education authority, the authority may only make such provision for selection by ability as is mentioned in subsection (1A) with the consent of the governing body of the school.”

In other words, the three types of banding in proposed new section 101(1A) of the School Standards and Framework Act will require the authority of the governing body.

My concern, which the Minister has confirmed and which led to me to table amendment No. 94, is what will be done about the admission arrangements in section 101(1) of that Act, which allow schools to select applicants from each level of ability. It appears that such banding can still be imposed on a school by a local authority, with the mere safeguard of consultation. We shall therefore press amendmentNo. 94 to a Division. The Government should seriously consider it, because it is an anomaly for existing provisions to allow such imposition to occur when the clear intention of the Bill is that the governing body should give consent.

We are concerned about the notion of banding. It is social engineering, and if allowed to proliferate in the admissions system it could lead to some horrific problems in certain areas of the country. We shall therefore also vote against clause stand part.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification on the points raised in the debate, and particularly for his emphasis on the importance of consultation and the sharing of information. Banding is a sensitive issue, and should not be imposed on any admission authority. Nor should any authority seek to take a decision on banding in isolation.

I do not wish to reopen the debate on the importance of intake compared with other factors in school improvement, but I refer Conservative members of the Committee both to the evidence given to the Education and Skills Committee yesterday by Ofsted on the impact of a school’s intake on its overall chances of improvement and to the written evidence provided by Professor Gorard of York university, who is one of the country’s leading experts in the field. I do not wish to continue that debate, except to say that the debate on the significance of intake has well and truly been won. That is why clause 43 provides banding systems not as something to be imposed but as a useful option.

There are two crucial contradictions in the Conservatives’ arguments. On the one hand they are quick to criticise the intake of certain schools defined as comprehensive as being highly selective by mortgage, but on the other hand, when a means of alleviating that level of selection is introduced, such as banding, they oppose it. Quite frankly, they cannot have it both ways.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

That point is quite easy to address. The reason we said that mortgages were becoming the new school fees is that it highlights the drastic shortage of good school places in this country. The National Audit Office says that 23 per cent. of secondary schools are underperforming—that is the problem. We raised the issue of application by mortgage and house price in order to highlight the severe shortage of good schools. Increasing the number of good school places should be the objective of every member of the Committee and of the Government.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Of course, and one of the most effective means of increasing the number of good school places is to address the chronic problem of grotesque inequalities of distribution of able pupils between schools, as the clause attempts to do. However, with regard to the position taken by the Liberal Democrats, I do not understand why they oppose banding on the basis that it may result in certain children travelling further to school, when lotteries, which they support, would have the same effect.

I am not arguing that because banding is in the Bill I therefore welcome it. I do not think that anyone argues that it is a straightforward matter, and it has to be done with regard to local circumstances and with the maximum degree of consensus. The question of balanced intakes will not go away, however. Perhaps the best answer to the Opposition’s concerns is that the code contains provisions stressing that admission authorities that choose to band will not be allowed to select further by ability on the basis of the individual scores of pupils within the band. They will have to use other over-subscription criteria to select between pupils within the band.

I think that that is the key to creating a balanced intake in the broadest sense—one that has regard to the social class background of individual pupils, and to their religious affiliations and ethnic minority origins. Other forms of over-subscription criteria for selecting pupils from within each ability band would be extremely helpful in achieving a broader and more balanced intake.

On parents’ support for banding, we have to accept that it is not a new and revolutionary idea—it has a large measure of support among many schools and local authorities and it has operated in many parts of the country for many years. By and large it has a high level of support where it operates, because most parents accept and understand that a fair distribution of pupils between schools is one of the key mechanisms by which the quality of all schools can be improved and the number of good school places increased.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Is not the point that banding can often be used as a substitute for genuine improvement in the quality of a school? The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me when he says that there is an issue of how to select within a band when a school is over-subscribed within certain ability ranges. I discussed the Thomas Telford school with the hon. Gentleman and his concern was whether that school, which has fair banding based on national criteria, selects the children in the top niche of each of the nine bands of entry in order to keep up good results. So even if one were to have a universal system of fair banding, the same complaints would come from the same quarters that even that system could be manipulated to create a higher ability intake—that there is no real difference between the qualities of school and their leadership, and that it is all to do with intake. We will never win the debate on that with the left, which is why we should not go down that route in the first place.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The issue of banding and the role of pupil distribution between schools is not a substitute for other means of school improvement; it is part of a package of measures for improvement. It does not substitute for quality of leadership—I have argued on many occasions in the Committee and elsewhere that quality of leadership is the key factor, but banding is another of the range of measures that can be applied.

On selection within bands, I refer to the point I made earlier about the provisions in the skeletal code which deal with selection. The skeletal code makes it clear that selection by pupils’ scores within bands will not be permitted, although other over-subscription criteria are permitted.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as it gives me the opportunity to give some clarification on a point made by the hon. Member for Brent, East. If the tests are Qualifications and Curriculum Authority tests, parents will know the results, but if they are taken before 1 March—the date that allocations are made—the results will be known afterwards. At some point, they will be known, so that people will be able to scrutinise whether the code has been properly adhered to.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

That is a very helpful clarification.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I should be grateful if, through the hon. Gentleman, we could get some clarification about whether the pupils themselves will know what band they are in. That seems to be a terrible way of undermining the confidence of children who may be placed in a lower band. It goes against everything on which there is a consensus when it comes to grammar schools and selection—that we are going to tell children that they are in band nine or band one in a fair banding system. I thought that that was against the general ethos of education.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about the whole notion of selection by ability, but let us not go into that at this stage. The answer to his question is that it is entirely a matter between parents and pupils.

I am very grateful for the Minister’s clarification and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

New Clause 27

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

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

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government new clause 28—Procedure for giving directions under section 96 of SSFA 1998.

Government new clause 29—Directions to admit child to specified school: supplementary provisions.

Government new clause 30—Looked after children to whom section 87(2) of SSFA 1998 applies: references to adjudicator.

Government new clause 31—Provision of advice by adjudicator.

Government new clause 33—Power of assembly to make regulations about admission of looked after children.

Government amendment No. 328.

Government amendment No. 358.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

These amendments complement existing provision in the School Standards and Framework Act, requiring local authorities in the normal admission round to give first priority for school places to looked-after children. They follow a commitment made on Second Reading. New clause 27 amends section 97 of the 1998 Act to give local authorities the power to direct an admission authority to admit a child it is looking after to the school best suited to meet their needs when the need for a place arises at any time during the school year.

Looked-after children are among the most vulnerable in our society. As a group they tend to have low levels of educational attainment compared with their peers. Only 9 per cent. gained five good GCSEs in 2004 compared with 54 per cent of all children, and a relatively small number, just 5 per cent, go on to higher education compared with almost one third of all 19-year-olds.

We know from the social exclusion unit’s report, “A better education for children in care”, that one reason looked-after children underachieve in education is that their lives are characterised by instability and they spend too much time out of school. We also know that looked-after children move schools more often than other children as a result of frequent changes of placement. As a consequence, they are more likely to attend schools that are not equipped to meet their needs, or in some cases they are not able to obtain a school place at all.

That is why we are giving local authorities in their role as corporate parent the power to direct any admission authority for a maintained school in England to admit a looked-after child even where the school is already full. This will ensure that looked-after children are always admitted to the school that can best meet their needs.

I turn to new clause 28. Under section 97 of the 1998 Act, a governing body of a school that has been directed to admit a child by the local authority under section 96 may refer that direction to the Secretary of State, who may determine whether the school must admit the child or not. The amendment amends section 97 so that in future all such referrals will be made to the schools adjudicator in England and the National Assembly in Wales. Such referrals will be allowed only on the grounds that the admission of the child would seriously prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources. The adjudicator could agree the direction or decide that another school should admit the child having consulted that school. It is imperative that suitable school places are found for those vulnerable children as soon as possible, which is why the new clause provides a mechanism for such a speedy decision to be made about a suitable alternative school if the adjudicator overturns a direction.

New clause 29 makes some consequential amendments to section 96 of the 1998 Act to take account of the changes to the responsibilities for deciding referrals about section 96 directions. It also amends section 94 of that Act to prevent parents appealing against a direction to place a looked-after child and makes provision for regulations to be made requiring the adjudicator to consult prescribed persons before making a direction using those powers. Regulations may also require admission authorities to provide information requested by the adjudicator.

New clause 30 amends the 1998 Act to deal with looked-after children for whom section 87 of that Act applies: those children who have been excluded from two or more schools. Section 95 of the Act provides that a local authority—that is, the admission authority for a school—must allow the governing body of the school a right of appeal against its decision to admit a child who has been twice excluded. The new clause removes that requirement in the case of looked-after children and provides that the governing body may instead refer the matter to the schools adjudicator who may either uphold or overturn the direction and name another school.

New clause 31 amends section 25 of the 1998 Act, providing a general power for the Secretary of State to seek advice from the adjudicator on the admission of children to schools. This will mean that in addition to advice in relation to looked-after children the adjudicator will provide advice on matters relating to the admission of children to schools as specified by the Secretary of State. It provides for greater consistency as all referrals about directions will be considered by the adjudicator and will help to reduce the casework burden on the Department.

New clause 33 provides the National Assembly for Wales with the power to make regulations relating to the admission of looked-after children. The amendments complement the procedures in England but recognise that the Assembly should decide for Wales whether and how they should be implemented there. It is a wide-ranging regulation power giving what we think is sufficient scope for the National Assembly to decide for itself what procedures it wishes to adopt.

As a group, looked-after children have complex needs, which is why we are committed to improving outcomes for them. The Children Act 2004 placed a specific duty on local authorities to promote the educational achievements of looked-after children. The Bill will complement that duty and ensure that looked-after children are found suitable school places as quickly as possible.

Amendment No. 328 is consequential. Amendment No. 358 adds to clause 164 and has the effect of giving the National Assembly the power to make its regulations two months following the passing of the Bill. For the reasons I have set out, I hope that that the Committee will support the amendments.

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

I welcome my near neighbour to his new position this morning, and hopefully for a long time to come. I welcome the new clauses even though we know that looked-after children grow up and can succeed against all the odds—there are some remarkable stories. But why should this group of young people have to fight the odds all the way through their lives? I hope that this relatively small measure will make a big difference. The statistics on the outcomes and life chances for this group of people which we, collectively, have let down over a long period are well known and do not need to be rehearsed yet again.

I have a specific question for the Minister. I had a constituency case involving adopted children. One cannot time when such children arrive in a household, and because they arrived after the closing date for applications the local school five minutes away was full and they could not get in. They were from a troubled background and needed support. Perhaps a provision is tucked away in the wording of the amendments, but would adopted children arriving in June, way after the January deadline, be able to get into a school that was classified as full with perhaps 30 in the class already? That is an important point and it is sequential to the provisions for looked-after children.

I should also like to place on the record again my special concern for the young carers of disabled parents, who need access to their nearest school. They are not quite in the same category, but they are important none the less. I hope to be able to raise awareness of the particular issues facing young carers throughout the passage of the Bill.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. I ought to point out to the Committee that there will be a debate on young carers at a later stage in the Bill.

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

I shall leave my remarks at that, then, Mr. Cook.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am happy to echo the Minister’s sentiments about the position of looked-after children, which for a long time has been a great disappointment within our education system. Coupled with his proposals for directing looked-after children into schools, would he go as far as to express a strong wish to see an improvement in the academic and all-round performance of looked-after children?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) raised an interesting question about adopted children. My understanding is that they would not technically fall into the category of children looked after by the local authority. I can check that out and get back to her, and copy the information to the Committee. I heard your advice, Mr. Cook, that we will be discussing young carers at a later date.

To respond to the comment made by hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), we are certainly concerned to ensure that the educational performance of looked-after children improves. We hope that the proposed measures will go some way towards achieving that, but they are not by any means the only way in which we can do so. The whole philosophy of our educational reforms is to personalise education for every child so that all children, including looked-after children, can achieve the best possible outcome for them as individuals. I hope that on that basis that the Committee will support the amendments.

New Clause 28

New Clause 29

New Clause 30

New Clause 31

New Clause 33

None

New Clause 4

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

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

In our previous sitting, we discussed the new skeletal code for admissions and admission forums. I said that the code is in many ways a welcome advance, in that it touches on many of the points of concern relating to covert selection—for example, it highlights the fact that it is totally unacceptable to use information gleaned about a family from open evenings or other meetings with the family held because brothers or sisters are at the school in question. The right hon. Member for Redditch indicated that she would look into whether the use of telephone information could be included in the code. The problem is ensuring that the code is put into practice and enforced adequately. A challenge based on many of the code’s provisions would require a subjective judgment, given that they deal with soft information gained through informal meetings.

We know from surveys that as many as one in four head teachers admit to bending the rules in order to cherry-pick pupils, and so artificially to improve their results and league table position and appear a better school. The problem is that when one head teacher or school cheats, it breaks everybody’s trust in the system—parents and students. Such practices undermine the system and the work that the Government are trying to do by introducing the code.

It seems to us that best way to remove the danger of cheating would be to allow local authorities to administer the criteria. The new clause would not prevent schools from setting their own criteria, but if it is not accepted we shall press an amendment that would do so. The new clause suggests that if the criteria are objective, as the code says they should be, they could be administered by anybody—they do not need to be administered by the school in question. The best body to administer the process is the local authority. The local authority has no incentive to cheat. It does not favour one school in its area over another or wish artificially to inflate the league table position of one school rather than another. It is disinterested and impartial; it wishes only to raise the standards of all of the schools in its area.

That would be particularly helpful in ironing out problems such as knowledge of a family gained through brothers and sisters being at a school or through open evenings or telephone conversations. It is unreasonable to expect a school not to have knowledge, sometimes quite considerable, of a family prior to the admissions process. In our previous sitting, the hon. Member for Bury, North, highlighted the case of a Church of England school in London where there was considerable contact between parents and the school some weeks before the commencement of the admissions process. It would be entirely unreasonable to expect a school not to have knowledge of a family, and it would be difficult to test whether that knowledge was used in the admissions process.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Is the Liberal notion of localism that it should extend as far the local authority, but not to the local school?

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

The new clause is about accountability. The local authority is the directly elected, accountable body. On localism, we have always said that devolving power down without ensuring that the bodies that receive it are elected and accountable simply results in tyranny on a local scale and does not improve the situation.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that under the new clause schools will set out their own admissions policies, which will give them freedom within the guidelines and the code, and local authorities will merely administer what schools have set out?

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

Precisely. As I said, if the criteria are objective, as the code clearly states that they should be, it should not matter who administers them. The new clause would not remove schools’ ability to set their own criteria; it would simply ensure that they do not bend those criteria to cherry-pick.

Under the new clause, schools or the local authority—depending on who the admission authority is—would set admissions policies in line with the code. All schools would then submit their policies to, say, a local authority officer, who would administer the admissions. That would allow a layer of scrutiny so that the local authority could see whether the admissions policies were in line with the code, although we have not explicitly included provision for that in the new clause; the matter could be considered later.

Parents would then apply to the local authority with their school preferences, and the authority would sort the applications, matching children against the school’s stated criteria. Names could be kept from schools, especially if an electronic system were used; many local authorities now use such systems. The process could therefore be entirely anonymised, with a code, tag or number attached to the application so that even the officer would not know who the families on the system were. The local authority would then send out acceptance letters to parents and inform schools of their intake. Under that system, head teachers and governors would never see the list of names, so they could not pick out families with difficult parents or the children who they know are always in trouble with the police.

The Local Government Association thinks that the new clause would improve transparency, and individual councils to which we have spoken have also been enthusiastic about the idea of improving transparency and preventing cheating. Teachers’ unions have expressed considerable concern about allowing schools more freedom to set their own admissions and say that they would favour a more co-ordinated system. That can be achieved only by making the local authority the co-ordinator.

