School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Boles, Nick (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
† Brennan, Kevin (Cardiff West) (Lab)
† Brown, Mr Russell (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
† Cryer, John (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
† Dunne, Mr Philip (Ludlow) (Con)
† Gibb, Mr Nick (Minister of State, Department for Education)
† Halfon, Robert (Harlow) (Con)
† Hemming, John (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
† Jackson, Mr Stewart (Peterborough) (Con)
† Jones, Graham (Hyndburn) (Lab)
† Leadsom, Andrea (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
† Liddell-Grainger, Mr Ian (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
† Malhotra, Seema (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
† Rogerson, Dan (North Cornwall) (LD)
Simpson, David (Upper Bann) (DUP)
† Tomlinson, Justin (North Swindon) (Con)
† Winnick, Mr David (Walsall North) (Lab)
† Wright, David (Telford) (Lab)
Simon Patrick, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee
Wednesday 22 February 2012
[Mr Mike Hancock in the Chair]
School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012
2.30 pm
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012 (S.I. 2012, No. 8).
I welcome everybody to the proceedings of this afternoon’s Delegated Legislation Committee on school admissions. We are here today because I and my hon. Friends have prayed against the regulations to ensure that we have an opportunity to make clear to the public what the Government are really up to in the revision of the schools admissions code.
There are one or two things to be welcomed in the revisions, not least bringing objections to academy admission arrangements into the same framework as that for maintained schools, and widening the group of people who can make objections to admissions arrangements. The Government will argue that the main reason for the exercise was to cut down on the length of and bureaucracy in the code, as the Schools Minister said when we debated the subject during the passage of the Education Act 2011. If you will excuse the mixed metaphor, Mr Hancock, that is a smokescreen for watering down the code.
Hon. Members might be surprised to know that if the Committee agreed with our arguments today and voted against the regulations, it would have absolutely no effect whatsoever, because the regulations have already come into force. They have been in force since 1 February and a vote of the Committee would not overturn them. On this occasion, that is not because the Government are out of touch or arrogant—although of course they are on most subjects—but because it just so happens that a quirk of parliamentary procedure means that if regulations are made through the negative resolution procedure, they come into force whether or not the Delegated Legislation Committee votes against them. That is one reason why we argue very strongly that if delegated legislation is in any way controversial, affirmative procedures should be used, and perhaps the Minister will consider that when legislating in future.
We might ask, “Why are we here if we can’t overturn the regulations?” There is a benefit to being here, because at least we ensure that the Minister has to attend the Committee and that he is not out with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education on a school visit, terrorising children, as the latter recently did on his visit to Lewisham. I recommend the YouTube footage, Mr Hancock, if you want to see a fine example of how not to engage the interests of young people.
We are here because we want to expose the fact that the Government are watering down fairness and expanding selection through the regulations.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb): I just want to point out to the hon. Gentleman that the negative resolution procedure for the statutory instrument was inherited from the previous Administration. I understand his point about affirmative versus negative resolutions, but this was inherited.
Kevin Brennan: The Schools Minister makes a fair point, but I am sure that if he were stood here—as he told me earlier that he accidently was before the Committee began—speaking for the Opposition, as he did for many years, he would make exactly the same point about the importance of proper scrutiny of the regulations and of the House having an opportunity to overturn them. Therein lies the disadvantage of the negative resolution procedure, and that is the point I made. In fairness, a lot of hon. Members are not necessarily aware of that when we discuss whether regulations should be taken through by the negative or affirmative resolution procedure.
In the previous code, from 2009, there was a clear and robust definition of fairness:
“In drawing up catchment areas, admission authorities should ensure that they reflect the diversity served by the school and must not exclude particular housing estates or addresses in a way that might disadvantage particular social groups.”
No one could have any doubt about what that meant in practice. Under the new code, we are told,
“Catchment areas must be designed so that they are reasonable and clearly defined.”
That difference says all one needs to know about where the Government’s priorities lie. What is “reasonable” in this context? Who will decide what is reasonable: the schools themselves—perhaps in their own self-interest—or the adjudicator? If so, against what criteria will she decide what is reasonable? The code as a whole is a recipe for confusion. In the name of giving power to schools, it risks creating a free-for-all that will be appallingly difficult for parents to navigate.
John Freeman from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services told the Select Committee on Education recently,
“Suppose, for example, that there are four nearby oversubscribed academies; one uses distance ‘as the crow flies’, the other a catchment area, the third, fair banding, and the fourth, random allocation. Or consider a case in which several nearby schools use different definitions for siblings. All these would be individually acceptable but the resulting confusion would be substantial, causing justified concerns among parents about the fairness of the system.”
The removal of the requirement for admissions forums in every local authority area takes away the only machinery that existed for making sense of local admission arrangements in the interests of parents and pupils.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the proposed schools admission system has social justice at its heart by giving priority for school places to children in care?
Kevin Brennan: I am going to praise the Government for including that in the code—I did say there were some good points in it. Everything that we can do to promote the educational opportunities for children in
care—looked-after children—and those in danger of going into care is welcome, because of the appalling outcomes that those children have. In fairness, there has been consensus between both parties about that for several years.I will go on to argue that other parts of the code do precisely the opposite of what the hon. Member for Harlow would like it to achieve, namely on social justice. In fact, it undermines fairness and social justice because of the way it waters down the current admissions code and promotes selection.
