Children, Schools and Families Bill

Public Bill Committee, 2 February 2010.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Before we begin our debate on amendment 140, I gather that it was the intention on Thursday to move amendment 86 formally to a Division.

Clause 6

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I understand that there was a widespread and lengthy debate on the first group of amendments to clause 6. There are more groups to follow so it is not my intention to allow a clause stand part debate. I hope that we can make progress accordingly.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I beg to move amendment 140, in clause 6, page 7, line 24, leave out subsection (3).

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 141, in clause 6, page 7, line 26, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment 188, in clause 6, page 7, line 39, at end insert—

‘(c) children of different descriptions.’.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Betts. Your predecessors have made steady progress on the Bill. As you will have noticed, we have only made it to clause 6 so we hope that, under your wise chairmanship, we shall be able to make speedier progress today. We had a good debate on parental satisfaction surveys last week in which we set out some of our worries about them. We discussed whether they were likely to prove value for money and whether it was sensible for the Government to impose them on local authorities.

Amendments 140 and 142 tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole express our concern about how the Government intend to impose the parental satisfaction surveys on local authorities. As well as imposing the surveys, whether or not the local authorities want them and whether they think that they will be good value for money, under subsections (3) and (4), the Government seek through regulations to prescribe in detail how the surveys are carried out. The amendments would delete those subsections. They are unnecessary. We question whether it is sensible to have the surveys imposed in such a way, but if they are to be, surely there should be some flexibility whereby local authorities can decide the issues on which they want to consult parents. There also needs to be something more flexible than the blueprint that the Government have so far set out.

Amendment 188 is a probing amendment about the scope within the surveys to look at different aspects of the provision of education that might be of concern to some parental groups. It was inspired by the Special Educational Consortium, which would like a power to be created to allow local authorities specifically to seek the views of parents of children with special educational needs or disabilities. The SEC says that that large group of parents often has particular issues and worries about the provision of special educational needs not only in one school but in a whole group. We have serious reservations about the system; we would like it to be more flexible. However, within the constraints imposed by that system, we want to test whether the Government are willing to give local authorities the power to raise other issues rather than simply test parents’ views about education in a simplistic way, without specifying issues that might cause concern.

There is a further purpose to amendment 188, which the Special Educational Consortium encouraged us to table. Many other groups dealing with special educational needs would like to understand better the Government’s own interpretation of the words “different descriptions” in clause 1(7), which states that the parent and pupil guarantees can be applied differently for pupils of different descriptions. That is also the wording that we use in amendment 188. We want to hear from the Minister how he envisages using this particular discretion and whether he envisages that the pupil and parent guarantee should be watered down for young people with special educational needs, or whether additional provision and support should be available for those young people over and above that for other pupils.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Good morning to you, Mr. Betts, and to the Committee. I, too, welcome you to the Chair.

Amendment 146 would remove new section 19J(3), which provides a delegated power to make regulations about the arrangements made by a local authority for the purposes of carrying out a parental satisfaction survey. This section enables us to prescribe that authorities should carry out separate surveys for parents and pupils in different age groups if we so wish. It also ensures that we can outline to authorities the practical steps they should take to prepare for the annual survey.

Initially, we intend to prescribe that local authorities must survey parents of year 6 children about secondary school provision. However, were we to extend the duty—for example, to primary school provision—we would need this delegated power to enable us to require authorities to carry out separate surveys. That is because, if we were to seek views on primary school provision, it might be appropriate to have a different format for such a survey than for secondary school provision. It must be right that the legislation is flexible to provide that any such additional survey is fit for purpose.

Amendment 141 would remove new section 19J(4), which allows for regulations to specify matters relating to the provision of schools on which parents' views are to be sought and the manner and form in which this should be done. In formulating this policy, we piloted it in local authorities and asked parents about how and when they would like to be invited to share their views on local school provision. The DCSF customer voice research on parent focus groups was published on 26 November 2009. Feedback from authorities in the trialling of the duty last autumn was that a level of prescription would be welcome—at least in the short term—with an agreement to review as the duty is embedded. Although that does not totally meet what the hon. Gentleman wants, there is a commitment to review it and see how it works in practice once the duty has commenced.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Will the schools to which the amendments relate, which are defined in the Bill as “relevant schools”, include academies? In other words, will local authorities also be surveying people’s views on academies?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Yes.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

So if there is dissatisfaction with schools, including academies, and further action needs to be taken to deal with that, will that be a matter for the local authority or for the Young People’s Learning Agency?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

It will be a matter for the YPLA and the local authority. They will both need to consider how to respond to that.

Regulation-making powers will enable us to apply the lessons from the trial and future consultation in order to specify the format of the survey: short, tick-box questions with an optional comments box. The survey will be issued to parents residing in the local authority, alongside the admissions pack—a framework within which to respond to the questionnaire. The local authorities must make the survey available to parents both in paper form and online, which will ensure that parents’ opportunity to influence local authority planning is maximised, and that local authorities up and down the country do not each have to reinvent the wheel and design their own survey processes and forms.

Our policy aim is for local authorities to seek the views of all parents of year 6 pupils in the first instance. Amendment 188 is therefore unnecessary, as it would be needed only for the purposes of clause 6 if we wished to limit the survey to parents of children of a prescribed description. However, we do not wish to limit the survey in that way. Our underlying principle is to give all parents an equal voice and influence in the planning of local schools. Our early work with parents last year showed that they are keen to respond. We will undertake a formal consultation in 2010 on the regulations to underpin clause 6, including the delegated powers and proposed level of description to include more detail about arrangements for the survey, parents’ consent to the questionnaire and how local authorities would analyse the outcome and the matters to be dealt with in the response plan. Should any parent of a child feel that our proposals do not adequately provide for their specific needs, we would welcome their feedback as part of the consultation process. It is vital to ask that all have a real voice in the planning of school provision.

I know that the hon. Member for Yeovil is specifically concerned to ensure that the survey has due regard for parents of children with special educational needs and allows their children to share their views. I acknowledge that such parents and children are likely to have particular views, needs and aspirations. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will undertake a full consultation on the content of the survey to ensure that the important point made in his amendment is addressed as we put together the regulations underpinning clause 6. I hope that on that basis, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendments.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I am grateful, as ever, to the Minister for his response. We are pleased to hear that there will be a consultation on the nature of the survey, which may enable some of the views and concerns raised by the Special Educational Consortium to be taken into account. I fear that I am not entirely satisfied, however, by the response, given our concerns about the clause, in particular, the Minister’s undertaking that new section 19J(3) means that the measure may be extended to primary schools, and therefore the Government want to leave further flexibility to expand on the surveys in the future. It is something that concerns me because it implies even more costs, and potentially, more waste of public funds. I am surprised to hear that the feedback he has received from local authorities indicates that they welcome prescription. I would have thought that they would argue the case for local discretion. If that feedback from local authorities is not currently published, will it be possible to make some of it public?

I was also interested to hear that the YPLA, which does not appear to be mentioned in the Bill, will be one of the enforcement mechanisms in responding to parental satisfaction surveys. It is important because, although local authorities will be the ones responsible, presumably, for carrying out the parental satisfaction surveys, it is quite clear that the body with strategic responsibility for the quality of education will be required to make a response. I do not understand how, if for example, there are problems with academies, the matter will be dealt with by local authorities. Will the Minister write to the Committee at some stage to set out how the YPLA will be involved, or whether the local authority will be involved, where there is concern about the performance of academies?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

If it is helpful, I will write to the Committee. The local authority will be responsible for commissioning a place, but of course it will consult the YPLA. On the point that the hon. Gentleman made about local authorities and flexibility, the local authorities said to us that in the first instance—the point I made in my remarks—they would like some certainty, but that they would like a review once the duty is embedded.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

At the very most the Minister can claim certainty about the surveys being opposed in the first place, which is what we heard from the local authorities when we heard the evidence offered by the Local Government Association. However, I am grateful that the Minister is willing to write to us, not about the commissioning of the surveys so much as the YPLA’s role after feedback has been given.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment 149, in clause 6, page 7, line 33, at end insert—

‘(d) state a minimum participation rate of at least 40 per cent. of eligible parents for the survey to be regarded as having been carried out.’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 142, in clause 6, page 8, line 11, after ‘area’, insert

‘and provided that the response rate to the survey is over 20 per cent. of parents surveyed’.

Amendment 232, in clause 6, page 8, line 21, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

‘(4) The local authority shall not be required to prepare or publish a response plan if less than 20 per cent. of the parents consulted have responded to the parental satisfaction survey, save that in so far as a response plan relates to a particular school, a local authority shall be required to prepare and publish a response plan provided only that at least 20 per cent. of the parents of that school have responsed to the parental satisfaction survey.’.

Amendment 174, in clause 6, page 8, line 34, at end insert—

‘(7) “Material” for the purposes of this section, is at least 25 per cent. of the parents who responded.’.

Amendment 175, in clause 6, page 8, line 34, at end insert—

‘(7) “Material” for the purposes of this section, is at least 10 per cent. of the parents who responded.’.

Amendment 176, in clause 6, page 8, line 34, at end insert—

‘(7) “Material” for the purposes of this section, is at least 5 per cent. of the parents who responded.’.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I welcome you to our Committee’s proceedings, Mr. Betts. It is very good to see you here. As the hon. Member for Yeovil said, I hope that we shall make a bit more progress than under your two predecessors—not that the blame lies entirely with the Chairs of Committees such as ours.

We need to ascertain three figures from the Government if we are to understand the provisions of clause 6 properly. We should all understand the provisions before approving the clause. The first figure we need to know is what turnout or participation will be or should be regarded as sufficient for the local authority to rely on the survey as an accurate reflection of the opinion of the parents polled.

The second figure we need to know, in terms of percentages, is what the following phrase, in paragraph 9 of the policy statement, means:

“Where LA analysis shows a majority of parents are unhappy with the provision locally”.

The statement begs two further questions—what constitutes “unhappy” and what area is meant by “locally”—but, for now, the question is: what is a majority? Is it 50 per cent. plus one vote, is it 51 per cent., or does the Minister envisage a higher level such as 60 per cent. or 75 per cent.?

The third figure we need is the one referred to in paragraph 16 of the policy statement:

“Where a particular proportion of parents do not consider that the plan addresses their concerns, LAs will be required to refer the plan to the Schools Adjudicator. We will consult on this threshold for referral.”

Appendix B is not clear about how that response plan will be sent to parents. Can the Minister confirm that he intends local authorities to send the response plan, together with an invitation to respond, to all the eligible parents in the original survey? Perhaps he has in mind a wider population of parents receiving the plan. Can he also confirm that those parents will be told that, if a certain percentage of them are unhappy with the plan, it will be referred to the schools adjudicator? The question remains: what percentage of unhappiness with the plan should trigger a referral?

Amendment 149 seeks to apply a minimum participation rate of 40 per cent. The amendment is probing, to elicit from the Minister his current thinking. There needs to be a de minimis and it could, frankly, be a de minimis that is lower than the 40 per cent. proposed in the amendment. In the parental responsiveness pilots, the response rates were 4 per cent., 14 per cent., 4 per cent., 20 per cent. and 4 per cent., which all appear to be low, and too low—I would have thought—to be relied on. Will the Minister expand further on his thinking?

Amendments 174, 175 and 176 seek to define “material” for the purposes of proposed new section 19K(2) in the Education Act 1996. The amendments, again, are probing. The proposed new section says:

“If those results demonstrate material parental dissatisfaction with the provision of relevant schools in their area, the authority shall prepare and publish a plan”.

The policy statement implies that “material” means a majority—either 50 per cent. or 50 per cent. plus one—but what if there is a sizeable minority of parents, say 25 per cent., who are deeply unhappy with their local school? What if that minority all related to a certain location? What if 10 per cent. of parents is a significant bloc because of the sheer size of our larger local authorities? Reports on the parental responsiveness trial showed that 48 per cent. of parents were unhappy in local authority area 1, while there was a 32 per cent. unhappiness rate in another local authority area. Those figures are significant, but they might not be significant enough to trigger further action. The amendments are intended to enable the Committee to debate such issues, but they apply also to proposed new section 19L of the Education Act 1996 to determine what is meant by “not sufficiently favourable” under proposed subsection (2).

If parents’ representations in respect of the plan are not sufficiently favourable, the plan has to be referred to the schools adjudicator. What percentage does the Minister have in mind? The policy statement says that he will consult on the matter, but surely if 25 per cent. of the responses come back as “unfavourable”, that should be sufficient to trigger a referral. I look forward to hearing his comments.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

We have similar concerns to those expressed by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. The parental satisfaction survey is not a one-off survey that will inform the views of either local authorities or the Government, but potentially the beginning of a long, bureaucratic and costly process that will require the local authority, if there were material dissatisfaction, to reconsider its plans and consult again. Referral could happen beyond the local authority and the democratic process, as well as re-referral to the local authority, which is required to redraft its plans and put them to the local population again. All of that could be extremely expensive and time-consuming, and make changes that sometimes have to be made in school organisation extremely difficult. We therefore need a clear idea from the Government whether there is a participation hurdle beyond which we start to take the results seriously, and that is the purpose of amendments 149 and 142.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for questioning what constitutes “material dissatisfaction”. It is not defined in the Bill, and we are not yet clear what it means. As for the minimum participation rate, amendment 149 tabled by the hon. Gentleman would put in place a 40 per cent. minimum participation rate, while amendment 142 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole would provide a 20 per cent. threshold. There is a further refinement in amendment 232, which would provide an opt-out from the requirement to take the survey seriously if participation were less than 20 per cent. However, it allows for action to be taken and a requirement for a response from a local authority if it turns out that there is a particularly high response from one particular school.

In other words, although parents might be very happy with most of the schools in their area, they might be particularly concerned about one part of the area, and it is crucial that we know the thresholds that will trigger such a hugely bureaucratic process. I do not have the relevant documents in front of me, but we know from the pilot we debated last week that the Government were expecting a response rate of about 65 per cent., yet the five pilots, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, have had extraordinarily low response rates. The rates he quoted were 4 per cent., 4 per cent., 4 per cent., 14 per cent. and 20 per cent., with a combined rate of about, as I recall, 6.5 per cent., which was therefore one tenth of the Government’s expected response rate. Should those response rates really be taken seriously when forming a view about the quality of secondary school provision?

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

Does the hon. Gentleman find a certain replication in the results and those that were part of the foundation hospital elections to the boards, when the figures of 3 per cent. and 4 per cent. recurred regularly? Does it show to him, as it does to me, that people want us to get on with it instead of continuing to weigh the pig in this way?

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

It may well reflect the fact that sometimes, top-down, imposed consultation and involvement is not as successful in improving public services as Governments would like to think. Many people want responsive public services, but they do not necessarily want to spend all their time running the services themselves.

We reflect that the response and information are on the basis of a pretty crude survey, which asks only one question—the happiness question—about the provision of secondary schools in an area. The question asks:

“Thinking about the secondary schools in your area, how happy are you...?

Very happy.

Happy.

Neither happy nor unhappy.

Unhappy.

Very unhappy.”

On the basis of that, and on a potential response rate of 4, 6, 14 or 20 per cent., we would have to start the hugely bureaucratic and expensive process. Therefore, we need a clearer indication from the Government of what participation rate would trigger such surveys to be taken seriously, particularly because some of us are unsettled by the information reported in the Government’s assessment of the pilots, which said that some local authorities were quite impressed that the response rates from parents were as high as they were. Goodness knows what kind of response rates they were expecting if they think that 4, 6.5 or even 14 per cent. are good response rates—they are certainly a lot lower than the Government were suggesting, and we need a clear answer on that.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has invited us to answer an equally difficult question: even once we have set the hurdle for the participation rate, how will we decide whether the requirement that there should be material dissatisfaction, which is set out on page 8 of the Bill, has been met? In the spirit of the survey form that was sent out—or supposed to be sent out—to parents, the hon. Gentleman has provided his own multiple choice range of possibilities in amendments 174 to 176—three different thresholds—for the Committee to choose from. I am not sure why he has not produced as many different options as the survey form itself, but we are certainly grateful to him for the range of choice he has provided. It is not clear whether he thinks the 10, 5 or 25 per cent. threshold would be the right one.

The hon. Gentleman raises some serious concerns. How do we, if we have five sets of data for “very happy”, “happy”, “neither happy nor unhappy”, “unhappy” and “very unhappy”, decide on the level of material dissatisfaction that would trigger an intervention? If many people are neither happy nor unhappy and some people are happy, but there is a large core of “very unhappy”-ness—if that is correct jargon—would that be enough to trigger the whole bureaucratic process; or would it only be enough if the net “very unhappy”-ness and “unhappy”-ness was much greater than the “very happy” and “happy”?

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

The hon. Gentleman is making an amusing speech on the subject of parental satisfaction surveys. Does he find it odd that the Government are talking about action after surveys that get low participation rates already in the pilot areas, and may in future? The hon. Gentleman is trying to find out at what level the Government will base their response. However, in the Badman review’s consultation, 95 per cent. of people who responded said they were opposed, but the Government’s action following a vast response from that community was to proceed with the exact proposals that everyone said they did not want. The hon. Gentleman is right to have a lack of confidence in whether the Government respond genuinely to what the people say.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Order. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not be drawn down that particular road.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

The hon. Gentleman makes a very effective and interesting point. As you can see, Mr. Betts, he is champing at the bit under your chairmanship for us to motor even faster towards schedule 1. However, he will have to hold himself back for a few more moments. Serious concerns have been raised. I am sure the Minister has all the answers to set our minds at rest. It is now time for him to give those answers.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I thank the hon. Member for Yeovil for that note of confidence in my answers. I try to answer questions, although answering them to everyone’s satisfaction is perhaps beyond me.

I appreciate the nature of the amendments tabled by the hon. Members for Yeovil and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton—they are not only probing but question some of the meat on the bones. As an aside, I tease gently the hon. Member and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton: I do not believe that he would oppose parental satisfaction surveys, for obvious reasons. Essentially, notwithstanding the detail, the clause sets out to give parents a greater voice in how the school system is operating in their area. This goes back to a point of principle that I have expressed about other clauses, and which has rightly been expressed by Opposition Members and my hon. Friends: as always, the devil is in the detail. It is right to ask how things will work in practice—what does this or that element mean? It is all very well for a Minister to talk about regulations, but he needs to give some indication of what they mean if the Committee is to support the measure.

I go back to my first point: essentially, the Government are allowing parents the opportunity to respond to the local authority and to comment on the provision, initially, of secondary school places in their area. That is an important task, and I am sure the hon. Member for Yeovil would agree that it is an important public policy objective. He may disagree on the question of how we achieve it, but the context of empowering parents—giving them a say and involving them in provision in their areas—is important and is what I start with. This is an important policy reform.

In preparing for the Bill we sought the views of a small group of parents, piloting in five local authorities with, as hon. Members have said, mixed results. We brought parents from across the country together in autumn 2009 to explore whether they would be willing to share their views about school provision in their areas. The majority said they would be willing to fill out a questionnaire if they believed they could make a difference to their children’s school experience, even if improvement took place over a period of time. As I said, we ran a pilot with five local authorities—as the hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned—which found the survey easy to run, although they were concerned about their capacity to meet parental expectations. We therefore concluded that the setting of figures for a minimum response rate and the level of parental dissatisfaction that would trigger the duty for a local authority to produce a response plan is too important to fix without first undertaking a full consultation, which we shall do.

Getting to the heart of the amendments, we expect to consult on the basis of material parental dissatisfaction, which, for the purposes of the clause, is defined as a minimum response rate to the survey of at least 51 per cent., with at least 51 per cent. of those responses being dissatisfied with the provision—two of the thresholds sought by the hon. Gentlemen through their amendments. We have deliberately set a high threshold level to overcome particular difficulties. As I said, and for the avoidance of doubt, we are talking about a minimum response rate to a survey of at least 51 per cent., and at least 51 per cent. of those responses being dissatisfied with the provision.

The figures I have just quoted for a minimum response rate and for parental dissatisfaction are higher than those proposed in amendments 149, 142, 232, 174, 175 and 176, but I believe that we are right because, in introducing such a significant reform of public policy, it is important to tread carefully and to consult widely. In my view, placing a trigger level in the Bill is too prescriptive. However, I hope that what I have said makes our policy intention clear.

As well as low response rates, another concern is that if we do not have a reasonably high trigger level, a small group of parents with a particular perspective could skew the survey results. That would not be helpful. While trying to give parents the right to respond and to have a say about secondary school provision, we must ensure we do not cause other problems.

I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify an aspect of the Government’s policy intentions to illustrate why amendment 232 is too prescriptive and would disfranchise parents. The survey will be sent to all parents of year 6 children as they apply for secondary school places for their children. They will do that through the normal admissions process. The survey will ask for parents’ views on school provision as a whole in their area—whether they are happy with the range and quality of secondary school places available to them. It is not intended as a route for inviting parental views on individual schools, and authorities will not be able to name individual schools in their questionnaires. It will therefore be meaningless to set a minimum response rate based on the response from parents whose children attend a particular school. The parents surveyed will have children attending primary school, but their views will be sought on the range and quality of secondary school places.

A further consequence of amendment 232 would be to disfranchise a broader group of parents of primary school age children who would most likely be affected by any response plan that a local authority would be required to produce. The subsection that the amendment seeks to replace will enable us to prescribe in regulations the parents we think a local authority has a responsibility to consult on plans for future secondary provision. We intend to consult on the basis that local authorities will need to consult parents of key stage 2 children—year 3 to 6, which is children aged seven to 11. The response plan would go to those parents, although the initial survey would be for year 6 children, because of their legitimate interest in future secondary school provision.

Regardless of the outcome of our consultation and how material parental dissatisfaction is defined, when a response plan is triggered by the survey we want local authorities to listen and act. Our intended definition of material parental dissatisfaction would mean that there is a strong evidence base for requiring an authority to produce a response plan. That plan would then be sent to the parents of the wider age group—age seven to 11—because they have an interest in future secondary school provision in their area.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Minister has provided two figures—a figure for the participation rate, and a figure for the dissatisfaction rates. Is he now going to give us a figure for unhappiness with the plan?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I was not going to give an actual figure. We will consult on that. If 51 per cent. respond, and more than half of those who respond are dissatisfied, the authority will, of course, need to produce a response plan to give to parents. We will consult on what the trigger level should be, in terms of the number of parents who feel that the response plan is inadequate; the response plan can then be sent to the adjudicator. We will consider that in the consultation. I would expect a reasonably high figure, because we want to ensure that a response plan cannot be undermined by a few particularly vociferous parents.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

If it is clear that there is material dissatisfaction, and the local authority has to give parents in the area an opportunity to have their view on the response plan, what form will the consultation with parents take? Will it be another survey, or will people write letters?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

We will consult on how that process will take place. That will be part of the consultation determining what regulations will come forward. The process might take the form of another survey; it might take place online; it might be a letter that is sent out. In the consultation, we will look at the best way for parents to respond to a response plan, and what level of dissatisfaction with the response plan would trigger a referral to the adjudicator. With those comments, I hope that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will withdraw the amendment.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole suggested mischievously that I ask members of the Committee whether they were happy, very unhappy or neither happy nor unhappy with the Minister’s response.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Is that online or in a letter?

