Education Bill

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Co-operation is important, whether it is with children's trust boards or from local authorities with other elements of the education world, such as free schools and academies. Local authorities that undermine or try to undermine the establishment of new schools that are demanded by parents in that local authority will find their opinions and actions challenged at election time. For a school to be approved by the Secretary of State as a new free school, it has to demonstrate parental demand. It is not in the interests of a local authority not to co-operate when a group of parents, a group of teachers or others are seeking to establish a free school in its area. I know that Labour Members wish to raise a particular concern about admissions, but I thought that it would be useful at this stage for me to explain changes made in the other place. Since we last met, the consultation on the revised admissions codes has closed. The new codes keep protections for those with special educational needs and vulnerable groups. We have expanded on this for children who were in public care—looked after—and have since been adopted. When they are adopted, they will retain their priority status in the admissions arrangements. We are also going to make things simpler for all parents by having a national offer day for primary schools. The changes we are making on admissions are modest, and the changes made in the other place have been correspondingly so. First, under amendments 21 and 22, local authorities' annual reports will continue to go to the schools adjudicator in addition to being published locally. Secondly, under amendment 23, a new clause will allow anyone—absolutely anyone—to object to the adjudicator about school admission arrangements. This builds on our decision to bring complaints about admission arrangements at academies and free schools into the remit of the schools adjudicator—a popular move in this House when we last discussed it. My noble Friend Lord Hill made a further commitment that will be of interest to this House. In Committee, the hon. Member for Cardiff West expressed concern about the possible side effects on the admissions system of an increase in the number of academies, which set their own admission arrangements. Lord Hill has now made a commitment that the chief schools adjudicator will include consideration of this issue in her next annual report. The provisions in clause 37 seek to give maintained school governing bodies greater freedom to appoint governors on the basis of their skills. When we discussed those provisions in Committee, I was persuaded, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), that we should amend them to ensure a continuing role for a staff governor and a local authority governor on all maintained school governing bodies. Lords amendment 24 does precisely that. Of course, governing bodies will be free to appoint additional governors from among the staff of their school if they think that that will help them to work effectively. In the other place, there was full discussion of the inspection clauses. That led to a number of changes, outside the Bill, to strengthen the proposed arrangements, including enhanced risk assessment procedures for schools and further education providers that will qualify them for exemption from routine inspection. We will debate in due course the Opposition amendments on parliamentary scrutiny of the regulations exempting institutions from inspections. In relation to academies, the Bill retains important measures to facilitate—