The code takes away the opportunity to have some machinery to make sense of local admissions arrangements. The whole process of its preparation demonstrates clearly the Education Secretary’s cavalier approach to consultation on such matters. Not only did he sneak into the draft some key changes right at the last minute, but those changes take away the right of local communities to have a say in how their school system is organised. The last-minute changes that he snuck into the code include, for example, removing the duty to consult or even inform others about a proposal by a school that is its own admissions authority to increase its numbers. It also prevents the adjudicator from considering any such proposal. The other change prevents the adjudicator from considering
“objections in respect of an agreed variation from the code in relation to admission arrangements for an academy”.
Therefore, something stitched up between the Secretary of State and a school is immune to any process of scrutiny.
The Government’s premise is that schools should manage their own business, which is fine, but the corollary is that schools do not have to bother about the effect of managing their own business on others. That is about not the self-interest of schools, but the rights of children and parents to fair access to a good education. It is a long-established principle that freedom does not extend to the freedom to do harm to others. Should not someone neutral judge whether the benefit of new places outweighs the harm done to pupils in existing schools? That was what admissions forums and the adjudicator were for.
The most pernicious example of that is the opportunity that is given to grammar schools to expand their numbers. They will be able to do so not only in their own community, but in other parts of their region, where they will be able to open what are, to all intents and purposes, new grammar schools.
Before the election, it seemed that the Conservative party had learned its lesson on selection. The then shadow Minister with responsibility for schools, who is now the Minister for Universities and Science—I am not sure whether he is back from the south pole yet, Mr Hancock—
The Chair: I have seen him. He is back.
Kevin Brennan: He is back. In the old days, when I was growing up, it used to be that if someone were ideologically unsound, they would be sent to Siberia, but under this Government, people seem to be sent to Antarctica when they are a bit off-message.
In a groundbreaking speech in 2007, the Minister for Universities and Science said:
“We must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright poor
kids…we just have to recognise that there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it.”In response to the row over that speech, the Prime Minister —the then Leader of the Opposition—said that critics of the Universities Minister were
“splashing around in the shallow end of the educational debate”
“clinging on to outdated mantras that bear no relation to the reality of life”.
He went on to warn that the row about grammar schools was a “key test” of whether his party was fit for government, saying that the issue would show whether the Conservative party were now an “aspiring party of government” or whether they were to be a “right-wing debating society”. He said that selective education was “unpopular with parents” and that
“They don’t want children divided into successes and failures at 11.”
“I don't follow my party; I lead them.”
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab): Is not my hon. Friend being naive? Is he not confusing what the Conservative leader said in opposition with what is actually carried out in government? Why did he believe for one moment that the then Leader of the Opposition—now the Prime Minister—meant what he said?
The Chair: Order. We will not go there. We are not discussing whether the Prime Minister was naive at one stage or today. May we stick with the regulations before us?
Kevin Brennan: I am a gullible person, and someone who also obeys orders from the Chair, so I will not say anything further about that matter.
The point, however, is that the Prime Minister, who would have made a very good football club chairman, soon afterwards sacked the Minister for Universities and Science from his job as shadow Minister with responsibility for schools. He was replaced with the current Secretary of State for Education, who needs to recognise that the Minister for Universities and Science and the Prime Minister were right, and that they are supported by all the international evidence.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con): I fear that the hon. Gentleman might be looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Having been at the epicentre of that debate in 2007—it is pertinent to our debate, Mr Hancock—the point then, as it is today, was that we were discussing the plurality of educational provision. The debate then was about whether grammar schools were a panacea within the context of a developing policy on free schools and academies. That is the key issue; it was not the simple, monochrome approach that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
Kevin Brennan: I like to lay out my arguments in black and white, because it is important to be clear, so I am pleased to hear my argument described as monochrome. The debate was about whether new grammar schools should open, and the code under the regulations directly allows the creation, in effect, of new grammar schools, yet the international evidence is against selection.
Mr Gibb: I love this phrase “in effect.” In effect, the regulations do not allow the creation of new schools—any new school has to go through all the procedures for establishing one. The only change in the regulations and the admissions code is that good and popular schools are able to expand—nothing more. None of the rules about the physical capacity of a school or separate sites have changed; they are the same rules that applied when the Labour Government were in power.
Kevin Brennan: Under the admissions code, the regulations and the last-minute changes made by the Secretary of State, what is there to prevent a school from opening a satellite branch—effectively another school—in a distant part of the same local education authority area?
Mr Gibb: The admissions code says nothing about that one way or the other. Other rules and regulations on the statute book prevent that from happening, because any expansion of a school beyond 25% of its size requires the Secretary of State’s approval. All the rules about opening new schools and the competition rules apply to the establishment of a new school. If a school that expanded on to a separate site was to constitute the same school, it would need to have the same pupil intake and the same teachers, and the new site would have to be clearly within a specified distance of the original school. If it were several hundred miles away from the original school, it would clearly be a new school, so all the rules that apply to the establishment of a new school would kick in.
Kevin Brennan: That is interesting, because the Minister talks about a “specified distance”. Will he tell the Committee what that specified distance is?
Mr Gibb: It is not a specified distance. There is no precedent or legal definition of what would count as a reasonable distance beyond which the site would be regarded as a new school. Such things are untested. Many schools around the country are on split sites, but no one has applied to the Department recently for a split site that contravenes what would be regarded as reasonable.
