Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

The problem has been well illustrated, but I do not want the debate to go entirely to Yorkshire folk such as my noble friend Lord Greaves. The problem is well illustrated by London—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, will agree with me. It is still the case that most schools in London were built during the time of the Inner London Education Authority and the former county councils, which before 1965 were the LEAs. In my own borough, one of our two girls’ grammar schools, which we still have and which since 1965 have been part of the LEA and Sutton educational life in its different forms, is physically located in Surrey, 100 yards outside the borough boundary. We can all cite examples like that. However, the school is and always has been one of the two principal girls’ grammar schools in the area, and one that many parents strive to get their daughters into. Any good authority would continue to promote understanding of such a school but, as I keep saying, this legislation is not for the good authorities; it is for the less good ones. I hope that this will never happen, but there may come a time when an authority declares, in accordance with the letter of the law as set out in what will by then be the Act, that it does not have to promote understanding as regards a school because that school is not located in its area. That is not likely to happen in my authority for many reasons, but there is a lot of concern in some London boroughs about the number of children who travel to other boroughs because of the perception, real or otherwise, of the schools in one borough as compared with those in another. A situation could well arise where one council, for its own reasons, does not want to promote a school in another borough that is attended by many of its pupils because it wants those pupils to attend its own schools. This is not just an academic point. If a local authority wants to comply with the letter of the law as distinct from its spirit, it will be able to do so under the current wording of the Bill. That is the issue that we are trying to grasp.