Let me reiterate. The new clause does not remove schools’ power to set their own criteria, but prevents them from cheating. That would be a helpful amendment to the Bill, and I strongly encourage the Government to accept it.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The Education Act 2002 gave local authorities responsibility for co-ordinating the annual school admissions process in England, but the process works on the basis of a balance of responsibilities between schools and local authorities, with own-admission authority schools setting and applying their own admission arrangements, and local authorities managing the flow of information on applications and potential offers and making the best offer available to parents at the end of the process.

As individual admission authorities are accountable for decisions to grant or refuse admission to their schools, we do not agree that we should transfer statutory responsibility to local authorities—despite my instinctive cultural sympathy for anything called new clause 4. Where schools admit pupils by reference to aptitude, ability or commitment to faith, it could be asking too much of local authorities to expect them to assess applicants properly against a broad spectrum of criteria. In particular, assessments of religious commitments are best made by the governing bodies of the schools concerned, using objective evidence provided by their religious leaders.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

We discussed this at the previous sitting, and I very much agreed with the right hon. Member for Redditch that we should not try to assess the level of religious commitment. A letter from a priest is perfectly adequate. Why could that not be appended to an admission application so that a box could be ticked to say that the applicant agreed and met the criteria?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

There may be circumstances in which schools will want to come together and, if they can, work out a simple way to remove some of the bureaucracy, but I am concerned that a complex series of criteria could be involved and it would be too bureaucratic to impose the responsibility on local authorities. As I said, there may be some merit in permitting such arrangements if they are practical and as long as the local authority, the admission forum and individual admission authorities in an area are in agreement with them, but other aspects of the new clause are unworkable.

Through funding agreements, the Secretary of State requires academies to participate in co-ordination, but city technology colleges are not bound by similar arrangements.

The suggestion that applications should be anonymised is presumably based on the perception that inclusion of personal details could lead to abuse of the system or covert selection, but the Department has no evidence of such abuse, and even if there were, costs would be incurred in altering the administrative systems. There are practical reasons why the process could not be operated as effectively if forms were anonymised. Many schools use a sibling connection as one of their over-subscription criteria, but they would not be able to assess whether applicants had a sibling at the school if names were removed. Furthermore, removing names alone would not be sufficient to anonymise an applicant. Some could be disadvantaged by their address, for example, but removing that clearly would not be feasible in respect of catchment area criteria.

There are good reasons why the Government resist the new clause, although I understand the good intent behind it. I hope that the hon. Lady will agree to withdraw it.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I am extremely disappointed that the Government are not willing to accept the new clause. It was offered with constructive intentions, and I believe that it would considerably improve the Bill. I do not accept that there is no evidence of abuse of the system. We have heard that one in four head teachers admit to bending the system in order to cherry-pick. That is not acceptable, and, as the hon. Member for Bury, North said when he referred to that survey in a previous sitting, if one in four admit to it, goodness only knows how many people are doing it without being willing to admit to it.

I do not accept the Minister’s arguments. Most of the criteria could be perfectly well dealt with in the forms that are sent out, by ticking a box. If certain aspects cannot be anonymised in respect of the local authority, they should surely still be anonymised in respect of the school, which is our point. The local authority is a more disinterested and impartial adviser on such matters, and it would be far better to leave administration of the admissions process with it rather than with the schools in question, which have admitted to bending the system.

I am extremely disappointed that the Government have not accepted the new clause. We will press it to a vote, because we believe that it would improve the Bill considerably, put many safeguards in place and increase trust in the system.

New Clause 5

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

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

There is considerable evidence from a wide range of studies—I will not go into all of them—that schools that control their own admissions tend to use it to increase social segregation. Despite the Government having made it obligatory to adhere to a code, we are worried that it will be easy to bend and not easy to enforce. My greatest concern is whether a system that requires so many safeguards is really safe in the first place. As the Government have been unwilling to accept our constructive suggestions on improving the admissions process, the new clause would remove the ability of new foundation schools to control their own admissions and be their own admission authority.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It seems that the Liberals take every opportunity to undermine the Bill’s objectives. Section 88 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 states that the admission authority of a foundation or voluntary aided school shall be the governing body of that school. Despite that, the new clause provides that the local authority, not the governing body, would be the admission authority for new foundation schools acquiring a foundation and for academies. It would drive a coach and horses through the entire thrust of the Bill, and we shall vote against it if the hon. Lady divides the Committee on the new clause.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

There is little for me to add to the debate. Trust schools will be required to operate their admissions in the same way as any other foundation or voluntary aided school and to comply with all admissions law. We have set out and strengthened the code. There is the ability to appeal to the schools adjudicator from the admission forum, which in turn has increased powers.

As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, the new clause would drive a coach and horses through the Bill and what we are trying to achieve. There is no reason why trust schools and academies should have less freedom than other schools that are their own admission authority. Sufficient safeguards are in place and I will table further amendments on safeguards on Report. We want to ensure that admission arrangements are fair and in accordance with the code. I hope that the hon. Lady will ask leave to withdraw the new clause.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

Without the further safeguards that we suggested in the previous proposal, we are not happy to give schools greater freedom to be their own admission authority. For that reason, we will divide the Committee on the new clause.

Schedule 5

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 176, in schedule 5, page 170, line 14, leave out

‘from a date determined in accordance with regulations'

and insert

‘15 months prior to the school admitting pupils or, in the case of the temporary governing body not being established for 15 months prior to the admission of pupils, at the point it is established.'.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 177, in schedule 5, page 171, line 23, at end insert

‘and such circumstances shall include those cases where a schools forum cannot reach a unanimous decision.'.

No. 170, in schedule 5, page 171, line 29, leave out paragraph 6.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The amendment would incorporate a key measure that, as drafted, is left to regulation. Paragraph (4) of the schedule is about a school’s delegated budget, and it amends section 49 of the School Standards Framework Act so that it says:

“A new school shall have a delegated budget from a date determined by regulation.”

The date is clear and the policy is unlikely to change. Paragraph 26.10 of the regulatory impact assessment says that the policy is

“to give temporary Governing Bodies of new schools a delegated budget 15 months prior to the school admitting pupils (or, in the case of the temporary Governing Body not being established15 months prior to admission of pupils, at the point it is established).”

The amendment would include that wording in the Bill.

The wording is included in the draft regulations that the Minister circulated. It is in regulation 2 of the School Finance (England) Regulations 2006. Since the policy is not likely to change to 14 or 16 months, or to any period other than 15 months, which is a reasonable period by which a new school will need to spend the budget prior to opening, it should be in the Bill and not left to regulations.

Amendment No. 177 is a probing amendment. It would make schools forum decisions unanimous to prevent the outvoting of minority representation on the forum. I caution against the trend of passing decision making to unelected bodies, however representative of local interest those unelected bodies purport to be.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

Is not that the point that I made just five minutes ago, when the hon. Gentleman said that I should give power not to local authorities but to unelected governing bodies with a majority of appointed governors?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

No, it is not the same thing, because a school is accountable to local people, and if it is not popular among parents, it simply will not attract pupils. Schools forums are different. They are deliberately set up to be quasi-authorities with decision-making powers. In a democracy, it is important that in such bodies, different from schools, elected officials should take those decisions, whether local or national. Elected politicians should not pass the buck to such bodies as a way of avoiding difficult decisions.

Amendment No. 170 is another probing amendment. It would delete paragraph (6), which removes the right of appeal by schools against LEA decisions to take away its delegated budget. I assume that the measure is to deal with schools that cause concern, but it would be helpful if the Minister explained and put on the record the reason for it.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Gentleman is right. Amendment No. 176 would specify the date by which a local authority must provide the governing body of a new school with a delegated budget share prior to its admitting pupils. At present, legislation requires that such a budget is available only from the date at which a new school admits pupils. We believe that a governing body should have access to a budget from a point at which it starts incurring the expenditure needed to set up a new school.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the amendment would include in the Bill the requirement for the budget share to be made available to the school 15 months prior to the first admission of pupils. That is absolutely in line with our intention, but we believe that there is no need to include it because the illustrative regulations show that we intend to make such provision by way of secondary legislation.

Amendment No. 177 would enable regulation to be made allowing schools forums to approve revisions, as the hon. Gentleman described. Currently, all such revisions have to be approved by either the Secretary of State in the case of England or the National Assembly in the case of Wales. His probing amendment would require unanimous agreement within a schools forum before any such revision could be made.

The Government’s view is that that would place too great a burden on the degree of local consensus necessary to enable local flexibility to operate effectively and that it would be out of step with the ability of forums to decide on a range of other local matters. Extension of the power of schools forums to agree revisions locally must be on the same basis as for powers already devolved to them. When there is local consensus on an issue, but not unanimity, approval for the local authority’s proposals should be granted. Most of us find it difficult to agree unanimously—not least in the Chamber. Ultimately, however, when presented with a proposal from its local authority, a schools forum must abide by the majority view, and when that view supports the proposal, we believe that it should prevail and that neither the Secretary of State nor the National Assembly need be involved.

As the hon. Gentleman said, amendment No. 170 concerns the important situation of a local authority having cause to withdraw the financial delegation right of a governing body. I think that I can give him the assurances he requested. Withdrawal can occur when the governing body has been guilty of a substantial or persistent failure to comply with a delegation requirement or restriction, or has not satisfactorily managed expenditure or appropriation of its delegated budget, or of any sums received in the exercise of its power to provide community facilities. The amendment would retain a right of appeal, as it would leave the current schedule to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 unchanged.

I recognise the need for checks and balances, and there are benefits in giving schools a high degree of financial freedom, but the withdrawal of delegated powers is an ultimate sanction and one that would be exercised very rarely, as I have described. Such cases are complex and are best addressed at a local level. With that reassurance as to the purpose of the schedule and of the proposed changes to it, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am happy with the Minister’s assurances andI am grateful for his full and clear response. We share theGovernment’s concern on how to deal with schools that areunderperforming or causing concern, and we therefore agree with thepolicy of withdrawing delegated budgets from such schools and fromgoverning bodies that do not handle their budgets properly. In light ofthat and the Minister’s assurances, I beg to ask leave towithdraw the amendment.

NewClause18

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

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

The new clauseis straightforward. Both the Bill and the original education WhitePaper published last October place considerable emphasis on the newstrategic role of local authorities as champions of parents and pupils,and as the agents by which standards in schools will be improved.However, nowhere in the Bill is there a description of the precisefunctions of local authorities. New clause 18 would do that. It wouldenable each local authority to decide, as it thinks fit, whether itshould provide facilities for children with special educational needs,behaviour support facilities, educational psychology services, curriculumadvisory services or other support services to schools.

There is an analogy to be drawnwith the original provisions in the White Paper on local authoritiesnot being able to promote new community schools, and the finalagreement that was reached, under which they would be allowed topromote them subject to a quality threshold—exactly the samearguments that applied to the debate on their powers to promotecommunity schools are applicable to their powers to offer the variousadvisory services. I should be interested to hear what the Minister hasto say about incorporating those specific functions of localauthorities into the Bill.

Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat, Leeds North West)

The new clause issimple but important. The Bill does not put enough emphasis onsupporting schools in the areas that it covers, and the provisionaddresses the lack of detail with a comprehensive list of the relevantservices. We support it, because it clarifies and strengthens thestrategic role of local authorities that we think is soimportant.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Local authorities are central to the vision thatwe set out in the White Paper, as the champions of pupils and parentsand through their role as strategic commissioner and guardian ofstandards, which are all within their new duties to promote choice anddiversity and high standards, and the fulfilment of the potential ofall children in their area. The Education and Skills Committeerecognised that in its report when itsaid:

“It isclear that local authorities will continue to have a vital role in theorganisation of education in their areas. Rather than having their rolereduced, local authorities have significant and even increasedresponsibilities.”

Given that new role, Iunderstand why my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North wants toensure that local authorities have the necessary powers to carry outtheir challenging agenda. It is our opinion that local authoritiesalready have wide powers to do that, including in those areas ofactivity specified in the new clause. They have wide powers to supportschools as they see fit, and to respond effectively to local needs.Those can be found in the Education Act 1996, the Local Government Act2000, the Children Act 2004 and the School Finance (England)Regulations 2006.

Ihope that what I have said is sufficient to reassure my hon. Friend.Although I sympathise with what he is trying to achieve, it is notnecessary and might fetter the ability of local authorities to providesupport services tailored to the individual needs of their localschools and children.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am grateful for those reassurances and beg toask leave to withdraw the motion.

NewClause56

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

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

I tabled the new clause tohighlight the issue of funds accruing under the Elementary EducationAct 1870 that local authorities cannot use for primary education.Apparently, the Act states that local authorities are trustees ofproperties built under the Act, but when those properties are sold thelocal authority cannot reinvest the money in supporting primaryeducation in the local authority area. I know that a number of localauthorities have money in accounts which they would like to use tosupport primary education or new building.

If the Minister cannot acceptthe new clause, I should be grateful if the Department could considerways of dealing with the problem by some othermeans.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for explainingwhat lies behind the new clause. It is right that when educational landor assets are sold the proceeds should be reinvested in improvingeducational provision. I know that one or two of my hon. Friends areconcerned about that, and I am happy to explore the problem with myofficials. It would probably help us if my hon. Friend and others whoare concerned about this met us so that we can pursue the matter andsee whether there is a way of resolvingit.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend forthat invitation. I beg to ask leave to withdraw themotion.

Clause46

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I beg to move amendment No. 507, in clause 46,page 34, line 22, at endinsert—

‘(1A) In this part“relevant school” means any of the following schools inEngland—

(a) anAcademy,

(b) a city technologycollege, or

(c) a city collegefor the technology of thearts.'.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss thefollowing amendments: No. 508, in clause 47, page 34, line 30, after‘school', insert ‘or other relevantschool'.

No. 509, inclause 47, page 35, line 9, after ‘school', insert ‘orother relevantschool'.

No. 510, inclause 48, page 36, line 19, after ‘school', insert ‘orother relevantschool'.

No. 511, inclause 49, page 36, line 36, after ‘school', insert ‘orother relevantschool'.

No. 512, inclause 50, page 37, line 6, after ‘school', insert ‘orother relevantschool'.

No. 513, inclause 51, page 37, line 37, after ‘school', insert ‘orother relevantschool'.

No. 514, inclause 52, page 39, line 6, after ‘school', insert ‘orother relevantschool'.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

The amendments deal with a recurrent theme oftrying to determine how the Bill applies to all schools, includingacademies and city technology colleges. We know that there are as manyfailing or coasting academies as there are good schools in themaintained sector. When we discussed school improvement partners, theright hon. Member for Redditch suggested that because the Secretary ofState was the maintaining authority for academies, the Secretary ofState would directly appoint SIPs.

We have tabled the amendmentsto probe the Government on how the provisions in clauses 46 and 47would apply to academies and city technology colleges. Will thisrequire another set of amendments to each funding agreement? Is thatnot an extremely complicated way of making the changes? Would it not beeasier simply to accept our amendment? I know that it would go verymuch against the grain for the Government to accept any amendment fromthe Liberal Democrats, but perhaps it would be easier to amend the Billand ensure that the provisions apply to allschools.

Maintainingacademies would mean that, when the 100 new academies open, theDepartment for Education and Skills would be the largest provider of11-to-16 education in the country. I should be interested to see howthe Secretary of State manages to juggle all of those responsibilitiescompared with local authorities and whether the Department willcontinue to berate local authorities for their performance with quitethe enthusiasm that it has done in thepast.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I recognise the hon. Lady’s motives fortabling the amendments. I will not go through them individually becausethere is not enough time, but they are unnecessary. The types of stateschool in question must be outside the local authority system. Theyhave deliberately been made non-maintained schools, with independentgovernance and sponsor bodies. That independence affords them thefreedoms and flexibilities to raise standards in schools where therehas been prolonged under-achievement. Indeed, academies are improvingthree times faster than the national average at GCSE. We cannot accepta situation wherein, if a non-maintained school is deemed inadequate,the local authority takes over again. That would not only go back onthe fundamental principle of independence, but it would in many cases putthe school back in the hands of an authority that failed to address thesystemic failure of its predecessor school.