Kevin Brennan: That confirms exactly what have I been saying. As there is no specified distance, another satellite school could be opened quite a distance away from an existing school, provided that its intake was no greater than 25% of that of the existing school. As the Minister said, the exact distance that might result in the school being subject to a realistic legal challenge is untested.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con): Mr Hancock, is it not typical of a Labour ideological sausage-making machine to condemn anything that allows a good school to provide more places to children so they can do better in their education? For ideological reasons, the Opposition are desperate to resist that, so they try to come up with many arguments about why that is simply not fair. It is totally illogical.
Mr Winnick: Was that a point of order?
The Chair: Order—[ Interruption. ] Order. I am dealing with the matter. I am sure that that was not really directed at me. It was an observation about what Mr Brennan has been saying, and it was probably best placed as a contribution to the debate.
Kevin Brennan: Thank you, Mr Hancock. Of course, as Bismarck said, you should never see how two things are made: laws and sausages. We are engaged with a sausage-making machine here, and the process is always messy and occasionally unpleasant.
Let me move on to the evidence, because I think the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire was trying to say that I am some sort of blinkered ideologue.
Andrea Leadsom indicated assent.
Kevin Brennan: We are agreed that that is her accusation, but I will show that it is not me who is a blinkered ideologue, but rather the Secretary of State and his Ministers, because they are making policy based not on evidence, but ideology, and doing so in direct contradiction to the Prime Minister’s remarks about the danger of selection in our education system.
The hon. Lady’s intervention allows me to expound further on my next point. The Secretary of State is fond of quoting Andreas Schleicher of the OECD in his claims that he bases his education policy on evidence. On Second Reading of the Education Bill, he claimed to give us all the evidence about such issues, but he missed out one of the most important international pieces of evidence—the TIMSS survey—because it did not suit his ideological purposes. Whenever he cites Andreas Schleicher, he leaves out some of the little details contained within the OECD’s reports about the characteristics of effective school systems. The OECD has consistently found that the highest achieving school systems are those that do not select pupils and put them into tracks early on, and those in which pupils from all backgrounds attend the same schools.
We know, however, that the proportion of pupils in grammar schools receiving free meals is pathetically low. According to an answer to a parliamentary question less than a year ago, it is less than 3%. Such schools are not a vehicle for social mobility, and the Government need to listen to the evidence and understand that selection does not work and that it should not be expanded further, yet that is what the regulations will do.
Last year, the Secretary of State said of the expansion of grammar schools that his foot was hovering over the pedal. The Government might have thought that tossing a small bone to the grammar school lobby by allowing expansion on existing sites and within existing buildings would earn some brownie points with the right wing while actually making little difference. However, they need to think further, because when Lord Ashcroft asked Lord Hill, the Minister with responsibility for schools in the other place, whether there was a limit as to where an annexe to a grammar school could be situated and, if there was no limit, whether the Government envisaged a chain of grammar schools throughout the country that would be similar to chains of academies, the reply was:
“It is possible for an existing maintained grammar school or academy with selective arrangements to expand the number of places they offer, including by extending onto another site; split site schools are not a new concept.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 February 2012; Vol. 735, c. WA57.]
Mr Jackson: I am reluctant to interfere with the hon. Gentleman’s knee-jerk against grammar schools, but the logical corollary of what he is saying is that he is ideologically against grammar schools. If that is and was the case, why did he not force the 164 grammar schools to become comprehensives during the 13 years in which the Government he supported were in office? Was that because he did not really believe in the policy, or because he did not have the courage and determination to do so?
Kevin Brennan: As we made clear, and as I have also made clear in opposition, our policy did not change over that period—not one iota. We are not in favour of selection, but we put in place a mechanism through which areas that had it could change if that was desired locally. We were not going to force people into that, and I am sure that we would have been accused of being draconian had we done so. Our policy has not changed one iota over a long period.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): Birmingham is an area that maintains the grammar school system in a limited way. My parents went to grammar schools that have stopped being grammar schools, but the King Edward’s Foundation still maintains a certain amount. It is quite clear that social mobility has decreased over time, and there are questions as to why that is. What is the Minister’s view as to why social mobility is less than it used to be?
The Chair: Order. You can ask the Minister later.
Kevin Brennan: I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman as Minister, but as shadow Minister I will demonstrate some of the myths about social mobility and grammar schools to which he refers. As I understand it, the Liberal Democrats are against selection in education and, I should have thought, would be against any expansion of it. I therefore look forward to seeing how the Liberal Democrats on this Committee—with the exception of you, Mr Hancock—vote if my hon. Friends and I decide to divide the Committee.
Mr Gibb: Would the hon. Gentleman be appalled if the number of grammar school places increased by, say, 32,000?
Kevin Brennan: I know the Minister is referring to the fact that the number of grammar school places increased while Labour were in government, which was as a result of their expanding to full capacity. It is a bit like saying that the number of football places have been extended because more people went to the stadium for a match in a particular week than did in the previous week. Yes, the numbers went up because schools expanded to their capacity during that period. [ Interruption. ] It was perfectly legal for them to so. Secondly, the Secretary of State claimed recently in his evidence to the Education Committee that that happened because the school population went up in those areas. I am not sure he is right about that, but that is what he claimed.
