Education Bill

Debate between Lord Brennan of Canton and Richard Fuller

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller]

On the hon. Gentleman’s observations on Lords amendments regarding schools admissions policies, one of the objections put about by some of those who oppose free schools and academies is their fear that admissions policies will somehow be discriminatory. Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to confirm that the amendments suggested by the Lords put to bed that lie?

[Kevin Brennan]

The Government made it clear during the Commons stage that they wished the academies to be subject to the admissions code. We welcomed that at the time and I am happy to welcome it now, because any state school should have a fair admissions policy. Any school funded by the taxpayer should admit pupils on a fair basis in accordance with the code. We therefore welcome the extension of the code to academies and the clarification of that by the Government, rather than relying on funding agreements in order to achieve that.

One of the innovations of the Bill that we debated is the change to the powers of the schools adjudicator. Currently, when an admissions authority is found to be in breach of the code, the adjudicator can rectify any flaws with immediate effect, but following the passage of the Bill, the adjudicator will be able to make only “binding” decisions, which the admissions authority will be obliged to implement. Ministers have already made it clear that the purpose of that change is to emphasise the importance of schools taking responsibility for their own actions, but it should not allow them the scope to avoid those responsibilities or to frustrate parents who have made a successful complaint and have a legitimate expectation that matters will be put right promptly.

The draft version of the admissions code was pretty clear. Paragraph 3.1 stated:

“The admission authority must revise their admission arrangements immediately to give effect to the Adjudicator’s decision.”

That was the original version of the code issued by the Minister, which was pretty clear and unambiguous, as it should be. However, I was dismayed to read in the revised version of the draft code, published 10 days ago, that paragraph 3.1 has been changed. It now states:

“The admission authority must where necessary revise their admission arrangements as quickly as possible and no later than 15 April following the decisions (i.e. the deadline for determination of admission arrangements) to give effect to the Adjudicator’s decision.”

It is not clear from reading out those two sentences, but there is an important difference in their visual presentation. In the first sentence the word “must” is rendered in bold, whereas in the second sentence it is in plain text and “15 April” appears in bold. The proper sense of urgency and compulsion seems to have been replaced by one of contingency and delay. Although the second sentence states “as quickly as possible”, which is a weaker statement, the eye is drawn to “15 April”. Bearing in mind that the deadline for objections has been brought forward by a month to 30 June—a sensible change that we support—that means that there could be a delay of 10 months or more before a decision is implemented, which is simply unacceptable.

It is not necessarily for the legislation or the new code to undermine the effectiveness of the office of the adjudicator in a wholly unnecessary attempt to provide for circumstances that have not proved problematic under previous arrangements, so our amendment would put it beyond doubt that, where changes are required in response to valid objections, they must be implemented in time to benefit those who made them.

On constituting governing bodies, to which the Minister referred, it might be helpful if he offered some clarification. Our amendment was intended to make it absolutely clear what the Government’s amendments mean in relation to staff on governing bodies. In Committee, the Minister said:

“I am cautious about prescribing centrally the basis on which governing bodies should appoint people.”––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 31 March 2011; c. 811.]

Having had time to consider the matter, the Government and the Minister appear to have changed their minds completely. If that is the case, we welcome it. Will the Minister confirm that he now thinks that more than one member of staff could be a member of a governing body, which might help us in relation to our amendment? If he does so now, he might not need to later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the Lords amendments. I welcome the fact that in their lordships’ overall assessment, the main thrust of the Bill should pass through to Royal Assent. It is most welcome that the core objectives of what the Government are trying to achieve will make it into law. That will be welcomed in rural constituencies, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) mentioned, and in others. However, the Lords have made some suggestions, which my hon. Friend the Minister indicated that the Government would support. I would like to draw his attention to a couple of those suggestions with which I concur wholeheartedly, and others with which I concur partly.

My first point is about the Lords’ reinstatement of the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities, which is specifically related to the well-being of children. That relates to the broader issue of how the new schools that are envisaged, and the ones that are already in place across the country, will co-operate with local authorities. Much attention has been given in the Bill’s earlier stages in the Commons to the responsibilities of schools with regard to local authorities, but as my hon. Friend the Minister knows, I often look at the matter through the other end of the lens and ask what is the responsibility of the local authority to co-operate with our schools.

I, and I think many Government Members, hoped that when the noble Lords considered that duty to co-operate, they might send the Bill back to this House with amendments that were somewhat more creative than simply placing into the Bill the original duty as it already stands.

Throughout our country, we are seeing a radical change in the relationship between local authorities and schools. Schools are gathering greater freedoms to operate independently. Those relate to not only financial status, but areas of operations, one of the most important being admissions policies, which I will come to. That liberalisation of the market for schools—if I can call it a market for schools—is very welcome, but as a consequence of those freedoms, new issues come up, such as how schools work together on behalf of their local community, and how in doing so, both as individual schools, in pyramids of schools or chain academies, they interact with local authorities, which are the democratically elected bodies in those areas.

In many cases, those relationships have been conducted positively in the past, but there is sometimes a contradiction between the schools’ best interests and those of local authorities. In that respect, it is a shame that the noble Lords have not sought to move the debate on the duty to co-operate forward to take us to the next stage of understanding. When the control over the education of our children is in the hands of such independent bodies, what will be the duty to co-operate between local authorities and schools?

[Kevin Brennan]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the duty to co-operate is not about the interests of schools or local authorities, but about the paramount interests of the child, which remain whatever school structures this Government put in place?

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Gentleman is, as he has been throughout this process, a source of extreme insight and has expanded my knowledge. He is absolutely right that that is the key aspect. As he knows from deliberations in Committee, all Members on both sides of the House have sought to achieve that.

To the extent that it is not the structure that matters but the education of children, the hon. Gentleman is correct. However, the Bill is not a nudge along for the structure of our educational institutions but a more substantial change. I am therefore expressing the retrospective wish that their noble Lords had been somewhat more adventurous in defining some of the new scopes for duties to co-operate in their amendments. Had they done so, the goal of focusing on the education of our children, which the hon. Gentleman and I share with other hon. Members, including the Minister, could have been moved forward a little. My current concern is that there could be turf battles about who is responsible for what in the duty to co-operate.