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Ms Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab): I welcome what my right hon. Friend has just said about collaborative trust working. Does she think that such working may—indeed, should—encourage employers to work effectively and properly with local authorities and schools in developing career pathways for our young people?

Ruth Kelly: I do, and that is an important point. Getting right the careers information, advice and guidance to our young people is so important and was the key element looked at by the Women and Work Commission. I am very concerned that our young people may be pigeon-holed into studying one type of option rather than another, and may not be aware of the significance of the choices that they make early in the school system. Schools must collaborate to deliver real choices within the school system.
 
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Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD): One of the things that concerns me and my colleagues is the issue of double standards when it comes to assessing the suitability of an organisation to develop a new school. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that local authorities should prove their fitness for purpose in terms of developing a new community school. Yet it appears that by putting down £2 million, a crackpot creationist will be able to open a new school and develop an appropriate curriculum. Where in the Bill are the criteria to determine the suitability of organisations other than LEAs to open and develop new schools?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that we do not want inappropriate trusts to work with our schools—that is not what the Bill is about at all—and I have said that trusts will operate within a strong framework of accountability, where local authorities can object to a trust, where parents and governing bodies do not have to work with a trust at all and can remove a trust if they think that the relationship is not working, and where they are within the Ofsted inspection regime.

Of course, I will issue guidance for decision makers—school governing bodies—to take into account when they consider whether a trust is the right one for them. The schools commissioner, based in Whitehall, will advise schools on the track record of trusts, so that they take those decisions in the full knowledge of what will work for children, but the Bill is about enabling schools that see an opportunity to do the best that they can for their children.

What I cannot accept for a moment is that there should be top universities in our country cheek by jowl with some of our most struggling schools and that they should not be asked to commit to the future of those schools. If we can get universities, further education colleges and public and voluntary sector institutions to commit to the future of our schools—not just on an ad hoc basis, which may or may not last for a few years, but on a permanent basis—we have a real chance of making a difference to school standards.

Mr. David Willetts (Havant) (Con): I very much agree with the point that the Secretary of State makes about trusts encouraging co-operation between universities and schools, but will she clarify a point about trusts' access to possible extra funds? If a foundation has a trust behind it and that trust has finance from other sources, will the trust school be able to access extra funds via the trust?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is relevant to any community school that is working with a specialist school partner, but the Bill is not about financial gain and it is nothing to do with money; it is about expertise, skills and commitment, to help to raise standards in our schools. As the hon. Gentleman said that he wants to encourage collaboration, can he tell me why the Conservative party has consistently tried to characterise our policy of introducing trust schools as a return to the failed old Tory policy of grant-maintained schools?

Grant-maintained schools were bribed to opt out of local authority control. They were unaccountable to parents or the local community and able to select their
 
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pupils. They were schools for the elite, of the elite. Our new trust schools are completely different from Tory grant-maintained schools. Our schools are at the heart of their communities and are accountable to parents, with fair funding, fair admissions, collaboration with external partners and with one another to raise standards, while working within a stronger local authority framework.

Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Ruth Kelly: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I know will vote in favour of reducing academic selection.

Mr. Turner: The right hon. Lady mentions fair funding. Can she explain why, since 2000, the gap between the best-funded primary school pupils and the worst funded has increased in Somerset by 90 per cent., in Southwark by 135 per cent. and in Isle of Wight by 46 per cent.—all authorities under Liberal Democrat control? Why has that happened?

Ruth Kelly: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman makes the point about Liberal Democrat authorities. The Government are giving more resources than ever before to deprived schools and deprived children, and we intend to continue to do so. Under the Bill and as proposed in the White Paper, we will spend an extra £500 million over the next two years to support the individual learning of children and the best teaching and learning for this century, because we want to give every pupil—no matter what their prior attainment when they reach secondary school—the chance to catch up with their peers if they have fallen behind, with one-to-one tuition or small group support and, indeed, if they are gifted and talented, the chance to have their talents stretched and their potential reached. The personalisation of teaching and learning—individual support—with the funding geared to those schools that need it most, is an incredibly important part of our package of reforms.

Mrs. Ann Cryer (Keighley) (Lab): With regard to catching up, I am really concerned about one of the schools in my constituency—I have mentioned it to Ministers before—where only 11 per cent. of the students achieve five GCSEs. We do not have a top university in Keighley, so I wonder what will be the solutions for that school.

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend presents me with a challenge, but a welcome challenge. That is why the schools commissioner, based in my Department, will be asked first and foremost to identify those schools with the worst results in the most challenging areas, where children are not fulfilling their potential, to find out how we can put in place the support to help them to succeed. Quite frankly, if that means getting a top university or a business foundation into my hon. Friend's constituency, that is the challenge that I accept and that we have to match.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): My local council and all the MPs for the area will
 
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work with any Government to improve standards, which are, indeed, improving in Southwark at the moment. However, can the Secretary of State promise that when the Bill is law, no one who contributes, say, £2 million out of a total cost of £20 million to a new school, as a partner, will be able as a result to buy a majority say on the board of the new school?

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the proposals before the House. There is no financial requirement for anyone to form a trust school. That will be done completely at the request of the governing body, and if the governing body does not want a trust to have majority representation, it need not have a majority at all. If it wants more elected parents, it can do so. Those are decisions for the governing body of the school, within a strong system of accountability.

Unlike the Opposition parties, Labour Members are clear about what we stand for and what we need to do: provide more devolved power for schools, but greater strategic control for local government. That is why Labour local government supports the Bill. Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Labour group of local authorities, said:

"We believe that these measures will be helpful to those councillors up and down the land trying to deliver better education on a daily basis."

He urges all Labour MPs to support the Bill. Why? Because, as he sets out, the Bill will enact a new strategic role for local authorities, making the local authority the key decision maker on school organisation matters, and—most importantly—will give local authorities greater powers of intervention not just in failing schools, but in coasting schools as well—a long-standing local government aspiration, now at long last, delivered by the Bill.

My hon. Friends have been concerned that any new system should ensure fairness in school admissions. In that respect, I have listened carefully and I have responded to the concerns that I have heard. In the Bill, there is no new selection by academic ability and a ban on interviews. The Bill will force schools to act in accordance with a tough new admissions code and the system will be co-ordinated. Admissions forums will play a new role in ensuring that local schools deliver for every child. I stress that hon. Members on both sides of the House who back the Bill will be voting for less academic selection in our schools.

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