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

A show of hands might be possible. I am both happy and unhappy, but I notice that there is not a box for such a position. I am happy because the Minister has been more frank and candid than I thought he would be. He set out clearly what is in the Government’s mind with regard to the response rate and defining material dissatisfaction. He has not set too low a threshold, which would clearly raise major worries. However, in being so helpful and clear, and in ensuring that we avoid problems as a consequence of low take-up, he drew attention to the issue of whether the plan will be an even bigger waste of money than we thought.

If the response rate is set at 51 per cent., and that is the benchmark for taking the process seriously, it must be extremely worrying that in the pilots, we had a response rate of only 6.6 per cent. The Minister will probably say that there are other things that we can do, but that is a big gap. We often put out our own surveys inviting views of all types from our constituents, and we know that getting a 51 per cent. response rate is very difficult. The Minister told us the other day that it was possible that not all local authorities would be required to implement the plans; presumably, they would not have to if they were doing well. However, when we look at the impact assessment and the Government’s estimates on cost, we see that they presume that all local authorities are likely to implement the plans. That is the basis from which the Government derived the cost.

It seems that the Government have been moving in a slightly more pessimistic direction, as regards their expectation of parental response. The impact assessment was based on a 65 per cent. response rate; we assume that that was the Government’s best estimate of the likely response rate at the time. We know that in the pilots, the response rates have been much lower.

So although the Minister has made us feel much happier by giving us the idea that we will not be forced into making all sorts of decisions, and will not have to go down a very bureaucratic route, on the basis of a 2 per cent. response rate or on the basis of an ambiguous definition of material dissatisfaction, he has really raised the issue of whether the Government will end up compelling 153 local authorities to go through this expensive process, which they estimate will cost £22 million.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

To be fair, the hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. Does he agree that the response rate will be helped by the fact that the parental survey satisfaction form will be sent out with the admissions form? That did not happen in the pilot. I think that that will help, but it is difficult to quantify.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

That method might be of help, but it needs to help by quite a lot. At the moment, we are at a response rate of 6.6 per cent. None of the local authorities in which the pilots took place had a response rate greater than 20 per cent. The Minister has some motoring to do if he is to persuade parents to respond.

If what we have before us is the final form that is to be sent out—there is one question, which asks parents if they are very unhappy, happy, neither unhappy nor happy and so on, and a blank sheet is attached for other questions—a lot of parents will consider it pretty tokenistic, and many will put it in the bin. I am not convinced that the response rates will be all that high. What will the Government do then? If we do not get any response rates above 51 per cent., how long will we go on imposing a vast cost on local authorities to achieve responses that we are effectively putting in the bin? In an environment where we do not have much scope for spending additional money from the public purse, we need clearer answers about what will happen even if the Minister gets more than his 51 per cent. threshold, and even if we end up with 51 per cent. of respondents materially dissatisfied.

We would then end up in the zone described in proposed section 19L on page 8 of the Bill, where the local authority that has failed to satisfy parents has to prepare a response plan, on which eligible parents have to be consulted. The Minister horrified some of us, including perhaps one or two Labour Members, by saying that the Government had not yet decided how parents would respond to the plan—whether that would be in the form of just a few letters or a petition, or whether it might trigger the requirement to send out yet another ballot paper, with all the expense that that would involve. All that is in the context of an impact assessment that forecasts that the cost of carrying out such surveys will be greater than the benefit that even the Government estimate.

Finally, another concern that we have is about whether the surveys will be meaningful. In many parts of the country, people have only one local secondary catchment school, and when they express their views, it will be fairly clear which school they are referring to. However, in many other parts of the country, there may be two, three, four or five different secondary schools that people could send their children to. It is possible that parents might have a major concern about one of them; it might be the catchment school that they would naturally have sent their children to. They might be dissatisfied with that school, but very happy with two or three of the other schools. They might send, or plan to send, their children across a town or city, one or two miles away, to access a good secondary school.

One would have thought that if such surveys, with all the huge bureaucracy and cost involved, were going to be of any value, they might at least aspire to pick out circumstances where one school was doing badly, and others were doing well. However, if I heard the Minister correctly, the survey will not do that—it will not name any school that is picked up as a particularly bad performer. The purpose of the survey, as I understand it, is simply to allow a judgment to be made about secondary education as a whole. That raises serious concerns about how parents respond to a survey of the type that we are discussing if they have a bad local school and anticipate sending their children out of the catchment area to attend another school.

If we are to go through all the bureaucracy involved in the scheme, surely we want to allow for circumstances where the bureaucracy might find intense dissatisfaction with one school, but not with some of the other ones. I do not think that we can do that with the survey. I stick with my view that although we have had a good and clear answer from the Minister that set some concerns to rest, our major concerns about the clause are still in place.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It has been an illuminating debate. The Minister was clear about his thinking on the participation rate and the dissatisfaction level that will trigger a requirement to produce a plan. However, I agree with the hon. Member for Yeovil that 51 per cent. appears to be a high response rate. If 150 surveys were sent out, in line with the requirement in the Bill, and none had a participation rate above 50 per cent., that would be a huge amount of money spent to no effect.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

May I just be clear about what the hon. Gentleman is saying? Is he, as the main Opposition spokesperson in the Committee, in favour of parental satisfaction surveys, but worried about the thresholds? Does he think that 51 per cent. is too high, and that the rate should be lowered? Or should it be higher?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am happy to respond to the Minister. Parental satisfaction surveys are a good idea, but I am concerned about the clause because of how the policy is crafted. The system is highly bureaucratic; the survey triggers a response plan, which has to be produced and then sent back to parents for consultation. If they are unhappy, that plan is referred to the schools adjudicator. What has a schools adjudicator got to do with education policy in local authorities? I thought the schools adjudicator dealt with admissions. Such an approach to assessing public opinion seems bureaucratic. Far better simply to publish the results of the parental satisfaction survey so that local people can take action as a consequence.

I am also concerned about the participation rate. I accept that there needs to be a de minimis to prevent the surveys being hijacked by a small minority of vociferous parents, although in my view bureaucracies too often dismiss a group of parents with, “Oh, it’s that group of parents.” My view is that when 25 parents come to see me with a concern about a school, that should be taken seriously. Those 25 parents have made the effort to see someone about it, and they are probably the tip of the iceberg. I do not dismiss such vociferous groups of parents; I take the opposite view, which is that they represent an important shade of opinion in the locality. However, 51 per cent. is a high threshold, and I think that it would be better to use a participation rate nearer 40 per cent.

I am even more concerned about the dissatisfaction rate of 51 per cent. It shows a low expectation as regards the standard of education that we should be happy with in our local authorities. If 49 per cent. of parents are unhappy with school provision in a local authority area, that should be a cause of concern.

In the parental responsiveness trial, we had one local authority in which 48 per cent. of the parents who responded were unhappy, albeit that the response rate was only 4 per cent. In another—where, again, the response rate was 4 per cent.—32 per cent. of respondents were unhappy. Even in local authority No. 4, where the response rate was 20 per cent., a quarter of the parents who responded were unhappy. Even that is, or should be, a cause of concern.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The schools adjudicator has had responsibility for school admissions and school organisation since 1998. Logically, he is a reasonable figure to refer a response plan to should a significant number of parents be dissatisfied with it.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Again, school organisation is not to do with school standards or school behaviour. Those are the issues that concern parents, not whether there are six secondary schools in a given area or five. The standard of a school is the issue, and that is an issue of policy. I thought that we had passed the policy to local councils—to the councillors, the representatives of the public on that council—and/or the Government, with Ministers accountable to Parliament. To palm off policy matters on to unelected figures is a dangerous process, which distances the public from influence over policy. I am not sure that the Government ought to be travelling in that direction. I am concerned about that 51 per cent. threshold for dissatisfaction.

The parental survey process is very unnuanced in terms of the geographical location of the parents who respond. The draft form that is being consulted on has some scope for geography, with a box for the postcode of the responders, which indicates that the Government are concerned about geography. When the results are analysed, there may well be pockets—large pockets—in large local authority areas where the dissatisfaction rate is more than 50 per cent., but other pockets where people are satisfied because the two local comprehensives are very good. In another area the three local comprehensives may be weak. Some action should be taken if half the population in a certain part of, say, West Sussex are unhappy with the schools, but people in the northern part of the county are happy. It does indicate that the trigger to take action should take into account the three comprehensives in the southern or eastern part of the county.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

I want to go a little further on the question of putting down postcodes. The hon. Gentleman understandably speaks of county matters. In a borough such as mine—8 miles by 8, with more than 100 schools—there is nothing to stop someone living in WV7 or WV1 going to a WV13 school and commenting on the school their children go to rather than the school in their area, making it almost impossible to identify a serious trend in people’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction on an area basis.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about densely populated urban areas. When I discus education policy with people around the country, they often make the criticism that it is too urban-centric and that we take too little account of more rural or sparsely populated parts of the country. I am cognisant of that when thinking about education issues. An area such as West Sussex has urban and rural areas; it is a very large local authority. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but there are very large urban and rural authorities, and there can be different qualities of schools in a large geographical area. The survey could skate over that by melding the dissatisfaction rates from one part of the authority with another and coming up with a figure below the trigger percentage that the Minister indicated. The dissatisfaction rate of 51 per cent. is high and should be significantly lower. A rate of 25 per cent. should be a cause for concern in a local authority. Failing that, we could try to nuance the response so that dissatisfaction rates take into account different local factors.

The purpose of the amendments was to have this debate. Members of the Committee have expressed their views on the various percentages. Given that we have had such a wide debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I beg to move amendment 143, in clause 6, page 8, line 37, leave out ‘shall’ and insert ‘may’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 190, in clause 6, page 8, leave out from line 39 to end of line 13 on page 9.

Amendment 144, in clause 6, page 8, line 40, leave out ‘shall’ and insert ‘may’.

Amendment 145, in clause 6, page 9, line 35, leave out ‘shall’ and insert ‘may’.

Amendment 146, in clause 6, page 9, line 39, leave out ‘shall’ and insert ‘may’.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Mr. Betts, you are probably wondering what will happen if there is a parental satisfaction survey, the participation threshold of 51 per cent. is passed and material dissatisfaction is expressed by 51 per cent. or more of individuals. That is what the amendments are about. As the Bill is currently drafted, a local authority in England will have to prepare a response plan to address local parents’ concerns and then consult on it. We do not yet know what that process of consultation will be. The Government do not seem to have decided whether every parent will be consulted, whether letters will be sent in or whether there will be some other form of consultation. We know that if parents are still dissatisfied with the response plan, the local authority will be required to refer it and the complaints about it to the adjudicator. The adjudicator—not a democratically directly elected individual—has to look at the response plan from the local authority, consider the parental representations and decide what to do. The adjudicator, as set out on page 9, can

“approve the plan...approve the plan subject to specified modifications...or reject the plan.”

The amendments would take away some of the compulsion in the Bill in relation to what must happen if the adjudicator does not like the local authority’s response to the initial complaints and rejects the response plan. New section 19N(1) makes it clear that if the adjudicator is unhappy with the plan and wants modifications, they can require the local authority to implement them. However, if the adjudicator decides to reject the plans under proposed new section 19M(2)(c), the local authority is obliged to withdraw the plan and prepare and publish—one might have guessed it—a further plan, called a “further response plan”, which it will have to consider.

It is not entirely clear—although I hope that the Minister will make this clear—whether there will be a further process of consultation with local residents. If the local authority’s plans are rejected by more than 51 per cent. of parents, the response plan is unsatisfactory and the adjudicator is not satisfied, will another form, a further survey of parental views, be sent out to decide whether to press on? We are concerned because it sounds like an immensely bureaucratic process, seemingly without end. It may, in some cases, highlight concerns—although if they are that great, I suspect that the local authority will be well aware of them anyway—but it may make it difficult for local authorities to take decisions about reorganising schools.

Proposed new section 19N will certainly take away from a democratically elected local authority—even one that has consulted parents, has published a response plan, has been ticked off by the adjudicator and is willing to take the flak—the right to stick with the plans that it wants, which is why we have tabled the amendments. Under the proposed new section, the local authority “shall make modifications” to the plan if the schools adjudicator specifies, and the local authority “shall withdraw” the plan and prepare and publish a further response plan if the adjudicator decides to reject the plan in its entirety.

Here, we are concerned not only about the bureaucracy but about a major intrusion into the freedoms of local authorities by someone who is not democratically elected. I do not say—I said this the other day—that local authorities always get it right; sometimes some of them have got it badly wrong in the past, and they need to be held to account. However, by the time that they get to this process in the Bill, the views of parents will have been clearly highlighted, and they will have been forced to respond. It would be extremely incautious if it simply ignored the views of an adjudicator, which would presumably be made public. If after all that, the local authority still wanted to press on with its plans, I would allow it to do so. It would be wrong for an unelected schools adjudicator to be able to dictate to a local authority, which would have to pay the penalty for being seen to ignore the views of the adjudicator and, presumably, of parents. That is why we wish to amend the wording of the proposed new subsections to give the local authority flexibility to respond to the adjudicator if it thinks that that is right. However, if a local authority thought that it was right to ignore the adjudicator, with all the penalties in terms of public opinion, we think it is the right balance between democratic accountability and scrutiny by an outside body that is not democratically accountable that it should be able to do so. I hope that the Minister will respond on the issues of democratic accountability and let us know whether the Government envisage that, if a local authority is obliged to overturn its existing response plan and publish a further plan, there will be a further survey of parents, and what form that would take.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Just so that I do not forget, the answer is no.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I assume that the Minister is saying that even he eventually reaches the end of a process of consultation and decides that there is no point in going further. I assume that he is saying that, even if an adjudicator says that the response plan is not good enough and rejects it, it is possible for a further response plan to be put together with perhaps a minor tweak. Is that where the process ends?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Yes.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Will the process really be worth it? The Minister says that even he will give up on the ludicrously bureaucratic process at some stage. When the adjudicator has made the momentous decision that the response plan is a load of rubbish and has to be changed, the local authority will be able to tweak a minor detail and re-title it as a further response plan, and nothing will happen even if the parents are still dissatisfied.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He chided me in the nicest possible way about whether there would be further consultation. I said no, and thought he would be satisfied with that. Now, he seems to be criticising me because there is not further consultation.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I shall have it both ways. It is usually a bureaucratic process. It can just run out in the sands of the Government’s impatience for consultation. By that time, goodness knows how much money we will have spent on it, goodness knows how fed up parents will be of being consulted and goodness knows what their views will be about why the local authority is not spending money on improving schools rather than on surveys. Given that schools already consult parents and parental consultation has to take place at Ofsted inspections, we are establishing under clause 6 a pretty pointless, bureaucratic process, which, even in the Minister’s view, will eventually run out after consuming a huge amount of public money.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

The promoters of the clause have serious questions to answer. There is some agreement between both Front Benches that the surveys are desirable and, as a result of that political connotation, it behoves the rest of us to ensure that they actually know what they are doing and bring real light on the subject. It is a vexed question of how we measure what schools are doing. We have tried many different ways, and the clause might be seen in a benign fashion as one more way of looking at how to ensure that children receive the best from the education service.

I want to deal with the democratic mandate of a local authority, and what is happening seriously to undermine it. The political culture of Britain is that we vote in people who are charged with fulfilling their manifesto pledges. We do that at European level, national level, local and parish council levels. That is our culture. It has worked well for us. We are not a nation who depend on plebiscites to govern our country or neighbourhoods. The surveys that have been shown to elicit poor responses of 4, 3, 5 or 20 per cent. leave some serious doubts in my mind about the efficacy of the policy.

On a democratic matter, I now have the opportunity to correct the record. I mentioned on Thursday that, when asked about his favourite form of governance, the director-general of the BBC replied, “Despotism tempered by assassination”. That is the policy that we are considering. I suggested that he was being interviewed by Roger Freeman, who was a distinguished Conservative MP. In fact, the director-general was interviewed on a programme called “Face to Face” by John Freeman, who was an equally eminent Labour MP at the time. He interviewed one of Wolverhampton’s famous schoolboys, Gilbert Harding, and reduced him to tears many years ago.

Why not go directly to the adjudicator? Why bother with all the flim-flam of a 4 per cent. turnout, and say, “Do a plan.” Let us say that the plan does not suit everyone, so someone complains. Another plan is done, and that is not very good. The adjudicator says, “Well, I’m going to give you the final word on this”, followed by, “It’s okay”, “It’s not okay” or any combination of those—because we are into alternative vote systems now, are we not, totting up the responses of what can be and cannot be?

It is wrong that one person can gainsay the opinion of a local authority, the members of which have been elected—if perhaps by no more than 30 per cent. of the electorate. In my city, let me make no bones about it, 30 per cent. or 25 per cent. would be a good turnout in a local election. However, should that council then be gainsaid by one person, who we may or may not have any confidence in? Who is this adjudicator? What will he or she know? What is their experience? Have they ever served on such bodies? Are they a parent? Are they a teacher? It becomes impossible.

I suggest that a great deal more work is needed—if the two Front Benches are to combine in support for the principle, they must get the detail right. Otherwise, in particular as we have already heard with the 50 per cent. hurdle, the provision is a dead letter. If 51 per cent. have to vote before anything can be done, it is a dead letter. The hon. Member for Yeovil is absolutely right: we can conduct any number of surveys, all reaching 40 or 45 per cent. participation, with perhaps even 70 per cent. of those responding not satisfied with their school, but that is a recipe for real unrest and disaster. I make a plea to the two Front Benches: for goodness’ sake, we have to get the detail right before we go an inch further.

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and to follow the passionate and well-informed speech of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, who summarised in one phrase what I want to say. His phrase supports my amendment 190, which seeks to remove—at least from proposed new section 19L—any role for the adjudicator. The hon. Gentleman said that it is absolutely wrong for one person to gainsay the elected local authority. He rightly expressed passion about how we live in a democracy, in which elected representatives, whether on parish, town, district or unitary councils, represent their local people when making decisions on policy matters. It is entirely wrong for the local authority to be gainsaid in such a way.

To put the mind of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East at rest on one matter, my Front Bench does not believe that we should have any such massive bureaucracy. I believe my Front Bench favours parental surveys: local authorities and schools should use them to ensure that they listen to parents in the local area. What is not wanted is any of the paraphernalia—including the adjudicator, in particular—that will remove local democratic controls. I hope that, having spoken so passionately and no doubt having influenced his colleagues as he did me, we might see a serious effort to defeat those particular aspects of the Bill.

The proposal is one further step in enfeebling and infantilising local authorities. They are there to respond to local demand and not to be pushed around by an adjudicator, of whatever eminence. When we have constrained budgets, we shall be spending a fortune on bureaucratic procedures that are designed to remove the democratic say-so of the local authority.

The final point I would like to look at is how the system will work in particular places. How will it work in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the largest unitary council by area in England? At 933 square miles, it stretches from Goole in one corner up to Bridlington and down to Withernsea. Those three towns have the greatest pockets of deprivation in the East Riding of Yorkshire, but there are 933 square miles between those towns, with Beverley adorning—certainly in my mind—a central point. How is it possible to get a snapshot across that whole area from such surveys? Or we could look across the border from the East Riding to the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North, where the local authority has regularly—I am afraid to say—been at the very bottom of performance league tables for GCSE. How will the surveys trigger change? They are surely unlikely to trigger major change in places such as the East Riding, which I am proud to say has delivered significant year-on-year improvements in educational outcomes under Conservative control, despite being one of the lowest- funded local authorities in the country. In Hull, there has not been such support. There are pockets of excellence in Hull, there is a lot of good practice there and lots of good people work there. None the less, the overall educational performance of the local authority has been poor.

What difference will this proposal make? How will it trigger change? Is the local authority in Hull not bothered about educational standards? I say to the Minister that it is bothered about school standards. I struggle to see how this process, with the paraphernalia of the adjudicator, will change or improve matters in places such as Hull. If it does not make a difference in such places, what is the point of it?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I am absolutely amazed by what the hon. Gentleman just said. He is putting the case for local authorities determining school places in an area, but the policy of his Front-Bench team is to free the system up, to allow the market to rip, to let everyone who wants to set up a school do so and for parents to have a completely free choice among the schools in their area. That has nothing to do with the local authority.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Order. We are getting very wide of the mark and moving into a debate about general education policy. Could the hon. Gentleman concentrate on the amendment in hand?

Graham Stuart (Conservative, Beverley and Holderness)

I would like to think that I have kept my focus on the amendment, Mr. Betts. I do not know why the Minister wanted to ride wider.

My point is that as the democratically elected body, the local authority should be responsible for providing services, not the adjudicator. To have a free school system, which I will not go into in too much detail, would be to pass the power down from the democratically elected local authority to parents, giving them choice. That would allow communities in places such as Hull to tackle and challenge the failure and poor provision of many years. This Front-Bench team is in favour of the revolution of bringing power closer to the people, whereas the tendency of the Government Front-Bench team, as we see in the Bill, is always to move power away from people, even away from democratically elected local representatives, and to put it for ever in the hands of bureaucrats, doubtless based in London.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I apologise if I strayed beyond the amendment, Mr. Betts.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, as I have said throughout our consideration of the Bill, not only on this clause, that the devil is in the detail and that we must be careful about how the detail works out. I will reflect on his concerns. I understand the point about democratic accountability.

The point made by my hon. Friend and the hon. Members for Yeovil and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton on determining the response plan will have to be considered in the consultation. The regulations will have to address how a local authority should respond to a parental survey with 51 per cent. dissatisfaction. It will have to be considered whether the 51 per cent. is concentrated in one part of the local authority and what that means for the other 49 per cent. Notwithstanding what my hon. Friend said regarding postcodes, it will sometimes be possible to identify pockets of real dissatisfaction and pockets of real satisfaction. That issue will have to be addressed in the consultation.