The Bill provides fornon-maintained school proprietors—often the controllingtrust—to take action immediately when the school gets aninadequate judgment from Ofsted inspectors. Proprietors are required toproduce a statement of action setting out how they will secureimprovements at the school, build the capacity of the school’smanagement team, involve registered parents in the planning process anddetermine what support the school requires from external partnerorganisations. That requirement mirrors the requirement on localauthorities in respect of maintained schools.

I have asked what mirrors theprocess of warning notices. The academies have a duty to have regard toadvice from the Secretary of State, which effectively provides asimilar mechanism. The Secretary of State can intervene in an academythrough the articles of association and funding agreement held betweenthe Department and the academy trust; he may appoint additionalgovernors, stop funding or close the academy. Those are very similarpowers to those that local authorities have in relation to maintainedschools. I hope, on that basis, that the hon. Lady will withdraw heramendment, but I do not believe that shewill.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

I thank the Minister for his reply. It seems tous that no directly accountable tier of Government is responsible foracademies, unless the Secretary of State is solely responsible forevery school. As I said, that would require the Secretary of State tobe the largest maintaining authority in England, which seems aridiculous centralisation of responsibilities.

At this stage, I see no pointin pressing the amendment to a Division as the Government are clearlynot going to accept it. We have put it on the record that we areunhappy with the level of responsibility and the relationship betweenlocal authorities. We will consider whether to return to this matter onReport. I beg to ask leave to withdraw theamendment.

Clause47

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I beg to move amendment No. 453, in clause 47,page 34, line 34, leave out ‘fifteenth' and insert‘twentieth'.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss thefollowing amendments: No. 454, in clause 47, page 36, line 13, leaveout ‘fifteenth' and insert‘twentieth'.

No.455, in clause 47, page 36, line 15, leave out from ‘means' toend of line 17 and insert

‘any day of the total number of days uponwhich teachers are required to be available for work at the school inaccordance with an order made under section 122 of the Education Act2002'.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The amendments deal with the compliance period within which schools have to respond to the issuing of a warning notice. The amendments are to do with the practical consequences of the compliance period. Amendments Nos. 453 and 454 would simply change the Bill’s proposal for a compliance period of 15 days to one of 20 days. Although I fully accept that a school that is likely to receive a warning notice from a local authority will not be surprised by it—there will have been a period of many months, and sometimes years, during which the school’s difficulties have been discussed—15 days still seems an extremely short period for a school to decide whether it wishes to challenge the warning notice by appealing to the chief inspector of schools, hence the suggestion for 20 working days rather than 15.

Amendment No. 455 would simply ensure that the ending of the compliance period does not fall within the school holidays. Regardless of the arguments about whether teachers have too long a period of holiday in summer, it serves no practical purpose for the period of notice to fall within that holiday period, or any other school holiday period, if the school is to be in the strongest possible position to respond intelligently to the warning notice issued—either to accept it, or to decide to appeal against it. These three short amendments are intended simply to improve the practicalities of the workings of the warning notice system.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

We are sympathetic to the amendments; they seem to us to be extremely sensible. Fifteen days is indeed a very short period in which to call what would undoubtedly be an emergency meeting of the governing body to consider all the evidence and to draft any response, and to expect a school to do that during the school holidays would be entirely unreasonable. We encourage the Government to accept this Labour amendment—they might be more willing to agree to a Labour amendment than a Liberal Democrat amendment.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I fear that the hon. Lady feels victimised. I will not disappoint her by dealing unevenly with her and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Will the Minister give way?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

At such an early stage, before I have even started developing my argument, it would be a pleasure to do so.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Will the Minister remind me how many amendments he or his predecessor has accepted in this Committee—apart from the Government’s, of course?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

We listen carefully to the arguments that are made, and we have made it clear that there are some issues on which we want to reflect. As ever, we are informed by the wise words of all Committee members, even if sometimes we disagree with them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North seeks to amend clause 47, which is about the need for some schools to address issues on standards more seriously and urgently than they have done in the past. Under the current system, there are some opportunities for delay and procrastination, and I am concerned that the amendments might enable a few contumacious governing bodies to do that.

In the first place, my hon. Friend has argued that20 days for a response to a warning is more reasonable than 15, but 15 days—three working weeks—is not unreasonable since we are not necessarily expecting a full remedy from the school. I emphasise a point made in the draft guidance on the issue from my hon. Friend. The school has 15 working days to comply with the warning notice to the authority’s satisfaction. That may not involve a full rectification of the specific problem since it may not be practicable to do so in that time scale, but it will undoubtedly involve the positive steps towards the solution.

Secondly, in relation to amendment No. 455 my hon. Friend has argued, in effect, that all those actions need to be carried out in term time. I beg to differ given that, in an extreme case, a situation could arise in July that would then have to be shelved until September and then occupy or possibly distract the school for the crucial first four weeks of the autumn term. I am sure that the vast majority of head teachers and education professionals would regard that this issue should have an absolute priority and may need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. The legal onus is in any event on the governing body and not directly on classroom teachers.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Will the Minister clarify whether in circumstances of extreme urgency—where children were considered to be at risk for health and safety reasons—the local authority would still be empowered to intervene immediately and not have to wait for the end of the 15-day compliance period?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Yes. In circumstances of extreme emergency we would expect it to do so. Local authorities should be realistic, however. I have listened to my hon. Friend and I suspect that there will be relatively few times when the need for warning emerges just before school holidays. I will consider whether we need to add a sentence or so to the guidance to make that point, particularly in respect of the timing of issuing notices, to ensure that the urgent work that must be carried out is done while the school is sitting. I hope on that basis the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am grateful for those reassurances and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 165, in clause 47, page 35, line 14, leave out from ‘governed' to ‘or' in line 15.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 162, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert

‘or

(d) that the school fails to deliver improved well-being for all pupils in that school.'.

No. 173, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert

‘or

(d) that OFSTED has graded the school as no better than satisfactory or poor.'.

No. 174, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert

‘or

(d) the value added measure of the school's performance lies within the fourth quartile compared to the value added measures of all schools nationally.'.

No. 175, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert

‘or

(d) that for the years 2006 and 2007 fewer than 25 per cent. of pupils achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including both English and mathematics, or

(e) that from 2008 onwards fewer than 30 per cent. or more of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including both English and mathematics.'.

No. 163, in clause 47, page 36, line 17, at end add—

‘ “well-being”, in relation to a pupil, means his well-being so far as it relates to—

(a) physical and mental health and emotional well-being;

(b) protection from harm and neglect;

(c) education, training and recreation;

(d) the contribution made by him to society; and

(e) social and economic well-being.'.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Clause 47 and the subsequent clauses in part 4 of the Bill are important. Many of the provisions are re-enactments of previous legislation but there are new powers designed to tackle failure, underperformance and complacency wherever they exist in our school system. The Conservative party fully supports that objective.

Paragraph 13.7 of the regulatory impact assessment at page 137 says,

“It is unacceptable for any school to provide a low standard of education for its pupils irrespective of location or background of the pupils”.

We agree with that statement 100 per cent., as we do the statement in paragraph 5 of the draft guidance on schools causing concern circulated to members of the Committee on 19 April, which says,

“we know that there are still pupils who are let down by attending poorly performing or failing schools for too long...Our ambition is that every school should be a good school”.

According to the National Audit Office, 980,000 pupils are attending poorly performing schools. Twenty-three per cent of secondary schools are regarded as poorly performing. As of January 2006 there were 232 schools in special measures; of those, 47 primary schools and 43 secondary schools have been in special measures for over 12 months. Of those 232 schools in special measures, only six primary schools and four secondary schools are regarded as making sufficient progress to leave special measures in the near future.

I will come to the measures proposed to deal with those schools when we come to clause 49, but I noticed that in paragraph 4 of the draft guidance the Government highlight the fact that the number of schools that Ofsted has put into special measures has dropped from 515 in 1998 to 242 by the summer of 2005. I think that it is a mistake to turn special measures into a target or a measure of progress in improving schools. There is a huge degree of professional subjectivity in determining when a school should be put into special measures. Turning that into a target will inevitably result in pressure on Ofsted to ease up on schools that ought to be in special measures, to demonstrate that the Government—or the next Government—and Ofsted are delivering better schools.

Clause 47 is about early intervention in schools before they reach the crisis point at which an Ofsted inspection concludes that they require significant improvement or need to be put into special measures. Paragraph 7 of the draft guidance states that the aim is

“to enable earlier action where there is evidence that this is required to ensure underperformance does not become entrenched”.

The Bill re-enacts swathes of previous legislation on local authority powers over schools, but adds a few more provisions. In relation to clause 47, the regulatory impact assessment reads:

“Currently, the existing power for local authorities to warn a school is too complex and limited in scope.”

Paragraph 27 of the draft guidance states:

“There is a strong justification, therefore, for updating LAs’ powers to give formal warnings and use their powers of intervention. Currently the system is somewhat cumbersome, and depends on a restricted definition of performance.”

That is the performance that would trigger the powers under clause 47 to which the amendments are related.

Clause 47(2) gives three broad categories of poor school performance that could trigger a warning notice from a local authority: standards of performance that are unacceptably low and likely to remain so, a breakdown in management, and the safety of pupils being under threat. Taking the first of those categories—the performance of the school—amendment No. 173 would define unacceptably low performance as that for which

“OFSTED has graded the school as no better than satisfactory or poor.”

As members of the Committee know, Ofsted awards four grades to schools under the new inspection arrangements: excellent, good, satisfactory or poor. Satisfactory grades are currently given to about 30 per cent. of schools inspected. As paragraph 13.8 of the regulatory impact assessment says:

“The new Ofsted inspection framework challenges all schools to be “good” or “excellent”. “Satisfactory” is no longer good enough — as that may mean that some children will not achieve their full potential.”

In amendment No. 173, therefore, we seek to include in clause 47(2) the standard that the Government and the Opposition agree is unacceptably low: schools providing no more than a satisfactory standard of education.

Amendment No. 174 would include in clause 47(2) another definition of poor performance: that a school’s value-added measure lies within the fourth quartile of the national league table. The amendment is remarkably similar to the measure of poor performance set out in paragraph 33 of the draft guidance, and I hasten to add that our amendments were tabled some weeks before the guidance was issued. I mention that not to demonstrate prescience but to highlight how much in tune the Opposition are with the Government’s thinking on tackling underperformance in our state schools. When it comes to driving up the quality of education and challenging poor performance, the Government will find full support from those on the Opposition Benches for measures that we believe will raise standards.

Paragraph 33 of the draft guidance gives examples of circumstances that should trigger a warning notice to the governing body of a school. One such example says:

“The school is in the bottom quartile, and probably in the bottom decile, nationally, on one or more key performance indicators. These would focus on contextual value added data which takes into account prior performance, deprivation etc., but could also include, for example, low attainment rates, aggregate point scores and exclusion and truancy data.”

That is not a million miles from our amendment, except that we use the word “fourth” instead of “bottom” and suggest the use of the value-added measure rather than contextual value-added data, which is being piloted and will, I suspect, receive mixed reviews. I recently visited a school in the north of England that is regarded as “excellent” by Ofsted and has a very high value-added score, but would have a score some way lower than 1,000 under the contextual value-added measure. The view of the head teacher is that the basis on which points are added or subtracted for the contextual purpose bears no resemblance to the reality of the advantages and challenges. We need to take great care in plunging headlong into this subjective measure for assessing schools, which will, under the new two-day Ofsted inspection regime, provide the bulk of the data and information informing the inspectors’ view of the school.

The paragraph from which I have just quoted also talks about using exclusion data, which would also be a mistake and would provide a perverse incentive to head teachers not to exclude a pupil, even where he or she should be excluded. That is another example of the care that needs to be taken in using measures to assess schools that can easily be manipulated by those who benefit from the data.

Amendment No. 175 would provide two more definitions of poor performance to the current criteria in clause 47(2), relating to what the Government have termed a “floor target” of performance. Paragraph 13.8 of the regulatory impact assessment says that this is an absolute measure and sets out the targets as follows:

“in all schools at least 25% of pupils will achieve five or more A*-C GCSEs by 2006 and 30% by 2008”.

Compare that with schools like Thomas Telford, where 100 per cent. of the pupils achieve 12 GCSEs at A* to C, including English and Maths, although it takes a banded intake based on national data and 11 per cent. of pupils qualify for free school meals. It is unacceptable that there are so many schools where 75 per cent. or more of pupils do not achieve five good GCSEs. Amendment No. 175 would incorporate in subsection (2) the definition of unacceptably low performance contained in the Government’s “floor target” definition.

If the Government do not accept that the three different, but not mutually exclusive, definitions of performance to be regarded as unacceptably low should not be included in the Bill, will the Minister explain why those definitions have not been included in the draft guidance on schools causing concern? The three definitions that I have provided fall short of schools requiring special measures and significant improvement, which are dealt with in clauses 48 and 49, but not that far short. Given that the purpose of clause 47 is to provide early intervention, before schools reach the point of being put into special measures or requiring significant improvement, it is odd that such indicators, as set out in the amendments, are not included in paragraph 33 of the draft guidance.

I should like to touch on one further point in relation to the clause and the amendments. Paragraph 9.18 of the White Paper says:

“Local authorities have been under a duty since 1998 to help to drive up standards in schools, but we will build on recent reforms to strengthen this role. Ensuring quality does not mean trespassing on school autonomy”.

There is a concern, which I do not share, that the combined effect of the clauses, together with the draft guidance on schools causing concern, would reduce the autonomy that other parts of the Bill are designed to create. My view is that the clauses about which I am talking, for the most part, replicate legislation that is already on the statute book and, where local authority power is increased, that is solely to do with tackling unacceptably low performance. None of us should be prepared to allow schools to languish year after year, providing poor education to our children. Autonomy is about liberating the management and leadership of the school from cloying interference in the day-to-day running of the school. However, that does not mean that the school is unaccountable for its performance; when it fails to provide the quality of education that we expect, it should, in extremis, lose that autonomy until the problem is fixed.

I am concerned about paragraph 30 of the draft guidance, which says:

“Any failure to implement the school workforce agreement, or poor management of the workforce, may contribute to falling standards of performance at a school.”

It is wrong to insert input measures into definitions of unacceptable outcomes. That would lead to a loss of autonomy in the day-to-day running of the school. It is important to keep the definitions of unacceptably low performance tight and focused on the outcomes, and not to use these fairly draconian provisions as a mechanism for implementing and enforcing other priorities.

I turn briefly and finally to amendments Nos. 162 and 163, which incorporate into the definition of unacceptably low performance a situation where the school fails to deliver improved well-being for all pupils. Well-being is defined in amendment No. 163 as the five outcomes in the “Every Child Matters” White Paper and the Children Act 2004: physical and mental health and well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution made to society; and social and economic well-being. The two amendments have the support of the Local Government Association, which states:

“During our lobbying on the Children Act, we stressed the importance that schools are part of the duty to co-operate in the delivery of the Act. Schools are organisationally independent of the local authority and as such there could be room for ambiguity about their statutory responsibilities and duties unless they are specified as having that statutory duty. This amendment seeks to rectify this, leaving no room for ambiguity as a result of their independent status.”

On that note, I await the Minister’s response to these six supportive but important amendments.

Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrat, Leeds North West)

In my attempt to be extremely brief last time I spoke, I omitted to welcome the new Minister for Schools. I apologise for that, welcome him and look forward to working with him in the course of proceedings on the Bill and in the future. It is the first time that I have had the opportunity to welcome an opposite number on any side.

I also wish to add to the comments made earlier about the previous Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Redditch. I think that we all agree that she has dealt with the Committee in an impressive way using a lot of diplomacy and her powers of persuasion, which are skills that she certainly will need in her new job in these interesting times.

Although we can see what the Conservative Front Benchers are trying to do with amendments No. 174 and 175, we feel strongly that they are too rigid as regards the triggers for the process taking place. We feel that it is unfair to create automatic triggers based on league tables, whether value added or results tables.

If we consider any schools tables, we see that some schools have low value-added scores and high results, and conversely some have high value-added scores and low results, so it becomes a little arbitrary. There is a danger that the amendments would penalise schools that through no fault of their own end up with low value-added scores but not results. They could lead to a school with a middle-class intake, high results and potentially low value-added scores reaching the trigger level. I am sure that that is not what was intended.

