Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 56: Page 6, line 35, leave out ““from persons other than local education authorities”” The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 56, I shall speak to the other amendments in the group. It might be useful if simultaneously I dealt with Clause 8 stand part, which is logically linked to this series of amendments. I pick up where the last debate left off, because this series of amendments seeks to do precisely the opposite to the series proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. From our point of view, rather than prohibiting the establishment of new community schools, these amendments seek to establish what we regard as a level playing field between community schools and others and to leave it open to a local education authority to propose a new community school where that seems sensible and a feasible way forward. In proposing these amendments, I think that all of us are very concerned about providing the best education possible for the children of this country. In our debate last week the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, mentioned a fact that I find an indictment of our current education system: 20 per cent of children leave primary school unable properly to read or write. We all know that, once they have left primary school without functional literacy or numeracy, their chances of surviving in secondary school are very small. They are the ones who also have difficulties in the secondary school environment. We also know that that group of children disproportionately comes from disadvantaged homes, and many of them have special educational needs of one sort or another. One feature of the Finnish system that has not been mentioned is that they assess children, as we do, when they enter school, though not through formal tests—in fact, they have very few formal tests until they are 18. Where they find that children have special education needs, they concentrate resources to try and counter those children’s disadvantages and make sure that by the age of 10 or 11 they are as close to their contemporaries’ level as they can be. They know that if they do not succeed at that point, it will be very difficult for those children to make their way further on. It is a question of pouring in extra resources. I congratulate the Government on their Sure Start initiatives, which are moving in the right direction. However, the Minister knows that I do not think we have put the necessary resources into the primary sector, particularly the early stages. The failure of the Government to follow through on the Steer report and get parent and pupil support workers into primary schools is a great mistake. A concentration of support at that stage is sorely needed, for pupils and for parents, and would replicate what is there in the Finnish system. It could help to remove this incredible black mark on our system. I shall talk about my amendments. In response to criticisms in the other place, as we know, the Government conceded the case for community schools to be established in certain circumstances. We shall be looking at those circumstances in more detail a little later on. We have two amendments that deal with this, Amendment No. 68 and the Question whether Clause 8 should stand part. For the record, however, from the point of view of those no these Benches the conditions written into Clause 8 are so circumscribed that they remove all discretion from local authorities. We do not oppose the idea of competition for new schools, and we are happy to see local education authorities required to compete with other proposals, including those coming forward from parent groups. We are unhappy, however, at the degree to which the balance under the proposals put forward by the Government is tipped against community schools and in favour of other providers, and the degree to which the trust school proposals move away from local accountability. Many of these amendments deal with Clause 7, which is about proposals to establish new schools, and the subsequent clauses, dealing with how those proposals under Clause 7 are to be published, considered and carried forward. It might be helpful if I quickly run through these amendments. Amendment No. 56 takes out from Clause 7(1) the prohibition on LEAs making proposals for new schools. Amendments Nos. 57 and 62 add community schools to the list of schools falling into subsections (2)(a) and (5)(b)(i). Amendment No. 57A asks that the knock-on effects of expanded sixth form provision on other schools and colleges in the area be considered. We shall look at that issue when we discuss alterations to schools. Amendment No. 64 would take out Clause 7(5)(b)(ii), which refers to Clause 8. Amendment No. 68 would add a new clause, to which I shall speak in a moment. Amendments Nos. 74 and 78 would make it clear that the local education authority may proceed to publish its proposals in its own right without having to seek permission from the Secretary of State. Amendment No. 91 applies to alterations to schools under Clause 18 and makes it clear that, should a foundation school wish to reverse the process and become a community school, it can do so, whereas under the Bill it is prohibited from doing so. In some respects these clauses about new schools may seem rather irrelevant because over the next five years we face of drop of half a million in the number of secondary school pupils in this country. The issue is likely to be—as it has been with primary schools over the past few years—one of closing schools, not opening new ones. But this, and the final amendment in the group to Clause 18 and alterations to schools, raises the whole question of the link between this Bill and the programme of building schools for the future. How far do the Government intend to use that programme of rebuilding to force schools down the foundation trust route? Will an LEA seeking to replace an existing community school with a new building be told that unless it is prepared to make the school into a foundation school, it will get no new building?