Another matter for the consultation is the point made by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the 51 per cent. threshold not being reached. Even with a threshold of 40 per cent., 39 per cent. of respondents could still be dissatisfied. Whatever the level of the threshold, a significant minority of people could be dissatisfied even if it is not reached. If, however, the local authority is used as the constituency on which to base the survey, as seems sensible, there is then an issue of what to do if there are pockets of dissatisfaction. That will need consideration and further thought in terms of the response plan, even if the threshold is not met.

The response plan will be produced by the local authority. I think that most local authorities will produce a response plan that will command the respect and support of people in the area, but it is appropriate to discuss ensuring how, if the local authority produces a response plan that does not address the concerns raised by the consultation, some independent voice might consider it and comment on it. As I said in earlier debates, we need to decide what the trigger point should be for the response plan, but there should be an independent voice.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

May I just finish this point?

On democratic accountability, the adjudicator will not be able to compel a local authority to have a particular response plan. We expect that the independent voice of the adjudicator will lead the local authority and that, should its original plan be deemed inappropriate or not up to the standard expected, the local authority will listen to the adjudicator and change it. However, there is no compulsion.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

When the response plan is put together, surely the local authority must, in recognising the dissatisfaction, have some idea what that means from the “happy/super happy/absolutely damn miserable” checklist. Are people unhappy with the results achieved? Are they unhappy with the discipline in schools? There are 20 different points.

When the local authority responds, having worked out that conundrum, it must identify which schools are not performing to an acceptable standard. If the case is then referred to the adjudicator, he or she will have to recognise that certain schools tick every box and others tick none. It seems almost impossible to write up a generic plan for a city or county that takes into account the enormous complexities of people’s decision to vote “ecstatic” or “miserable”. How on earth will it ever add anything to the education process? It is totally defeating. I call on the Minister again to recognise that the detail will be critical if people are not to lose confidence in a process that might set out with the best intentions but whose unintended consequences may well undermine a great deal of what is good in the Bill overall.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I will again give my hon. Friend a commitment to consider the detail. As I have said, the objective is to ensure that parents can make representations about whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with schools in their area. With the adjudicator, we have tried to build in independence, but democratic accountability will rest with the local authority, because the local authority will not be compelled to accept what the adjudicator says. That is why I said that it will reach an end point.

Mr. Lawsrose—

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Will the Minister give way?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I will give way to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, if the hon. Member for Yeovil will hang on for a minute.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Does the Minister not think that the whole policy is very bureaucratic? I refer to the idea that a plan can be produced on a 20-side report that will somehow solve poor school performance in a local authority area that might have been performing poorly for a number of years. Such schools might require a very nuanced and careful approach to policy development, such as replacing the head teacher or governing bodies, and putting more resources into one school or another. The plans are more likely to end up being a restructuring of where schools are located than any real attempt to deliver higher standards of behaviour and higher academic standards. Should the Minister not consider putting a local authority into special measures if 51 per cent. of parents in its area are unhappy with school provision?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

All sorts of tools can be used. In addition to restructuring and reorganising, the response plan might try to improve standards at particular schools or school organisation—it can be broad. We are trying to give parents a voice. I know that the hon. Gentleman agrees with that: the issue is how we do it. It does not necessarily have to be bureaucratic, and we will get the detail right to ensure that we minimise bureaucracy.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

The Minister said three times that there is no element of compulsion. Will he reflect again on this subsection, because it is clear that there is compulsion? It states that the local authority “shall withdraw the plan” and shall “prepare and publish” a further response plan and that

“the authority shall have regard to the adjudicator’s determination”.

All of that sounds like compulsion to me.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Of course, I will reflect on that. The intent is not for the adjudicator to compel a local authority to follow a particular course of action. Rather, it is to require a local authority to consider what the adjudicator has said. As I have said to the hon. Gentleman, I will reflect on his point, but it is not the intention of the Bill.

To have no recourse to an adjudicator and simply to leave a matter with the local authority will mean that there is no independent challenge to the response of the local authority. In some instances, that response might not be appropriate or adequate, in which case somebody should be able independently to challenge a local authority. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s amendment because it says that a local authority can ignore the matter if it wishes. On that basis, I hope that he will withdraw it.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

As ever, I am grateful to the Minister for his response to our concerns, but I do not accept his description of what is in his Bill. At least three times, the Minister claimed that there was no element of compulsion, that local authorities will not be compelled to do what the adjudicator says. He says that the adjudicator will not be able to compel a local authority and that there is no compulsion. He said that the local authority does not have to do what the adjudicator wants and that all he seeks to do is to ensure that the local authority is required to consider the adjudicator’s view. With respect, that is not what the Bill says. The Bill says that an adjudicator can look at the matter, make a determination and reject the plan. If he rejects the plan, proposed new subsection 19N(2) states that a local authority shall

“withdraw the plan, and prepare and publish a further plan (a ‘further response plan’)”.

Proposed new subsection 19N(3) states:

“In preparing a further response plan, the authority shall have regard to the adjudicator’s determination within section 19M(2)(c).”

That could be on an issue that is very clear-cut and on which the local authority simply cannot ignore the adjudicator’s opinion. If the Minister is seeking to do what he says—that the local authority should merely be required to consider—then he can happily sign up to our amendments, because what we are doing is requiring the local authority to consider, but we are saying that it may or may not take action as a consequence. It is clear that the speech that the Minister has given and the Bill that he is presenting are not compatible. If the speech that he has given is the Government’s position, he should support the amendments.

At best, this aspect of the Bill goes nowhere, because the Minister has already admitted that if the further response plan is published and ignores the adjudicator’s response, nothing will happen. At worst, however, it is an extremely centralising and undemocratic measure that says that the adjudicator will have power to direct a local authority and that makes it clear, in proposed new section 19N(3), that a local authority shall have regard to that and will have to withdraw its previous plan.

It is clear from the comments that we have already made that we will want to divide on the clause. However, I am encouraged by speeches that we have heard in support of amendment 143, including from the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, so I am inclined to press it to a Division.

Mr. Gibbrose—

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

First, however, I give way to my hon. Friend.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind appellation.

We are in favour of the notion of parental surveys; we believe that local authorities should be responsive to the views of parents and local people, and to other users of their services. However, the very bureaucratic, expensive and unresponsive approach that the Government intend to take leads me to take the view that we will support the hon. Gentleman on amendment 143. We also now believe, as a result of our debates on the amendments, that we will oppose the clause as a whole.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for setting out clearly his party’s position. I wish to press amendment 143 to a Division.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

As I said, given the wide-ranging debate on the amendments to clause 6, I shall not be allowing a stand part debate.

Clause 7

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I beg to move amendment 88, in clause 7, page 10, line 37, after ‘particular’, insert

‘, with the advice of suitably qualified inspectors,’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 170, in clause 7, page 10, line 37, leave out ‘the needs of’.

Amendment 171, in clause 7, page 10, line 38, before ‘pupils’ insert ‘the needs of’.

Amendment 169, in clause 7, page 10, line 39, at end insert

‘this should include direct consultation with those pupils and their families, either through questionnaires or personal meetings.’.

Amendment 172, in clause 7, page 10, line 40, before ‘pupils’ insert ‘the needs of’.

Amendment 89, in clause 7, page 10, line 40, at end insert ‘, and

(c) the concerns of parents of pupils in (a) and (b) above regarding the provision of education to their children.’.

Amendment 147, in clause 7, page 10, line 40, at end insert—

‘(c) pupils from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds.’.

Given the fairly narrow scope of the clause and the number of amendments tabled to it, I shall not allow a stand part debate at the end of the discussion on the amendments.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

May I welcome you to the Committee, Mr. Betts? This is the Committee’s ninth sitting, but it is the first opportunity that I have had to make a meaningful contribution, which is something of a record.

Having motored through clause 6, we now turn to a completely different subject—special educational needs. It is of great interest to members of the Committee, as many organisations have lobbied us hard on the matter. The amendments, which can be divided into three sections, deal with the quality and appropriateness of inspections.

At the outset, and before explaining the purpose of the amendments, may I say that we welcome this clause and clause 8, which deals with SEN appeals? This part of the Bill is certainly a welcome addition. Many feel that it could have gone further, given that it is partly a result of the Lamb review. Indeed, we thought that Lamb could have gone further; much uncovered ground needs to be taken into account in future legislation to get a better deal for parents and children with special educational needs or physical disabilities within the educational system. However, I do not wish to be churlish, and we welcome these provisions.

These probing amendments have been tabled to get more detail out of the Minister and to see whether he is prepared to go further, either at a later stage or through regulation. The group also includes a Liberal Democrat amendment that adds a new angle relating to children with disadvantaged backgrounds, but I shall not speak to that amendment.

Amendments 88, 170 and 171 appear to create a bit of a hotch-potch, but that is because we had to reallocate the phrase “the needs of”. Their thrust is to ensure that we have suitably qualified inspectors. Amendments 169 and 172 would add the condition that there should be

“direct consultation with...pupils and their families”—

we give some examples of how that could happen—to ensure that inspections cover the right ground and go into suitable detail, hence the appropriateness and quality considerations that I mentioned at the outset. Lastly, amendment 89 would add paragraph (c) to proposed new subsection (5A), which would provide that the concerns of parents of pupils mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) should be heard.

Several organisations have lobbied us on this subject. The Special Educational Consortium states that the new focus of inspections under clause 7 would provide

“a major incentive for schools to improve their performance in this area, and represents a significant step forward in ensuring that effective provision for children with SEN and disabilities is a mainstream issue for all schools.”

That might be wishful thinking, if only slightly, but it certainly goes in the right direction.

Of course, the outcome depends on the quality of the inspection which, to a large degree, depends on the quality of the inspectors and whether they are suitably trained. Some organisations are worried that many Ofsted inspectors are not suitably trained or qualified to inspect appropriately and thoroughly a school’s provisions for children with SEN and physical disabilities. Much greater knowledge and experience are required when trying to judge whether a school is doing its very best to provide for children with special educational needs and physical disabilities.

NDCS, the organisation for deaf children, has made the point that

“it is vital that parents are able to make informed choices about how their deaf child should be educated. However, many parents report that the information they receive from their local authority is either biased in advocating one communication approach over another or simply sets out what provision the local authority has available.”

It is important that a degree of impartiality is available to those parents, which they would glean from the inspection reports as well as from literature from the school itself. It is therefore vital that the inspector who carries out the inspection is able to provide such impartiality about the quality and suitability of the provision.

The NDCS goes on to say that

“many parents are not provided with support on learning how to communicate with their deaf child”,

and many have to go outside schools and pay for it themselves. That should be covered in an Ofsted inspection. We should know whether a school is doing a good job of providing just about everything a child with special needs requires for his or her education, or whether it is doing only part or half the job. We need qualified inspectors who know what to look for, what questions to ask, and of whom to ask them, and how to gauge the answers.

The NDCS has given examples of inspections of provision for deaf children being carried out by people who have no expertise or background in deafness. Deafness is just one example. Clearly there are complex requirements for dealing with conditions other than deafness, particularly around SEN. There can be an enormous spectrum of requirements, whether due to autism, Asperger’s or other communication difficulties, that are far more challenging to measure properly and appropriately than a straightforward physical disability, as one can talk about disabled access in terms of such things as height of equipment, which is easier to measure with a tick-box approach.

The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers has welcomed the provisions to ensure that special educational needs and disability needs are met in mainstream schools, but it has raised concerns about allocating responsibility to Ofsted without also establishing clearly the way in which that should be discharged in practice. It asks who is scrutinising the scrutineers, and who is inspecting Ofsted. We could have that bigger argument, but we will not do so during our debate on this clause.

NASUWT makes the point that there is

“no effective means of directing the Chief Inspector to resolve issues regarding the delivery of the provisions of the Bill”.

Even if we have good-quality inspections carried out by well-qualified and appropriately trained inspectors who are well versed in inspecting special educational needs and disability provision, will it lead to a better deal overall for pupils with SEN?

TreeHouse is a fantastic organisation that deals with autism education. It points out that

“teachers do not feel confident teaching children with autism... 51 per cent. of Britain’s school teachers have never received specialist training to help them support children with autism”.

It continues:

“Only 10 per cent. have received such training in the past 12 months”

and

“44 per cent. of teachers do not feel confident teaching children with autism.”

That sort of thing needs to come out in inspections. The inspector needs to know how to look for it and how to interact with teachers to get the right results so that shortcomings can be revealed and a course of remedial action recommended to ensure that children with SEN get a better deal in that school in future. That is why the first three amendments, although they are probing, place an emphasis on the fact that these welcome inspections should be carried out by “suitably qualified inspectors”.

Will the Minister assure us about what might be going on with the training of existing or additional Ofsted inspectors with expertise in this area? Of course, there is a difference between inspectors who are inspecting specialist schools and those who are inspecting SEN and disabled provision in mainstream schools, which have a different approach.

For that reason, amendments 169 and 172 stipulate that an inspector cannot just go in, sit in a classroom, talk to teachers, study some of the reports and get the data. It is essential that they engage physically with children and their parents, who are best placed to know whether pupils are being best looked after. There is no obligation, at the moment—unless again, the Minister can point me to some guidance—for Ofsted inspectors to engage with their overall purpose, which is the pupils and their families, particularly where communication is difficult for pupils, depending on their level of special educational needs.

Amendment 89 would add that when reporting on the suitability of SEN provision in mainstream schools, concerns expressed by parents and pupils must be a consideration. I hope that the Minister will take the amendments as helpful ones, intended to flesh out the intention and the ability to deliver what I am sure the Minister wants to deliver by including the clause in the Bill. I hope that he will be able to assure us, or, better still, say that he will be delighted to take the amendments at face value—lock, stock and barrel—and include them in the Bill. That would receive the enormous aplomb of not only this Committee, but many people involved and interested in special educational needs, who are interested in the clauses.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Betts. I think that we will have a change of tone in the Committee at this point, as there is broad agreement across most of the interested organisations and, I believe, among all parties, that the two clauses are important. We can argue that they do not go far enough or that there could be more clauses to give greater support for children with special educational needs, but what is here is important. I am disappointed that there is not more here, as the Lamb report called for radical reform. However, the clauses are two important pieces of the jigsaw—it is just a pity that the rest is not there.

I agree with the sentiments behind the amendments. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is absolutely right to say that the quality of inspectors is core. Much training is necessary. It is easy to add on more individual representations, but it is important that we are looking across the diverse needs of special educational needs. As well as deaf children, blind and partially sighted children are an interest of mine, as the Minister will know. The Royal National Institute of Blind People would like to hear what intentions the Government have to check that blind and partially sighted children’s needs are being met through specific inspection standards and that inspectors have appropriate training and expertise.

I am sure that we could go on and on about diversity of special educational needs, but it is so important. We have clearly moved on positively to an inclusive situation with blind and partially sighted children since the time when nearly all would have gone to special schools, but my problem with inclusion is the speed with which we have moved to inclusion without implementing the necessary background structure. For example, it is only just now that teacher training is addressing SEN training for all teachers. I believe that the first teachers with extra training will not come through until 2011. That seems to be building the walls rather late in the day, but it is still very important.

Another representation on inclusivity that I have received is from Allfie, an organisation that is in favour of total inclusivity. Allfie makes the point that Ofsted should be required to work with disabled people to develop inclusive education and inspection guidance. To pick up on previous points, that will be all-important.

The Conservatives’ amendment 169, interestingly, discusses direct consultation with pupil and family questionnaires in a totally different context from the one that we discussed during debate on the previous clause. One thing is for sure: the parents of children with special educational needs do not have the opportunity to play their part in the democratic process. They may well vote at local elections, but their voice is so small in relation to the whole that they cannot express their views, and it is important to ensure that they can.

In our amendment, my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil and I suggest that we should add pupils from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. From our visits to schools, we are all aware of what challenges teachers face first thing in the morning, particularly in year 1 and year 2, with children who are not equipped to cope with the school day, even though they might have been to pre-school. A lot of time must be devoted to what we might see as basic provision, but it is vital that such children are given the extra support that they need. In this Committee’s earlier debates, we have discussed the importance of speaking and listening skills. They are so important for children—

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I have some sympathy with the amendment, but I am not sure whether it is the right approach. For many children, including some in my constituency, the problem is not what happens in school; it is what happens at home. That is a fundamentally different discussion from inclusivity in the school curriculum for children with a disability. The hon. Lady mentioned blindness; other people have mentioned deafness, and we have discussed autism. Schools make every effort to ensure that children get the communication skills that they need, but the problem is that they are coming to school with a poor vocabulary due to issues at home. I am not sure whether the clause is the right place to address that.

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

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. Whether it is the right place is debatable, but we are discussing children who, for one reason or another, need extra support. We simply suggest that the inspectors could also take on board vulnerable children who need extra support. It is only a probing amendment at this stage—

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

Will not such matters be covered by other areas of the inspection? For example, the performance will be looked at, as will the tests that are done on children entering school and also literacy and numeracy as we have discussed. Reference is made later in the Bill to the primary school curriculum being changed. Surely matters are covered amply.

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

I guess that that depends on the weight we put on particular issues. Liberal Democrats put an awful lot on tackling the problems of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is why we have tabled a probing amendment at this stage. I hope that the Minister will comment on it.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I welcome the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham to a speaking part in our proceedings, along with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. I want to read out a useful fact to put the matter into context. The latest statistics that I have to hand show that, in January 2009, 1,433,940 pupils had special educational needs without statements and that 221,670 pupils had statements. I thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for his welcome to clauses 7 and 8, and the way in which he explained his proposals. I hope that I can reassure him that the amendments are unnecessary. I agree with many of his points and indeed many of those made by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole.

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of inspectors who are suitably qualified for their role. That is why the matter is recognised under existing legislation on inspection. Paragraph 10 to schedule 12 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 requires the chief inspector to ensure that inspectors have the necessary qualifications, experience and skills to perform their functions in an effective manner. Effective delivery is, of course, linked to effective training, and the Lamb inquiry recommended a strengthening of the arrangements. I wish again to thank Brian Lamb for his work. He did not conclude that further legislation was necessary, and we agreed with that.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty’s chief inspector is committed to enhancing training arrangements for special educational needs and disabilities. He asked me for examples. Ofsted has recently updated its training materials for mainstream schools, and inspectors are currently undergoing training using those new materials. It is also developing further material—a point to which the hon. Gentleman referred—for its specialist inspectors. In addition, Ofsted is committed to providing updated training for inspectors on special educational needs on at least an annual basis. I hope that that goes some way to reassuring the hon. Gentleman.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

It is interesting to have those pieces of information, but can the Minister back them up with figures in relation to how many specialist inspectors there are at the moment? Are they focusing just on SEN provision within mainstream schools? Are they dual tasking while inspecting special educational needs in specialist schools, too? Has there been an increase in the number of inspectors? Clearly there has been an increase in the number of SEN children who are now included in mainstream schools. We need some reassurance that the appropriate people are sufficient to be doing the job.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I hope that I will receive clarification of the figures. When I talked about training, I said that Ofsted was developing material for its specialist inspectors. If I receive further information on actual figures before this afternoon’s sitting, I will share it with the Committee. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. If I cannot obtain the figures by this afternoon, I shall ensure that we have them available for our proceedings in due course.

Ann Cryer (Labour, Keighley)

While my hon. Friend is finding the facts and figures, can he, at the same time, look at whether Ofsted can cope with mainstream schools such as those in my constituency? The biraderi and first cousin marriage system can lead to one school having some 30 per cent. of children with special needs and, in addition, children with disabilities due to genetically transmitted disorders. I know that that is unusual, but many such cases can arise in one school, and I would like to be assured that the inspectorate can cope with such a situation.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Of course, the inspectorate can cope. The issue is one of training. The clause says that Ofsted has a specific duty to report on how well a particular school is dealing with those pupils who have special educational needs, so it has a specific requirement to do that as part of its reporting process. Alongside that additional focus, which is important, there is a recognition that more specialist inspectors need to be trained so that they can deal with particular circumstances in schools such as the one that my hon. Friend has mentioned.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

Given the wide range of special needs and disabilities, it seems almost impossible that we can have the perfect inspector being an authority on every single area. Will my hon. Friend reassure me about the amount of information that an inspector might have before they go into a school? They must be able to use appropriately whatever tools are available to them to find the best practice, so they can make a comparison and establish how the school is doing when they do the on-site inspection.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is a very important point. Before any individual inspection, the inspector is required to gather information about the education provision of a particular school. They need to find out not just what the school itself thinks of the provision but what parents and others think of it. As part of that gathering of information, the inspectors themselves will reflect on how other schools across the country are doing to see whether the school they are going to inspect is dealing with a problem in a better way, or whether it faces more challenges than other schools. Therefore, they learn what happens in other schools to help them in their inspections.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

To be honest, the organisation of Ofsted, which costs £500 million a year, is second only to the Electoral Commission in terms of an appalling waste of money. Notwithstanding that, has my hon. Friend estimated the cost of giving this job to Ofsted, as opposed to going down the more traditional route of social services, which may be called upon to consider the matter separately with their own expertise? We could do that, rather than trying to train hundreds more inspectors in the very important area of recognising disability and whether it is being met in an educational sense.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The point of Ofsted is to assess the quality of provision within a school for children of all abilities. This clause puts a particular focus on Ofsted’s needing to report on how well a school is doing regarding pupils with special needs or disabilities. That is an important part of the process. We would expect social services to be involved in the support of an individual child with a disability, alongside the work of the school. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend because I think the functions of the two are slightly different. Ofsted is about inspecting a school to see how well it does in meeting the needs of pupils with special educational needs, and this clause contains a requirement to report on that. Social services are about supporting the individual needs of the child. Ofsted might say that for a school to perform better and do better for individual pupils who have special needs, its relationship with children’s services or social services should be improved, so that it accesses the support that the child needs in a better way within the school situation. As I said, our emphasis may be different—

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

Ofsted has a role in inspecting children’s services as well these days, I understand, so I hope that some correlation between what happens in the two Departments would be obvious. It is important to make it clear that for parents who want their children to avail themselves of a state education, we have a duty to provide that education, so it is absolutely right that Ofsted should ensure it is being provided in a way that makes for the best outcomes for the child, and that is to the satisfaction of the family.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I agree. My right hon. Friend is right that Ofsted is now responsible for children’s services, as well as schools.