The other problem with league tables is the question of what happens if all the schools in the area are performing adequately. That is quite possible, and we have to acknowledge that league tables can be quite arbitrary.

The good thing for Conservative Front Benchers is that we strongly support amendment No. 162, which would be a worthwhile addition to the Bill. It is important to emphasise well-being as a criteria for judging schools, and it is certainly a concern if schools are failing children on that basis.

Although we are sympathetic to the intentions behind amendment No. 163, we feel that the definitions have gone a little too far in terms of what should be included. Schools cannot reasonably be expected to take over the role of the parent for the child’s economic well-being, for example. From that point of view, we feel that amendment No. 162 is helpful but amendment No. 163 is not. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on what would be helpful in defining what well-being could be.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for tabling the amendments, because reading up on them and listening to him and the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) has been helpful. I shall say at the outset, because we are short of time, that that will make me take another look at the guidance and reflect on the comments, but I shall resist the amendments all the same. The Government have made substantial progress in dealing with failing schools and very low attaining schools. I say to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that we have never set a national target for the number of schools in special measures, but clearly we want there to be as few as possible.

To date, less emphasis has been placed on underperformance, but even in that respect the Government have a good story to tell. The majority of poorly performing schools in the NAO survey are not failing—that is, in Ofsted categories—or very low attaining; they are identified as underperforming or coasting. In essence, those schools are not using their full capacity. Large numbers of pupils will not be reaching their full potential, but many pupils in the schools will be doing well and we must not underestimate their achievements or those of the teachers who are leading them well. That is why quoting the figure of 1 million pupils in poor schools is potentially misleading.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

What the report certainly reveals—there is little debate about this—is that that type of underperformance is identified too slowly and that once it is identified schools stay in those circumstances too long. What does the Minister say specifically about those two criticisms?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

That is precisely why we are introducing these measures. Clause 47 has been carefully constructed to give local authorities a power to ensure that schools can be tackled early, so that the current generation of pupils does not have to fail in order for the next generation to be helped. It ensures that we can intervene now for today’s pupils so that they receive the education that they need and deserve. The legislation will link closely to the draft guidance. As I said, I shall have another look at the guidance, given the points that have been made.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Will the Minister accept that, with 20,000 schools, there are severe constraints on his ability to impose his will, however beneficial that might be, on failing schools and that the key pressure on failing schools in a system in which the money follows the pupil is that parents take their children away from those schools?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Clearly, we believe that the exercise of choice is an element, but it is not the only element. I cannot keep a close eye on every school in the country, but the hon. Gentleman will be relieved to know that there are others who assist me and my colleagues. I believe that the architecture that we have, as amended by this legislation, is the right architecture to allow us properly to deliver an improved education for all our children in all their individual circumstances.

On amendment No. 163, schools do have to have regard to the five outcomes in “Every Child Matters”, but they cannot deliver them on their own. They will need to work in partnership with a number of others, including voluntary and community groups and local authorities, so it will be difficult to assess an individual school’s contribution to an outcome. I ask the Committee to resist the amendment on that basis. There is plenty more that I could say on it, but I shall stop there.

On amendments Nos. 173 to 175, we set out in the draft guidance when warning notices should and should not be issued, and I believe that the framework is sufficiently well defined that the amendments are unnecessary. To use the lowest quartile is difficult because by definition that is a relative measure; there will always be a lowest quartile. That is why we talk in the guidance about schools that are “persistently” in the lowest quartile.

On the basis of what I have said, I hope that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful for that answer. On the basis of the Minister’s assurance that he will reflect on the guidance, I should like to withdraw amendment No.—

Clause 61

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 349, in clause 61, page 42, leave out line 29.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 439, in clause 61, page 43, leave out lines 15 to 24.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

We now come to an important clause, which spells out at some length—it is significant that it does so—what the national curriculum in schools in England and Wales should contain.

When Keith Joseph was Secretary of State for Education, he opposed the introduction of a national curriculum, and it was only when his successor came into office that one was adopted. Later, speaking in the House of Lords, he reluctantly accepted that a national curriculum might be useful in certain core subjects, such as maths and English, which would be taught anyway. However, he worried that such a curriculum would become a maximum and exclude some useful subjects. I have tabled an amendment about certain academic subjects, which we shall reach later. Those who originally introduced the national curriculum, however, could not have imagined that we would get into such detail or that it would be necessary to impose such obligations on schools.

It is well known that I am opposed to the imposition of the national curriculum, which has resulted in more and more initiative, authority and power being taken from schools. Schools are perfectly capable of providing subjects in a professional and proper way, and parents ultimately have the choice of whether to send their children to particular schools. However, we are not debating those issues in any detail, although the groups of amendments before us could constitute a clause stand part debate.

As I said, the clause spells out what the national curriculum means for schools. It sets out which subjects it will be compulsory for all pupils to take and, therefore, for all schools to provide. Those are the so-called foundation subjects, which we will have an opportunity to discuss. The clause also sets out which subjects pupils are entitled to expect to be provided and from which they may choose—the so-called entitlement subjects. Obviously, there is a large number of amendments on all those issues, but I shall start with amendment No. 349, which is in my name.

The clause says that the national curriculum should include and therefore impose “work-related learning”. The amendment is an attempt to force the Government to tell us what that phrase means, although I am, unfortunately, pretty confident that the amendment will not be accepted. Under the clause, the national curriculum requires all pupils of 14 to 16 years of age in state schools to study all the foundation subjects, and if we are to have a national curriculum, there need be no controversy about that. Those subjects include maths, English and science—there is little debate about those—as well as IT, physical education and citizenship, although the latter is perhaps pushing the boundaries, and we can no doubt tease out from the Under-Secretary what it means. There is a list of entitlement subjects, from which pupils can chose, and work-related learning, which is what the amendment is about.

I will stand corrected if I am wrong, and one purpose of the amendment is to find this out, but as I understand it, work-related learning will not be optional, but compulsory for all 14 to 16-year-old pupils once the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. That is nonsensical. I do not quite know what work-related learning means, although I can guess, but I do not know why such a non-academic subject should be compulsory for schools. I am not saying that it should not be an option, or that it would not be the right the course of action for many pupils for some or even all of the time, but making it compulsory seems to be a step too far.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that work-related learning was introduced to the education system in this country in the 1980s by Sir Keith Joseph, when he modelled the technical and vocational education initiative on the organisation of rehabilitation and training in France and Germany? He was very taken with that and thought that it would be good thing for UK schools. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would agree with him.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I always agree with Sir Keith Joseph on everything, because he is one of my heroes, not least because he wrote a pamphlet that said that the market was not enough. He was not the caricature of a libertarian that he is made out to be. He was a caring and able man who cared deeply about education. Without being privy to all the debates that took place at that time, I am sure that he was convinced that practical, work-related learning—perhaps on the German model, which I believe he much admired—was a suitable course for many pupils. I imagine that he would have felt that to force all pupils into an academic straitjacket was not the right course of action.

I cannot believe for a moment, however, that if Sir Keith were here with us—perhaps his spirit is still hovering in the room—he would impose compulsory work-related learning on all pupils, particularly highly academic children. Even the modestly academic child will surely need all available school time to cover the hard subjects as much as possible. Those are the difficult subjects that he has to go through the academic grind of getting to grips with—English, maths, sciences, languages and so on.

Such a pupil will have plenty of opportunities later to get into the world of work; but school is the one opportunity that he will have at a relatively young age to spend as much school time as possible on those subjects. I am not suggesting compulsion, but I do not want the opposite to happen, not least because they are difficult and much harder to get to grips with later, but because those subjects—geography, history and other traditional subjects—give pupils a sense of time and place, some knowledge of their history and culture. We all know that those subjects are important and valuable, which is presumably why they are core subjects.

The pupil will presumably go on to A-levels and, I hope, to university. He might do some work-related experience in the lower sixth, which is fair enough by me—it is an increasing trend, although I am a bit dubious about it. I pester my friends to take on my children to do work-related experience and they pester me for theirs to follow me. The trouble with having people on work-related experience is that one is supposed to be working all the time in front of them, not staring out of the window or sitting in the Tea Room. That sort of thing can be a bit of bind, and I do not know what my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) would do, as he spends most of his time in the Tea Room. What would somebody on work-related experience gain from following him? Perhaps serving behind the counter in the Tea Room would be the most useful thing to do.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

My hon. Friend knows that I certainly do not limit my taking of tea to the Commons Tea Room. I take tea in many places. I spend a great deal of time in this Committee and the rest of my time guiding him on the path of righteousness.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I have made my point. I have no argument with work-related experience as a useful thing. It is an increasingly fashionable way of proceeding and I imagine that I shall take on someone. I was stopped in my village last week by a constituent and told, “Please take on somebody to help you out”. Of course they can come—they will follow me around after they have taken their AS-levels. I can understand that: they have taken their AS-levels and they want to have a week relaxing in the House of Commons. Fair enough, I shall take them on. However, I am not quite sure what it means to make work-related experience compulsory for those preparing for their GCSEs and AS-levels or for even younger children.

I am not opposed to work-related teaching, which is very valuable to people who perhaps are not of an academic bent and who want to go into a useful trade as a plumber or a bricklayer; the country is short of people with those skills. However, I am against imposing it on all academic children. Work-related experience—whatever that means—or work-related learning, to use the language of the Bill, should be an option; it should not be compulsory for every child.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am grateful for the opportunity to say a word about my hon. Friend’s amendment and about the subject generally. I have a passion for vocational education, which the Ministers and other members of the Committee share, and I believe that work experience for young people can play a vital part in their education.

Contrary to my hon. Friend’s scathing and unreasonable attack on me, I have done many things in my time in Parliament, including shepherding—if that is the right word—a number of young people on work experience, one of whom is starting with me next week, spending two weeks working in my constituency office and in my office in Westminster. I invite my hon. Friend to share that kind of experience, which is both valuable for the young person concerned and good for us, too. We learn from it ourselves.

The experience of work can play an important part in children’s education. I am supported in that view not just by members of the Committee—as though that were not enough—but by others. A survey for Edge—the campaign for practical learning—found that approximately two-thirds of employers believe that schools do not equip young people with vital practical skills; four out of five employers believe that schools should place more emphasis on teaching the literacy, numeracy and practical skills that young people will need for work; and when recruiting a 16 or 17-year-old, GCSE grades are seen as important by employers, but so are practical learning achievements and experience such as job-based training and work placements.

Employers are saying clearly that it is important that people are equipped with those core skills, which are vital for their role in employment and in wider society. Some experience of the workplace is also useful in providing young people with the rounded education that we all seek for them. The amendment would inhibit that valuable process and I would not want to be party to that.

We must broaden our view of education. We live in a world where education is seen principally as a literary matter, but in fact it is also about the work that people do with their hands and other, “soft” skills such as their ability to relate to others. In short, it is about making the best of their many talents, which may extend beyond the literary. I urge my hon. Friend not to close the door on that broader view of education which can provide important chances for many young people who might not thrive in a narrower, academic environment.

I fundamentally disagree with my hon. Friend on the matter. It is unusual for us to have a fundamental disagreement as we are from the same mould politically, but there are differences of nuance, which are perhaps explained by my greater sensitivity to the needs of those who are most vulnerable.

My hon. Friend is a noble figure, a great parliamentarian and a learned man who has made a great contribution to the House and to this Committee. I invite him to draw on his Christian spirit and ask himself how the people who benefit from the educational opportunities that I briefly described would feel about his amendment. I suspect that they would feel as I do.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Were I arguing that work-related experience had no place in schools, I would accept his points. However, all that I am saying is that it should not be compulsory for all pupils. Why should it not be an option for every pupil?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Under-Secretary will, no doubt, enlighten us as to the Government’s position on that. This is not my Bill. I have some sympathy with certain aspects of it, as I have made clear throughout the Committee, but it is certainly not for me to defend it; that is the Under-Secretary’s job and I should not want to second-guess what he might say. In my judgment, we have a long way to go before we reach saturation point in respect of those who might benefit from the kind of experience that I have described.

We know from employer surveys, from our own study of schools, and from Ofsted and others that many young people do not get opportunities for practical, on-the-job training and work experience. I am not worried that there is too much of it; if anything, I am worried that there is too little. Were we to be subsumed by a sea of work experience—to feel that children’s education was being interrupted by unnecessary experiences of that kind—my hon. Friend might have a point. However, I think that we are at the beginning of a journey in that respect and that we need to accelerate our progress on that journey rather than stalling it as my hon. Friend would seek to do. I have no doubt that he and I will agree on other amendments.

I believe that we are also considering amendment No. 439, to which my hon. Friend did not speak with any great enthusiasm. That relates to the same subject, so I cannot add anything useful and I understand why my hon. Friend did not speak at length. We wait to hear what the Under-Secretary says, but we are not inclined to grasp with relish my hon. Friend’s suggestions, although I know that he makes them in the spirit that has imbued this Committee—one of seeking to tease out, to probe and to discover precisely what the Government’s intentions are.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

As we begin to consider the important part of the Bill, which concerns the future of the curriculum, let me quote the wise words of Diogenes Laertius. I know that Committee members have been wondering what he had to say, and it was:

“The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.”

We would all agree about that. The introduction of the new diplomas that we will debate later is an opportunity for us to play our part in transforming secondary education in this country.

I have to say that I do not agree with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). He was described in an earlier sitting as an outrider, but I notice from a publication that has recently been released, “Set the schools free”, that some 37 members of his party, including his hon. Friend on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, support his view that

“Conservatism is about trickling down the privileges of the few to the many.”

That is not the view of hon. Members on this side of the Committee. Our view is that every young person should have opportunities to improve his education and to achieve his potential, and that is what the Bill is all about.

Work-related learning was introduced into the key stage 4 national curriculum in 2004 as part of the Government’s far-reaching agenda for change in the curriculum for students aged 14 to 19. Work-related learning is planned activity that uses the context of work to develop knowledge, skills and understanding that are useful in work. It can take place across the curriculum, with different subjects and courses providing pupils with the opportunities and contexts in which to develop the work-related skills and knowledge.

The statutory requirement describes it in three parts. One is learning through work, about which the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings was so eloquent. It provides opportunities for students to learn from direct experience of work, but it also includes learning about work by providing opportunities for students to develop knowledge and understanding of work and enterprise. It also includes learning for work by developing skills for enterprise and for employability, with young people taking part in enterprise projects and so on. There is a diversity of provision in schools under the umbrella of work-related learning, which is now a key part of the national curriculum.

It is my view and the Government’s view that all young people need work-related learning. It is an essential part of preparing for an adult life, as we want all young people to contribute to the country’s economic well-being. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings cited Edge; he and I have had much contact with that organisation, which supports our initiatives. Many employers have told me, as Minister for skills, of the priority that they put on young people leaving full-time education with work-related skills, so that they can enter the world of work with confidence and with the wide range of employable skills that employers are keen to have.

By making it statutory, we will ensure the clarity, coherence and quality of work-related provision. Given the support for this on both sides of the House, and given the support of the many bodies who wish to see the national curriculum provide young people with such experiences and opportunities, I hope that the hon. Member for Gainsborough will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I am faced with the eloquence not only of my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings but of the Under-Secretary—and even of Diogenes, which I suspect was not learned on work-related experience. I believe that we have had a useful debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 408, in clause 61, page 43, line 2, at end insert

‘and

(d) religious education, including a daily act of worship as specified in the Education Reform Act 1988.'.

I hope that the Committee will forgive me for moving another amendment so soon, but it is an important subject and I would like a short debate to find out what is going on in our schools. The amendment would add religious education and an act of worship to the foundation subjects in the national curriculum—that is, they would become compulsory.

It is interesting to note that until the national curriculum was devised in the 1980s, the only subject that had been compulsory in all maintained schools since 1944 was religious education, along with an act of worship. That was the only compulsory subject between 1944 and the 1980s, but that requirement has never been repealed. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong and give me an insight into what is going on in schools, but I believe that RE is still a compulsory subject in all schools, as is an act of worship.

