Education Bill

The interesting thing is that one reason why the Government became confused or were in danger of sending out confusing messages was the interminable delay in the publication of the Green Paper on SEN, which we were promised well before the consideration of the Bill in Committee and which finally turned up extremely late. Had it been published on time, perhaps the Government would not have been in danger of sending out confused messages, but I simply reiterate that we are concerned that the Government do not appear to have a long-term commitment to give schools an overarching duty to co-operate. We await confirmation from the Government that they believe that such an overarching duty to co-operate is important and should be retained in the long term. Labour's amendment (a) to Lords amendment 19 would require maintained schools to have regard to children and young people's plans produced by children's trust boards whether or not that is prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State. We voted in the Commons that clause 30 should not stand part of the Bill. Our amendment to delete clause 31 and insert another clause is intended to extend that opportunity for that omission to be retained. The Government's suggested changes to the law on the arrangements to admit pupils to school have been debated throughout the Bill's passage through Parliament. On two occasions—on Report in the Commons and Lords—the Government have introduced amendments that have responded to some if not all the points made by the Opposition. The whole point about admissions is fairness and how we can have a system that gives children fair access to local schools in accordance with their parents' wishes. In the centrally managed schools system that the Government are creating, it is regrettable that the Government have resisted placing a clear and unequivocal duty on the Secretary of State to work towards fair access to education. We welcome the reinstatement of the duty on local authorities to send reports to the adjudicator, which is the effect of amendments 21 and 22. The fact that the reports will not now receive the special treatment for such reports, which is removed by amendment 20, is regrettable, although I hope that it does not lessen their importance and that the contents will still receive the full attention of the adjudicator. I trust that that is what will happen. A greater problem is the evidence that the reports contain about local authority action to ensure that admission arrangements are compliant with the law and the admissions code. The chief adjudicator himself has been lukewarm about the quality of such local authority reports, indicating that local authorities have been happy to confirm that admissions arrangements are code-compliant when, after investigation by the adjudicator, that has been found not to be the case. He noted in his recent annual report:"““If LAs are truly going to focus on being the champions of children and parents, then they really must put more effort into their 'policing' role.””" The amendments, which collectively allow anybody to refer admissions arrangements to the adjudicator, are welcome, although that will be subject to regulations. There is one area where we believe we can improve on the Lords amendments, in particular amendment 23 and new subsection (7) on objections to admissions arrangements. The subsection adds"““any other person or body””" to the list of persons who must comply with a binding decision, which will include the objector. It does not state the time in which the admissions arrangements must be made compliant. This was debated on Report in the Commons when the Schools Minister seemed interested in the idea of quick compliance, although he described the Labour proposals at that time as"““a mere two weeks' grace””" in which to allow schools the freedom to implement decisions. Although the Minister noted:"““Admissions policies must be locally consulted on for at least eight weeks to allow all parties to consider proposals or amendments””—[Official Report, 11 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 1236-7.]" surely there cannot be any need for consultation where there is a straight matter of making the admissions arrangements comply with the law and the admissions code. The draft code and regulations that were published last week seem to confirm that the Minister wishes to allow schools to take as long as they want to ensure compliance with a binding judgment. We believe that justice delayed is justice denied, so our amendment to Lords amendment 23 is about the timely righting of wrongs for the benefit of parents and children.