Amendments 170, 171 and 172 remove the reference to “the needs of” from the main part of the clause and reattach the term in separate references to pupils with disabilities and special educational needs. However, the drafting of clause 7 provides for the needs of pupils with disabilities and special educational needs to be considered in the inspection reports. The amendments would have no material impact on the effect of the clause. I hope that is reassuring.

Amendments 169 and 89 concern the engagement of pupils and parents in school inspection. As drafted, amendment 169 extends only to pupils with a disability and not to those with special educational needs, which I am sure was not the intention of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. In any case, I reassure him that there is already a strong emphasis on parental and pupil views directly informing inspection under both the existing legislation and the new inspection arrangements. Section 7 of the Education Act 2005 requires inspectors conducting a school inspection to have regard to the views expressed by both parents and pupils. The Bill provides further assurance. The parent guarantee, which is given force by clauses 1 to 3, includes a guarantee for parents to have their views considered by Ofsted during school inspections.

On amendment 147, I appreciate the intention of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole in drawing particular attention to the need for inspection to focus on outcomes and provision for vulnerable pupils, including those entitled to free school meals, those from minority ethnic groups, children in care and so on, but those—I assure her—are key aspects of the new inspection arrangements. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley made the point about the intent of the amendment being right, but that provision is already included in the more general inspection framework. Section 5 of the Education Act 2005 as drafted provides a clear statutory imperative for inspectors to focus on how well schools deliver for all groups of pupils. It does not single out particular groups. As a general principle, that is right. The inspectors are given the flexibility to adjust their focus to reflect the particular circumstances of individual schools and to avoid the risk of a particular group falling outside the legislation, as my right hon. Friend pointed out.

I thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham for how he introduced his amendments—the support for clauses 7 and 8, and his reference to the probing nature of the amendments. I hope I have been able to make it clear that they are unnecessary, and given the reassurance he needs. We support the intention behind the amendments, but they are not necessary in the context of the overall framework of the legislation and I ask him to consider withdrawing them.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am grateful for the positive and constructive way in which the Minister dealt with what were, as I said, probing amendments. It would be interesting to have some of the figures.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Just to confirm, if I cannot get the figures for this afternoon, I shall write to the Committee with them, because that was a fair comment.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

That is helpful. Without going down the line pursued by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East—the expensiveness and other aspects of Ofsted—I point out that some serious concerns have clearly been raised about Ofsted’s capability within children’s social care. He made a point about social services. Without wishing to make the regulatory framework even bigger, I have concerns about Ofsted’s ability to inspect children’s social care, and of course there are aspects of that within special educational needs provision, albeit within a school building and school framework. It is a fair point that we need greater assurances about whether Ofsted has grasped that, and about what practical measures it is taking to recruit the necessary number of people and to ensure they are properly trained.

I reiterate the Minister’s comments about the excellent work done by Brian Lamb and the contribution that he made to the SEN debate, but it is only a contribution. Many of us would like the Government to go much further. There are still a lot of gaps in the provision. There is a bit of a postcode lottery in many cases. It is essential that the inspectorate identify where those gaps are and where there is best practice and poor practice, to ensure that the weak learn from the strong.

As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned, there has been a speeding toward inclusion, with which I have some problems. It has been at the expense of 9,000 places in specialist schools. We should judge the appropriateness in relation to each individual child, rather than being caught up in the move to inclusion, which in some cases has left individual children lacking the degree of special education that they need.

I said at the beginning that these were probing amendments. We have had some more information from the Minister and he has undertaken to give us more factual information, which I think will be helpful. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 8

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I beg to move amendment 75, in clause 8, page 11, line 12, at end insert

‘and inform the parent of their right to appeal to the Tribunal.’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 157, in clause 8, page 11, line 13, after ‘parent’, insert

‘or the head teacher of the school which the pupil attends’.

Amendment 233, in clause 8, page 11, line 14, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

‘(4) The school at which the pupil is registered may appeal to the Tribunal.’.

Amendment 165, in clause 8, page 11, line 18, at end insert—

‘(5A) On receipt of an appeal a determination must be made within 8 weeks.’.

Again, it is my opinion that we should be able to consider all aspects of the clause within discussion of the amendments, so I shall not allow a stand part debate.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

It is me again, so we shall make rapid progress through this bit of the Bill. I have realised slightly belatedly that amendment 75 is almost utterly redundant, but it gives me the opportunity to probe, as was the intention behind the amendment anyway. I have been racking my brains as to how I can make it slightly less redundant, and I have alighted on the fact that it uses the phrase “their” right, whereas the clause refers to “the” right. I shall talk just about that, if I may. I am sure that the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman will speak to their three amendments. They lay down some more detailed markers, with which I have some sympathy, particularly on the need to speed up determinations, which can drag on too long.

I welcome the clause, as do organisations involved with special educational needs. The whole point of the clause is to deal with the lottery in relation to getting a statement, ensuring that it is appropriate and being able to change it in the future. In most cases, a child’s statement of special educational needs should never remain static. A child’s requirements obviously change as the child develops, yet there will be many children with a statement of special educational needs that was granted at primary age who continue with the same statement, unamended, for many years, even though the child has physically and mentally developed well beyond the confines of what the original statement was designed to achieve for the child. It is therefore right that we give greater powers to parents who challenge and need to challenge the suitability of a statement that has been attached to their child, because those statements become out of date.

The entire statementing process is highly cumbersome, costly, stressful and adversarial and needs to be overhauled. We have various proposals on how it could be overhauled. Yesterday, 120 SEN experts assembled in Westminster Hall with Sir Bob Balchin, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, myself and others to discuss ways in which the whole statementing process could be improved and a better deal for children with special educational needs and their families achieved. We have a particular interest in this area.

Key to all this must surely be empowering the parents to challenge unsuitable or non-existent special provisions for their children.

We have all, I am sure, had constituents coming to us who are in a war of attrition with a local authority to get the required statement and to make sure that it is adhered to, let alone remains relevant. The problem with the system is that the local authority is effectively the judge, the jury, the appeal judge, the commissioner and the provider of the services. I believe that the system will not materially improve until we split up those responsibilities so that there are people who can make an impartial statement assessing a child’s need in more detail than the current broad-brush approach. Then, with the parents, they could hold that authority to account to make sure that the provisions in the statement are forthcoming.

Too many of our constituents have had their expectations raised that a suitable statement will be made. They wait a long time for it only to see those expectations dashed because they do not get remotely the level of statement that is required for that child. In this clause we could give a power to the parent to try to ensure that the statement remains relevant to the requirements of their child. It is a highly confusing system. This only scratches the surface and the whole system needs to be completely overhauled. It is a false economy not to be getting a better deal for parents early on. The number of appeals to tribunals that are subsequently upheld in favour of the child and his or her family shows that there is an enormous problem with the system. A lot of money is being wasted on contesting appeals that could be better used to provide the services that the children need.

That was my opportunity to make that broader point about how the system is not working at the moment. It is vital that we give greater powers of appeal to the parents, so there needs to be a written notice when an authority has made a determination and, if it is not the right answer for the parents, it must be made absolutely clear to them how they can challenge it. The clause requires the local authority to provide only the absolute minimum of information. It could be a fact sheet about the tribunal system.

The amendment tries to provide a more helping hand to the parent about how the appeal could take place and on what grounds it could be launched. The provision of a helping hand to parents is pretty arbitrary at the moment, with various outside organisations such as the Independent Panel for Special Education Advice and others playing that advocate role. But that is not available to everybody. Within the local authority there could be rather more dispassionate advice for parents.

Ultimately it is in the interests of the local authority as well as the parents to get the best deal for a child. If that does not happen, the child is failed, the family is failed and greater stress is placed on them. The local authority will be failed too because ultimately many children with special educational needs who do not get appropriate support require higher level, more intense support later on. They may be rather less independent than they might have been if given the right support intensively and early on.

The amendment is probing to ensure that that is not just a token exercise that allows someone to appeal, and that it sets out clearly what an individual parent should do, based on that individual determination, if the statement update has been turned down. There might be some local support they can get to ensure that they put their case in the most appropriate way and can feel rather more confident about navigating an intimidating, highly technical and confusing system that currently works along the line of a war of attrition, I am afraid to say, to knock people out of the system.

Too many local authorities play a game of brinkmanship on the basis that if they put up a resolute opposition the parent might just get completely over-awed and over-stressed and drop out. I have heard of some absolutely disgraceful incidents in which parents have had a prima facie case and absolutely needed a proper statement for their child, or needed a statement amended, and the authority challenged it all the way, only to drop out the day before the appeal was due to take place on the basis that they knew they never had a leg to stand on but hoped that the stress on the parent might get them to drop the case. That is absolutely unacceptable. We need to do more to be on the side of the parents in difficult circumstances to ensure that their rights of appeal are properly understood and that they have every support necessary so that they can make a strong case on behalf of their children.

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

The amendment would be an important adjustment to the current situation. Equally, I agree that the statementing process needs a much fuller review. Although I feel, like those who have spoken before me, that Sir Brian Lamb did an excellent job, he was limited with the remit he was given. As I recall, I do not think that his remit went as far as the Children, Schools and Families Committee recommended at the time.

The amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil and I have tabled suggest first that the head teacher of the school could be involved in the appeal, and secondly, if a case goes to tribunal, that the school should be involved. We know that many parents of children with special educational needs need support, and we argue that teachers and the school will be very much aware if a statement needs amending. We feel that that could be an important consideration. I do not think that the school will do anything that might be regarded as frivolous, but it is the teachers who deal with the children day in, day out, and who will really understand the needs. I would like the Minister to give those points serious consideration.

Amendment 165 arose from some of the comments made by Mr. John Friel in evidence to the Committee. I would like to read out some of the points he made:

“The drafting of that particular section needs to set a time limit and provide for either the parent or the school to request an amendment to the annual review—if the local authority considers that there will an amendment, it will of course make it anyway. There needs to be some tighter drafting on that particular clause, because at the moment, as it is, there is a great deal of complaints...about refusal to amend statements. The local authorities answer, ‘Well, there’s no time limit.’” ——[Official Report, Children, Schools and Families Public Bill Committee, 19 January 2010; c. 44, Q57.]

The amendment has perhaps found the most convenient place in the Bill to suggest a time limit, and the Minister might tell me that there is in fact a time limit in which local authorities must respond to an appeal, but I would like to raise the issue of time limits generally in the whole process.

We want to make a change that is significant, but we all know that local authorities lacking resources will drag things out. We need time limits on when the appeal is determined, on when the change is made to the statement and on the implementation period. I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to those points.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

This is another important group of amendments. The clause was widely welcomed by everyone and was introduced in response to Sir Brian Lamb’s recommendations. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham explained his amendment. The proposals in amendment 75 are already in proposed new subsection (5), which states that a notice to parents informing them of the local authority’s decision not to amend a statement must also inform them of their right of appeal. The notice does need to go a little further, and, as well as their right of appeal, it will tell parents about the Parent Partnership Service, which is available to them and can provide help and advice.

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

Sir Brian Lamb mentioned that pupil-parent partnerships need improving, as I have mentioned on many occasions, because they are either not independent or not seen as independent. Does the Minister plan to follow through on Sir Brian Lamb’s recommendations?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

We will obviously look at all of Sir Brian Lamb’s recommendations to see how we can take them through. The Parent Partnership Service is well thought of generally and we will consider any recommendations that Sir Brian makes.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said that the information given to parents ought to include a little more than just saying that there will be a right of appeal. I agree with him on that and I am trying to reassure him that it will include more. The tribunal also provides advice and guidance to parents, and there is a video available. That is an important step to support parents through the process.

The amendments would add further safeguards into clause 8, which proposes a new right to appeal to the first tier tribunal where a local authority has determined not to amend a statement of SEN following a review. The clause was warmly welcomed and is a direct result of Brian Lamb’s recommendations. I assure hon. Members that the amendments are unnecessary.

On amendment 75, I want to reiterate that subsection (5) already provides notice to parents. Amendment 157 would extend the right to appeal to the tribunal to the head teacher of the school attended by the child. Again, the measure is unnecessary. The Education Act 1996 provides that parents have the right to appeal to the tribunal if they are not happy with the authority’s decision on the review. It is right that parents should be able to challenge the local authority if they consider that their child’s needs are not being met, rather than head teachers of schools where pupils with statements are placed.

The hon. Lady may be concerned that where the head teacher’s report recommends amendments to the statement and they are not made, the head teacher has no right of appeal. A school may feel that the statement does not provide the resources it requires to meet the child’s needs, but a statement is a contract between the local authority and the parents, not the school. We consider that a parent’s right to appeal should not be cut across by giving the right to the head teacher as well. Head teachers’ concerns about the support provided through statements should be addressed in discussion with the local authority. We do not want to introduce a formal procedure into that relationship. A school in such a situation can, in any case, ask for a statutory reassessment of the child’s SEN with a view to amending the statement.

Amendment 233 would delete proposed new subsection (4) and substitute extending the right to appeal to the tribunal to the school at which the pupil is registered as well as to the head teacher, which was the subject of amendment 157. That may be prompted by a concern that the right should be exercised by the governing body, as the legal body in charge of the school. The arguments as to why the extension is unnecessary are similar to those set out in response to amendment 157.

Amendment 165 provides that where the parents have submitted an appeal to the tribunal, the tribunal must make the determination within eight weeks of receipt. However, I believe that the hon. Lady is attempting to introduce an eight-week deadline for a local authority to conduct a review after receiving the head teacher’s report. If that is the case, then the amendment is unnecessary.

We share the hon. Lady’s desire for parents not to be left waiting for a long period following an annual review meeting to receive the authority’s decision on whether a statement can be amended. The annual review cycle already has statutory time limits. Section 324 of the Education Act 1996 requires the review to be completed before the end of a 12-month period.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following: amendment 157, in clause 8, page 11, line 13, after ‘parent’, insert

‘or the head teacher of the school which the pupil attends’.

Amendment 233, in clause 8, page 11, line 14, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

‘(4) The school at which the pupil is registered may appeal to the Tribunal.’.

Amendment 165, in clause 8, page 11, line 18, at end insert—

‘(5A) On receipt of an appeal a determination must be made within 8 weeks.’.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Good afternoon, Mr. Betts. I welcome the Committee back to its deliberations.

I apologise for somewhat interrupting the flow of our proceedings, but in the short break, I found some statistics that might be of interest to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, although I will see whether there are more that might be of use. Ofsted is currently reviewing its pool of specialist special educational needs inspectors, as recommended by the Lamb inquiry. Of the 386 Her Majesty’s inspectors who inspect for Ofsted, a quarter specialise in inspecting one or more area of SEN. Ofsted has not yet provided me with figures for additional inspectors, but they will be included in the response to the hon. Gentleman’s recent parliamentary question. I hope that information helps him and other Committee members.

On amendment 165, we share the desire that parents not be left waiting for a long period following an annual review meeting before they receive the authority decision on whether amendments are made. The annual review cycle already has statutory time limits. Section 324 of the Education Act 1996 requires the review to be completed within 12 months of the statement being made or of the previous review. The deadline set by the amendment could go beyond that 12-month period. If the review started at the beginning of December and there was an eight-week period, the deadline under the amendment would be the end of January, whereas the statutory deadline would be the end of December. I know that is not the intention of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, but that would be the effect of her amendment.

As always, I will try to help the Committee. Perhaps there is some confusion over this issue. I am perfectly satisfied with the existing statutory limit for the review period of 12 months after a statement is made. An issue arises if somebody appeals the result of the review—perhaps the hon. Lady means that there is an issue with the appeal time. I will give an example. If a statement is made at the end of December and a parent appeals the review, the appeal to the first-tier SEN tribunal could take six months. If the parent does not agree with the first-tier SEN tribunal, they can take the matter to the second tier, which could take another two or three months. Clearly, that raises issues.

That process is the responsibility of not the Department for Children, Schools and Families, but the Ministry of Justice. A lot of work has been done to streamline that appeal process, but I know it causes issues. I say to the hon. Lady that I will speak to the Ministry of Justice about the appeal time to see whether anything can be done. The Ministry of Justice has worked exceptionally hard to ensure that the appeal time is kept to a minimum. As always, I can talk to my colleagues to see what can be done as a consequence of this important issue—another Minister is in the room to hear me say that.

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

I thank the Minister. I had an overriding concern that the whole thing was getting dragged out at different stages, so I tabled the amendment to probe the situation. I will be grateful if he has further discussions with the Ministry of Justice.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Of course, and we can discuss what can be done. I know that everyone is working hard on that. Following my brief comments, I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham will withdraw the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The Minister got those statistics rapidly, so it would be churlish of me not acknowledge the helpfulness with which he has approached our amendments. The clincher before lunch was his assurance that a video will be available for people who need assistance to use the tribunal system. As I said, these are probing amendments, and our good debate has clarified some points. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Before we come to clause 9, I would like to make two brief comments. First, while we made some progress this morning, it would probably not be described as rapid. I know that there is enthusiasm in the Committee for a later sitting this evening to try to make further progress, but nevertheless I have a responsibility to the House to try to ensure that we make good progress. While I can keep hon. Members in order, I encourage everyone to be as succinct as possible, because ultimately the one thing that we cannot change is the 5 pm deadline on Thursday when proceedings have to conclude.

Secondly, it is my view that the next two groups of amendments will allow sufficient debate to mean that we shall not need a stand part debate on clause 9.

Clause 9

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

I beg to move amendment 166, in clause 9, page 11, line 29, leave out ‘compulsory school’ and insert ‘participation’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 168, in clause 9, page 11, line 34, at end insert—

‘(1B) In relation to England, each local education authority shall make arrangements for the provision of suitable education at school or otherwise than at school for 16-19 students pursuing such examination courses as may be specified in an order made by the Secretary of State who, by reason of illness, may not for any period receive suitable education unless such arrangements are made for them.’.

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

I will keep my comments succinct.

The amendments are focused on the first aspect of clause 9, which I generally welcome. I have long been interested in the education provision for children with long-term illnesses, probably because I spent seven months in hospital as a teenager. I have also carried out quite a lot of constituency work relating to the issue, so I have been thinking about what could be improved. Clearly, the requirement for full-time education up to 16, as it stands, is a great improvement. However, I am concerned about the statutory guidance, which will have to be revised because, as I am aware from case work, parents are not always told about their rights when they apply for home tuition and perhaps have no knowledge about the choice of alternative education. I know of children with long-term illnesses who have been placed in pupil referral units that were not what I would say was suitable education. The statutory guidance will be important.

I am grateful to the Minister for enabling me to talk to some of his officials because that clarified what was troubling me about the clause. It became apparent that the compulsory school age was one matter, but that we would change the participation age in the near future. By the time it is raised to 18, my second concern will have been addressed. However, I feel that the Bill should say “participation” rather than “compulsory school” age, because people should have the right to participate in school along with their peers and be supported in alternative forms of education, should that be appropriate.

Amendment 168 is more direct than amendment 166. I do not want to make legislation on the basis of one case, but I would like to refer briefly to a constituency case that relates to the background of the amendment. The daughter of one of my constituents has ME. She eventually had home tuition and got five good GCSEs. She wished to do some time at home and some time at school in the sixth form to pursue her A-levels, but that turned out to be a nightmare. At the time there was the triangle of the Learning and Skills Council, Connexions and the local authority, and we could not obtain a promise of funding for home tuition. She has gone back to school but, with ME, is finding it difficult to cope with full-time study in the sixth form.

The clause retains the position whereby it is effectively up to the local authority’s discretion to provide post-16 education, but that is wrong. When we have young people who wish to pursue A-levels or other courses of their choice, there should still be a duty on the local authority. I realise that the Minister might want to add conditions to such a policy to ensure that students follow appropriate courses, so with great help from the Bill team, I have tabled amendment 168, which states:

“In relation to England, each local education authority shall make arrangements for the provision of suitable education at school or otherwise than at school for 16-19 students pursuing such examination courses as may be specified in an order made by the Secretary of State”.

I hope that the provision is expressed in a way that the Minister considers acceptable.

When parents have a very sick child, they are so busy sorting out their health needs that a battle with the education authority is just one too many things to cope with. My constituent has had a difficult time. We know that quite a lot of young people have ME, and I am sure that we can think of other health conditions that make it difficult for young people to attend school full time, yet from which they might well recover. I hope that my constituent’s daughter will attend university in due course. I will be very grateful if the Minister will consider the amendments. I tabled them not to oppose the Government, but to close the loophole.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The clause is extremely important. It will ensure that full-time education is available in alternative provision not only, as the law states at present, for those excluded from school, but for those who might not be at school for medical or other reasons. As such, it is one of those clauses that sometimes pass a Committee by, despite their significance, and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole is right to draw the measure to our attention.

We want to ensure that the provision is enacted as soon as possible. As the hon. Lady said, the compulsory school age of up to 16 is obviously easily defined under law. As for post-16 education, raising the participation age will not happen until 2013 for 17-year-olds, and not until 2015 for 18-year-olds, and her concerns are about the provision of full-time education for those people in the interim. Through guidance laid out alongside the Bill, we intend to explain what is expected to happen. The raising of the participation age is good legislation, and we must ensure that what everyone regards as a good way forward does not create a difficulty, albeit even in the short term. We intend to address that through guidance.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole seeks to amend clause 9(2)(a) so that local authorities would be under a duty to arrange education for all children of participation age who, for reasons of illness, exclusion or otherwise, may not for any period receive suitable education. I assure her that the amendment is not necessary. In accordance with the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, local authorities will have a duty to ensure that enough suitable education or training is available for all 16 to 19-year-olds in their area. We intend those provisions to come into force on 1 April this year. It is our intention that local authorities and education providers will take steps to ensure that special arrangements are in place to support a young person’s continued participation in learning. When the powers for funding a commission transfer to local authorities in line with the ASCL Act, those local authority functions will be further strengthened.

Amendment 168 would create a new duty for local authorities to arrange suitable education for 16 to 19-year-olds who are

“pursuing such examination courses as may be specified in an order...who by reason of illness, may not for any period receive suitable education unless such arrangements are made for them.”.

I assure the hon. Lady that in our view, this amendment is also unnecessary. The Education and Skills Act 2008 created a new legal duty for local authorities which, once in force, will require them to exercise their functions so as to promote effective participation in education or training for all 16 to 18-year-olds, including those who suffer from illness. In addition, local authorities will be required to exercise their new functions in the ASCL Act, to secure the provision of education or training for 16 to 18-year-olds, with a view to enabling those persons to fulfil the duty to participate. As I have said to the hon. Lady, alongside that we intend to put into guidance the need for local authorities to provide education or training opportunities for the young people covered by the clause. The hon. Lady has highlighted a slight gap, which we intend to fill through guidance, and with that assurance, I hope that she will withdraw the amendment.