Moving on to some of those who are affected by selective systems, I shall refer to the comments of Ian Bauckham, the head of Bennett Diocesan Memorial school, a very successful all-ability school in west Kent which operates in an almost exclusively selective
environment. I will not quote him verbatim, but I am happy to supply the full text to the Minister if he wants it. Mr Bauckham says that it is critical to understand that uncontrolled expansion of popular schools has a particularly damaging effect in areas where 11-plus selection persists. In his area, where some 40% of children take and pass the 11-plus, there is continued parental pressure to get children into grammar schools. That is understandable. It operates more as social than academic selection.Almost everyone who passes the 11-plus in Mr Bauckham’s area has had private tuition, and comes disproportionately from primary schools in the more affluent areas. He argues that if grammar schools are allowed to expand their rolls and intakes, fewer children from aspirational backgrounds will go to the local non-selective schools, meaning that those schools will become more exclusively the preserve of children from less aspirational backgrounds. He says that that has nothing to do with ability, but with family, expectation and aspiration. By consigning these children to what are widely regarded as schools for failures—condemning them to failure at the age of 11—their already fragile expectations will be depressed still further and they will be less likely to succeed. I think that is why the Prime Minister was so passionately against selection back in 2007.
Andrea Leadsom: I am moved to question the hon. Gentleman again because my elder sister went to Bennett Memorial school and I went to Tonbridge grammar school for girls. Our younger sister went to a little local convent school. I therefore have first-hand experience, albeit a few years ago now. I do not recognise what he is saying at all—not one iota. For a start, when I passed my 11-plus and my sister did not, there was no sanction against her. She did not feel a failure. She went to the good school that Bennett Memorial was, and remains. A lot of effort was made. In the end, in the sixth form she joined me at Tonbridge girls’ grammar. There is a superb education system in Kent, and I should be interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman has the overall educational attainment statistics for that part of Kent that allows him to back up his claim that pupils at Bennett Memorial will underachieve.
The Chair: Order. I am loth to interrupt, but we have one-and-a-half hours to debate the regulations. It is obvious that many Members want to contribute, and that was more a speech than an intervention. I hope, Mr Brennan, you will also recognise the time.
Kevin Brennan: I have only a couple of furlongs to go, Mr Hancock, so I would not despair too much. I do not intend to detain the Committee with my remarks for the whole hour and a half.
I am genuinely glad that the hon. Lady’s sister did well at school, but it is ludicrous that she was selected out by the 11-plus at the age of 11. That is simply a ludicrous and wrong thing to do to children at the age of 11. [ Interruption. ]
The Chair: Order. Can we leave it there?
Kevin Brennan: We can leave it there, but the hon. Lady said from a sedentary position—
The Chair: Order. It is nice to know how the hon. Lady’s family have prospered, but I think it is better for the Committee to move on and see whether we can prosper by considering the regulations.
Kevin Brennan: I will tell the hon. Lady about my own sisters later, rather than during the course of our proceedings.
On selection, which is the central reason for our praying against the regulations, and the system in Kent, a disproportionate number of schools are failing to meet basic Government floor targets. The regulations will exacerbate that problem. Kent also has a disproportionate number of primary schools with two successive Ofsted inspections graded “satisfactory” only, of which the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education have been critical. That is due to the clustering of aspirational parents around primaries with a record of 11-plus success, leaving perhaps less savvy or aspirational families to go to other primary schools. That throws them into the downward spiral we have discussed. My party and I believe that the 11-plus damages primary education almost as much as it damages secondary education.
Mr Jackson: I defer to the hon. Gentleman, who has a background in teaching, but, as much as we are fascinated by schools we have known in Kent, he must be aware that Kent county council is a huge local education authority with significant pockets of poverty—the Cliftonville West ward in Thanet is the poorest ward in the south-east of England, for instance. He is always going to be able to pick out examples of underperformance and poor educational attainment in a large LEA such as Kent.
Kevin Brennan: I completely accept that, just as Government Members pick out excellent education performance in places in Kent, but we need the whole picture—that is my point—not just one side of the argument, which we often hear from Government Members.
A little-quoted finding of the Programme for International Student Assessment study, which, as I mentioned earlier, the Secretary of State often quotes extremely selectively, is that systems that select at 10 or 11 tend to have less strong outcomes in international comparisons than systems that leave academic selection later, at 16 or 14. If we take away the obligation to consult and the right to object to grammar school expansion, which is a particular issue with the regulations, we will exacerbate the overall depressing effect of selection on achievement and aspiration. The grammar schools in Kent are largely the preserve of affluent, literate and aspirational families who can afford special tutoring to secure their child’s place.
Some 1.1% of grammar school pupils in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells are on free school meals; in non-grammar schools in that area, the figure is 9.4%. A pupil is nine times more likely to be on free school meals if they attend a non-grammar school in that area.
Mr Winnick: I thought my hon. Friend was going to mention the distortion in primary school education, because when this debate took place many years ago, it was a question not only of formal selection arising from
examination at 11, but of what was often described as the seven-plus, which, to a large extent, targeted those primary school children who were likely to pass the 11-plus in due course.Kevin Brennan: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In response to your desire that I enter the final furlong, Mr Hancock, I will leave that intervention and move on. The evidence about the impact of grammars on all schools has been well documented, as my hon. Friend says, for more than 50 years. We need look no further than the current data on Kent schools to see the impact of grammar schools, particularly on children from poor to moderate income backgrounds, among whom attainment is well below the national average. Since the idea of satellite schools has been floating around, I understand that a lot of schools are now considering that way of—in effect, as I said—opening new grammar school sites.