Clause 61 is long and prescriptive, and it will doubtless be taken as a new bible of what should be taught in state schools. One would have thought that religious education was a fairly important aspect in growing up. We talked earlier about the broader cultural value of work-related experience; I should have thought that some sort of introduction to religious education, taught in a sensitive way, was a valuable part of our education system. However, there is not one mention of it in clause 61. Why not?

I believe that religious education should be inserted into clause 61 as a foundation subject, otherwise pupils—and, most importantly, schools—might consider that it was no longer a required subject. They may know that it was required in 1944, but they are not parliamentary lawyers or politicians and may not know that the provision has not been repealed. They may look at the guidance given in the latest Act of Parliament, not see the subject and therefore think that it is not required. We all know the reality. I wonder whether the Minister has figures to show what is happening in our 20,000 schools to religious education and a daily act of worship. We know that the provision is widely ignored, particularly the daily act of worship, but I stand to be corrected.

Omitting the subject from the clause, as the Government have done, would suggest—the Minister will correct me if this is an unfair statement—that they are surreptitiously dropping RE from the curriculum.

Phil Hopeindicated dissent.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The Under-Secretary shakes his head. Even the shaking of a ministerial head is to be welcomed, although he is now applying the brakes—he will have an opportunity to speak later.

In my experience, the old-fashioned school assembly was an invaluable way to get people together and have a break from the academic grind. It has come increasingly out of fashion, but I would hope that once we have had this short debate, the Under-Secretary will say that, far from the Government doing anything surreptitiously to ease out that subject, they think that it is valuable and that the provisions in the Education Act 1944 still stand.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Having disagreed with my hon. Friend about his previous amendment, I have to say that I am sympathetic to the views that he has expressed on the subject now before us. I am sympathetic because I share his view that the clear commitment to religious education made in the 1944 Act, supported by the Education Reform Act 1988, needs to be reaffirmed here.

We live in an age in which the spiritual is neglected and the material worshipped. Surely it is inconceivable that we should devise an education system that places insufficient emphasis on the spiritual. For that reason, I have sympathy with my hon. Friend. Sections 26 to 28 of the 1944 Act, which I have details of here, make it clear that religious education should be included in the basic curriculum. Indeed, his amendment would do much the same and add religious education to subjects at the core of a school’s business.

The 1988 Act, which I also have details of, reinforced that position and said once again that religious education should be included in that fundamental list of subjects that all children are expected to study. I guess that the architects of both those important pieces of legislation were inspired by Moses’ words in Deuteronomy with which he commanded men, women and children to come together to hear the word of the Lord. No doubt my hon. Friend was reading that just before he came into Committee to move his amendment.

To move from the biblical to the modern, there is good evidence to suggest that religious education can be used positively in the pursuit of tolerance and non-discrimination. I call upon no less a body than the International Association for Religious Freedom to support that assertion. In a paper that I have before me, it makes it clear that it believes that religious education can indeed do that. The international association, founded in 1900 and drawing membership from adherents to a wide range of world religions, is committed to upholding religious freedom as a fundamental human right.

In November 2001, on the 20th anniversary of the UN declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief, that issue was given prominence. A paper entitled, “The Role of Religious Education in the Pursuit of Tolerance and Non-Discrimination” was considered carefully. Perhaps it is worth quoting from that study:

“Religious education should be conceived as a tool to transmit knowledge and values pertaining to all religious trends, in an inclusive way, so that individuals realize their being part of the same community and learn to create their own identity in harmony with identities different from their own. As such, religious education radically differs from...theology, defined as the formal study of the nature of God”.

Indeed, the Government, in a joint statement on the importance of religious education issued in February by the Department and faith communities, which the Minister, in the time that he has had to study these matters, will no doubt have seen, emphasise that religious education can play a vital role. According to the joint statement, it

“offers opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development”.

The statement continues to say that it

“provokes challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, the self, the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human...enhances pupils’ awareness of religions and beliefs, teachings, practices and forms of expression, as well as of the influence of religion on individuals, families, communities and cultures...encourages pupils to learn from different religions, beliefs, values and traditions, while exploring their own beliefs and questions of meaning”

and

“challenges pupils to reflect on, consider, analyse, interpret and evaluate issues of truth, belief, faith and ethics and to communicate their response.”

That list continues, but you can understand, Mr. Cook, that the spirit of the joint statement is that religious education is an important vehicle for education in the broader way that I mentioned when I argued for children to have experience beyond the boundaries of the school. Religious education seems to me to be useful in those ways.

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

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman, but is he suggesting that the Bill undermines the current arrangements with respect to the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education, which I think are excellent?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the Bill is consistent with current best practice. I suggest that our purpose is to ensure that what we do supports all those efforts that provide for good schools and education. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, I think, in his brief words in support of the amendment said that he thought it would make the Bill consistent with the 1944 and 1988 Acts and build on excellent arrangements of the kind that the hon. Lady mentioned.

As we live in an age where all the things that I have described need new emphasis—because we need to elevate our thinking about what makes an educated person; because we need once again to discover spirituality and its importance to human fulfilment—I have much sympathy with my hon. Friend’s amendment. However, I shall of course wait to hear the Under-Secretary respond in his usual elegant and eloquent way before we decide what we will do if my hon. Friend chooses to press his amendment to a vote.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I shall not linger on an apparent contradiction between what the hon. Member for Gainsborough said in the introduction to amendment No. 349, about wanting to abolish the national curriculum, and his wanting by means of the current amendment to impose a topic on that curriculum.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

If one is forced to sup with the devil, one should at least ensure that the soup is tasty.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

That is apposite, given the amendment before us. I hope to be able to reassure the hon. Gentleman.

Religious education and collective worship already have a secure place in the school curriculum. All maintained schools must provide religious education and collective worship. Religious education is part of the basic curriculum. Schools must teach it either according to locally agreed syllabuses or, in the case of voluntary aided schools with a religious character, according to the trust deed of the schools. I remind the hon. Gentleman that parents are allowed to withdraw their child from religious education and collective worship if they wish.

The Government have a clear commitment to religious education throughout the curriculum, whereas clause 61 refers only to key stage 4. As the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings said, the 1998 Act affirms that. I shall not go through the draft joint statement. It shows the kind of education that we expect young people to receive through religious education and has been agreed with the faith communities.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

We know that the subject is compulsory because we have had the benefit of listening to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who read out the relevant passages in the 1944 and 1988 Acts. Is there religious education in every school? Can the Minister give that commitment? Is there some sort of collective act of worship? I doubt whether he can give that commitment.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

If religious education is not being taught in a school through the key stages, it is not acting lawfully. That subject is a core part of the basic curriculum and has to be taught. The same is true of collective acts of worship. Responsibility for ensuring that collective acts of worship take place rests with head teachers and school governors. We expect all schools to comply with the law.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am extremely impressed with the Under-Secretary’s comments. Will he consider any representations from my hon. Friend if he is concerned that the law is not being followed properly in some cases?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

As a Minister in a Government who are always open to listening to the representations and views of Members on both sides of the House, I will happily take representations regarding concerns about the delivery of any aspect of the national curriculum.

Making religious education and collective worship a core subject at key stage 4, as the amendment would do, would not be useful or helpful at this point. We would need to develop national programmes of study and attainment targets, which would allow less scope for faith communities to contribute to the development of religious education provision in schools and for teaching in those schools to reflect local circumstances and traditions.

The Government have developed a non-statutory framework for religious education to provide local authorities, standing advisory councils for religious education—SACREs, as they are known—teachers, parents and the wider community with a clear, shared understanding of the knowledge and skills that young people should gain at school in religious education. The framework allows schools to meet the individual learning needs of pupils and to develop a distinctive character and ethos for their religious education teaching which is rooted in their local communities. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would fully support that.

I emphasise the importance of allowing parents to withdraw their children from RE and the act of collective worship. They would not be able to opt out if the subject was in the national curriculum, so the amendment would cause difficulties in that regard. On the basis of those arguments and the assurances that I have given, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

As always, the Under-Secretary has done his best to reassure me. In a sense, I am pleased that he said on the record, in Committee, that he expects every school to have not only religious education but a collective act of worship, which we know does not happen in all schools. At least we got that on the record, so anyone who follows these debates will be aware of it.

If an amendment such as mine were accepted, I am sure that we could have some sort of opt-out procedure, but we could deal with that on Report. I agree that parents should be allowed to opt out of their children receiving religious education, but that would be perfectly possible. The amendment would build on existing legislation and would not interfere with that.

I do not think that the Minister was being entirely honest, if I may say so, when he suggested that if the legislation were restated in the way in which it was stated in 1944 and 1988, it would somehow be unduly prescriptive and would mean telling Catholic, Anglican or Muslim schools how to teach education. We all know that if this were a core subject it would be perfectly possible, within the Department’s guidance, to give schools the freedom to teach education in the way in which they want. The guidance could be framed in such a way. I do not think that anybody is seriously suggesting that we can lay down from the centre, any more now than we have in the past 60 years, what the exact nature of religious education should be.

I withdraw the vicious attack I made earlier on my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. He was very eloquent when he spoke about the value of religious education. We live in an increasingly consumerist, materialist age, and so there is an enormous value in it. When every other subject is dealt with in such detail, mentioned, pushed forward and insisted upon, I do not see why such an important part of our cultural heritage should be left out of the Bill. I therefore want to press the amendment to a vote.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I beg to move amendment No. 518, in clause 61, page 43, line 2, at end insert

‘and

(d) a modern foreign language.'.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 238B, in clause 61, page 43, line 7, at end insert

‘and

(d) modern foreign languages, comprising any modern foreign language specified in an order made by the Secretary of State or, if the order so specifies, any modern foreign language.'.

No. 257, in clause 61, page 43, line 7, at end insert—

‘(4A) In relation to modern foreign languages the programme of study specified by the National Curriculum shall, in addition to any other topics that may be included, contain the following—

(a) formal grammar and morphology;

(b) translation from English into the foreign language.'.

No. 504, in clause 61, page 43, line 33, at end insert—

‘(1A) Where a course of study within an entitlement area specified by the Secretary of State under section 85A(1)(b) is to be introduced, proper provision must be made for the teaching of modern foreign languages.'.

No. 240, in clause 61, page 43, line 46, after ‘State', insert

‘, which shall include standard Mandarin, modern standard Arabic and Castilian Spanish,'.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The purpose of the amendment is to add modern foreign languages to the list of foundation subjects in clause 61. At present, they are part of the entitlement subjects in proposed new section 85A. I hope that I will not get into trouble with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough for being too prescriptive. I draw to his attention the fact that I am shifting the modern foreign languages from one part of the group to another. There is an important point behind this and I would like to explore the position of modern foreign languages in our schools, particularly our secondary schools.

In 2003, modern foreign languages were removed from the foundation part of the curriculum and put into the entitlement area. While it is a little bit early to explore the consequences of that change, there are some alarming developments in the study of modern foreign languages in our schools. That is often debated. Some argue that it is not so important for people in this country to learn a modern foreign language because English is so widely spoken in the world. I happen to believe that it is important and something that our children should do to enrich themselves culturally. It is perhaps an indication of the wider issues relating to academic rigour and standards in our schools. Taking GCSE entries as a measurement of how modern foreign languages are faring in our schools—I say this with a word of caution because, as I know to my personal cost, entering a GCSE is no measure of any achievement at the end of the process—the number of children learning a language at key stage 4 is extremely worrying. The number of children entering for GCSEs in modern foreign languages has been in free-fall in the past five years.

Although there has been a modest increase in the number of entries for Spanish, the numbers have gone down significantly for French and German, and also for other languages. It is no exaggeration to say that the number of people entering examinations are in free-fall. In 2000, 321,000 children entered for GCSE French, which is by far and away the most popular language at that level. By 2004-05, the figure had gone down to 244,000, and the same applies to German. That is a worrying picture, and it is reflected in the number of children studying languages at A-level. Indeed, the numbers at A-level are perhaps even more striking and they have gone down for all languages, which is worrying.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically measured and thoughtful contribution. Is he familiar with the work of the National Centre for Languages, which is a Government-funded organisation? It reveals that we are 28th out of 28 countries in Europe in terms of our language competence. I challenged the Under-Secretary on that when we last had Education questions on the Floor of the House. That problem must relate to the number of students studying languages.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

Perhaps I should be more familiar with that body’s work, but I am not entirely surprised by the rather alarming conclusion that my hon. Friend has drawn to the Committee’s attention. I have been talking about GCSE entries, because they are relevant in this context, but I would hazard a guess that our linguistic competence at GCSE level is rather modest compared with other countries’ achievements at the same level. I suspect that that is true of their achievements not only in English, but in other languages, and it is common for children in France and Germany to master several other languages besides English.

The picture at A-level is also worrying, and although I do not have an explanation, I wonder whether it has something to do with the fact that modern languages are perceived as hard subjects. The same might be true of science A-levels, because there seems to be a disjunction between the number of children who do GCSE science and science A-level. Although that situation is equally worrying, I shall stick with modern foreign languages. I simply ask the Under-Secretary to recognise the problem that exists in schools, accept that examination entries are in free-fall, acknowledge the concern that exists and give some indication of what is being done to tackle the problem.

The Government have a strategy for introducing children to languages earlier at primary school. However, there seemed to be some contradiction between that approach and the downgrading of modern foreign languages later on, when they were taken from the foundation part of the syllabus and put in the entitlement part. I served on the Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation that dealt with the relevant legislation and I asked the Under-Secretary’s predecessor—he has just become the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and I congratulate him on that—whether more children would come through to learn modern foreign languages at GCSE level as a result of the changes. He told me:

“I confidently expect the strategy to be successful—more young people will come through key stage 3 and into GCSE wanting to learn languages and, as their grades go up, Opposition Members will denounce that as being a result of falling standards. I look forward to that debate in the years ahead.”—[Official Report, Second Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, 10 November 2003, c. 15.]

It is not that many years ahead, but it is two years ahead, and although it is a little early to judge, the results are not entirely encouraging.

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

Does the hon. Gentleman share my deep concern that the primary programme has not been rolled out fast enough or broadly enough? That is one reason why we are not achieving our objectives. I hope that the Minister will address that point.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

It is a fair comment. In my experience, such as it is, the primary programme seems to be rather patchy. I have also asked whether it makes sense to have such a primary programme and then downgrade modern foreign languages later on. Children will have some proficiency if they get to GCSE level, but if they have dropped languages even before that, their proficiency will be limited.

I await the Minister’s response and I hope that he will acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and accept that, on the basis of GCSE entries, the subjects are in free-fall.

Angela Smith (Labour, Sheffield, Hillsborough)

I applaud the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to modern foreign languages. Does he agree that the number of people taking up foreign languages could be expanded through vocational skills programmes as much as through GCSEs? Why restrict it to GCSEs?

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I can see no evidence anywhere else of a great surge in the taking of examinations. I will be corrected if I am wrong, but requiring children to learn the subject in the curriculum to at least GCSE standard is an appropriate way of measuring whether they are learning languages to a sufficient standard.

I look forward to the Minister’s response, because modern foreign languages seem to be withering on the vine.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend. He makes a compelling case for including a modern foreign language in the core subjects of the national curriculum. Amendment No. 238 would make it one of the foundation subjects of the curriculum, making it compulsory at the fourth key stage. It is important that pupils learn a modern foreign language, and this country’s failure to ensure that could have serious economic implications.

My hon. Friend explained well the serious fall in the numbers taking language GCSEs, and I will not repeat his arguments. The Government’s argument for removing the compulsion for secondary school students to study a modern foreign language beyond the age of 14 was that it is better to have students who want to study a language and are motivated to do so than to force children who are not motivated to pursue one until the age of 16. The same argument could be applied to every area of the curriculum, whether it is maths, English, science or citizenship. It is the wrong approach to take. We must take a view about which subjects our children ought to master by the age of 16 in the state-funded education system. Modern foreign languages are as important a subject to study until the age of 16 as maths, English and science.