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

I thank the Minister for his lengthy reply and for his responsiveness on the issue. I am pleased that he will pick it up in guidance, which I hope will be as strong as possible so that we do not have the difficult situation of a local authority not wanting to find the money for a genuine case. With those comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment 192, in clause 9, page 12, line 1, after ‘if’, insert

‘, following an independent assessment of the physical or mental health of the child,’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 167, in clause 9, page 12, line 2, after ‘child’, insert

‘and after consultation with parents, carers and medical professionals,’.

Amendment 187, in clause 9, page 12, line 3, leave out ‘impracticable or otherwise inappropriate’ and insert ‘detrimental to the child’s well-being’.

Amendment 191, in clause 9, page 12, line 4, at end insert—

‘(3AAA) A decision under subsection (3AA) shall, at the request of the parent of the child concerned be subject to annual review.’.

Amendment 158, in clause 9, page 12, line 10, at end add—

‘(5) After subsection (6) there is inserted—

“(6A) Where a local authority considers that it would be impracticable or otherwise inappropriate for full time education to be provided for a child under this section, a local authority must, within 2 months, draw up plans for such support as is necessary to allow the child to return to full time education as soon as this is appropriate.”’.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Clause 9 requires local authorities to provide full-time education for children who, for whatever reason, are not attending school. Subsection (3) provides an exception to that duty if

“the local authority consider that, for reasons which relate to the physical or mental health of the child, it would be impracticable or otherwise inappropriate for full-time education to be provided for the child.”

Amendment 192 would mean that that requirement would apply only following an independent assessment of the physical or mental health of the child. It reflects concerns raised by the National Autistic Society, which said in a briefing to members of the Committee:

“We recognise that there may be some circumstances where it may be inappropriate for a child to be in full-time education, but have concerns about:

Who would make the assessment about what is appropriate for the child and;

Whether the clause would provide local authorities with a wide ‘get out of jail free’ card not to provide education for children for whom they are unable to find appropriate education locally or whose needs mean that provision would be very expensive”.

It continues:

“Given the wide lack of understanding of autism and the potential for a conflict of interest, we believe that assessments on appropriateness would have to be made independently by someone with experience and expertise in the child’s condition. Autism is a complex condition and without a full understanding of how to communicate with the child and what their needs may be, it is unlikely that a fair and comprehensive assessment would be made.”

We agree with that assessment, which goes on:

“The use of the word ‘impracticable’ in the clause is of particular concern here. We would like to know in what cases it would be ‘impracticable’ for a child to receive full-time education, if this is not related to cost.”

It would be helpful and would reassure the National Autistic Society if the Minister could address that specific concern in his response. The NAS also states:

“An assurance that there will be independent assessments to determine state of the child's physical/mental health”

would be helpful, and that is what the amendment seeks to do.

Amendment 191 reflects concerns raised by Barnardo’s. In its briefing, it said:

“Whilst Barnardo’s accepts that it is pragmatic to allow exceptions, we would like Members to seek assurances that this will be on a time-limited basis and subject to review after a fixed period, agreed with the parents or carers.”

It goes on to explain:

“We know from the experience of our services and the young people they work with that some young people facing temporary barriers to participation—for example, teenage mothers who have recently given birth or young people with mental health difficulties—end up drifting out of education altogether.”

Amendment 191 would insert a new subsection requiring that any decision about not providing full-time education, because of the physical or mental health of the child, be reviewed annually if requested by the parents of the children concerned.

With those few words, I await the Minister’s response.

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

This string of amendments focuses on the words “impracticable or otherwise inappropriate”. As has already been said, they have been viewed as a “get out of jail free” card. There is concern about how that will be interpreted at a local level. Amendment 167, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil and me, suggests that there must be consultation with parents, carers and medical professionals. Taken with amendment 192, which seeks a full independent assessment, both amendments make a strong support package and both are important.

We have heard what the National Autistic Society said. Another amendment that we tabled—amendment 187 —was suggested by the Special Educational Consortium. The amendment would delete “impracticable or otherwise inappropriate” and insert

“detrimental to the child’s well-being”.

That is suggested because there is a concern that the local authority is given too much discretion. There need to be checks and balances on that discretion, because we all know how very expensive an out-of-area placement can be, and one has to be clear that the child’s interests have been put first.

I find amendment 191 quite appealing. We have submitted amendment 158, whereby

“a local authority must...draw up plans...to allow the child to return to full time education as soon as this is appropriate.”

That may pick up the teenage pregnancy point that we mentioned earlier. It is a difficult area. Even though we are talking about a relatively severe condition—a very special condition—and they will all individually be very different, we need the checks and balances so that we put the child’s interests first rather than the monetary interests of the local authority. I know that they are a big constraint for a small local authority. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassuring words on all these amendments.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Approximately 70,000 children are affected by the issue each year. Let me reiterate the point because, as I think we all know from our constituencies, it is an important and emotive topic. The clause will for the first time make full-time education available for those who are in alternative provision who have not been excluded from school. I think we all regret that that does not happen at the moment, so the Bill will put that right. However, in putting it right, we do not want to create unintended consequences. Having said that the aspiration is for any young person who is not in school or who is in alternative provision to have full-time education, it may be that in certain circumstances—for example, for medical reasons or the best reasons—it is simply not appropriate or suitable for that to happen.

As hon. Members would expect for a Minister of the Crown, I would not quite call subsection (3AA) a get-out provision, but there could be a great deal more clarity and certainty in the phrasing and in what we mean. As I say, we do not want to have a clause that everyone supports if tucked away in it is something that says we do not expect children to have full-time education if it is simply inappropriate for them. We do not want the measure to be used by some as a way of avoiding their responsibilities under the clause.

I ask the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole to withdraw their amendments. I will take some legal advice on the matter and come back on Report with a Government amendment to try to deal with the points raised by them and, indeed, many others. I hope that is helpful to them.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

Referring back to a comment made by the hon. Members for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, will the Minister clarify how the clause will affect pregnant teenagers? Clearly, being pregnant is neither an illness nor a disability. Those girls are not being excluded either. Will he reassure me on that matter—in relation to this clause or elsewhere in the legislation—because where the young woman’s desire is to continue in the secondary school that she has been attending, it might be problematic to provide suitable and appropriate education.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is a very good, concrete example of the sort of person we mean. It might be someone with a medical condition or it might be someone who for other reasons—for example, a young girl who is pregnant—is in alternative provision. As the law stands, unless such a young person is excluded from school, there is no legal entitlement or necessity for the authority to provide full-time education for them. I think we all consider it to be an anomaly that if someone is ill or is not in school because of particular circumstances and they are in alternative provision, they are not legally entitled to full-time provision, whereas if someone is excluded from school, after six days out of school, the local authority is legally obliged to provide full-time education for them.

In exactly the circumstances that my right hon. Friend referred to of a young girl in such a situation—I am sure we can all think of other examples where somebody is not ill, but for certain reasons they are unable to be in school and they are in alternative provision—if the clause is passed, the legal necessity will be to ensure that full-time provision, where appropriate and necessary, is provided. I want to frame the clause in such a way that although it makes that a legal certainty for young people in that situation, it allows flexibility where appropriate. We want to do so in a way that does not allow anyone to evade their responsibilities. I hope that was helpful to my hon. Friend. With those remarks, and our commitment that we will table a Government amendment on Report to do what I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and Opposition Members want, I hope that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I was impressed by the Minister’s response. He is right that the law is improved by clause 9 and that, in putting right a law, he does not want to create the unintended consequences of having to provide full-time education for children who clearly, for a variety of reasons, cannot cope with it. I now understand that he is also cognisant that, in trying to tackle any potential unintended consequence, he does not want to create more of such consequences. As such, he has agreed to take away clause 9(3), which will insert proposed new section 19(3A) into the Education Act 1996, and I am grateful to him for doing so. I do not claim that my amendment is perfectly drafted, and I understand why he wants to take further advice. If he wishes to consult, Opposition Members will be happy to participate in that and make the legislation exactly right. I know that people outside the House, particularly the National Autistic Society and Barnardo’s, will be pleased with the Minister’s response. With those few words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 10

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment 54, in clause 10, page 12, line 17, leave out ‘areas of learning’ and insert ‘subjects’.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 52, in clause 10, page 12, line 21, leave out ‘areas of learning’ and insert ‘subjects’.

Amendment 238, in clause 10, page 12, leave out lines 22 to 29 and insert—

‘(3) The following are the core subjects for the first and second key stages—

(a) mathematics;

(b) English, and

(c) Science.

(3A) The following is a core subject for the second key stage—

(a) a modern foreign language.

(3B) The following are the other foundation subjects for the first and second key stages—

(a) geography;

(b) history;

(c) art;

(d) music;

(e) physical education and sport;

(f) information and communication technology.’.

Amendment 50, in clause 10, page 12, leave out line 36.

Amendment 182, in clause 10, page 12, line 36, at end insert—

‘( ) The governing body and head teacher of every maintained school or maintained nursery school shall have responsibility for developing areas of learning to meet the needs of children in their schools.’.

Amendment 53, in clause 10, page 13, line 4, leave out ‘area of learning’ and insert ‘subject’.

Amendment 183, in clause 10, page 13, line 5, at end add—

‘( ) The Secretary of State shall from time to time, though not more than once in each parliament, review the effectiveness of arrangements for areas of learning including attainment targets, programmes of study and assessment arrangements.’.

For reasons given previously, I am not minded at this stage to allow a stand part debate, as all these matters will be considered as part of the debates on the amendments.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Clause 10 introduces the new primary curriculum as recommended by the Rose review. It will replace section 84 of the Education Act 2002 with proposed new section 83A. The new section will replace the requirement to study mathematics, which was set out in section 84(2)(a), with “mathematical understanding”. The clause will also replace “English” with

“understanding English, communication and languages”

and “science” with “scientific and technological understanding”. It will take out “history” and “geography”, which are separately itemised in the 2002 Act, and replace them with “historical, geographical and social understanding”. It replaces separately itemised “art and design” and “music” with “understanding the arts”, and “physical education” with

“understanding physical development, health and well being.”

Other than the last one, which looks like replacing running and jumping in the gym or playing field with sitting at a desk studying human anatomy, the others appear to be the same as before, but with the word “understanding” plopped in front. If that is all it is, why worry? However, if that is all it is, why bother changing the legislation and have two reports—the interim and the final Rose reports—on the primary curriculum?

When I asked Jim Rose what the difference was between “mathematics”, as currently written in the legislation, and “mathematical understanding” in clause 10, his response was

“I am not sure that it is anything different from what we have now.”——[Official Report, Children, Schools and Families Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2010; c. 82, Q1.]

It does mean something different, or why else go to all the bother? Jim Rose’s interim report was greeted with howls of derision and criticism, because it revealed too openly the aim of moving from discrete subjects to the cross-curricular teaching methods of the 1960s. That was odd because Jim Rose is one of the so-called three wise men who, in 1992, conducted a government inquiry into low reading standards. Their report explicitly criticised progressive teaching methods:

“Over the last few decades the progress of primary pupils has been hampered by the influence of highly questionable dogmas which have led to excessively complex classroom practices and devalued the place of subjects in the curriculum”—

Jim Rose, Chris Woodhead and Professor Alexander said in 1992 that the place of subjects in the curriculum had been devalued.

More importantly, the clause takes primary education towards an outcome-based education system—known as OBE for short, in the jargon. The OBE approach has been defined by many educationists, pro and anti, but it is best summed up in Kevin Donnelly’s book—which cites the South Australian framework, which adopted OBE—as

“understandings, dispositions and capabilities which are developed through the Learning Areas and form an integral part of children’s and students’ learning from birth to Year 12 and beyond... These understandings, capabilities and dispositions are personal and intellectual qualities, not bodies of knowledge”—

that is the issue at stake.

That approach to education originates in the 1920s at Teachers college, Columbia, New York. Wherever and whenever it is tried, it fails. It particularly fails those children who have no access to education elsewhere, other than school—they have no access at home or through a personal tutor. Kevin Donnelly says in his book, “Dumbing Down”:

“Australia’s adoption of OBE is the reason why our education system is consistently at the centre of controversy. Since the development of the Keating Government’s national statements and profiles in the early to mid-1990s, all states and territories have adopted OBE to various degrees. Internationally, only a handful of countries have attempted to implement OBE and those educational systems that outperform Australia in the TIMMS tests ignore OBE in favour of a more academic and teacher-friendly syllabus.”

On the issue of maths, the debate is best summarised by the US mathematician David Ross, quoted in Kevin Donnelly’s book:

“The reformers think that students should struggle with mathematical problems on their own and that, from these struggles, methods of solving the problems will emerge. Having devised these methods themselves, students will understand the abstract conceptual structure of the methods. Their opponents think that unless students are taught the traditional algorithms, they will not be able to do math.”

Donnelly goes on to quote from Rhonda Farkota who argues that successfully mastering higher-order skills first requires being taught the basics in a structured, systematic way:

“It is generally accepted that a student-directed approach is more suitable when it comes to the employment and cultivation of higher order skills where reasoning and reflection are required. However, for the acquisition of basic mathematical skills, the research clearly shows that teacher-directed learning is better suited. Needless to say, these basic skills must be firmly in place before students can approach problem-solving questions with any degree of competence.”

In essence, that is the debate to have plagued education in this country for 50 years. It is all about what has been termed the constructivist approach, which is defined as

“a theory of learning that builds on the work of Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky... Adoption of a constructivist approach in the classroom involves a shift from predominantly teacher-directed methods to student-centred, active discovery learning and immersion approaches via cooperative group work, discussion focused on investigations and problem solving.”

As Kevin Donnelly states that when applied to maths, it means that memorising times tables, mental arithmetic, learning by rote and mastering basic algorithms, such as long division, give way to using calculators, co-operative hands-on learning and relating maths to real world applications.

I remember meeting a primary school teacher who said, “You don’t teach children to multiply by 10 by adding a zero, or to multiply by 100 by adding two zeros. That is just mechanical and doesn’t teach them an understanding of maths.” That view is widely held, and probably explains an incident that happened to me a few years ago when I spoke to a year 6 group in a primary school in my constituency about the campaign to ensure that every child in sub-Saharan Africa had a teacher. I asked them how much we could raise if we asked every taxpayer, of which there are about 30 million, to pay 10p. Almost immediately, a teacher burst in and said, “They can’t answer that question.” They were the brightest year 6 children in the school, who were co-ordinating the campaign. Members will probably remember receiving letters in which we were invited to go to the school and receive a model of a teacher that they wanted to have in every sub-Saharan country.

The fact is the teacher told me that those children could not do that kind of calculation; they had not been taught how to multiply large numbers. The obsession with not teaching algorithms means that children cannot do problem solving, because they do not have the tools to do it. Jim Rose let it slip that the constructivist approach is behind the reforms recommended in his report. He said:

“In the recent past, Ofsted commented on maths and said that children are taught sums, but often do not know what sums to do or how to apply that knowledge when it comes to a practical situation. Given that sort of evidence, which has come forward fairly consistently, I think that the way in which we are suggesting things should be structured is very sensible.”——[Official Report, Children, Schools and Families Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2010; c. 82, Q1.]

Clause 10 covers the new primary curriculum. The 76 prescriptive objectives in the maths programme of learning and the 84 prescriptive objectives in the English programme of learning are clearly crafted in a way that takes the curriculum in a constructivist direction and an outcomes-based approach. If I am wrong, as Jim Rose says, there is nothing different from what we have now. In either case, we should not be amending the national curriculum as set out in clause 10.

I want to come to the English curriculum when we debate the next set of amendments and the programmes of study. Amendments 54, 52 and 53 would replace the phrase “areas of learning” with “subjects”, which is the term used in the Education Act 2002.

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

I seek some clarification. Given that hon. Gentleman thinks that head teachers should have more freedom in implementing the curriculum—that is certainly my party’s view—should there not be the opportunity for one school to choose a cross-curriculum route and another to choose a subject-based route, because that would give parents a choice, and I believe in that sort of choice.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I agree with the hon. Lady: a very prescriptive curriculum that insists on a certain philosophy of education is proposed, and we should be giving the discretion to head teachers to use the philosophy that they think will deliver the highest standards. As a quid pro quo, parents should be able to choose the school that they think will be best for their own children. In my judgment, schools should have to publish on their website the educational philosophy, the approach and the curriculum in their schools, so that parents can make an informed choice. What we have at the moment is wrong. It is a centralised approach, the levers of which have been used to promulgate a particular ideology of education—

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is not yours.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

No, it is not the one in which I believe. I shall finish my point, and the Minister can jump in.

Such a system has failed whenever and wherever it has been tried. It is not new. It has been tried many times in this country, and whenever it is tried, it results in a poorer outcome of education for children. Let us consider, for example, the phase when children did not know their multiplication tables. Such periods do enormous damage to young people’s confidence in learning maths and taking it to a further stage. Even though it is now in the national curriculum that children should learn their tables to 10 times 10 by the time that they are nine-years-old, that still does not happen in many schools. I agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. She is absolutely right. It should be a matter for the professionalism of teachers, but that is not the system that we have at the moment, and what we have is moving in the wrong direction.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I apologise for jumping in. The hon. Gentleman accuses us of pursuing an ideology, but what is he pursuing?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am happy to have a debate about approaches to education. For too long, such issues have been debated among educationists behind closed doors. Those who are affected by it are excluded from the debate. I feel strongly as a Member of Parliament and as a shadow Education Minister that we should be debating such matters in public and I take every opportunity to do so. I believe strongly in phonics and learning multiplication tables by rote, so that the child has an automaticity and is not busy floundering, working out seven times six in a long division sum.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

What is the answer?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Forty-two, incidentally. That system is the best approach to teaching maths and to teaching children to read. Children should be taught general knowledge, history and the geography of this country and of the world. However, as I said to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, such matters should ultimately be for schools, but that does not mean to say that Members of Parliament and shadow Ministers should not take part in such debates and let the public contribute to them.

One organisation that takes part in the debate is the Campaign for Real Education. It has commented on the clause. It said:

“Sir Jim Rose recommended that primary schools should do away with the subject-based curriculum and subsume the subjects into 5 ‘areas of learning.’”

It went on to say:

“This goes completely against the advice of good teachers who emphasise that the subjects provide structure for essential knowledge and content.”

The documentation and Jim Rose’s report are defensive about the accusation of subsuming subjects, and the final report goes to great lengths to deny that, particularly following the outcry that greeted the interim report. However, the wording of the six areas did not change between the interim report and the final report, and it is that wording that will last if we implement clause 10 when Jim Rose is long forgotten.

The wording of the clause changes “subject” to “areas of learning”, but we believe that subjects matter. The constructivist approach is that learning how to learn is more important than subject content. It asserts that generic learning skills can be taught and then applied to subjects later—I am not sure when, but later. But the only genuine cross-curricular skill is literacy. How to read and write can be improved as we write a history essay or write up a geography field trip or a chemistry experiment, but learning French is different from learning maths or physics. The mind is developed by learning and understanding more and more concepts, by remembering more and more pieces of information and by developing knowledge, not by being told how and what to think.

As Kevin Donnelly writes,

“An essential aspect of what it means to be educated is to be taught traditional subjects like mathematics, history, science, literature and music. Such subjects have evolved over hundreds of years and each is unique in the way it defines how we experience and understand the world and our place in it.”

Another influential book is “The Schools We Need: And Why We Don’t Have Them” by E. D. Hirsch. He is critical of the objectives approach to the curriculum. He said that, in that approach,

“One first defines a few highly general ‘objectives,’ and one then carries them through several grades”—

he is an American academic; he is referring to years. As his objectives are quite general, they are then repeated each year—the theory being that they are taught in increasing depth. Hirsch argues that that leads to repetition and boredom as children learn the same issue over and over again in increasing depth. It also leads to gaps in children’s knowledge as the broad objectives result in some subject content being taught over and over again while correspondingly, other important areas are missed out altogether.

Amendment 238 would undo clause 10 and return to what is in the 2002 Act, with the exception that languages would be put in as a core subject for key stage 2, together with English, maths and science. It emphasises that music should be a separate foundation subject, rather than being subsumed into “understanding the arts”. Finally, amendment 50 would take out the Henry VIII clause that gives the Secretary of State the power under secondary legislation to amendment the curriculum which has, until now, been amended only by primary legislation.

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

I find this debate slightly odd in that I appear to agree with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, although I obviously come to this from a totally different perspective. I will speak to the whole clause, but I will not repeat myself later, Mr. Betts.

I do not think that we should restrict ourselves to cross-curricular work for every school, although I appreciate that some excellent work is going on in our schools, where inspired head teachers have managed to work around the straitjacket of the national curriculum and introduce innovative teaching programmes and methods that suit their children. Personally, I would probably choose a school with something similar to the Rose curriculum, but I cannot accept that we start imposing that on everybody. I am content to let hon. Members have a choice of schools that are subject-based. I come at this from a different perspective, but we agree on the point that the head teacher and the school should have more freedom. However, we risk taking away one straitjacket and starting to put on another, and that is what I object to.

I hope that our position is clear. In amendment 182 we have tried to convey the point that the governing body and head teacher should have responsibility. In amendment 183, we want to stop a situation where the Secretary of State can start fine-tuning the curriculum from the centre on an almost annual basis. We have suggested that that should happen not more than once each Parliament, so that we can review its effectiveness.

Coming from a totally different perspective, I have some difficulty in supporting the amendment, but I am reassured that we in Opposition think that there should be a choice for parents and a minimum curriculum entitlement that can be interpreted in different ways by different head teachers in different communities. It is important to have something that is right for children, and I am not supporting the full Rose review for those reasons.

Perhaps it is important to look again at what the Children, Schools and Families Committee said about the national curriculum—this point is picked up in the next group of amendments, so I will not repeat it. The report stated:

“We take the view that the main purpose of a national curriculum is to set out clearly and simply a minimum entitlement for every child.”.

That is important. It goes on:

“We are not convinced by the proposed Programmes of Study for the primary curriculum put forward in the interim report of the Rose Review, which seem unnecessarily complex.”.

I agree with both those statements.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

I do not favour a dogmatic approach to teaching, nor do I believe that many different schools offering many different platforms of learning is an appropriate way for urban areas in our cities to take advantage of the choice that is being suggested. I favour a more eclectic approach to teaching.