As the Secretary of State and the Minister are so keen on the teaching of history—as the Minister knows I am—and on the acquisition of facts as an important part of that, let me remind the Minister that his rose-tinted, nostalgic recollection of the golden age of grammars is less than convincing when viewed through the clear lens of the facts. At the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, when the Minister and I were coming into the world—he is slightly younger than me, as everyone knows—9% of 16-year-olds got five O-levels. More than a third of grammar school pupils got only three O-levels. Fewer than 10% of the population went to university, and most of them came from professional or managerial homes. Most people were failed by the 11-plus test and sent to secondary modern schools where they could not take O-levels or, in most cases, progress to the sixth form.
That is the side of the debate that is forgotten. A lot of secondary schools were terrible places to send our children. That is part of a selective system; what else is there for pupils who do not qualify for the academically selective schools? Fast forward to today, and about two thirds of 16-year-olds get five good GCSEs; 40% of young people go to university; and even though we all accept that the gap in attainment and university access is still too wide between children from the best-off and worst-off homes, teenagers from the poorest homes are 50% more likely to go to university than they were just 15 years ago.
Last December, Peter Wilby wrote:
“The Lib Dems say they oppose selection and we must rely on them to stand firm. Which is another way of saying that comprehensives don’t have much hope at all.”
I do not think that that is necessarily the case. This is the Liberal Democrats’ chance to prove the cynics wrong and stand up against something that cuts across everything that their party is supposed to stand for. The grammar school problem is the clearest example of what will happen if there are no checks and balances in the system of school planning and admissions. It is a recipe for conflict, and for damage to successful schools and the education of many pupils. The Minister needs to withdraw the admissions code and put a proper system of consultation and neutral adjudication on controversial issues in its place. We need a fairer admissions code that gives all pupils a chance to achieve their best through our school system.
3.8 pm
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock. I rise to respond—it is always a pleasure to do so—to the hon. Member for Cardiff West, who expressed concern for my party. Ever since the coalition was formed I have been in a number of debates with him, and he clearly sits up at night worrying about the future of the Liberal Democrats. [ Interruption. ] I appreciate that he must work closely with Liberal Democrats in Cardiff, which touches me, and I would like to put my appreciation on the record.
The debate has been prompted by the hon. Member for Cardiff West praying against the regulations. He did so because of one aspect, which is significant for a number of people across the country who are concerned about selection. It is disappointing that, apart from a fleeting reference to some of the good things in the regulations and the intentions behind them—such as simplification and looking at the new environment in which we are working, with many more academies—he chose to dwell on one particular aspect that affects very few local authority areas and a small number of schools compared with the vast majority. While I am touched by the hon. Gentleman’s concern for my party, I could perhaps be a little churlish and say that he has looked for something he can make into a headline and inflate to try to rehabilitate the Labour party’s credentials with some people, rather than focus on the document in its entirety.
The debate has been framed very effectively by the hon. Gentleman, with his fine debating skills, as one on selection. He has focused on that and set out his case against selection. I agree with that. As he said—and we were reminded by the hon. Member for Peterborough—during his party’s term in office there was status quo. Those areas with selection in place maintained it, given the wishes of local people to do so.
We have spoken a lot about Kent and people’s families. Mr Hancock, I hope you will allow me briefly to follow that by saying that my wife grew up and started her school career in Kent under its selective system. I have mentioned in debate before that she went to a secondary modern school in Kent. Fortunately for me—as I got to meet, marry and start a family with her—she moved to Cornwall at the age of 13 where she attended the same comprehensive as I did and passed her A-levels. She went on to university and qualified as a teacher. I suspect—and this is conjecture—that had she stayed in the secondary modern school in Kent, her life would not have followed that course. Therefore, I have a great deal of sympathy on a personal basis for what the hon. Member for Cardiff West has said. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley pointed out, there are some parts of the country where people feel selection works well, and local people wish to maintain the system. That is the position of both the previous Government and this one.
The Government have been looking at schools admissions and conversions to academies. For example, regarding the independent sector, they have been very firm in saying that there will be no new selective schools coming in. If an independent school wants to become an academy or free school and join the state sector, it would have to abandon any selection procedures.
Kevin Brennan: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the proposal in his neck of the woods in Devon for a selective state grammar school to take into its fold in partnership an existing private school as a selective academy? Does he approve of that?
Dan Rogerson: I think I have set out my position and that of my party on expanding and having new selective schools. That is not something we would advocate. We have in these regulations the possibility for existing grammar schools in local authority areas where there is already a selective system to expand. We are talking about the expansion of selection in a place where it already exists. I do not particularly welcome that for the reasons I have set out.
I have written to the Secretary of State seeking some clarification on how a process might be undertaken to evaluate bids for expansion on that basis. It is important to hear from the Government how that will take place. However, I cannot see—given that the Minister has set out the other procedures already in place that would need to be worked through before any such new accommodation would be provided—any argument for voting against these regulations. My position is to support the Government on this, and to look at how the code operates across a broad range of principles, but in a much simplified form, which I welcome.
I have put on record that I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Cardiff West about promotion of selection. That is a debate that will happen in public, in Parliament and within the coalition. I know there are people in both coalition parties who have concerns, in the same way as there are advocates of selection. Quite properly there will be a continuing debate on that. I am happy that the regulations represent a step forward and that the code in its simplified form will deliver for pupils and their families across England and Wales.