The Barcelona European Council in 2002 recommended that at least two foreign languages be learnt from a very early age, yet the UK performs very poorly compared with other European countries. That is shown in a report made by the European Commission in 2005, which showed that most countries insist on a modern foreign language being taught until the age of 18 and, in most cases, begin teaching a language between the ages of eight and 10. It also showed that only the UK, Ireland and Italy failed to offer an entitlement to all pupils to study two modern foreign languages. England has the highest proportion of lower secondary pupils who do not study a foreign language—19.9 per cent.

A survey this February, also by the European Commission, found that two in three adults in Britain were unable to speak a language other than English, compared with 44 per cent. across the EU. The implications that that will have for our country were investigated in a report by the British Council, entitled “English Next”. It suggested that in the future, monoglot native English speakers will lose out to qualified multilingual young people from other countries in the global jobs market that has emerged. Such concerns were also noted in the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s annual report for 2004-05. It said:

“Much more worrying is the fact that large numbers of more average students are possibly reducing their future prospects of job mobility and choice by giving up language learning at the age of 14.”

Amendment No. 257 would require the programme of study for foreign languages to include the study of formal grammar and morphology—the system of forms in a language—and translation from English into the foreign language. Those are both skills that are necessary for further study in a foreign language. Formal grammar refers to the laws and rules by which the language is structured. Too little emphasis is given to that aspect of language study, which is having an impact on universities and later study. Although the national curriculum states that students

“should be taught the grammar of the target language and how to apply it”,

many universities find that students arrive unaware of basic grammatical concepts. That is seen not only in foreign languages but, I am afraid to say, English as well. As a result, many universities find themselves teaching remedial grammar lessons to their undergraduates. Given the important role that modern languages play in allowing young people to understand their own language, it is important that the explicit teaching of grammar should be made a requirement in the curriculum.

Amendment No. 504 also applies the study of foreign languages to vocational subjects, while amendment No. 240 would ensure that the languages prescribed under regulations included Mandarin Chinese, Arabic and Spanish. Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world, being spoken by more than 1 billion people—more than 13 per cent. of the world’s population, according to the CIA, if we can believe it. Arabic is spoken across the middle east and north Africa by 206 million people. Modern standard Arabic is the dialect of Arabic most commonly used for official purposes and in schools, and Spanish is the most widely spoken European language after English. In contrast, French, which is the most commonly taught language in English schools, is declining as an international lingua franca.

The teaching of Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish was one of the recommendations of David Graddol, the author of the British Council’s “English Next” report.

Meg Hillier (Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that the Petchey academy, which is opening this September in Hackney, will be teaching Mandarin Chinese to Hackney children. If that can be done in Hackney, it can be done anywhere, so I have some support for his views on teaching modern languages.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful for that intervention. It is impressive that those subjects will be taught at that academy and I would love to visit—if the people there felt that that they could bear it.

“English Next” argues that the UK’s best defence against the problems associated with the spread of English as a global language is to learn other languages. Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish are examples of the languages that ought to be taught. With those few words, I await the Minister’s response.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I, too, wish to speak in favour of the amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings made some wounding personal remarks about my ability to speak on the Bill. I freely admitted that I know nothing at all about education theory—I simply come here with my experience as a father. As my hon. Friend said, I have so many children that my experience ranges over the entire English educational system. Indeed, next year I shall have six children in six different educational establishments in this country, in five different parts of the country.

Foreign language education is extremely important. I sent all my children to the French lycÃ(c)e—indeed, I went there myself—which has been an extraordinarily valuable experience. All of them have remained at the lycÃ(c)e, where pupils get total immersion in a foreign language. Total immersion in a foreign language is quite common in other countries. I have visited a school in Finland that has total immersion in English. The equivalent would be unheard of here, but it works. It is extraordinary to visit schools in other parts of Europe and find extraordinary ability and an understanding of the need to learn foreign languages, particularly English. I have Dutch relations. It is impossible to find any Dutch person over the age of 15 who does not speak English fluently, albeit with a strong accent.

Dutch people start to learn English relatively late in their educational experience—not at age 4 or 5—but they become fluent very quickly. Because Holland is a small, commercial country, its people have to learn English. It is extraordinary—we can produce as many statistics as we like, but we all know the truth—how we have sunk to the bottom of the European league in learning foreign languages. It can be said from a business point of view that, because English is now the business language of the world, other languages are not necessary, but we know that that cannot be true. Once one has a grounding in one foreign language—French, Spanish or anything else—it is far easier to learn other languages, and so to be more confident abroad, to deal with foreigners, and to engage in business in an increasingly competitive world. Given that languages are so important, I cannot understand why we are falling so far behind. On that basis, I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to the amendment.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Before addressing the specific points that hon. Members have made, I should like to explain to the Committee that the aim of clause 61 is to provide entitlements in sciences and to diplomas. Both of those are direct consequences of changes to the curriculum that are already in train. The diploma entitlement is to secure the provision of the new diplomas and the science entitlement is directly linked to changes to the compulsory elements of the key stage 4 science curriculum that will come into effect in September. The inclusion in the Bill of the science and diploma entitlements has been prompted by specific circumstances in science and vocational study. There have been no similar developments in respect of modern foreign languages that could be considered adequate to give rise to a need to change the national curriculum to make the subject compulsory for all pupils.

I appreciate that hon. Members who have spoken—and others outside this place with an interest in modern foreign languages—would like to see the subject’s profile raised, as, presumably, those who are enthusiastic about other subjects that we will debate later would like to see the profiles of those subjects raised. However, the national curriculum has been developed carefully over the years, and its current form represents a balance derived from extensive consultations with all subject communities.

There is a clear need for the new science diploma entitlement, because of the changes. However—although I shall respond to points made by hon. Members today— a strong case has not been made through extensive debate and consultation for altering the status of modern foreign languages in the national curriculum. As the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said, the key stage 4 national curriculum was last changed in 2004, and that was following an extensive consultation.

Prior to 2004, there had been a large number of compulsory subjects. There was general agreement that that left too little flexibility for other subjects and little time for other study, such as the work-related or vocational learning that we debated earlier. We also knew—this is the reason for the 2004 changes—that many pupils were simply bored. They saw little relevance in the mainly academic curriculum and, as a result, left learning at 16 with few or no qualifications. We have debated elsewhere in this House the importance of increasing the numbers who stay on in education after 16.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister is right. We are in agreement about those principles. He will know that I broadly welcome the diplomas. Perhaps, therefore, he will explain how much account was taken of modern foreign languages in the design of those diplomas.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I am going to address it when I address later amendments.

In 2004, the national curriculum was changed to become more flexible and more responsive to students’ individual needs and, crucially, to motivate them to stay on in learning. As a result, subjects are now compulsory only if they provide an essential basis for progression or if they are essential for personal development. At that time, modern foreign languages were changed from being a compulsory subject to being an entitlement, so schools have to provide access to a foreign language course to all pupils who wish to continue their language studies. So the question of motivation—which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) mentioned—is being addressed by the introduction of language learning at key stage 2. Our goal in introducing it at key stage 2 is to motivate more young people to continue studying languages rather than forcing them to do so at key stage 4. Our commitment is that all pupils should be given an opportunity to study a language at key stage 2.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Minister makes a compelling point, except that only a small proportion of primary schools in the country today provide modern foreign language teaching in class in the day time. Would it not have been better to remove the compulsion at 14 once the primary school sector had reached critical mass in teaching a modern foreign language at key stage 2?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but our analysis of the number of young people who were feeling bored and demotivated and not achieving success in their courses, and who were therefore leaving education at 16, led us to make those changes to the national curriculum as a whole. Currently, 56 per cent. of all primary schools deliver language programmes at key stage 2, and it is our intention that they should all do so by 2010. I have visited—as I am sure we all have in our constituencies—primary schools that are taking innovative and exciting approaches to introducing a modern foreign language into the primary sector.

In addition, we are providing greater choice and flexibility to overcome the problems for young people so that they can follow programmes that meet their aspirations and match their abilities. We have a newly introduced national recognition scheme, the languages ladder, which hon. Members have not mentioned. That provides an alternative and more flexible accreditation route to traditional GCSEs.

I understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Hertsmere: we have seen the figures and he is right to say that there has been a decline, although as he said there has been an increase in the number of students taking up Spanish. It is interesting that the pass rate has gone up as a result of more young people who are taking those languages being motivated to do so. There is probably a relationship between those two facts.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I wonder whether the Minister could clarify further the issue of meeting children’s aspirations. I was just thinking about my children’s aspirations, which are to get out of the school gates as quickly as possible at 4 o’clock. I am not sure that courses designed to meet their aspirations would be appropriate to their future needs.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

The hon. Lady will forgive me for not commenting on the extent to which she can make her own children stay on at school. What I am saying is that the curriculum must provide opportunities for young people to which they can respond. The flexibility that is provided for teachers to find ways of working in the classroom—and, indeed, outside it, through our extended schools strategy—is a mechanism for capturing and engaging young people in the joy of learning in all subjects, including modern foreign languages. That is what we are endeavouring to do through the changes to the national curriculum.

The hon. Gentleman was right to raise his concerns. That is why the Department wrote to all secondary schools last January, reminding them of their statutory obligation to provide opportunities for those pupils who wish to study languages. At the same time we placed an expectation on those schools to set their own targets of between 50 to 90 per cent. of key stage 4 pupils studying a language that leads to a recognised qualification. I know that that is a challenging target for some schools to set, but I expect that it will become less of an issue in the future as more children enter secondary schools with language skills and an enthusiasm for language that they have acquired through primary education. That is why we have done things that way round.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I wonder whether the Minister could go slightly further on what he has helpfully told us and assure us that he will revisit the subject with schools when he gets the results from that letter.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Of course we monitor schools, their participation rates and the extent to which they are setting and achieving the targets that we are encouraging them to meet. We shall of course monitor our progress, but I am confident that it will make a difference as young people, particularly at key stage 2, find and develop their enthusiasm and confidence in language.

I want to speak to the other two amendments. Programmes of study set out the required teaching for those subjects that are compulsory for all pupils at each key stage. They provide a definition of what the subject entails in terms of the statutory required teaching that all pupils should receive. As I said, modern foreign languages are no longer compulsory for all pupils at key stage 4, so there is no programme of study to which amendment No. 257 could be applied. Of course, they are an important area of learning: the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has published non-contributory guidelines for modern foreign languages at key stage 4.

The amendment raises the question whether it is appropriate for Parliament to prescribe in legislation the requirements for languages and the other non-compulsory subjects that must be taught to those pupils. I consider that the present situation, in which the statutory content is prescribed for the compulsory subjects but not for optional subjects, strikes the right balance.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned grammar, morphology and the ability to translate, which are intrinsic elements of the specifications of GCSEs in modern foreign languages. Although the GCSE specification does not specify explicitly the need to translate from English to the foreign language, the process is implicit. It is inconceivable that students would not go through a translation process from English into the foreign language before expressing themselves in speech or in writing. I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that what he is asking for is, first, not appropriate, because it is not a compulsory subject and, secondly, unnecessary, because the process is implicit in the way the subjects are taught.

Amendment No. 504 would include the teaching of modern foreign languages in the courses of study for all the diploma entitlement areas—a matter that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings raised in an intervention. The diplomas are being introduced to provide a curriculum choice for young people; they are valuable qualifications enabling young people to progress to further learning or employment. Key to the development of the new specialised diplomas is the involvement of employers in designing the content of those courses of study. Diploma development partnerships are being led by sector skills councils designed to help to do the job. I am pleased to be able to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that they will include modern foreign language provision in the course of study when it is appropriate to the line of learning in that diploma.

The National Centre for Languages, which the hon. Gentleman quoted earlier, is working directly with the diploma development partnerships to encourage the provision of modern foreign languages in the diplomas. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) asked why not include languages in other areas, too. I am happy to inform hon. Members that all five of the phase-one diploma development partnerships have expressed an interest in including languages in their diplomas as part of additional learning. We can see real progress being made in the way my hon. Friend suggested.

On amendment No. 240, the modern foreign language entitlement currently covers the official working languages of the European Union. I hope that that does not prompt Opposition Members to get to their feet. I am always slightly nervous about saying “European Union” in the House as I know how it excites Opposition Members. The languages are Danish, Dutch, French, German, modern Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Spanish. Amendment No. 240 would add Mandarin and modern standard Arabic to the list; as I said, it already includes Spanish.

Schools are only required to provide one language course to those pupils who elect to take up the entitlement, and it is for schools to decide which language it is. We want to encourage more pupils to take languages, and to do that the entitlement has been framed in terms of the languages that will appeal to the most pupils.

I do not want to tread into difficult territory, but the European Union is of great importance to British life and business. European languages are by far the most popular in our schools and we want pupils to be entitled to learn them. The amendment would water that down as a school might choose to fulfil its entitlement obligations by providing only Mandarin or Arabic. I agree with hon. Members that they are important languages but they are probably not appealing to the majority of pupils. If the amendment were accepted, the entitlement would no longer provide such an attractive opportunity to most pupils and it would be less effective in helping to encourage more pupils to take languages.

I was very impressed by the description by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) of a language academy in her constituency. I expect we could all cite examples of such excellence.

We are promoting specialist language colleges. A number offer Arabic and Chinese programmes in addition to the working languages of the European Union. The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust co-ordinates a Chinese network, providing information for teachers on Chinese resources and methodology, and a virtual staffroom online networking facility; a similar network is planned for Arabic.

A number of activities are in place to promote the languages that the hon. Member for Hertsmere rightly identified as being important. For the reasons that I have given, however, we believe that it would be inappropriate to support the amendment, and I hope that he will feel able to withdraw it.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

This has been an interesting and well argued debate. There is a clear correlation and a causal link between the dramatic fall in the numbers taking GCSEs in French and German and the decision to remove compulsion at key stage 4. The pass rate has risen slightly, but the same would happen if we removed compulsion from science and maths, and I believe that we would see a similar dramatic tumbling in the numbers taking those subjects. It is odd that a modern foreign language is no longer compulsory at the age of 16 but citizenship is. The suspicion is that removing compulsion from a subject that is generally regarded as hard is part of a general dumbing down in education that has been happening gradually over the past 20 or 30 years.

The Minister cited a figure of 56 per cent. of primary schools offering modern languages, but that includes after-school clubs. It does not mean that 56 per cent. of primary schools are providing French or German or any other modern foreign language in school time, as part of their curriculum. The proportion doing that is tiny. If that had been the Government’s policy, it would have been better to remove compulsion at the age of 14 once a significant number of primary schools had started providing lessons during class time and not in after-school clubs.

On that basis, when the time comes I would like to press amendment No. 238B to a Division.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

We have had the opportunity for a reasonable debate on an important subject. I moved amendment No. 518, but I shall not seek to divide the Committee on it, but I hope that I have impressed upon the Minister that we should take the matter seriously. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned including modern foreign languages in the curriculum for the purposes of business, but they are also important to our cultural enrichment and to the way in which we see the peoples of other countries. We will doubtless return to the subject.

Sciences were mentioned during the debate. My hon. Friend the made some important points about rigour and standards. The falling number of children entering for GCSEs in languages and of children entering for the sciences at A-level during the past five years might tell us something wider about rigour and standards. The falling number of children entering for physics at A-level, as well as for other science subjects, is equally worrying, if not more so. We talk about aspirations, but the decline may have something to do with the fact that many teachers are not expert or qualified specialists in those subjects. Our education system is failing to motivate sufficient children to take up languages and sciences at the higher levels, and particularly at A-level.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 409, in clause 61, page 43, leave out lines 5 to 8 and insert—

‘(a) geography,

(b) history,

(c) physical education,

(d) art and design, and

(e) music,

each subject to be allotted at least one period per week.'.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 355, in clause 61, page 43, line 5, leave out ‘information and communication technology' and insert ‘computer science'.

No. 238A, in clause 61, page 43, line 7, at end insert

‘and

(d) history.'.

No. 239, in clause 61, page 43, line 28, leave out from ‘in' to ‘entitlement' in line 29 and insert

‘one or more subjects within each'.