I listened with interest when the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned Piaget—an interesting name to bring up. He may correct me, but I recall that the essence of Piaget’s view is that children develop to think in the abstract at different ages. It is different for boys and girls. From the ages of five to 15, children develop an ability to think in an abstract way. Given that teachers work with children who develop rapidly and those who develop slowly, those who take a great leap and those who do not get off the diving board, an eclectic approach to teaching seems to be necessary. That approach would give children, particularly in tightly knit urban boroughs such as mine, the opportunity to go to a school and get an appropriate teaching method so that they can reach their potential.

I urge both Opposition parties to recognise the relatively dogmatic view in the way in which we teach subjects, rather than areas of learning. I appreciate that it is not a totally dogmatic view. The hon. Gentleman made an excellent case for his point of view. However, I think eclecticism should rule the day in the teaching platform so that our children get the maximum possible choice in the school that they attend to enhance their abilities.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Betts. I referred back to the evidence that Sir Jim Rose gave before the Committee and was struck by his comments about how the primary curriculum can take what is learned at the foundation stage for early years into the structured secondary stage. As we all know, there is a play-based approach for the foundation years, which teaches communication, language and literacy; personal, social and emotional development; physical development; knowledge and understanding of the world; creative development; and problem solving, reasoning and numeracy. How the transition into primary is made is important. Children make the transition out of foundation and at the end of year 6, they make the transition into years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, which are obviously more subject-based.

We are all concerned about education and how it is delivered. For me, good teaching is the key component, whatever the system. In most primary schools, the most important person is the generalist teacher and there might be a classroom assistant and specialists who can be called on in certain areas.

Sir Jim’s review of primary education reassured me about the emphasis on numeracy and literacy. I also felt encouraged that primary schools give some of the best examples of where subjects are studied in cross-curricular experiences, which can better engage children and help them to understand just how arithmetic, for example, might apply in other settings—that is not always the case.

We need to think about this age group and the transitions they make from foundation into primary and onwards into secondary. We must bear that in mind when we try to impose on them a certain approach, such as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton with his more secondary view of education.

Edward Timpson (Conservative, Crewe and Nantwich)

I agree with the right hon. Lady’s point about good teachers providing good quality education for all our children. Does she think that the programmes of study we have heard about, with their 84 objectives for teachers to fulfil, will help to provide good teaching, or are they too prescriptive?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

My understanding, from the evidence witnesses gave the Committee a few weeks ago, is that while there might always be room for manoeuvre to see whether the 84 objectives should be reduced, the number has actually been reduced since previous Governments were in power, when the system was far more prescriptive. That was the evidence we were given. I would not say no if asked whether some of the indicators and prescriptive ideas could be reduced further, but I think that they are going in the right direction. One of the opportunities of looking at a cross-curricular theme is that it might allow a classroom teacher—we are usually talking about one classroom teacher and perhaps 30 children—to think about how those areas can be blended together.

The example we were given in evidence was that of Charles Darwin. Many schools approach their targets or indicators by combining the science element of Darwin’s work with the historical context in which he lived, creative writing and art. As I understand it, we are going in the right direction on indicators, which is down, and that is welcome.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Some interesting comments have been made. It was interesting that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton accused us of having an ideological obsession with one form of teaching and then went on to present his own ideology regarding what should constitute a primary curriculum. I totally accept that there is a clash of views about that, and I do not use the word “ideology” against him in a disparaging sense, because we are just talking about different views on how things should be done, but let us take the debate beyond that. It seems to me that if people accuse each other of ideological fanaticism with regard to how the primary curriculum should be organised or taught, it leads to a sterile debate. I would not accuse him of that, except perhaps a bit with regard to phonics, but not on anything else. I take your point, Mr. Betts, about going a little broader than the specific amendments because we will not have a clause stand part debate.

Our approach is the result of an extensive review by Sir Jim Rose, who impressed me, frankly, during our evidence session. I have been impressed by him before, and although not everyone would agree with his evidence, I thought that it was clear and that he made a good philosophical, as well as practical, case for what he was suggesting. We are, of course, not alone: since 2005, eight countries have reorganised their primary curriculum around areas of learning rather than around subjects, including France, Spain, Germany and New Zealand, so it is not as though we were pursuing a rip-roaring Government initiative on which we were alone in the globe.

With regard to the level of support, Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has said:

“This makes me want to go back to teaching”.

The Independent Schools Council has said:

“Overall the recommendations reflect current thinking and practice in our schools. In general terms, much of what is proposed is already happening in the sector.”

I will not upset my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, by quoting from the General Teaching Council for England. The Historical Association has stated that it

“has always maintained that the national curriculum as it stands is over-prescribed, and this is detrimental to teaching and learning. We fully support a modified framework that supports the development of a less prescriptive and more flexible National Curriculum.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley is right that the number of objectives in the national curriculum used to be around 280. It sounds like a good debating point, but we are proposing a reduction from 280 to 84, so there is a reduction in the number of objectives.

We talked a lot about maths. Sir Peter Williams, who carried out the independent review of maths in primary schools in 2008, has said that Jim Rose’s recommendations will give teachers more freedom and flexibility. That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, made about the need for flexibility. It was the point that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole made, too. Jim Rose’s recommendations will give teachers more freedom and flexibility to use maths in exciting and creative ways in the classroom. That is the important bit, because that is where the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton thinks that it is a question of either/or—we either have subjects where everyone learns how to count, or areas of learning where no one does anything except play around with dice, while rolling around in the sand; that is his caricature. However, Sir Peter Williams said:

“Jim Rose’s recommendations will give teachers more freedom and flexibility to use maths in exciting and creative ways in the classroom, as well as focusing on the basics of times tables, mental maths and fractions.”

There is not a choice between teaching young people to count and them enjoying themselves and having fun. Of course it is important that the basics, as everyone calls them—reading, writing and counting—are done in primary school. However, we think that reorganising them in the way that we propose will allow less prescription and more flexibility for the teacher to teach in a way that they feel is appropriate to the learning of the young people in the classroom, which is the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East.

It is a caricature to say that our primary schools do not teach young people to count, read or write. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said that there are people who do not learn their times tables, but there is a subject-based curriculum in place now. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley said, it is a question of good teaching, the appropriateness of the curriculum and ensuring that the basics are there. However, there are other things about maths, as Jim Rose pointed out; that is why he talked of mathematical understanding, as well as of maths. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said that literacy was the only thing that he could think of that was appropriate in many other areas, but I would have thought that numeracy was another skill much used across the curriculum.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Minister cited third parties that supported his policy. However, when he quoted them, we saw that what they supported was the increased flexibility and reduced prescription. Although the clause may reduce the number of objectives, there are still 84 of them—the system is still prescriptive—and no one seems to be supporting that aspect. Other than increased flexibility, what is it about the outcomes-based, “areas of learning” approach, which France, Germany and New Zealand have adopted, that is an improvement on the current system?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is like the hon. Gentleman answering his own question. I cannot answer, “Flexibility” or “The fact that it is not over-prescriptive,” but if I do not say that, what is the answer going to be?

The fact is that it depends. The approach that we propose will allow people to develop their professionalism and feel that they can teach in a way that is appropriate to the needs of their particular class, rather than feel—as some do—that they are in a straitjacket. It will also allow teachers to teach in the classroom in a way that establishes links across a range of topics, rather than just teaching subjects in compartments. Many teachers, professionals and parents feel that that is a better approach.

I know that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will have read about the areas of learning. It is important to put on the record, in case we are accused of not believing that focused subject content is important, that the documents on each area refer to the need for focused subject teaching. Indeed, in the document on mathematical understanding, the first sentence states:

“Learning in this area should include an appropriate balance of focused subject teaching and well-planned opportunities to use, apply and develop knowledge and skills across the whole curriculum.”

We are not saying that because we are talking about areas of learning, subject content is not important. However, that is the caricature that the hon. Gentleman seeks to portray.

I would like to say, as an opening, before I deal with the specific amendments, that the clause has been welcomed by the profession and many professionals. The Rose review is good, and it will mean the return of flexibility to our primary schools, which is what classroom teachers in schools and communities up and down our country have been asking for.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Minister almost implies that he agrees that subjects should be taught, in which case why not leave the legislation as it is in the Education Act 2002—an Act piloted by his Government? Why not leave that provision and scrap all the prescriptive lesson plans and programmes of study? We object to those programmes because they promulgate a particular ideology of education. If the Minister went back to the wording of the 2002 Act and scrapped the programmes of study, we would have agreement.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

On the programmes of study, people will want to know what it is we are requiring people to learn under each of the headings. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that we should simply say, “Do maths, English, history and geography”? The areas of learning for the first and second key stages are laid out in the Bill, which mentions:

“understanding English, communication and languages...scientific and technological understanding”

and so on. Is he suggesting we should not have a programme of study? That we should not specify what people should learn? I know what the hon. Gentleman will say to me—that I have not got a clue what pupils will be doing under any of the programmes, and his amendments will say, “We need a bit of meat on the bone. We need a bit of detail on the proposals.”

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way to enable a proper, responsive debate. However, I am suggesting, as I said in my opening remarks, that the programmes of study say the same thing year after year:

“to recognise how authors of moving-image and multimodal texts use different combinations of words, images and sounds to create effects and make meaning”.

Later in the primary curriculum, the programme is:

“to evaluate structural and organisational features, including the use of different presentational devices, layouts and combinations of formats, and their effects”.

It is the same thing year after year, as the programme becomes more sophisticated. That is the problem. I would not want to take away all content from the curriculum, but let us set out in simple terms the knowledge and skills that children should have by a certain year group in school, and not have these amorphous, over-complicated phrases that can mean all kinds of things to different people and will lead to a) a certain type of education and b) potential huge gaps in children’s knowledge and skills.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I just do not accept that. I know the hon. Gentleman will have read the document. I go back to the point about good teaching made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. The document lays out the essential knowledge and what the skills should be. It lays out the breadth of learning. Every professional to whom we talk recommends organising teaching around areas of learning, which show how the themes, topics and skills link together in a cross-curricular way. That frees up the curriculum and allows teachers to teach in an appropriate way without taking away the importance of knowing facts, of knowledge and of the basic skills that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton believes in.

Mr. Gibbrose—

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I will take one more intervention before we move on, or you may feel that we are straying too far, Mr. Betts.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Minister is talking about pedagogy. Issues about cross-curriculum teaching are for the teacher to decide; they should not come out of a Government report, Government legislation and Government programmes of study. These are pedagogical matters for teachers. Policy makers and Government should ensure that all children have a minimum level of knowledge and skills. That is what we policy makers should be doing, not telling teachers whether to use cross-curricular or group teaching, or “circle time”. All those are matters for teachers, and we should keep out of that area.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is an amazing comment. The hon. Gentleman was continually telling people that they should be teaching phonics. [Interruption.] The national curriculum and areas of learning laid out in the Rose review promise an exciting time for schools, and have been broadly welcomed.

Let me deal quickly with the specific amendments. Amendment 50 would remove a power relating to the key stage 1 and key stage 2 curriculum. That power, which is in the Education Act 2002, relates to the primary curriculum. Before the proposed curriculum areas could be amended by order, the Secretary of State would be required to refer any proposal to the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, so that it could undertake statutory consultation with head teachers, governing bodies, organisations representing school interests and other appropriate bodies. The Secretary of State would then have to consult on the draft order before laying it before the House. Without that power, any future changes to the areas of learning, no matter how small, would require primary legislation. To change one word in the title of even one area of learning would require primary legislation.

The checks and balances for when the curriculum is amended by order are more than sufficient, even though they are not in the Bill. Furthermore, the amendment would introduce the anomaly that the existing power to amend the curriculum by order would continue in relation to key stages 3 and 4, but not key stages 1 and 2.

Amendments 52 and 54—taken with amendment 238 —fail to deal with the feeling of overload among primary teachers trying to teach high levels of literacy and numeracy and the 10 subjects of the national curriculum. The rigid retention of subject fails to address the need for smoother transition from the early years foundation stage to key stage 1, which was a good point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. The six areas of learning in the Bill build on the early-years foundation stage and will help to prevent the sudden change that can happen at the age of five, with the move from play-based provision of early years areas of learning and development to 10 separate subjects of the primary curriculum.

The proposed areas of learning continue to incorporate traditional subjects, which is at the heart of the debate between the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and myself, such as English, maths, science, history and geography, particularly during the middle and later stages of primary. However, they also provide greater opportunities—this is the key difference—to strengthen and deepen subject knowledge through well-planned cross-curricular studies, where children can use and apply subject knowledge across the curriculum. The six areas of learning included in the Bill have been subject to extensive consultation and development, and together they constitute a broad and balanced curriculum and have had strong support during consultation.

Some 71 per cent. of respondents to QCDA’s consultation agreed that areas of learning helped children to make useful links between related subjects. In a National Foundation for Educational Research survey of teachers, 72 per cent. of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that areas of learning would improve manageability for classroom teachers. On amendment 182, it will, of course, be the responsibility of head teachers to develop the curriculum for the areas of learning to meet the needs of their children, which gives some of the flexibility that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole wanted. That has always been the responsibility of the governing body and the head teacher of every maintained school, and it will remain so. That process includes ensuring access to the curriculum for children who may be learning English as an additional language, children with special educational needs and children with disabilities.

The new primary curriculum is not only a better match to the early years foundation stage and what already occurs in many primary schools; it is also less prescriptive and more flexible and allows schools to tailor the curriculum to meet the needs of all pupils in their care. Some 70 per cent. of respondents to the consultation agreed that the curriculum will give the schools the flexibility to adapt the curriculum to meet the needs of all pupils, and 69 per cent. agreed that it is less prescriptive than the existing one.

On amendment 183, we believe that reviews should be carried out only when it is absolutely necessary. As recommended by Sir Jim Rose, it is our intention to have regular and planned curriculum reviews over time. The recent review of the primary curriculum, to which the clause relates, was the first review for a decade following only two other reviews of the primary curriculum since the national curriculum was introduced more than 20 years ago. The new secondary curriculum introduced in 2008 contained the first significant changes since 2000. We believe that schools and pupils should have periods of curriculum stability, but, nevertheless, the curriculum should be dynamic and involved, so it can meet the changing needs of our children in a rapidly changing world.

The clause is very important. I know that I have strayed wider than the amendments, but a useful and interesting debate has resulted from doing so. All the evidence from the consultation indicates that the profession agrees with the direction in which the clause is taking us. It will be seen as a significant and substantial change. In the light of that, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment. I do not often say that, but if he presses his amendments to a vote, it is important that we vote against in this case.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It has been an important debate, highlighting the philosophical issues that bedevil education. Ideology has bedevilled education in this country and in the United States since the 1920s, coming to Britain in the 1950s in particular. For 50 years or more we have had an ideological debate about education, the consequence of which has been damage to our state education system. Talking to educationists in other parts of Europe—not those, incidentally, cited by the Minister in adopting such an approach to primary education—they find it extraordinary how the British state education system has gone down that route.

For many decades children were not taught to read using the tried-and-tested method of phonics, common throughout the world, whereby children are taught the alphabetic code and how to blend letters together and to decode words. Extraordinarily, I was not taught using that method—people of my generation and younger were not—but by the “look and say” or whole language method, in which children are meant to absorb words by being exposed to them, with words being repeated over and over again. Bright children could pick up learning to read in that way, but less able children could not, which is why in 1996—I realise that was towards the end of the last Conservative Administration—a National Audit Office report showed that 23 per cent. of adults in this country had literacy rates that prevented them from being able to read the dosage on an aspirin bottle. That is the consequence of 50 years of a constructivist education ideology, which I believe has been hugely damaging to our education system.

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and am aware that perhaps I should not distract, but I want to make a point about the difference. I hear a rigidity in his tone and would like a reassurance that in putting forward the case for synthetic phonics, he appreciates the exceptions, deaf children being a big one, and others with some form of hearing impairment. It is important that where children do not respond to synthetic phonics, other methods are used as well. I appreciate that for a large number of children phonics is a good scheme, but there are exceptions. Also, children who learn by look and say in their pre-school years should certainly not be held up by phonics if they are already reading fluently when they go to school.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

On the latter point, if children are reading, of course they should never be held back, but pushed ahead and encouraged to read ever more sophisticated books and texts. I absolutely agree. I do not agree with the approach that prevailed in the 1970s, when parents could be criticised by teachers for allowing their children to race ahead and learn to read. That approach was absolutely wrong. Every child should be stretched to the best of their ability. The hon. Lady is also right about a small percentage of children having particular neurological conditions who have a problem with any method in learning to read, and phonics is not the panacea for such children.

However, the point that I am making is a wider one about the constructivist approach, which also applies in maths—we have a severe problem with maths in this country. That same figure of 23 per cent. in literacy also applies in maths—according to the survey done by the NAO in 1996, 23 per cent. of adults could not add two figures together to come to the right number.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

In many respects, I have a lot of sympathy with the concerns, which I think are sincere, being put forward by the hon. Gentleman. My view, which may be a perception, is that while there is a long way to go, actually the debate between phonics and real books has moved on in some respects. Certainly in the schools that I go to in my constituency, and having brought up three children myself in the past 20 years, what I have seen is much more of a mixture of phonics and books. We had the basics, but we are not trying to displace the enjoyment that can go along with it—reading stories and so forth is part of that. That is what is happening in most schools I know. If it is not being delivered properly, there might be a problem with the teachers in the schools not doing what they need to do, and the head teachers not delivering what they need to deliver. I do know whether the problem is because of the curriculum or because the teaching is not as good as it should be, and I have no truck with that.

I consider that the debate has moved on. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about maths. The Ofsted report showed that, while people were being taught to add up, in some cases when it came to a real life situation and applying that learning, it was not happening. We must have a mixture of skills and knowledge, and apply it to scenarios outside the classroom. We have been moving towards that, and such an area of learning will allow us to develop towards it even more.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I was not terribly impressed by the particular Ofsted report that I cited. It did not properly reflect the real problem of teaching maths in our schools. I shall pick up on the hon. Lady’s point first. Children enjoy reading when they can do it. They are not taught the basic skill of how to translate the jumble of things on a page into a word and still struggle with it, yet they are taught to memorise passages and pretend to read it back to teachers. Seven-year-olds have read to me a text from “Winnie-the-Pooh”, but the word “Pooh” was not on the page; it was just “Winnie”. Where did they get that word from? Clearly, they had memorised it. That is the problem with the “look and say” approach. Some children just memorise and do not learn the skill of decoding, so when they come across a new word they struggle with it.

Phonics can be enjoyable. When children learn to do it and enjoy it, they can go straight into reading books. The key thing about the reading books is that they must not go beyond the phonic knowledge of the child. If the child had only learnt the basic consonants and the simple vowels, such as those in “The cat sat on the mat”, fine, but if the rhyme went on and said, “The cat sat on the mat and saw an elephant”, and the children were encouraged to guess the word “elephant” because they had not learnt the “ph” sound, all the education psychologists at universities say that that would damage the children’s ability to learn to read. They must acquire the skill to decode. When people play the piano, they learn that the middle C looks different on the stave than it does on the piano. Until children are told such things and practise them, and they become automatic in the brain, they will struggle to play the piano. The same theory applies to how reading is taught.

I shall now deal with rigidity, to which the hon. Lady referred. I accept that nothing in what I say is meant to be rigid. It could be that research from the States and about Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire is wrong, and that I am wrong, and that it is not best practice. There might be an even better system of teaching children to read than synthetic phonics, but we need to debate the issues fully in public and not allow the debate to be swept under the carpet, as it has been for 50 years. We must have the debate openly and let parents choose the philosophical approach that they want for their children. That is my party’s approach to education.

When people have money and can choose their education, they tend to go for such an approach to teach their children to read. The problem is in the state sector and the levers of the state seem to be held by people who want to impose their ideology on our education system, which is what has been so damaging in the past 50 years. The clause applies to our schools a particular approach to primary education. If the Minister was just increasing flexibility and wanted subjects to be taught as subjects, it would be hard to disagree with him, but that is not what is laid down in the clause nor what the programmes of study have said either. Given that we have had a wide debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment 148, in clause 10, page 12, leave out lines 18 to 21.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 159, in clause 10, page 12, leave out lines 19 to 21 and insert

‘shall set down a minimum curriculum entitlement for all children.’.

Amendment 48, in clause 10, page 12, line 19, leave out ‘programmes of study’ and insert ‘curriculum objectives’.

Amendment 150, in clause 10, page 12, line 20, after ‘arrangements’, insert

‘(the validity and viability of such arrangements to be reviewed from time to time)’.

Amendment 160, in clause 10, page 12, line 22, leave out subsection (3) and insert—

‘(3) The Minimum Curriculum Entitlement shall be determined by the Secretary of State, after consultation with all relevant bodies, and shall be reviewed not more than once in each Parliament.’.

Amendment 193, in clause 10, page 12, line 41, leave out ‘84A(3)’ and insert ‘84A(3)(a) to (e)’.

Amendment 51, in clause 10, page 12, line 43, leave out ‘programmes of study’ and insert ‘curriculum objectives’.

Amendment 161, in clause 10, page 13, line 5, at end add—

‘(3) The Secretary of State shall review the validity and viability of assessment arrangements relating to the primary curriculum, and publish the results of this review no later than 31 December 2010.’.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Amendments 148, 48 and 51 would remove the requirement to specify programmes of study in the national curriculum. That is where the national curriculum has gone wrong. What the public, parents and policy makers have always wanted from the national curriculum was a simple statement of the core knowledge and concept of pupils’ needs to be taught in each subject, each year. It is as simple as that; a de minimis level to ensure that children are not missing out on key elements of their education. Even with a measure that, as the Minister says, purports to reduce prescription, we still have a hugely prescriptive set of objectives. There are 84 for primary English, and 76 for primary maths. They prescribe not curriculum content but an approach to education that is controversial.

Let me take the “Understanding English” programme of study as an example. This has objectives that run from E1 to E24 for the early part of primary school, from M1 to M29 for the middle years of primary school, and from L1 to L31 for the later years. Among the early objectives for four, five and six-year-olds, E3 is,

“to reflect on how talk varies in different circumstances and for different listeners”.

E15 is

“to identify the characteristic features of texts with different purposes”.

For the middle years—eight and nine-year-olds—M15 is,

“to recognise how authors of moving-image and multimodal texts use different combinations of words, images and sounds to create effects and make meaning”.