3.15 pm
Mr Jackson: Time was when attending such a Committee would be as dry as dust—like going over the Dead Sea Scrolls—but this debate is not like that, because it goes to the heart of a significant ideological difference between the Labour party, the Conservative party and Liberal Democrats. I had hoped that the Labour party had moved on from its rather Pavlovian approach to everything, including grammar schools, and that it would pay some respect to due diligence and to parents in places such as Kent, Lincolnshire, Dorset, Sutton, Kingston and Birmingham—
Robert Halfon: On a point of order, Mr Hancock. May I point out to my hon. Friend that the Dead Sea Scrolls are very interesting? I have seen them.
The Chair: Fascinating though that is, I do not think it is a point of order—for goodness’ sake, don’t bring them with you next time.
Mr Jackson: I am delighted to defer to my hon. Friend’s expertise in all things middle eastern.
Unfortunately, we have been treated to Labour in its comfort zone—back in hock to the teaching unions, with its ideological fixation, levelling down and the socialist dogma that parents do not know what they are
talking about, because they are wrong and grammar schools are bad. I am quite fond of the hon. Member for Cardiff West—he is very plausible and agreeable, and occasionally witty in the Chamber, I am told—but we cannot base policy on anecdote and prejudice.Our consideration of the regulations has given us the opportunity to send the positive signal that we care about vulnerable children, and their educational attainment and life chances, and that we care about armed forces children. Those are the key issues. It is not about, like Don Quixote, fighting ideological windmills over grammar schools and fixating on those 164 schools. It is about a workable code that enjoys a degree of consensus among parents, governors, professionals and local education authorities.
Robert Halfon: I agree with much of what my hon. Friend says. Is that why 83% of the people who responded to the consultation thoroughly support the plans?
Mr Jackson: As ever, my hon. Friend makes an astute point, and the facts speak for themselves.
Kevin Brennan: I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks, which I reciprocate.
If the hon. Gentleman is accusing me of being ideological for opposing selection on the grounds of evidence, why does he not accuse the Prime Minister of the same thing, given the remarks that I cited earlier?
Mr Jackson: I thought that I addressed that in my intervention. I was at the centre of that discussion. I took the unfashionable view, given how circumstances have turned out, of supporting the spokesman at the time—the now Minister for Universities and Science—because I thought that many of his comments had been misconstrued by people with a different agenda, both within the party and outside it. He was saying, “Let’s not fixate on those 164 grammar schools. Let’s drive up standards, and the authority and autonomy of parents and professionals, across the whole country, including where there are no grammar schools.”
At about that time, under the Labour Government, one of the largest academies in the country, the Thomas Deacon academy, opened in my constituency. It is not doing brilliantly, but it is improving year on year. We do not have grammar schools in Peterborough, but I know that Lincolnshire does—my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford has some excellent grammar schools in his constituency. That was what the debate was about. It was not about saying, “Grammar schools are great and everything else is rubbish.” There was a much more nuanced approach, so I regret that an intelligent chap such as the shadow Minister should try to simplify the 2007 debate.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West is in an incongruous position if he is saying to the Minister, “You should not bring forward these regulations because you are formalising what we failed to formalise.” The Minister has advised us that 32,000 extra places were created in grammar schools under the previous Labour Government, and the rationale behind that that the shadow Minister set out was extremely weak. Although the regulations
potentially seek to do that, it is not at their heart. At their heart is the aim to formalise and standardise key rules to be used locally. If we truly believe in localism, we have to understand that in places such as Kent, Lincolnshire, Dorset, Kingston, Sutton and Birmingham, people who support selection will make value judgments. However much the teaching unions and the Labour party criticise, attack and undermine—as they have done consistently and shamefully over free schools, for example—the sincere views of parents will out.This is a missed opportunity for the Labour party. It has fallen back into its comfort zone, yet it could have given strong, bipartisan support to these important regulations. I am sorry that it is sending out a signal to so many people that it is backward-looking, insular and in hock to the teaching unions. I had expected better of the Labour party, but perhaps I am naive.
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John Hemming: As someone who comes from an area that has grammar schools, I might take a slightly different position from the rest of my party, but before discussing that issue, I want to mention adopted children from care.
When I met representatives from Adoption UK on Monday night, they raised a concern about the assumption that once a child is adopted from care, everything is perfect, so no priority is needed for that child. Perhaps the Government will consider how to deal with such situations, because although I am critical about a lot of care decisions, it is clear that there are many damaged children who need therapy. Once they become adopted, they should still have some priority in the system, and if they are treated only as formerly looked-after children, they lose that priority.
As the shadow Minister said, other countries select at different ages—some at 14 and some at 16. We mainly select at 18. What is rather sad about this debate is that there tends to be two positions: either that all selection is good, or that all selection is bad. People obviously have different aptitudes in different subjects, but ability ranges tend to follow a Poisson distribution, with a big peak in the middle that drops off towards the ends. We also have to consider issues such as special schools. Some deaf parents who came to my constituency advice bureau wanted their child to go to a deaf specialist school, because that specialism would help them to cope better in society. That is a form of selection, but it was what the parents wanted for the child. The idea that all children must be educated in exactly the same institute up to the age of 16 or 18 is flawed.
