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DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): With permission, I shall put together motions 3, 4 and 5 relating to delegated legislation.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14A(1)(a) (Consideration of draft deregulation orders),
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Burns.]
Mr. Den Dover (Chorley):
It gives me great pleasure this evening to raise the matter of secondary school allocations in the Chorley area in Lancashire and to be joined by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) and the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), who have adjoining constituencies to my own and who have similar problems to some that I shall be raising.
Secondary schooling is the most important step or change in any child's school career, and the maximisation of children's abilities at the delicate age of 11 when they move from primary to secondary school is of paramount importance. Education is the best investment of all and it is up to us, as representatives of the people, to ensure that the allocations are fair and appropriate, and that the best is brought out of all children according to their abilities.
My worry is that, in the Chorley area, parents are asked for their first, second and third preferences of secondary schools, so they spend a lot of time with their children and put in a lot of effort going round the various secondary schools of varying natures in my area, in the borough of South Ribble, and perhaps across the border in Bolton. They may develop an affinity with a particular school, and their child likes it, so they put down their first, second and third preferences on a form supplied to them by Labour-controlled Lancashire county council.
The unfairness is that many of my parents, particularly in the north and east of the Chorley constituency, have not been getting any of their first three preferences. That is unacceptable and a total waste of time and effort, and I want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister this evening whether it will be possible for her to lean on Lancashire county council and obtain some change.
I wrote to the chief education officer in March. I quote his letter to me of 19 March:
Parental choice is paramount. It is the policy that the Government for the past 17 years have proudly boasted and honoured. I greatly welcome the policies in yesterday's White Paper, which will allow more selection by schools. That in turn will permit a
50 per cent. increase in the intake of grant-maintained schools. I regret the fact that, a few years ago, the Government flirted with the idea of allowing more popular schools to expand, to the detriment of those that were less popular. The results can be seen in Chorley. All the schools there do well in the performance league tables, but several are more popular than others, and that gives rise to a larger number of preferences.
I accept the difficulty for the county council, but it is not too much to ask that each child be allocated one of its first three preferences. One problem is that the local education authority changes the rules every two or three years. Three years ago, villages to the south and east, towards Bolton, were affected. Schools there with a history of working in conjunction with local families from the surrounding villages suddenly found that the ground rules had changed--and that the time for the appeals procedure, April to June, had already arrived.
No one likes change; people like to know what the ground rules are. This year changes affecting the north and east of my constituency have been made. Is the LEA carrying out any consultation? I do not think it should just change the rules and then force the changes on heads, parents and children. That is quite wrong. The guidelines and policies should be transparent, and people must have their say. If they think the system fair, fine; if not, they should be able to make their views known through their elected representatives and then bring about change.
Yesterday's White Paper stresses that some LEAs are defensive and try to protect their own methods of working. I am delighted to note that the Government intend to force much more education spending--as much as 95 per cent. of it--down to school level, and not allow LEAs such as Lancashire's to channel only 85 per cent. down to the schools. The more money is spent at school level, the better value for money we get and the more local the decision making will become. Thus, we shall get away from the red tape and bureaucracy that are so much a part of activities at county hall in Preston.
I am not satisfied that the appeals procedure is entirely independent. I find it, for instance, unacceptable that heads are kept out of it. They should have a major input to appeals procedures, so perhaps the situation needs reviewing.
I care very much about the children in my constituency, and I have found the county council unresponsive, uncaring and bureaucratic in its past dealings with allocations to Catholic and Church of England schools or to voluntary-aided schools. The council has defended its patch and released only the minimum amount of money to schools. It has unfairly given less money to areas such as South Ribble and Chorley than to other parts of the county. Therefore, I condemn its actions.
Mr. Robert Atkins (South Ribble):
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) for raising this subject in the Adjournment debate and for allowing me to contribute to it. Consistently, Lancashire Conservative Members of Parliament have led the fight for the protection and development of education in the county of Lancashire, in the face of what can be described only as the inept administration of the Labour party in county hall. The Department for Education and Employment has received many letters from Lancashire Conservative Members of Parliament about the administration of Lancashire's education authority.
My hon. Friend has raised yet another example of the council's bungling. Over the years, parents have visited my surgery because they have been extremely upset about the fact that their first choice, and sometimes their second choice, of school has not been acceded to--I am sure that most hon. Members have experienced this.
One understands the pressures. One understands that, as a result of Conservative education policy over the years, we are developing some good schools. For example, I refer to Leyland, St. Mary's in my constituency--it has become a grant-maintained school. It has been extremely successful and a lot of parents want to send their children there.
That the draft Ipswich Port Authority Transfer Scheme 1996 Confirmation Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 4th June, be approved.
That the draft Child Benefit, Child Support and Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 5th June, be approved.
That the draft Jobseeker's Allowance (Pilot Scheme) (Amendment) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 10th June, be approved.--[Mr. Burns.]
Question agreed to.
That the draft Deregulation (Still-Birth and Death Registration) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 20th May, be approved.--[Mr. Burns.]
Question agreed to.
Secondary Schools (Chorley)
10.11 pm
"In general the county council is unable to guarantee a place at one of the three preferred schools, although it is only a very small percentage of children who cannot be offered a place at any of their parents' preferences. In Lancashire"--
Lancashire as a whole, not the Chorley area--
"first preferences are up to 92.6 per cent., second preferences 3.5 per cent., third preferences 1.2 per cent., no preference 2.7 per cent.".
The chief education officer confirms, however, that the information is not readily available for Chorley because it is held according to schools. I would ask that the first, second and third preferences be allocated on a postcode area basis. They should not really relate to schools; what matters is where parents live, as shown by their postcodes. They should be given the preferences that they want.
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