Rural Schools

Debate between Jamie Reed and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) on securing this important debate. Cumbria in general and his constituency in particular are clearly among the most beautiful parts of the country. It was a pleasure to be in Cumbria this week, visiting schools—they were not in his constituency, but in a neighbouring one. There were times during this debate when I felt that there was an almost Mr Bounderby-esque competition to represent the constituency that was the furthest from London and the most sparsely populated. Of course, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) conceded that she would be in last place in such a competition.

The Government share the hon. Gentleman’s views on the importance of small rural schools. We recognise the contribution that they make, and that often they are at the heart of their communities. Rural schools play an important role in our education system. Of the 18,500 maintained schools, 5,400 are rural schools. As of this month, there is a total of 312 rural academies, including converters, and 1,294 urban academies.

Small schools are classified as state-funded primary schools with fewer than 100 pupils and state-funded secondary schools with fewer than 600 pupils. There are 57 small academies, of which eight are rural schools, and 2,800 maintained small schools, of which 2,300 are rural schools. Of those, 525 schools have fewer than 50 pupils on their roll, of which only 14 are not rural schools.

There are many high-performing rural schools that are popular with parents, and the Government want to see good and accessible schools in every community. However, as we have debated today, schools in rural areas face particular challenges, including smaller pupil numbers, budget and resource pressures, greater difficulty in recruiting head teachers and teaching staff, the technological challenges of ensuring adequate broadband, and less peer support from schools in neighbouring areas. All those pressures can lead, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), to the hollowing out of rural areas. He made a powerful speech in defence of rural areas.

However, although it is true that some rural schools are isolated, there are good examples of effective collaboration —something referred to by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North—and a growing trend towards federation, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). Some schools in her constituency share head teachers. That helps to preserve the focus of education within the locality, while allowing the operation of a larger management unit and offering some economies of scale.

There is also a growing trend for good and outstanding rural schools to convert to academy status. We encourage such applications, in line with the Government’s overarching ambition for all schools to become academies—that was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael)—so that more children can benefit from the improved standards and autonomy that academy status brings. To support that intention further, the new academy presumption in the Education Act 2011 requires local authorities first to seek proposals for an academy or free school where they consider that there is a need for a new school. The Government’s free schools policy supports rural school provision, as it can respond directly to local parental demand—that was also pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud—and it adds diversity, innovation and commitment to the school system. Again, we encourage rural groups and parents to consider applying to establish a new free school where they think there is a need. There are already three small rural free schools, with a further 18 in the pipeline.

Home-to-school transport will invariably be part of any discussion about rural schools, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal. That will be the case particularly where a school is proposed for closure and the pupils will need transportation to a different school in a different village. We know how crucial transport is to rural communities. The Department for Transport has provided £10 million of extra funding for community transport in rural areas. Of course, local authorities need to consider transport costs when they consider the projected savings from closing a school.

I was struck by the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) about a rural school in his constituency. It was a village school that closed. Later, a new housing development was built, which required all the children from that housing development to get on a bus to a village several miles away, at considerable cost to the local authority.

[Mr Reed]

The Minister is making a very informed and intelligent series of comments, but how can we expect academies and free schools to flourish in the areas that we are talking about? The areas facing these difficulties and problems with school closures are typically areas where there is no social capital and where civic society has either withered or largely gone, yet we are expecting the people in those areas to take up the cudgels and run schools. There is a tension and a problem there. How do we get around that?

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but there are very determined parents in all communities in all parts of the country. We have seen that. Many people have been surprised by quite how much demand there has been to set up free schools. The number of applications has been in the hundreds, and although there is a very rigorous vetting procedure that needs to be gone through before people can continue on to a business case, those applications have come from a wide variety of parts of the population—rich and poor, north and south and rural and urban—so if I was the hon. Gentleman, I would not be too pessimistic about who might come forward with such a suggestion. Also, some of the academy chains may wish to establish new free schools in areas where they perceive that there is an educational need, particularly in areas of deprivation, which can of course, as he and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North point out, be rural as well as urban.

Local authorities are responsible for the maintained schools in their area and as such they can propose changes, including closures, to those schools. Where changes are proposed, the local authority must follow a statutory process that includes consultation of those likely to be affected by the proposals. The proposals are then decided on under local decision-making arrangements by the authority. The Government have repealed the so-called surplus places rule, which obliged local authorities to remove surplus places in their school estate above 25%. Of course, local authorities are still obliged to ensure value for money. When considering whether to approve proposals to close a school, local authorities must have regard to DFE guidance for decision makers. That includes the presumption against closure for rural primary schools. As the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said, such arrangements were introduced by the previous Government, but in answer to her specific question, this Government continue to support such a presumption. Although it does not mean that rural schools will never close, it does ensure that a local authority’s case for closure must be strong. Of course if local authorities are under a regulatory duty to eliminate surplus places, that would—and did—act as a countervailing pressure to close schools. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed made an important point about how circumstances can change.