In Birmingham, the selection is much higher off the threshold. While I am not opposed to grammar schools, I am opposed to secondary moderns. In essence, we have in Birmingham some grammar schools and some comprehensive schools. The question is what that achieves compared with the Kent system, for example, which I probably would not support because it puts a line in the middle rather than trying to select further up the Poisson distribution. We have to look at questions such as what is achieved for the children and what is achieved for social mobility.
In the 1970s, when there were direct grant schools, the proportion of state-educated people going to Oxbridge was far higher than it is today. That is a question of
social mobility, and although I accept that the proportion of children on free school meals is lower in selective schools, they are potentially being given a fast track to being more successful that might be missed at the moment.Such matters need to be investigated with more subtlety, and the key factor that has not been properly researched is where on the Poisson distribution the selection process occurs. In places such as Birmingham, the system achieves a lot more for society in a wider sense, and that is with regard to issues such as not only social mobility, but the ethnic mix. Academically selective schools are often ethnically very mixed, which can be helpful in a diverse city such as Birmingham, so I think that more research is needed.
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Mr Gibb: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West spent a good deal of his opening remarks setting out the case against selection, but that really has nothing to do with the regulations, because they do not change the provisions in primary legislation that prohibit the establishment of new grammar schools. All the regulations do is to allow good and popular schools to increase their published admissions number.
The hon. Gentleman must be reminded that between 1997 and 2011, grammar school places increased by almost 32,000—some 24.5%. Given the strength of his animosity to grammar schools, he must be disappointed by the failure of the Government in which he was an Education Minister to reduce the number of children going to such schools. If he had so little success in persuading his colleagues, how can he expect to be able to persuade members of the Committee?
The Government’s education reforms are designed to ensure that every school is a good school and that parents have greater choice over the school they believe will be best for their child. That requires a diverse system that can offer parents a school place that reflects their values and beliefs. as well as having high academic standards. There are still too many poor-quality schools that do not offer the standard of education that parents demand for their children. As a result, some schools are so heavily over-subscribed that they receive as many as 10 applications for every place. We need to increase the overall supply of good school places so that all children have the opportunity to realise their full potential.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con): Having been a councillor for 10 years in a new-build area where all the local schools were over-subscribed, may I ask how quickly the new measures will allow a popular school to expand?
Mr Gibb: Such things take time. There are factors of capacity, capital and so on, but what matters is building permissive flexibility into the system, because schools throughout the country are desperate to increase their pupil numbers, and parents want them to do so. However, given the existing arrangements and the bureaucratic procedures that they have to go through, they are deterred from offering more places to parents in their area.
Kevin Brennan: Under the regulations, will a proposal such as that featured in The Sunday Times last year from the head teacher of Torquay boys’ grammar school—to take over a private school in another town and bring it under his school’s banner with the ethos of a state grammar school—be permitted?
Mr Gibb: The hon. Gentleman raises an example reported by the press, but no such application to do such a thing has been made by that school—or, indeed, by any other. Let me explain the system. If an independent school comes into the free school movement—I opened one of the first in Batley in Yorkshire towards the end of last year—it cannot continue to select. We have already debated what counts as a separate site, but in those circumstances, we have made it clear that an independent school coming into the state sector through the free school movement would not be able to select.
Kevin Brennan: I am trying to understand clearly what the Minister is saying. Is he saying that a grammar school could not follow the proposal being made by Roy Pike, the head teacher of Torquay boys’ grammar school to take over a private school in another town unless, by coming into the state structure, that private school dropped its selective criteria?
Mr Gibb: I am not making any comments about the precise proposal that the hon. Gentleman cites regarding a particular school in Devon. I am saying that if a private school continues to operate by coming into the state sector through the free school movement, it must drop selection. There are other ways in which the hon. Gentleman’s scenario could proceed. If the building was simply acquired—if it was no longer a school—all the rules that we debated earlier about whether that split site would constitute part of the same school have not changed as a consequence of this Administration coming into office. All the rules today are the same that would have applied when he was an Education Minister.
Every parent in this country has a legal right to express a preference for at least three schools for their child. Some local authorities go further and offer parents up to six preferences. Each year, local authorities throughout the country co-ordinate applications for a place at a primary or secondary school for more than 1.5 million children. Nationally, 85% of parents receive their first preference, but the average varies widely across local authorities. In some areas, almost 100% of children receive places at their first-preference school, but in other areas, such as Southwark, the proportion is just over 50%.
The first mandatory admissions code was introduced in February 2007, and it was subsequently revised in 2009 and in 2010. During that period, the codes became increasingly complex, resulting in more than 130 pages of densely worded text that contained more than 600 mandatory requirements. Parents, schools and local authorities were left unsure about what they should or should not do, what was absolutely required and what was prohibited. In 2009-10, there were more than 90,000 appeals from parents who were unhappy about their child not being offered a place at one of their preferred schools. Of those, fewer than 25% were successful.
The Government’s White Paper “The Importance of Teaching” sets out our guiding principles. We believe that we should place greater trust in schools and head
teachers, free them from excessive bureaucracy, allow them to focus on improving the quality of teaching and ensure that they are challenged by a strong accountability framework. On admissions, the White Paper states:“We will simplify the Code so that it is easier for schools and parents to understand and act upon, while maintaining fairness as the Code’s guiding principle”.
We have sought to remove duplication and any sections of the code that were open to misinterpretation. The new codes are easier to read and understand, and they contain only the absolutes—what admission authorities must or must not do. By removing unnecessary prescription and bureaucracy, the revised codes will reduce the burdens imposed on schools, in terms of teachers’ time and financial cost. The codes will ensure that all school places are offered in a fair and lawful way, and that school admissions appeals are heard in a fair and lawful way.
