Education and Inspections Bill

My amendment in this group is Amendment No. 132E. A very similar amendment was tabled by one of the Labour rebels in the other place. Since there do not seem to be too many Labour rebels around in your Lordships' House this evening, it is up to the real opposition lay it and to stimulate a debate a debate here. The amendment probes the issues of land transfer. The Education and Skills Select Committee expressed concern about trust schools having control of their assets. It said: "““We are also not convinced that Trusts need to have absolute control over their physical assets in order to function effectively. If the degree of control was more limited it would allay fears about disposal of assets. We recommend that the Government looks at this issue again with a view to establishing much greater safeguards on the transfer of assets to Trusts through detailed restrictions on disposal of assets and other issues or by a leasehold-style arrangement””." The model of independent trust schools that own their own assets as described in the original White Paper which preceded this Bill raises questions over who will be contractually responsible for the service charges. We understand that the Department for Education and Skills might be expected to announce that when schools becoming trusts are part of PFI schemes, the liability for paying contractors will remain with the local authority. Perhaps the Minister can confirm whether that is the case. It means that investors will be concerned about the future of exclusivity arrangements with local authorities because in the past the carrot for the private sector has been to carry out all the future work—maintenance, refurbishment, cleaning and so on—over the whole local authority’s school estate. But if over the course of time eight out an estate of 20 schools become trust schools, for example, the business opportunities are significantly cut because you can no longer have the exclusivity arrangements. So it is possible that private contractors might respond to that new business risk by increasing the cost of schemes during their initial phases, which would cost the taxpayer more. An alternative solution that the department might favour is to make building schools for the future the only option for capital investment, forcing all schools to take part. I wonder whether that is the case. Claudia Wood from the Social Market Foundation has said: "““The guidelines for BSF are quite stringent and the LEA has a huge role in approving schemes. So if the trust school wanted to do something that was slightly out of the guidelines, it would still have to negotiate that with the LEA, which detracts greatly from their so-called independence””." It is clear that the limited freedom implied by Building Schools for the Future raises questions about the need to transfer school assets to trusts in the first place. Will the Minister tell me whether the assumptions that I have made are true and how Building Schools for the Future might affect the situation for business?