No. 84, in clause 61, page 43, line 29, leave out ‘four'.

No. 410, in clause 61, page 43, leave out line 36.

No. 411, in clause 61, page 43, leave out line 37.

No. 83, in clause 61, page 43, line 40, at end insert—

‘(aa) English literature (comprising only that subject),'.

No. 412, in clause 61, page 43, line 41, leave out ‘(comprising only that subject)' and insert—

‘(ii) information and communication technology,'.

No. 413, in clause 61, page 43, leave out lines 42 to 47.

No. 372, in clause 61, page 43, line 47, at end insert

‘, and

(e) classical Latin and Greek'.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

The Minister may be tempted to make a debating point by asking why, if someone is opposed to the national curriculum, they would want to have subjects listed in it. Well, if one is walking down a busy road, particularly a new Labour road, it is wise to look in both directions at once.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

You could get run over.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

Well, you could but if you do not look in both directions you certainly would.

There is a serious point to make. I want to force a debate on the value of traditional subjects such as geography, history and music. Amendment No. 409 would make geography, history, physical education, art and design and music compulsory, although as each subject would be allotted at least one period per week, I am not over-egging the pudding. I am simply saying that there is a great value to a country in a shared cultural identity and the education that promotes it in ensuring that some sort of geography, history, music, art and design is taught at least once a week. I believe that it is desirable that all pupils aged 14 to 16 study those subjects.

I may be criticised for leaving out IT as a compulsory subject although I have put it down in a later amendment as an optional subject. The Minister might say that IT is now essential in the modern world, and I fully accept that. The Prime Minister and I share a lack of skill in it, but it is essential for young people, although I challenge the Minister or any parent in this Committee to name a 14-year-old who is not adept at using computers. Obviously it is an essential skill, but I am not sure why it needs to be a compulsory subject when take-up is virtually universal, certainly compared with foreign languages or any other subject one could think of.

Given the pressure on timetabling, something has to give. If separate sciences and languages are to be studied, my list of subjects, though optional in clause 61, ought to be given a higher profile. I offer that list to create a debate in Committee. I cannot believe that this is a controversial statement, but I believe that most pupils ought to study for at least one period a week, geography, history, physical education, art and design and music. That is what amendment No. 409 would achieve.

Amendments Nos. 410 and 411 would remove art and design and music from the optional subjects. I emphasise that far from wanting to remove those subjects from the national curriculum, I want all pupils to have to study them. Without amendment No. 409, amendments Nos. 410 and 411 would fall. Amendment No. 412 adds IT to the optional subjects. That amendment, too, is consequential on amendment No. 409. I am sure that I will be criticised for shifting IT from compulsory to optional subjects but I think that it is a worthwhile point to make in the debate. Amendment No. 413 is also consequential on amendment No. 409. It shifts geography, history and so on from optional to compulsory subjects. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that these traditional core subjects will still be taught in all schools.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Many of the amendments in this group go to the heart of the debate on the purpose of education and reflect something of the debate that has taken place in the education world, but that has not had public involvement. For instance, to what extent is education meant to prepare people for the world of work? Is it about teaching and passing on knowledge? Or is it about teaching them how to learn, in which case the actual knowledge that they acquire while at school is irrelevant and can be kept to a minimum?

My view is that people learn how to learn by actually learning. The greater the quantity of knowledge and concepts that children are able to acquire at school, the better able they are, and the greater their appetite, to acquire new knowledge in later life. All sections of society need to have had as full an education as possible. In this global information age, an increasing proportion of the jobs of the future will have an intellectual content. Education enables people to get the most out of life, whatever their background or IQ. The better educated a person, the more they can get out of life and the more enjoyable it becomes. Robert M. Hutchins was the chancellor of the university of Chicago in the 1950s and was chairman of the board of editors of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” in its heyday. He also wrote the introduction to the “Great Books of the Western World”. He said:

“The aim of liberal education is human excellence, both private and public...Its object is the excellence of man as man and man as a citizen. It regards man as an end, not as a means; and it regards the ends of life, and not the means to it.”

Amendment No. 238A would therefore include history as one of the foundation subjects at key stage 4 along with information and communication technology, physical education and citizenship. Foundation subjects are additional to the core subjects of maths, science and English. In our original amendment No. 238, which has been split between this group and the previous one, we included a modern foreign language as a foundation subject.

It is important that young people understand the history of their country and the civilisation of which it is a part. It is important also that we understand the seminal moments in the history of other countries, particularly those countries that impact on our own, such as the United States, Europe and the middle east. Currently, too few children can remember or have even been taught key dates, facts or historical figures that are fundamental to the development of this country. Robert M. Hutchins also wrote:

“The tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day.”

Amendment No. 355 replaces the phrase, “information and communication technology”, with the more modern phrase, “computer science”. It was inspired by a report of the 2020 Science group established by Microsoft Research Cambridge. The report examines the likely impact of computing and computer science on science towards 2020. It found that science is undergoing a profound change. Whereas computers were previously used to support scientists in their research, the concepts, tools and theorems of computer science are now increasingly integrated into science itself, especially in biology and chemistry. Indeed, the report suggests that,

“computer science is poised to become as fundamental to biology as mathematics has become to physics”.

That has important implications for the education of future scientists. The report continues:

“Scientists will need to be completely computationally and mathematically literate, and by 2020 it will simply not be possible to do science without such literacy. This therefore has important implications for education right now. The output of computer scientists today barely meets the needs of the public and industrial computing sectors, let alone those required for future science sectors.”

The report recommends that education policy makers—us—urgently reconsider what needs to be done to produce the kinds of scientists that will be needed in the next decade. It continues:

“The education of today's children —tomorrow's scientists — is something of such importance that no government can afford to get it wrong, for failure to produce first-rate intellectual capital in a highly competitive emerging era of 'science-based innovation' will almost certainly carry with it serious economic consequences”.

Specifically, the report calls for

“bolder measures to interest children in science and then retain their interest in it and in its importance for society”,

to

“urgently and dramatically improve the teaching of mathematics and science in schools”,

to

“make teaching of computing more than just ‘IT’ classes and how to use PowerPoint”

and to make

“basic principles of computer science, such as abstraction and codification, a core part of the science curriculum.”

Our amendment would change the national curriculum to include computer science instead of just ICT.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

Does my hon. Friend share my interest in the number of sixth-form physics and chemistry teachers who have a degree in their subject? Is he aware of the alarming suggestions that the number is not as great as it should be? Would he welcome further statistics on that from the Minister?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I certainly would. My hon. Friend makes an important point. I believe that we will debate a group of amendments on science in a moment. That is why we welcome the extra 3,000 science teachers that the Chancellor promised in his Budget. We need dramatic measures to remedy the crisis in science teachers in this country.

The clause introduces to the Education Act 2002 a new section 85, which lists the core subjects of the national curriculum as maths, English and science, and sets out the foundation subjects ICT, PE and citizenship. It also introduces a new section 85A, which lists the entitlement areas—subjects that students are entitled to study. The clause says that a pupil is entitled

“to follow a course of study in a subject within each of such one or more of the four entitlement areas...as he may choose”

from those listed in subsection (2). The way in which subsection (2) is ordered means that while a student will have an entitlement to study geography or history, he will not have an entitlement to study both. We think that he or she should. Amendment No. 239 would entitle a student to study all the subjects listed in subsection (2).

Amendment No. 84 is consequential to amendment No. 83, which would ensure that there is an entitlement to study English literature to a level that enables the student to take a GCSE in English literature. There is already an entitlement to study literature, but that is included in the English GCSE, which comprises both language and literature. The amendment would give an entitlement to the full English literature GCSE.

Amendment No. 372, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, would add Latin and Greek to the entitlement areas. He is right to say that students who want to study those subjects should be able to do so. It seems a little unfair that only those who can afford private education should have that opportunity. In a previous sitting, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough said:

“In Sheffield, we have a school that offers Latin as part of its language specialism. I believe strongly...that it is important to offer Latin as part of the modern language curriculum. It can be made available to all Sheffield schoolchildren because that school offers it. It is a result of our system’s diversity.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 28 March 2006; c. 93.]

The hon. Lady is right. It is a great pity that Latin has disappeared from the curriculum in the majority of state schools. It is a useful discipline that helps to explain many of the idiosyncrasies of our language and provides a useful building block for the study of modern foreign languages. I have never really understood why it disappeared. Perhaps there is an official DFES line on that.

The situation is very different in Europe. In Italy, Latin is compulsory in schools specialising in science and language. In France, students in the literature stream have the option of studying both Latin and Greek. In Germany, Latin is the third most popular foreign language, with 650,000 students studying it in 2003. In this country, the number of students taking Latin at GCSE has fallen from 26,000 in 1980 to just 9,500 in 2000. The number of those studying it at A-level has fallen from 2,500 in 1980 to just over 1,000 in the year 2000.

With those few remarks, I wait to hear the Minister’s response.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

With your indulgence, Mr. Cook, may I briefly speak again? I realise that I omitted to speak to amendment No. 372. My hon. Friend has mentioned it, but I will speak to it briefly so that we can get a response from the Minister.

As my hon. Friend said, the amendment seeks to add Latin and Greek to the list of optional subjects that should be available for pupils. Earlier, I mentioned Sir Keith Joseph and his views on the introduction of the national curriculum in the 1980s. He feared that, far from setting a minimum requirement for what should be taught, the national curriculum could become a maximum requirement and that if something was not in the national curriculum it need not be taught. That appears to have happened to Latin and Greek.

In the House of Lords, Lord Joseph, as he became, conceded that if we were to have a national curriculum, it was reasonable to specify English, maths and science, but that it should go no further. We have gone, of course, much further. We are in a completely different world now—and certainly clause 61 takes us much further. Information technology is now a core subject. That is perhaps fair enough. I must query what is taught under the heading of citizenship.

The fear is that if a subject is not mentioned in the national curriculum, it need not be taught. Nowhere does clause 61 mention the classics, nowhere does it mention Latin and Greek. Fortunately, as my hon. Friend said, most independent schools still offer Latin, and some still offer Greek, but the classical languages have virtually died out in maintained schools. They really have become dead languages, unavailable and untaught. The foundation of so much of our language, which is so useful for the learning of other languages—particularly French, Italian and Spanish—has virtually died out. My amendment adds classical Latin and Greek to what is on offer.

Elsewhere there is an exemption for a school that cannot afford to offer all the options, but if enough pupils wanted Latin or Greek I believe that a teacher or teachers would be made available. Of course I share Sir Keith’s opinion—setting a small group of subjects in stone initially was probably a mistake, but we are where we are, and it is now incumbent on the Minister to explain the disastrous decline in the teaching of Latin and Greek in the maintained sector.

Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat, Brent East)

When listening to the hon. Member for Gainsborough I am reminded of my own attempts to learn classical Greek. I am sure that it was helpful in the long term, but the only word that I can remember is , which means “oh dear”. I remember nothing else.

I am sure that it is useful to have Latin and Greek on offer, but of course it is essential that schools should be able to collaborate to do that. That is one of the points that we tried to make a theme of our comments on the Bill. It is not feasible for all schools to be required to offer those subjects, but if proper collaboration goes on across an area, the young people who want to learn them will be able to.

I shall comment briefly on Conservative amendments, and I hope to catch your eye later on stand part, Mr. Cook.

I am sympathetic to the notion that the theoretical approach to computer sciences is very important to modern science, but the idea that such an approach should be compulsory for all, as amendment No. 355 would make it, may well be barking mad. What is essential is to familiarise young people with the use of a computer. They should know how to use a computer for word processing, spreadsheets and many other things that will help them to do their jobs later in life—not so that they can understand the finer aspects of programming.

At the risk of speaking personally again, I shall never forget my panic on arriving at Cambridge at my first compulsory IT course, for my natural sciences degree, when I realised as I sat in front of a computer that I had no idea how to turn the wretched thing on—not the faintest clue. It was years before I recovered enough from the combination of rising panic, and the horror on my patient boyfriend’s face as he realised how utterly incompetent I was, to approach a computer again and use it. Thankfully time and necessity have got me through. The essential thing is that all young people, regardless of the subjects that they are to study or where they will work, should know how to use a computer. That is the basic requirement, and that is what should be in the national curriculum.

I am sympathetic to amendments Nos. 239 and 84. It seems odd that the entitlements in the Bill require students to choose one course from each of the different sub-groups, whereas young people are much more likely to want to mix dance with drama or music with dance, for example. If they have an aptitude for or interest in such subjects and want to pursue them later such flexibility makes much more sense. I remain very concerned and disappointed by the restrictive elements of the diplomas on offer. It would have been far better if the Government had used this marvellous opportunity to implement the Tomlinson recommendations in full.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Implementing the amendments would constitute a substantial change to the national curriculum—indeed, it could be described as a wholesale rewriting of the curriculum. As I explained, clause 61 provides entitlements in science and diplomas because of changes elsewhere. However, there are no similar developments in other subjects to create an adequate need to make the changes proposed.

The national curriculum is a careful balance of subjects, which has developed over the years. Indeed, key stage 4 was fully debated only recently, and there was extensive consultation and change in 2004 to provide more flexibility and responsiveness to individual student needs and ensure that students were motivated by their learning.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The words that the Minister is uttering sound awfully complacent given the huge concern about the quality of education in our schools. There is a reason why the Prime Minister made education a key issue in 1997 and said that his three priorities would be education, education, education. That concern about quality remains. I am surprised by the Minister’s complacency. He says that a carefully developed balance of subjects has been developed over the years, but there is a crisis in science, a rapid decline in modern languages and a general concern about the quality of teaching in our schools and education. I am afraid that I am disappointed by the Minister’s complacency.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I am disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s efforts to run down the excellent achievements by students of all ages in our schools that we have seen in the past nine years. He runs down the teachers who give young people an excellent opportunity to improve their learning and the best possible start in life. He runs down the governors and local education authorities that work in partnership to ensure that young people get a decent education. He talked earlier about a lack of rigour, but his attack is typical of the Conservatives, who left us the mess that they did in 1997. We have done a huge amount to clear it up, and young people are registering record achievements at the ages of 11, 14, 16 and 18. Such levels of achievement have never been seen in this country, and they are the result of investment and reforms of the secondary and primary education system. The hon. Gentleman talks about complacency, but he should take great care before talking up a crisis that does not exist and running down the performance of students, teachers, parents and governors in schools up and down the country.

I particularly challenge the hon. Gentleman on what he says about the changes that we have made to the national curriculum. In 2004, we recognised the needs of students at key stage 4 of the national curriculum. Our curriculum must respond to changes to our society and economy and to the global, competitive world around us. We are modernising the curriculum—science is a good example at key stage 4—to ensure that it continues to be effective, exciting and relevant to our young people. I emphasise that none of those changes will lower standards—quite the reverse. If we want to build on our success so that young people can progress in their learning and to do better, as they have already, we must ensure that the curriculum motivates and engages them and allows them to enjoy and celebrate learning, not only while they are at school, but after they have left and into adult life.

I am pleased to say that standards are rising, but I also appreciate that hon. Members, both here and outside, who have an interest in art and design, music, history, geography, English literature, Latin or classical Greek would like the profiles of those subjects to be raised. The Government understand that, but those with an enthusiasm for ICT and citizenship would not be so happy if their subjects were downgraded as a result of the amendments. Let me talk, therefore, about some of the topics that we have heard so much about from Opposition Members.

Let me talk first about citizenship. I declare an interest, in that in the early 1980s, in a former life, I wrote curriculum packs for use in schools. One was entitled “Local government—making it work for you” and the other was entitled “Education for citizenship”. Sadly they are out of print, so I cannot be accused of trying to feather my nest by mentioning those contributions to the educational development of young people.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Can they be placed in the Library?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Unfortunately no copies can be put there, because I do not think that any still exist. That is a great regret, although I leave members of the Committee the challenge of digging one up on the internet.