I am not sure whether the phrase “make meaning” does actually make meaning. In later years for 10 and 11-year-olds, L15 is,

“to evaluate structural and organisational features, including the use of different presentational devices, layouts and combinations of formats, and their effects”.

John McIntosh was the headmaster of the London Oratory school, which includes a junior school. He summed up the issue when he gave evidence to the Committee:

“I feel that the over-prescription and regulation of the curriculum—not just in primary but across the board—has to a degree led to what I might call the deprofessionalisation of teachers, who are now expected to behave in an almost robotic way in accepting orders from QCA”.——[Official Report, Children, Schools and Families Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2010; c. 84, Q8.]

John McIntosh’s views appear to have been confirmed by the answer given by Sue Barratt, the primary head teacher who served on Jim Rose’s review. She said:

“We do need the objectives, to drive us as we take things through, and for progression, moving the child through from key stage 1 to key stage 2 and key stage 3.”.——[Official Report, Children, Schools and Families Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2010; c. 85, Q10.]

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I am trying to understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. We have programmes of study, and he gave some examples of those. What is a curriculum objective? If curriculum objectives were to be laid out for English, how many would he expect to have? Does he have any examples to give to the Committee, so that we can understand the difference between the sorts of things that have been laid out in the programmes of study, and the sorts of things that would presumably be laid out under the subject-based curriculum that he favours? Presumably, content, skills, knowledge and some sort of objectives would have to be laid out. How many of those would the hon. Gentleman expect to have, and what would they be?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

They would be very few and they would relate to the reading ability of the child, their writing ability, and the level of words and degree of difficulty to which the child should be spelling. In subjects such as geography, we would ask specialists to specify at what age they think people should know certain things and what is important. However, it would be things such as the rivers of the United Kingdom or the countries of Europe. I remember learning the map of Europe by heart in what is now year six, and my knowledge of Europe today is based on that. If the Minister wants to look into the issue further, he could look at the core knowledge curriculum developed by E. D. Hirsch in America and the core knowledge schools. That curriculum sets out a simple set of knowledge, concepts and skills that children should acquire in each year of state education in the United States, and it is very effective.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

What is the difference between curriculum objectives and programmes of study?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The programmes of study, as drafted by the Government, are based on an outcomes-based educational system that drafts them in very broad terms that are the same for several years running. I would give examples if I had the right piece of paper in front of me, but in the science curriculum, for example, it will say, “the development of life” and there will be the development of life in each of the years. However, because it does not say that children need to learn about seeds, mammals and then reptiles, children could often learn the same facts about seeds in each year but in increasing depth. That is the point; issues are being repeated over and over again. That is seen in history, which has already moved to a competence-based approach in key stages 3 and 4. Very often, we find that children are learning the same period of history over and over again, but they are learning a different historical skill in each of the years, which may or may not be useful. What they are not doing is learning a broader part of the history of this country and the world. They are learning the same period over while they develop their historical skills. That is the difference in approach.

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

Do the curriculum objectives apply to academies?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

No, we have made it clear that schools that opt out or become academies will not be subject to the national curriculum. The national curriculum should be for schools that remain within the maintained sector.

Lynda Waltho (Labour, Stourbridge)

I have been there not just as a parent but as a teacher. I was trained in the middle years, so I have taught in both primary and secondary schools. What the hon. Gentleman talks about sounds even more prescriptive than the things he has been denouncing. Am I right in assuming that what he is saying is that on 2 February, all six-year-olds will do page 27 of such and such a book about the Tudors, or about the sources of rivers? It sounds even more prescriptive than what he has denounced.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

No, I am not saying that at all; I am saying the opposite. As policy makers, we are the people who levy the taxes from the public and who provide a free education system at the point of use, which is very expensive. As policy makers, we are trying to say what our education system needs to provide. The system in clause 10 and in the programmes of study that come with it promulgates a very particular approach to education that I have described in my previous remarks. It is an outcomes-based education system, which has been tried and is in place in some parts of the world. We can assess the results of the system if we wish, but as policy makers we should be aware of what is happening—of what the system is doing. The provision has been carefully drafted so that it ticks all the boxes for people such as me. None the less, it is still an outcomes-based education system with broad curriculum objectives. What I am saying is that as policy makers, we need to ensure that young people leave school educated, and that we should debate among ourselves and with the general public what it means to be educated. Do we want children to leave school illiterate?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

Is the hon. Gentleman talking about primary school?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Yes. Well, this debate goes wider than primary school, but we are focused on that. Do we want children to leave primary school illiterate? Do we want them to know nothing about the continents or countries of the world? Is that something we want to preserve for secondary school? Do we want them to know the rivers, long division, long multiplication and equations? Do we want them to know how to add and take away fractions? The role of policy makers is to say that by the age of 11, children should know certain things. That does not mean to say that I think they should learn fractions during the afternoon of 4 June. What I am saying is that by the time they leave primary school, or by the time they are nine, they should know or should have been taught certain things. It may be that they are taught by brilliant teachers and still cannot remember certain things.

There is a role for policy makers in Parliament, and therefore Government, to set out a minimum of what children should know by the time they leave primary school. That is all I am saying. Teachers should be able to teach in whatever way they see fit. If they think they can teach by standing on their heads, good for them. If they want to use cross-curriculum methods or an outcomes-based approach, that is fine, so long as when children leave primary school they are reading at a sufficiently fluent level and have reached a particular level of maths. I do not see how anyone could object to that.

Lynda Waltho (Labour, Stourbridge)

I do not object to it, but it seems even more prescriptive than what the hon. Gentleman has denounced. It is not just about children coming out of school with a list of things they can do; they should have learned in a way in which they can apply all of that. For teachers and parents, from my experience, a holistic approach is best, rather than a prescriptive shopping list for each subject that children come out with at the other end.

Recently, the Children, Schools and Families Committee took evidence about young people going to university. According to it, although they may know certain things, they cannot apply their knowledge because they have been taught how to get the right answers, not about thinking and applying knowledge. Part of what teachers—and, to a certain extent, parents—do is to help children and young people function as a result of their education and apply their knowledge and skills, rather than knowing a list of geography and history facts.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Lady is talking about pedagogical skills. That should be left to the professionalism of teachers. We can debate those issues, but they should not be part of a national curriculum. That is why I object to the programmes of study; they are very pedagogical.

On applying maths, the evidence says that in the early years in primary schools, children should acquire the basic skills, such as how to multiply 30 million by 10p and come up with £3 million as the answer. They should be learning not necessarily real-life examples but algorithms and techniques, such as, in order to get 10 per cent. of a large figure, the decimal point can just be moved one point to the left. Once those basic skills have been acquired, they can be applied as children get older and acquire higher order skills.

What is happening is that people are not acquiring the basic skills and are having to learn them in secondary education, when they should be beginning to learn how to think. Therefore, when they arrive at university, they have not learned the higher order skills. That is the problem I am trying to highlight.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I have looked at the areas of study and although I agree that some of the wording could be in plainer English, I think they are helpful to teachers. For example, the part covering history and geography talks about geographical features. The River Don flows past a school in my Don Valley constituency. We have Conisbrough castle, which Harold passed by on his way to the battle of Hastings. Sir Walter Scott wrote “Ivanhoe” at the Boat inn. This was all in my maiden speech, so hon. Members can look it up. My point is that the skills identified in the document can be used and applied locally.

Coal mining is clearly the main historical industry of the past 100 years in Doncaster, although the situation has changed. The environment, the houses and the landscape have all been affected by that industry. In inner-city areas such as Coventry and London, the effects of the second world war can be seen on the landscape, for example in places where bombing took place.

It is not clear to what extent the hon. Gentleman is trying to prescribe what teachers should teach, whether in history or geography, and whether the immediate environment is to be used as the stepping-stone at primary level, which will be the catalyst to spark young people’s imaginations for more generic learning down the road. I used to have the skill of being able to recite every king and queen of England. I will not attempt to do that today. I used to think it was a pretty interesting party skill, but it did not tell me any more of what I needed to know about the history of England.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I do not disagree with the right hon. Lady. There is nothing wrong with schools taking children out and showing them local historical sites; in fact it is commendable. Of course they should do that, but they should not just go to see local things in Don Valley. They should know about the battle of Hastings, which took place at the other end of England. They should know what was happening in Europe.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I really do not understand the Conservative party’s position on the issue of core skills and core knowledge versus the ability to opt out. An e-mail has come into my hands exchanged between the Liberal Democrats and one of the hon. Gentleman’s party’s advisers, in which the Conservatives make it clear that that they would allow providers to set their own curriculum. The question that went back to the Conservatives from us was, “Even if it does not include a proper narrative of British history?” and their answer was, “Yes, they could opt out of the national curriculum.” How on earth can there be fundamental, core skills if some schools can simply opt out?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Gentleman is confusing two parts of our policy. Once a school has opted out of the system and becomes an academy—[Interruption] not immediately—and new providers come in, at that point, there will be sufficient capacity in the system to give parents a genuine choice, which is key. If someone from Sweden sets up a school in this country, they have to attract parents to the idea of sending their child to that school. They will only go to that school if they believe it is offering the curriculum that they—parents who now have a genuine choice; in other words, those who have sufficient money to have a choice—want. It is our belief that they will choose schools that provide a high-quality education. However, they should also be free to send their children to progressive schools with the Kunskapsskolan or Bedales type of approach. However, I believe strongly that most parents will want to send their children to a school that provides rigorous academic education, where children leave fully educated and skilled in reading and have a good grasp of maths.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

What on earth has choice got to do with the presence of one academy? There could be an academy serving a town where there is no choice at all, and four ordinary maintained comprehensive schools offering the potential for real choice. The hon. Gentleman’s policy would impose a monopoly of one provision on a town that relies on one academy, but not allow choice to operate where there are four secondary schools.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

If that scenario develops, there will be a lot of parental dissatisfaction. Therefore, a new provider will come in. [Interruption.] They will. That is the essence of our proposal: we will make it much easier for schools to establish by removing the bureaucratic hurdles that schools will have to go through and the rule on surplus places. We believe that as a consequence of those reforms, many new providers will come in and provide things like the Harris academies, which give a first-class education. Their school in Crystal Palace was graded by Ofsted as perfect in everything that it examined. I believe that our system will lead to a huge opening up and diversity of providers, who will have to provide the kind of education that parents want for their children.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for being so patient. He will be aware that at the moment, academies are at the forefront of schools using their flexibility to drop core subjects such as history a year earlier than was thought to be specified in the existing national curriculum. If an existing academy decided to drop history earlier—at age 10, nine or eight—what would he do?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Existing academies are subject to funding agreements that will prevent them from doing so. However, we believe that there will be a rapid increase in new providers coming into our system. I repeat: if schools are not providing the type and quality of education demanded by parents, a new provider will come in. It will be easier for new providers to come in, and they will begin to provide the education demanded by parents. Children will drift away from schools that are not teaching history beyond the age of 11, toward those that do. At the moment, we have a system that is letting down significant segments of our population, and I believe that this is the only way in which we can tackle underperforming schools in our system in the long run.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

If that is the hon. Gentleman’s party’s policy, I urge him to think again. He is a strong advocate of a core curriculum. Is he really saying that the only thing he is relying on to protect young people where there is potentially one school in a catchment area is the market mechanism? It could be four or five years before another school is established. A young person could have missed the opportunity to get an education in precisely the type of core subjects that the hon. Gentleman has always argued are important.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

But if schools want to do what the hon. Gentleman is proposing—speaking to many heads, I doubt that they will want to do so—they will probably be deficient in many other areas, in schools that are currently not providing a high-quality education to parents. The hon. Gentleman is painting a scenario of extremis, and I do not believe that we will go down that route, because we are dealing ultimately with a profession and its members are professional people.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Having visited a Kunskapsskolan school in Stockholm and, indeed, state schools there, is the hon. Gentleman aware that what creates choice for parents in Sweden is not the provision of those schools, but the over-provision of places? Without keeping places paid for but empty in schools, at huge cost, it is impossible to provide parents with the choice that he implies would be provided. I am eager to hear whether he thinks that any putative Conservative Government would be able to fund—would be willing to fund—the level of over-provision that Swedish schools happily fund to guarantee that parental choice.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Yes, there needs to be capacity in the system—the hon. Gentleman is right—but there is not a huge cost, because schools are and, under our proposals, would be funded only on the basis of the number of pupils in the school. If a school is undersubscribed compared to its capacity, it will have to close classrooms, turn the radiator off and reduce the staff accordingly. That is the system in Sweden and it works there and does not cost huge amounts. Incidentally, Sweden introduced the system in a recession and it proved very cost-effective. So it is not usually expensive to have money following the pupil and to have surplus places in the system at the same time.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Order. We are beginning to stray quite a way from the specifics of the amendments before us. Could we now come back to the amendments? We have had an interesting debate, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will come back to the amendments.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Yes, I will, Mr. Betts; I take your point. The objectives that I read out some time ago, from the programme of study, are all about deconstructing texts. Kevin Donnelly says:

“Deconstructing texts not only removes the focus from learning to read with discrimination and understanding, but the joy of reading is destroyed as students are forced to view literature through the narrow prism of what is currently defined as acceptable.”

Donnelly goes on to say:

“Primary school children instead of reading for enjoyment are told that they must become ‘active meaning makers through critical reading and thinking strategies’.”

There is that phrase “making meaning” again, now cited by an Australian academic. These are all in the programmes of study: L10, L15, L16, L19 and L20.

The key to reading in primary schools is to ensure that early on, children have mastered the skills of decoding text effortlessly. As that is being mastered, children can read to learn, read to increase vocabulary and read to increase comprehension. We need to encourage children to read for pleasure and to read book after book after book. That was certainly the approach taken in the elementary school that I went to in Canada, where every time that any child finished a book, up on the wall went another leg of the bookworm. As a seven-year-old, I would have been mortified if I had had to analyse the text. Ensuring that children understand the story is enough at that age.

The amendments would take out the phrase “programmes of study” and replace it with “curriculum objectives”. Amendment 193 was inspired by the NASUWT, which said in its brief to members of the Committee:

“The proposals put forward in relation to the incorporation of PSHE into the National Curriculum made it clear that the subject orders would not include attainment targets or statutory assessments. Although the Bill does not introduce such provisions, it does create a legal framework within which attainment targets and statutory assessment might be introduced subsequently.”

Amendment 193 would apply that approach, not to PSHE but to understanding physical development, health and well-being. Clause 10(2) gives the Secretary of State power to apply attainment targets and programmes of study to all six areas of learning. The amendment would remove that power from the sixth learning area—physical development, health and well-being, which is not an area that I believe should be examined, not because I was not any good at PE and physical development, but because I do not think that every area of the curriculum needs to be assessed, tested and subject to a target.

Amendment 150 would ensure that the attainment targets and assessment arrangements were kept under review.

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

I started the important debate on the last string of amendments by pointing out that I felt that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil were coming at this issue with a different approach from the Conservatives. With this string of amendments we are running parallel and are never going to meet. That is quite bizarre. Perhaps I should refer to our three key amendments, which I hope have a coherence and consistency that I felt were distinctly lacking in the previous debate.

We believe strongly that there should simply be a minimum curriculum entitlement set down for all children. That truly means giving the freedom to implement that to the head teachers, governors and teachers. It applies to all schools; we do not start picking and choosing. If it is good for academies then, we would argue, it is good for maintained schools, and we think that should be the case. We need a minimum curriculum entitlement, but we do not need prescribed from the centre masses of detail and prescription, of which we have had a lot in the last half hour or so.

Secondly, moving on to amendment 160, we think the minimum curriculum entitlement should be determined by the Secretary of State, but after consultation with all relevant bodies, and it should be reviewed not more than once in each Parliament. We have to put an end to the constant tinkering with the curriculum from the centre.

Amendment 161 looks at assessments in relation to the primary curriculum. We currently have a situation where, perhaps excepting Government Ministers, there is a strong feeling that teaching to the test at key stage 2 is distorting whatever curriculum has been set down. It would not matter if it was areas of learning or subject-based, when we get to year 6 in many schools the key stage 2 test overcomes everything else. In line with moving to a minimum curriculum entitlement, we want a proper review of the validity and viability of assessment processes. We are not just making a cheap political statement of “Scrap this, scrap that” but looking at it seriously and seeing that the assessment is there for a purpose, to develop our children’s learning rather than becoming an end in itself, with so many objectives, many going back to the school and the local authority. Our children are losing out and not having that rich curriculum necessarily at the moment. In many schools, excellent head teachers and teachers give the necessary leadership and it is possible to have that rich curriculum and survive with the test. We do know examples of where that does not happen, and therefore it is important to have a proper review.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

What an illuminating debate this is.

Ken Purchase (Labour, Wolverhampton North East)

Are you sure?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I am sure because it sets out the coherent position that the Rose review laid out for the reform of the curriculum. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton did his best but was left with a paucity of detail. The difference between “curriculum objectives” and “programmes of study” is not clear to me. The hon. Gentleman just listed a range of content and said something like, “Because it is content and your programmes of study are vague and I do not agree with them, we are going to call them curriculum objectives.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge laid out from her experience some of the consequences of the constraints that the hon. Gentleman would place on teachers. The hon. Gentleman chided me earlier—without using the words flexibility and allowing teachers to teach in the way that they want—and asked the advantage of what we are doing. Essentially, the Rose review allows that return of flexibility, of teacher professionalism, and of allowing schools to determine how best to teach their young people.

The amendments would change the current national curriculum system of setting out programmes of study, assessment arrangements and attainment targets for the areas of learning. They would take out all the programmes of study and therefore the essential knowledge. The hon. Gentleman talked about English; under each of those areas of learning the appropriate essential knowledge is laid out in the national curriculum handbook. The hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends will be able to read that and see what the essential knowledge is. The key skills for each area of learning are then laid out. The document is concrete and specific. It then lays out the cross-curricular studies, which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge rightly pointed out, are absolutely essential. The Rose review and many professionals say that any programme of study rather than some content-based curriculum objective is absolutely essential.

The heart of the debate and of our difference is that the hon. Gentleman says that the content must be laid out as a prescriptive list and we say that of course content is important, but the use of that knowledge and being able to apply it in a cross-curricular way is a key fundamental part of any curriculum reform. The amendments in the first group laid the matter out in one way and this group lays it out in another, but the debate is essentially the same. I am sorry to deal with the matter in this rather restrained way with a lecturing tone, but people read these debates.

As well as essential knowledge, key skills and cross-curricular studies, there is breadth of learning and trying to develop that. Teachers feel excited and inspired because the document is driven not only by content—knowledge—but by skills and understanding. That is all laid out. It then lays out the curriculum progression in three stages: the early stages, years 1 and 2; the middle stages, years 3 and 4; and the later stages, years 5 and 6. It lays out what teachers would reasonably expect of their pupils in those situations. The hon. Gentleman’s amendments completely cast that aside and say that none of it is relevant or appropriate, or leads to good teaching or learning, which is at the heart of what we want.

In its place, the hon. Gentleman wants curriculum objectives—a list of content. As soon as someone starts to list content, people will say, “You haven’t included this”. To try to make a list of content for history, geography, science, maths, English and so on, in a way that is manageable for the curriculum is difficult. If the hon. Gentleman looks back at the introduction of the national curriculum about 20 years ago, he will remember that the people introducing it were plagued by trying to lay out the content that schools should cover. Reform ever since has been to reduce the amount of content, to make the curriculum manageable for schools.

Lynda Waltho (Labour, Stourbridge)

My hon. Friend has just reminded me of the nightmare introduction of the national curriculum. I remember folders upon folders of different subject areas, which we had to divide down into how many children we had. I literally had to have my clipboard with me so that I ticked something when a child showed some skill or showed that they understood the knowledge, and it was horrendous. Children do not learn in such a way. Sometimes young people look as though they have understood something and then one might find a week later that they have not quite grasped it yet. It was impossible to do that, and it will be impossible to do a similar thing in terms of subject knowledge. It would be ridiculous. It points to the fact that the Conservatives are not talking to the professionals who actually deliver education. It is naive.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

What my hon. Friend has just said and the passion with which she said it outlines the difficulty that the hon. Gentleman will find himself in when he tries to list content in the way that he started to when I asked him what he meant by curriculum objectives rather than programmes of study. With respect to the previous Conservative Government, it bedevilled them when they tried to do it. They were castigated for not having all those things in it.

The Rose review lays out programmes of study and of course contains skills and cross-curricular provisions as well. It is not clear from amendments 48 and 51 what function the curriculum objectives would be intended to fulfil. Nor is it clear how they would provide access to the knowledge, skills and understanding, and curricular continuity across the key stages—a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley—to which all children are currently entitled through the national curriculum programmes of study.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will know that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) laid out 24 areas of history in the Evening Standard, which he said were an essential part of the history curriculum.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Over nine years.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

If the hon. Gentleman tries 24 areas over nine years, he will be castigated. It will be 30 over six and 58 over 10. That is where it will end up if the hon. Gentleman is not careful. He also started to get into trouble with the free school notion. He does not understand the illogicality of the point that he made to the hon. Member for Yeovil. He said that it is an essential curriculum—so essential that everyone should do it—and then he said, “But we are going to set up loads of schools that do not have to.” That is an illogical position—his Whip wants me to finish; my own Whip does, too. I totally disagree with him, but he laid out what he thought with clarity and passion, and then said, “It is so important for every school to do this that we are going to set up a system where schools can do what they want.” Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, the logic drives a coach and horses through it, let alone the chaos that would result in the system from the market free-for-all that he envisages in school places.

So I hope the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will withdraw his amendment. On assessment, we recently had an expert group look into the future of testing arrangements and we have made changes to key stage 2, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole will know. Formal assessment arrangements exist at the end of key stage 2 with respect to maths and English. There are, of course, attainment targets laid out in the national curriculum document. They will remain the same. The Government have no intention of changing the assessment arrangements at present. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

This has been an interesting debate, but I do not know whether the Minister understands what he is introducing, or whether he believes his own rhetoric about reducing prescription and increasing flexibility. That could easily have been achieved in secondary legislation by simply getting rid of or slimming down the objectives in the programmes of study. If he examines the programmes of study and reads Kevin Donnelly’s book and/or E.D. Hirsch’s book, “The Schools We Need: And Why We Don’t Have Them”, he will see that that conforms closely to an outcome-based approach to education.

The first two items in the English programme of study for essential knowledge are, (a),

“how language is used to express, explore, and share information, ideas, thoughts and feelings”

and (b),

“the power of language and communication to engage people and influence their ideas and actions”.