My point is about the importance of education for citizenship, which is essential for young people’s personal development into confident, productive members of society who are able to deal with life’s challenges, while taking advantages of its opportunities. Citizenship equips young people to become informed, responsible and active citizens. That is crucial to the health of society and of our democracy.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

I do not doubt the Minister’s commitment to citizenship, but if the Government’s commitment is so great, why is not greater investment put into the training of teachers to teach citizenship? As we know, less than 1 per cent. of children are taught citizenship, because there is a shortage of teachers who have been trained to teach it.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s support for citizenship, for providing more training for teachers and for ensuring that more of them have the necessary knowledge, skills, experience and skills to teach a subject that can be challenging to get right in the classroom. However, I am not sure that I accept the figure that she quoted. We have a growing network of teachers trained in initial training, during in-service training and through continuous professional development who are able to deliver the citizenship curriculum that is now a compulsory part of the national curriculum. That is important, because citizenship is a subject with a big role to play in bridging the gap in the democratic engagement of the younger generation.

Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire)

Does the Minister agree that citizenship could be taught through the ethos of the school and through subjects such as history, rather than as a subject on its own? History is dominated by European dictators and so could be used to teach citizenship in a much wider context.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

No, I do not agree. Citizenship needs to be a subject in its own right. It can be taught through other parts of the national curriculum, as I described in the “Education for citizenship” pack that I wrote in the 1980s, which unfortunately is no longer available for the Committee to see. Citizenship is important and the Government support its being part of the national curriculum in the way that it is, to ensure that all young people have access to it.

To refer to some other points that hon. Members made, the statutory place of information and communication technology in the national curriculum is crucial, because it is a vital skill for all. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) was absolutely right to say that ICT provides a powerful tool to support pupils in becoming successful learners, so that they do not have the same experience that she described for us so graphically. It is important that we should retain the current requirements, so that all young people have the opportunity to develop those skills. We have invested £3.5 billion since 1998 to ensure that all schools have the infrastructure to support ICT education. That money would not have been invested by the Opposition, had they been in government.

I am pleased to say that art and design continues to be a popular subject at GCSE. The development of the creative and media diploma from 2008 will provide further opportunities for young people who might have interests or talents in that area. Much is happening in music education, with our music manifesto leading the way, in collaboration with formal and informal educators, to provide rich and varied experiences for all children. I am pleased to say that the uptake of music at key stage 4 is on the increase.

History is already a popular subject at GCSE and beyond. From September 2006, the QCA and Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations will pilot a new GCSE to widen its appeal still further at key stage 4. Geography—a subject that I took at A-level—remains a popular option at GCSE. It has developed in the many years since I sat my A-levels—thankfully I passed. The subject has just received a major boost from the action plan for geography, launched in March. Almost £2 million will go to support the subject over the next two years, which we hope will encourage even more pupils to maintain their studies beyond the age of 14.

English literature, which has been mentioned, is already a compulsory element of key stage 4 of the national curriculum. Because we visit schools up and down the country, we know that pupils are required to study a range of plays, novels, short stories and poetry, including fiction and non-fiction, from a variety of times and cultures. Some 83 per cent. of pupils took the English literature GCSE in 2004-05.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister will know that some people are worried that some of the English classics have been dropped from the curriculum to make way for a range of works from other parts of the world. Is he concerned about that?

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I am not concerned about it. Those who are charged with the task of delivering English literature teaching in our schools do so on a very well informed basis. They understand the variety and diversity available to them when choosing the syllabuses—the plays, novels and stories that they choose to encourage young people to study in a way that motivates them. Therein lies the critical point of everything that we have discussed today: not just raising standards but engaging, motivating and encouraging young people to enjoy their learning. When a student aged 16 says, “Thank God that’s over” and leaves school, we have a problem and we know that we have failed. Young people should instead be saying, “I am looking forward to my next opportunity to learn, to develop and to progress in my life.”

I wish to mention Latin and classical Greek, because others have done so. We believe the classics to be rigorous, challenging subjects and well worth—[Interruption.]

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. I have been trying to remain silent on this issue. Some of you may have noticed that the dreaded hearing aids have arrived and are in place. They are remarkably effective, but they seem to bring to my attention an extraordinarily disconcerting level of sibilant chuntering from both sides of the Committee and occasionally even from the back of the room. I need to be able to concentrate and keep you people in order. Please, let us have less of it. Thank you.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

I am grateful, Mr. Cook, because the “sibilant chuntering,” as you put it, is not helping us to pursue our task.

I believe that the classics are worth studying on their own merit, but education exists to prepare young people for the challenges of the world in which they live. There are only so many school hours in the day, and all pupils in England already study aspects of ancient Greek civilisation and its influence on the modern world as part of their history study. It is for individual schools and their governing bodies to decide whether to offer classics as part of the curriculum, based on demand for the subject, whether they have a specialist classics teacher available and how well it will meet pupils’ needs. It is not only private schools that offer such subjects; I know of secondary schools in my constituency that are taking up the opportunity.

Amendment No. 84 would change the wording of the clause to accommodate previous amendments. Assuming that we do not accept the other amendments, we need not accept amendment No. 84. If those amendments are not accepted, it should not be pressed.

On amendment No. 239, pupils are currently entitled to follow one course in each of the entitlement areas. The amendment would allow pupils to follow as many courses in each area as they wished. I emphasise to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that geography, history, PE, art and design and music are all compulsory subjects at key stage 3. It is at key stage 4 that we have introduced entitlements to provide more choice and flexibility. Obliging schools to provide on demand numerous courses in every entitlement area would place an impossible burden on them. We expect all schools to make as broad a range of provision as possible, but it is not appropriate to create an unreasonable requirement, which it would be beyond the capacity of many schools to deliver. Smaller secondary schools would find that particularly impractical, so we need to strike a balance between the choices that are made available to pupils through their entitlements and the capacity of schools to deliver those entitlements. I hope that, having heard why we resist the amendments, hon. Members will feel able not to press them.

I should like to finish with amendment No. 355, which seeks to replace the teaching of ICT at key stage 4 with the teaching of computer science. I would not go as far as the hon. Member for Brent, East, but the terms computing and computer science are usually taken to refer to the more technical aspects of computing programming, computer architecture, computer systems and so on, whereas ICT aims to develop the more generic skills that young people need in order to create, store, develop and share information in all its forms and to solve problems. To rename the national curriculum programme of studies “computer science” would not reflect either the aims or the content of the ICT curriculum. That is designed to provide all pupils with the important skill of being able to make effective use of ICT tools. Such skills are increasingly essential for life and for work.

Finally, we are going to debate science under a later set of amendments. However, a number of points have been made that I should like to correct. We are concerned about the decline in A-level science entries, which the hon. Member for Hertsmere mentioned. However, I want to assure the Committee that we have recently set targets so that by 2014 the number of A-level entries will have increased to 35,000 in physics, 37,000 in chemistry and 56,000 in mathematics. To achieve that, we will step up the recruitment, retraining and retention of physics, chemistry and maths specialist teachers to ensure that they are available.

I am pleased to say that there was a 30 per cent. increase in science teacher recruitment between 1997-98 and 2004-05, and we shall further increase the number of science teachers through recruitment incentives, training programmes and other activities. We fully support the comments that have been made about the importance of science, and we are taking action to deal with the issue. I hope that, having heard my remarks in response to a wide range of amendments, hon. Members will feel able to withdraw those amendments.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

There is concern about the curriculum content. Perhaps it has not yet filtered through to the DFES, but in the next few months the Opposition will hold a series of seminars on the curriculum, reflecting real concerns among teachers and the public. The issues need to be debated widely and in public. Too often, debates on curriculum content have taken place inside education circles, so the issues have not been aired in public. That is why I greatly welcome the debate that we have had today. It has been the start of our bringing the issues into the open so that the public can decide what is incorporated into the curriculum that is taught to the next generation of children, and so that decisions about such matters are not made behind closed doors in the absence of policy makers and elected Members of Parliament.

It has been a good debate. We will not press most of the amendments, but I should like to press amendment 239, which would entitle a student at a secondary school to take both history and geography, not to have an entitlement to just one or the other. It was important to raise the issue of computer science, which is a matter of concern to an important research body, Microsoft Research, in Cambridge. I hope that the DFES will consider its concerns about the long-term future scientific training of our young people, so that computer science begins to be taught as an academic subject. I do not say that it should be compulsory for all children in a school, but there is a case for bringing it into the curriculum if we want to compete in this technically demanding world.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I should like to withdraw amendment No. 409, because it can be subsumed into amendment No. 239, which promotes history and which my hon. Friend intends to press. However, I should like to press amendment No. 372, with its emphasis on making Latin and Greek available to pupils as optional subjects, because it is a cause of great sadness that there has been a disastrous decline in Latin and Greek in the maintained sector, and I believe that a vote on the subject would be useful. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

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

I beg to move amendment No. 385, in clause 61, page 43, line 7, at end insert

‘and

(d) personal, social and health education.'.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 386, in clause 61, page 43, line 7, at end insert—

‘(4A) Provision shall be made by the school for any relevant cultural, religious, secular or health considerations of the pupils undertaking the programme of study in the foundation subject referred to in subsection (4)(d).'.

New clause 44—Curriculum requirements for first, second and third key stages—

‘In section 84 of EA 2002 (curriculum requirements for first, second and third key stages), after subsection (3)(g), insert—

“(ga) personal, social and health education,”.'.

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

I should like to say a little about what I understand by personal, social and health education and then explain the purpose of the amendments. I see personal, social and health education as a very important part of promoting the emotional and social development of children and young people. We touched on the issue early in our discussions when we talked about the importance of emotional literacy and I praised the Government’s SEAL—social and emotional aspects of learning—programme.

As far as the curriculum is concerned, I believe that personal, social and health education should include the acquisition of information on a range of health issues that are relevant to age, maturity and understanding, including emotional and health well-being, sex and relationships—relationships are the most important aspect of that—diet and exercise, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, careers and safety. It should certainly include the development of emotional and social skills, including skills for learning, achieving, managing change and looking after health, and the exploration and clarification of values and beliefs, including respect, morality and an understanding of cultural diversity.

It is interesting that some elements of what people perhaps talk about most in relation to PSHE are included in the science curriculum. That curriculum, focusing on the provision of information, needs to be well supported in respect of the development of skills, emotional literacy and relationship education. Everyone will be aware that there is an enormous range of offerings of PSHE in different schools and learning institutions. Some schools have excellent provision, whereas others provide very little such education or provide education of poor quality. Sometimes schools have few resources and do not invest in their staff’s professional development.

The amendment would not be effective without a commitment in respect of the training and qualifications of the teachers involved. We often read in the tabloids about teachers claiming that they have been made to teach certain subjects and that they are not qualified. That is the bottom-line, worst aspect of what I am talking about, and is serious.

I know that the DFES has been running a pilot programme promoting social, emotional and behavioural skills. The evidence so far is that those skills are central to personal and professional success in life and are fundamental to school improvement through contribution to environments that support effective learning and teaching, and collaborative approaches to raising achievement, positive behaviour, full attendance, and staff and pupil emotional health and well-being. That area underpins more or less everything else that we are talking about and has a wide impact on learning.

The amendments go beyond key stage 4 and talk about key stages 1 to 3, because we are talking about a holistic programme. Whatever the jibes, it is vital that it starts at key stage 1. Much is made in literature about sex education for seven-year-olds, but I shall explain why that one small part of PSHE is vital for seven-year-olds. Like me, some Members present served on the Committee that considered the Sexual Offences Bill. During our deliberations, I learned a great deal about things that I did not realise happened. For example, a child living in an abnormal family does not know that they are living in abnormal circumstances because they do not have a yardstick by which to measure normality. How does a child of seven know that child abuse is not normal if they are not receiving appropriate education at that age? That is why it ought to be compulsory, because the very children who need that education could be withdrawn.

Part of the amendment picks up on various cultural differences, as hon. Members would expect. I feel passionately about this issue. The whole core syllabus worked through from key stage 1 has an important part to play in the future of so many children’s lives. Key stage 4 is critical in supporting more mature learning and making sure that we are considering all the health aspects and diet, which might concern obesity or anorexia. I sincerely believe that it should be compulsory.

We have the dubious honour of having one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe. I was pleased to read that the Government’s “teens and tots” pilot scheme is to be rolled out further. The scheme, which fits into the framework, is offered to youngsters who are at particular risk. It is horses for courses in what is offered to children and young people. It has to be right and it has to be done well with well-qualified teachers. Whether the amendment is worded quite rightly or not, I hope that the Government will consider having a compulsion element to this subject.

Phil Hope (Labour, Corby)

Those with an enthusiasm for or interest in PSHE cannot help but be impressed by the passion with which the hon. Lady spoke. She may not know that I share her enthusiasm. I was a member of the national advisory group on PSHE established by the Department in 1998, in the Labour Government’s first term. Without wishing to list my literary achievements, I tell the Committee that I am the author of “Education for Parenthood”—a curriculum pack for schools on that aspect of education. [Interruption.] Yes, a bestseller. I think that it has sold out—I could not find any more copies once I had visited the tip. I am the author also of publications on leaving home and homelessness among young people. Another theme that affects young people’s lives is the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood.

The hon. Lady was right to stress the importance of PSHE. I can assure her that it is taught already at all key stages from five to 16 through a non-statutory framework introduced in 2000. Indeed, many aspects of PSHE are already statutory elements of the national curriculum, such as sex and relationships, drug education and careers guidance. All those come under the PSHE umbrella.

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Lady, but we do not believe that we should make PSHE, as a whole, a statutory subject because we do not think that making it a statutory entitlement automatically would lead to improvements in the teaching and learning of PSHE. She herself raised the point about training. The clause deals with key stage 4, and introducing a new statutory subject does not fit with the direction in which we wish to take 14-to-19 flexibilities.

The hon. Lady was right, however, to highlight the importance of raising the quality of the delivery of PSHE. It is essential that we get that right. The example that she gave demonstrates how sensitive and difficult it can be to teach PSHE in a classroom. Working on topics in the way she described can lead to a number of issues that require skilful handling such as incidents of disclosure and so on that teachers must deal with in the classroom as lessons are being taught.

Our approach would be to improve the effectiveness of what is taught in PSHE by providing clear guidance, by supporting teachers’ continuous professional development and by identifying and disseminating good practice. We want to do that by ensuring that teachers have access to high-quality professional development opportunities through our investment in the PSHE certification programme, which the hon. Lady did not mention, but which will make a real difference to standards and quality.

Furthermore, we want to continue to expand the national healthy schools programme which requires schools to provide high-quality PSHE programmes. That will cover a wide range of themes and topics of interest and relevance to the issues that the hon. Lady described. We have provided schools with additional guidance and support to help them to deliver better PSHE including some recently published units of work from the QCA—before anyone asks, I had nothing to do with that—and have established a PSHE subject association to provide a support network for teachers who can often feel quite isolated and under-confident about taking on a difficult topic.

Finally, on the requirement in the amendments for PSHE to take account of people’s cultural, religious, secular and health considerations, we believe that the existing PSHE framework adequately addresses that issue. Within that framework, all schools are asked to teach pupils at key stage 4 about the diversity of different ethnic groups in order to challenge prejudice and to work co-operatively with different people. That is supported further by other DFES guidance on sex and drug education, which also highlights diversity issues.

The PSHE certificate for teachers, to which I referred earlier, asks them to demonstrate an understanding of difference and diversity and its application to the teaching of PSHE. On that basis and despite our shared enthusiasm for the subject, I invite the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

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

I feel reassured by the Minister’s comments, but I have to say that there is a long way to go because there is still such a difference between schools.

I believe that the subject needs to be compulsory but I am hesitant to push the matter to a vote because I know that teachers have not had enough training in that area. It is a catch-22 situation: which comes first—compulsion or training? I shall return to that point because I believe sincerely that those important elements that I mentioned should be compulsory.

I am pleased that the Minister added some of the points that I did not make due to time, and that the importance of PSHE from key stage 1 onwards has been acknowledged. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Leigh (Conservative, Gainsborough)

I beg to move amendment No. 371, in clause 61, page 43, line 14, at end insert—

‘(c) selected by the governors as being equivalent to, or better than qualifications currently approved by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.'.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.