Those broad phrases can mean almost anything, and the real devil is in the detail, which is set out in the programmes of study, which again tend to lead to repetition in different years, and focus on a particular competence-based curriculum rather than a knowledge-based curriculum. It is ideological, and that is why I feel so strongly that it should not be in this legislation. It has become a feature of the QCA’s approach to our education system during the past six or seven years, and it has done untold damage.

If clause 10 goes through and the programmes of study are inflicted prescriptively on our primary schools, I know what will happen. Someone will go into a primary school on the date mentioned by the hon. Member for Stourbridge and will see written on the board, “Today we will do N15. Objective: authors.” That approach to education will kill the joy of learning, and of reading, and it will be a retrograde step.

We have had a wide debate, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

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

I beg to move amendment 186, in clause 10, page 12, line 36, at end insert—

‘(7) The Secretary of State shall ensure teachers have appropriate guidance and resources to teach the areas and stages of learning set out in subsection (3) to pupils with special educational needs or a disability in relation to—

(a) programmes of study, and

(b) attainment targets and assessment arrangements.’.

The amendment obviously refers to the areas of learning proposed in the Bill, and is a belt-and-braces measure to ensure that we carry our responsibility to children with special educational needs or a disability through to any new curriculum that might be introduced. I seek assurance from the Minister that teachers will have the appropriate resources for and clarity about the stages of learning and applicability of the new curriculum and the attainment targets for children with special educational needs.

I have mentioned that we rushed through inclusion without first obtaining everything that needed to be in place, and before we rush into a new curriculum, we should ensure that it passes a number of tests on what needs to be in place for children with special educational needs.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

In line with my comments about the hon. Lady’s amendments to an earlier clause, she has made an extremely important point, but it is not necessary for that to be in the Bill. However, I assure her that in all cases the QCDA will provide guidance for teachers on how the national curriculum will be taught, and an important part of that will be the needs of pupils with special educational needs and disability. With that assurance that we can achieve the purpose of her amendment in another way, I hope that the hon. Lady will see fit to withdraw it.

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

I am happy to withdraw the amendment. I just wanted to put down an important marker, as we move into what may be a new era, to make sure that the guidance covers all the aspects of my proposal. I thank the Minister, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 11

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I beg to move amendment 55, in clause 11, page 13, leave out line 11.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 58, in clause 11, page 13, line 11, after ‘education’, insert

‘(but constituting no more than 5% of the curriculum time)’.

Amendment 106, in clause 11, page 13, line 15, after ‘education’, insert

‘(but constituting no more than 5% of the curriculum time)’.

Amendment 56, in clause 11, page 13, leave out lines 16 to 19.

Amendment 59, in clause 11, page 13, line 19, after ‘education’, insert

‘(but constituting no more than 5% of the curriculum time)’.

Amendment 77, in clause 11, page 13, line 20, leave out subsection (4).

New clause 6—Capacity of schools to implement PSHE

‘(1) Before requiring maintained schools or Academies to implement PSHE the Secretary of State shall carry out an impact assessment into the capacities of such schools to provide PSHE and any such impact assessment shall be reported to Parliament.’.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

We have spent a long time doing geography, English and history. We are now going to do sex, and personal, social health and economic education as part of it. The next few clauses are clearly a contentious part of the Bill. They concentrate on what is in PSHE. We have all been lobbied heavily, particularly on how far the sex and relationship education elements of the Bill should go.

At the outset, it is worth saying that my worry about the way in which this part of the Bill is structured does not derive from an objection to PSHE. A lot of stuff mentioned in the Bill should be taught to children. I am a big advocate of far better sex and relationship education, which historically we do badly in this country, and I am sure that many members of the Committee have all had some pretty inadequate experiences of its teaching in our schools. It is a bit of a postcode lottery.

There are three matters at the heart of why we are worried about the structure of this aspect of the Bill. First, I am concerned about pressures on the curriculum and the timetable in schools. Secondly, our overriding concern must be about the quality of what is taught to our children under the headings of PSHE, and sex and relationship education in particular. A third important matter that we must bear in mind is the rights, responsibilities and considerations of the parents.

Clearly, what is at stake is parents’ power to withdraw their children from particular aspects of what is now being proposed as compulsory in schools. That is a problem. A parent’s right to withdraw their child from certain forms of teaching is a principle that has lasted until now and that goes to the heart of parental choice, by which we still set great store.

This part of the Bill is a bit of a muddle, and I think that it will cause problems if it passes as currently structured. That is why we have taken as the basis for a proper debate the principle that PSHE should not become such a structured, compulsory part of the curriculum. Schools are successfully incorporating it in other ways into their curriculum and timetable.

Virtually every week—I am sure that the same goes for my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and other hon. Members—I am approached by some outside organisation such as a charity, voluntary group or business saying what amounts to “Such and such a subject really should be part of the national curriculum. This is such an essential subject that we must make sure it’s absolutely up there with all the other subjects that children must learn in schools.”

As part of the lobbying and briefs that we have had for this aspect of the Bill, I received a perfectly reasonable brief from St. John Ambulance saying that basic first aid should be part of the national curriculum and that we must find time to ensure that all our kids have basic first aid skills, because it is an important subject. I am sure that we all agree that it is an important subject. If more people knew basic first aid, perhaps fewer people would suffer from accidents and so on.

We also had a brief from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds saying that there should be a statutory purpose for the environment and sustainable futures as part of the national curriculum. Again, it is an important subject—I am sure we all agree that we want our children to be more environmentally aware—but the RSPB thinks that it should be part of the national curriculum.

The list goes on and on, with various organisations with axes to grind. The trouble is that the time in which our children can learn in schools is limited. If we cram more and more into the compulsory part of the national curriculum, something must give. Either we must drop other subjects altogether, or the other subjects that remain compulsory will be diluted in some way. That is the balance to be struggled with, and that is why objections to the structure of this part of the Bill are based largely on what is practical in our schools and what children can actually cope with.

Amendment 55 is a way of plotting territory. It would remove PSHE as a compulsory subject. A selection of our amendments have been grouped together as an either/or option. If PSHE is to become a statutory part of the curriculum, amendments 58 and 106 would cap the amount of time overtly devoted to it in the curriculum.

That is part of the nonsense of including such a subject in the compulsory curriculum. It may be that PSHE is being taught successfully now through other subjects and a range of different media. My concern is that everything that comes under the heading of PSHE and all the things that I would describe loosely as healthy living—domestic science, healthy eating, cooking and doing additional sport—are largely academic if children do not have the core skills, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton articulated so well, of being able to read, write and understand what they are being taught. We must strike a balance in what we are teaching our children.

So we have sought to put some limits on the amount of time that will be taken up by PSHE if it is to remain as a core curriculum subject. I am probing the Minister to tell me how she thinks that such a matter will be articulated within the school timetable.

Ann Cryer (Labour, Keighley)

Just for clarification because I have never been very good at maths, how many minutes a day will this amendment mean? We are talking about 5 per cent., but has the hon. Gentleman worked out what will happen in the classroom if the amendment is accepted? Will the subject account for half an hour or an hour? I am just not sure what sort of proportion it will be of the week’s lessons and time.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The hon. Lady makes a good point. My hon. Friend tells me that the time roughly equates to that of half a GCSE. A GCSE takes up 10 per cent. of the curriculum time, so PSHE will take up roughly half that. The hon. Lady can then work out how much physical time in minutes and hours that will take. Putting it alongside other GCSE subjects puts the matter into a more useful perspective.

I have outlined the basis of amendments 58 and 106.

Amendment 56 takes a PSHE requirement out of the Education Act 2006. Amendment 59 inserts the 5 per cent. cap in subsection (3), and amendment 77 would take PSHE out of the core curriculum.

We all know that we have a very serious problem with sex and relationship education in this country, and we need to ensure that our children and young people have a far better grasp of responsible sexual relations and responsible relationships. Let me touch on some of the figures. One in 10 sexually active 16 to 24-year-olds have chlamydia, 75 per cent. of sexually active 16 to 24-year-olds do not use condoms. The number of under-age children having sex doubled between 1990 and 2000 and continues to increase. The cases of HIV have trebled since 1997.

Part of the problem is the quality of the teaching of sex education. The UK Youth Parliament has produced a very interesting study about the existence of a postcode lottery in the teaching of sex education. In an analogy that I have given in the past—this was the case in my school although with different names—Mrs. Miggins, the geography teacher, happens to have a couple of free periods on a Thursday afternoon so she gets to do sex education this term. We need far better standards in the quality of sex education, which need not be taught by teachers who are in school. There is a case for saying that a better quality of sex education can come from outside bodies. By that I mean specially trained teachers from voluntary organisations who have their specialisms and a better empathetic relationship with the children, who are not in front of the same teacher in a class on some completely unrelated subject for other parts of the week.

So we must concentrate on the quality of how we teach some of those subjects, and that is not solved by just saying, “It must occupy a certain part of the curriculum in the classroom now.” There are far more imaginative ways in which we can do it.

The third consideration is the role of parents. One of the witnesses, Gill Frances, made the point that the number of children being withdrawn from sex and relationship education is so small that the age consideration is something of a red herring. The withdrawal rate is 0.04 per cent., according to Ofsted, which equates to around 3,000 children in England. We shall come to the issue in a later clause, but I cannot understand why the right to withdraw children from the subject is to disappear in respect of a certain age level under the changes recommended by the Government.

I welcome the new guidance that the Government recently distributed about changes proposed for clause 13, which emphasises the important nature of marriage and family life. Genuine improvements are being added. Some have queried whether the Government are changing their policy, in respect of giving parents the ultimate right over whether to withdraw their children from certain subjects if that conflicts with their ethos, religious instructions and so forth.

The Government’s own public consultation on the subject showed that the majority of parents, carers and guardians wanted to retain their current right to withdraw children from the sex and relationship element of PSHE. The Government need to make a better case for why they want to bring about substantial changes to the curriculum in schools. They need to make a better case to assure people of what is going to give if we place greater emphasis on PSHE, and why the quality of the teaching of those subjects would be improved greatly if it were made a compulsory curriculum subject.

That is the reasoning behind the amendments. We shall come to a little more detail about some of the aspects of sex and relationship education during discussion of the age opt-out considerations in the later clauses in the group, but that is broadly why we think the clause, as structured, would prove a muddle, with unintended consequences. It would not necessarily improve the quality of teaching of some of the important aspects under the heading of PSHE and it would alter the relationship between the school and the community of parents. The best way of teaching such subjects has been through an understanding between the schools and the parents about what is best for the children. Making the subject compulsory changes the dynamics of that relationship. The Government need to make a stronger case for why they want to do so.

In many ways, the amendments are probing, but they set out the premise on which we want to address some of our later amendments in more detail, as part of the changes to PSHE and to sex and relationship education in particular.

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

I have often proposed that PSHE should be compulsory, because it is so important that it is carried out well. Every child should have the opportunity to learn about the whole range of issues. Every child should have the entitlement to learn about life skills, as we have often heard from other Members of Parliament. I do not think that we can go on any longer with how the subject is being delivered across the whole run of schools. Of course there are excellent examples within individual schools, but I do not think that anybody would attempt to argue that overall we are dealing well with PSHE in this country.

New clause 6 touches, in part, on some of the points that have been made. The compulsory element must be matched with quality provision; that is so important. One element of that would be an assessment of the capacities of schools to provide quality PSHE. Equally, what proportion—it need not be a rigid proportion—of the curriculum PSHE might take up must be established. Obviously, a lot of PSHE can be delivered in a cross-curricular manner, and it would be very well delivered in that way. However, there is a lack of clarity at the moment.

In retrospect, I applaud the Government for how long they took to consult with everybody. I was so anxious that we should get on with things that I think I criticised them for the length of the consultation. However, having reached the point that we are at today, we can look back and say that a thorough job has been done.

So it may be that our new clause is redundant; it may be that the Government have actually done the work already. Nevertheless, the Liberal Democrats very strongly support in principle what the Government are doing in this area.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I concur with the hon. Lady; I firmly support the idea that PSHE should now be a compulsory element of the curriculum. My understanding is that the Youth Parliament, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham referred to, has also supported it for some years. In fact, I remember that when I was Minister of State for Public Health, we were lobbied to that effect and I supported the idea then. I am very glad that Ministers in the newly formed Department for Children, Schools and Families have come round to that point of view today.

However, the issue is also about the quality of education that is provided. I am afraid to say that many young people that I have spoken to over the years have complained bitterly about the quality of how aspects of PSHE were taught within schools. First, there was the embarrassment of teachers who were not trained to teach it. Secondly, we need to think about how we need to deal with these issues, particularly sex and relationships education, given that a teacher may have a very mature 11-year-old—I use my words wisely here—and a very young 11-year-old in the same class. There are many issues about how to deal with this subject in a mixed-sex school, given that some sessions are more appropriate for girls-only classes and some sessions are more appropriate for boys-only classes.

For a long time, whenever we have debated sex education—it is why the relationships aspect is so important—we have adopted a rather schoolboy-ish and giggling attitude towards it; I do not want to be gender-specific, but that is the case. That means that we do not really get into the depth of relationships, as we need to.

The issue is about informing young people about how to use contraceptives, whether condoms or other forms. However, it is also about the ability to give young women and young men an understanding of the dangers of what happens if they do not use contraceptives, and about teaching them to say no or to demand that such protection is used if they are going to have sex. It is about being assertive and having control over their relationships, and that has been missing from our debates on the issue. Whenever we debate it, all the shutters go down and we do not have an adequate conversation that really equips young people to make the right decisions at the right time when they are on their own and faced with peer group pressure. Undoubtedly, peer group pressure is hugely significant.

As for parents, I was pleased to hear Gill Frances, the lady from the Teenage Pregnancy Advisory Group, say in her evidence to us the other week that, overwhelmingly, parents do keep children in these classes. She also agreed that 15 was the right age for these young people to have the appropriate support in terms of sex and relationship education.

I also remind the Committee that parents often say, in every survey, that they do not feel equipped to have such conversations with their own children and that they want others—whether the school or others acting on behalf of it—to provide the opportunity for their children to have those conversations in an atmosphere of privacy, trust and confidence. That is an important element of the proposed legislation and it is long overdue, but the proof will be in how it is delivered. How well it has been done will be apparent when young people in five or 10 years’ time speak about the quality of that experience.

Diana Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull North)

At this late stage in the day I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Betts. I am pleased finally to be on my feet. I apologise for sniffling and coughing throughout today’s proceedings.

I welcome the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, who as usual took a common-sense approach to the issue, and those of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, who welcomed the fact that PSHE will now be made statutory. I hope that I will be able to deal with the three areas that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is concerned about: pressure on the curriculum, the quality of PSHE and the rights and responsibilities of parents.

This group of amendments covers a number of aspects of PSHE provision and serves to raise concerns about the nature, content and merits of statutory PSHE being introduced in schools, the overall impact it will have on schools and delivery of the existing curriculum.

New clause 6 would introduce a new clause into the Bill requiring the Secretary of State to assess the capacity of maintained schools or academies to deliver PSHE by way of an impact assessment, and to have a report produced for Parliament.

I shall deal with amendments 55 and 56 together. Amendment 55 would prevent PSHE from becoming part of the statutory secondary national curriculum at key stage 3. Amendment 56 would create a strange position, in that PSHE would become part of the statutory secondary national curriculum at key stage 4 by being inserted into the existing section 85 of the Education Act 2002, but would then cease to be part of the national curriculum once the new provisions introduced by the Education and Inspections Act 2006 are commenced. Presumably, the intention of the hon. Gentleman who tabled the amendments was that PSHE should not be part of key stage 4 at all.

We all know that PSHE prepares children and young people to deal with real-life issues, giving them the knowledge, skills and understanding they require to lead confident, healthy and independent lives. Research has shown that young people want opportunities to discuss issues that are relevant to their lives, including emotions, relationships and health issues such as mental health, sexual health, diet and exercise, not to mention topics such as careers. Of course, many families discuss such issues, but children and young people tell us how important it is to have a perspective in school, where they can discuss these issues among themselves. Sad to say, those things are not always discussed anywhere near adequately at home. Children tell us that clearly.

We have also consulted schools, teachers, parents and faith groups. There was strong support for making PSHE part of the national curriculum at all key stages, including primary. PSHE contributes to the Every Child Matters agenda and to fulfilling the five outcomes framework by helping children to understand what it means to be healthy, to stay safe, to enjoy and achieve, to make a positive contribution and to achieve economic well-being.

We know from Ofsted reports looking at PSHE that although in some schools it is taught well, provision varies throughout the country. That is why it is important to make PSHE statutory. The key point in that regard is to ensure that PSHE at key stages 3 and 4 builds on pupils’ own experiences and on the work carried out at key stages 1 and 2, and complements other areas of the curriculum. We need to be clear that if PSHE is to be effective, it must be delivered in a variety of ways to the different age groups.

Let me give Committee members an example of the topics that children and young people will be deprived of if the amendment is accepted. At key stages 3 and 4 they will not be able to explore and learn about topics such as drugs and alcohol, bullying, body image and the changing nature of the relationship between the sexes. It is in the crucial later years that young people should have the opportunity to look in depth at topics such as sex, sexuality and relationships; they should benefit from the wider range of experience and knowledge with which they will engage.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I do not disagree with the hon. Lady about the importance of those subjects. However, she needs to say why they would be much better taught, but not to the detriment of the other things that children are at school to learn, if they were a statutory curriculum subject. It is the quality that concerns me, and the hon. Lady should address that aspect.

Diana Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull North)

I agree that quality is most important in making PSHE work for our young people. I shall speak in a moment about the amendment, which would restrict the amount of PSHE taught in schools. The wider expectation is that PSHE will help with combating social exclusion and disaffection and equipping young people with the skills and attitudes needed to react positively to the pressures of modern life.

I now turn to amendments 58, 59 and 106. They would restrict PSHE to no more than 5 per cent. of curriculum time at key stages 3 and 4, presumably so that it does not impact on other parts of the curriculum or on school activities. That is entirely unwarranted. The national curriculum has always left it to schools to decide the proportion of the school timetable that is to be given to subjects. I see no good reason to change that.

The amendments would also contradict the provisions of section 87(4) of the Education Act 2002, which prohibits programmes of study from requiring the allocation of particular periods of time to the study of a particular subject. The comments of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about a 10 per cent. figure for GCSEs are not correct. Timetabling has always been the preserve of the school, and it would be strange to impose such a requirement in respect of only one subject.

Allocating curriculum time for PSHE would be detrimental to a school’s flexibility to organise the content and delivery of the curriculum to meet the needs of its pupils, and to introduce approaches to teaching and learning within and across curriculum subjects and on a cross-curricular basis. We already know that when PSHE is taught well, it does not have to be a discrete subject taught once a week. It can be taught with a variety of other curriculum subjects.

Amendment 77 would remove the definition and overarching principles that have been designed to safeguard the delivery of PSHE. It is particularly important for statutory PSHE that we provide clear and consistent messages, and they should be underpinned by a clear definition of PSHE. Schools, parents, children and young people and the wider public need to be kept aware of the range of issues covered by PSHE, as well as being given more opportunity to consider the rationale, key concepts and topics that underpin the subject.

It is important to embrace a number of key principles that we believe should underpin the teaching of elements of statutory PSHE. They are equally important. Responses to our consultation on PSHE revealed concern that protection was needed against inappropriate and unbalanced teaching, particularly of some of the more emotive elements. Although it is important to recognise that pupils in schools come from various religious and cultural backgrounds, we should not ignore the wider religious and cultural make-up of the nation. It is this balance that the principles strike.

Requiring PSHE to be taught in a way that promotes equality will encourage the acceptance of diversity and emphasise the importance of rights and responsibilities, along with other principles. We wish to strike an appropriate balance. Removing those principles would remove some of the safeguards and assurances that parents and pupils seek for the teaching of this subject. As I have said, many elements of PSHE raise contradictory views. The principles will enshrine in legislation the need for teachers to be sensitive to those views, providing children with information but always in the context of a balanced view. Amendment 77 would remove that protection; it would damage rather than improve effective PSHE provision in our schools.

New clause 6 would require the Secretary of State to assess the capacity of maintained schools and academies to deliver PSHE; it would be done by way of an impact assessment and a report would be produced for Parliament. The Committee may be aware that an impact assessment for the delivery of statutory PSHE was published by my Department last November. Copies were laid alongside the draft Bill for hon. Members in both Houses. A further impact assessment would be both unnecessary and a costly burden.

Let me take the opportunity to address the issue of the capacity and ability of schools to deliver statutory PSHE, and the perception that the subject will be an additional pressure on the existing school curriculum. I am aware that little primary research has been conducted on the delivery and impact of statutory PSHE education as a whole. Most research that has been undertaken has been small-scale and focused on specific strands within the context of PSHE, such as education about sex and relationships, or drugs and alcohol.

Much of the commentary available on the quality of PSHE in schools is based on inspection evidence gathered by Ofsted, and suggests that the quality of PSHE programmes is generally improving. From what we have seen and heard, my Department would generally endorse that position. However, as I mentioned earlier, Ofsted’s latest report concludes that

“this broadly encouraging picture conceals some variation”.

Inconsistency in coverage and variability in quality is of concern. By making this subject statutory, we can achieve a step change in the quality of that provision.

The number of pupils currently withdrawing from sex education probably reflects the fact that there is no core content. Schools provide sex and relationship education in many different ways, and what they teach depends on which part of the country they are in, and what kind of focus and attention the leadership of the school gives to that issue within PSHE. With PSHE becoming statutory, and given the list of what is expected to be taught in sex and relationship education, it is not clear whether the numbers will change. That is why it is important to put the right of withdrawal in the Bill. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham knows, we will discuss that matter under a different group of amendments.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I did not disagree with a lot of what the Minister said. Towards the end of her comments she said that by making PSHE statutory, we can achieve a step change. I want to achieve a step change, because a lot of the things that are defined—somewhat rigidly—in the Bill are things that we need to do a heck of a lot better, such as teaching kids about the downside of binge drinking, achieving better mental health, being more aware of mental health and emotional problems at an earlier age, and ensuring that they are more conscious of how they can live, eat and exercise more healthily. We all agree that we need to achieve a lot more than we currently do—one need only look at the figures for the obesity epidemic, or at the one in 10 school-age children with a mental health problem and so on. We all agree on what we want to achieve, but simply saying that by making something statutory we can achieve a step change does not actually achieve it. Our concern is that making PSHE a statutory subject in the curriculum per se will not achieve that change—it all depends on how we go about it.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.