Mr Gibb: I was about to address the hon. Gentleman’s points, but I will give way to him.
Kevin Brennan: I apologise if the Minister was about to address this question, but will he tell the Committee why he decided to leave out from the revised code the passage from the previous code stating that admissions authorities should
“reflect the diversity of the community served by the school, and must not exclude particular housing estates or addresses”?
Mr Gibb: We are simplifying the code. The hon. Gentleman is worried about catchment areas, and we have said that there should be reasonableness, which is clearly defined. Schools determine the criteria, and parents and anyone can object if they feel that they are not reasonable and fair. The schools adjudicator—an independent person who can make her decisions independently—can decide on an impartial basis. The overarching principles are reasonableness, fairness, clarity and objectivity.
The hon. Gentleman made the point that the array of different over-subscription criteria might create confusion if there was no admission forum to enforce uniformity across a local authority area. Let me clarify the position about admissions forums: they have not been abolished. Where they are valued, they can remain, but we should not force a one-size-fits-all system on people where it is not locally regarded as adding value. Parent voice is not removed from the admissions system, because parents still engage through local consultation and objections to the schools adjudicator. It is clear that the role of the local authority to challenge arrangements remains.
Kevin Brennan: On the point about particular housing estates and the reasonableness test, does the Minister think it would have been reasonable for Bolingbroke academy in Wandsworth to have excluded the most deprived local primary school from being a feeder primary, even though it was nearer to the academy than other primary schools? That was the initial proposal, but it was resisted because of the previous code. Under the new code, would that be deemed unreasonable?
Mr Gibb: I am not going to put myself in the position of the schools adjudicator, Elizabeth Passmore. She is the person to make those decisions on receipt of a complaint about those arrangements. She will use her judgment and precedents to reach conclusions about what is and is not reasonable.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall pointed out, we have also brought in a number of new measures to tackle some of the issues raised with the Department before and during the consultation process, and to deliver on the White Paper commitment regarding looked-after children and children from poorer families. We received 1,330 responses to the consultation, about 700 of those from parents. Our proposed changes have already received broad support. In the revised codes we have retained the requirement for all looked-after children to be given the highest priority for admission to any school in England. We have, however, gone further to try to narrow the stubborn gap in attainment between looked-after children and their peers—something also close to the heart of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough.
I agree with the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley about adopted children who were formerly looked-after. We have therefore extended this priority to children who were formerly looked-after, but who have since left care under an adoption, special guardianship or residence order. Under the previous code, the day after a looked-after child was adopted they lost that preference in the admission process. My hon. Friend made an important point: we do not feel that that is right, and nor does he. The number of children affected is small—about 3,000—but that group’s attainment level is among the lowest. Therefore, we need to do more to ensure that they receive the best education possible.
On the published admissions number, we believe that schools are best placed to take decisions on how many pupils to admit to respond to the needs of their communities, based on the resources they have available. It cannot be right that the potential of some children is constrained by not allowing good schools more freedom to expand. That is why we have made it easier for state-funded schools to increase the number of admissions if they wish to. We want to increase the number of good school places available and provide more parents with a genuine choice of a high-quality school for their child. The new codes allow anyone to object to the admission arrangements, but we believe that the number of places in a school is best determined by the school itself. Local authorities will retain their overall statutory duty to ensure a sufficiency of schools. Nothing in the code cuts across that duty.
Schools that are their own admission authority now have greater freedom to increase the number of places they are able to offer. We have made it easier for them to do so by removing the duty to consult on, and the ability to object to, any increases to a school’s published admissions number. That freedom does not apply, however, to proposals to reduce the published admissions number, which will continue to constitute a change in admission arrangements; therefore, there will continue to be a requirement to consult.
As well as increasing school autonomy and reducing bureaucracy, the White Paper outlined our intention to strengthen accountability. Our reforms to the role and
remit of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator are designed to achieve that aim. We made a number of important changes in the Education Act 2011, consistent with placing our trust in local decision making and accountability. First, we removed the ability of the adjudicator directly to modify unlawful arrangements. Secondly, we have brought academies under the remit of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. Thirdly, as I have said, we have enabled anyone to refer an objection to the OSA. Removing the OSA’s ability to modify arrangements does not change the fact that the adjudicator’s decisions remain legally binding on all parties, and to delay unduly would risk further legal action against the admission authority.Kevin Brennan: We have run through this before, I know. If that provision is still legally binding, what is the point of removing the ability to direct, given that, as the Minister knows, schools have previously dragged their feet because they know that in doing so, they will not have to bring in, in full, the changes recommended by the schools adjudicator? Is there not a danger that this is a watering down of fair admissions?
Mr Gibb: No. The purpose is to enable a school’s admission authority to implement changes to its admission arrangements that rectify the illegality identified by the schools adjudicator. How that non-compliance with the law or the admissions code is rectified should be left up to the school, and that is the only change that happens. If they drag their feet and cause undue delay, they will be subject to further legal action by the schools adjudicator.
Enabling anyone to object to admissions arrangements—rather than, as before, only those on a regulated list—and extending the adjudicator’s remit to the admissions policies of academies and free schools, will, we believe, strengthen the power of the adjudicator and help to ensure greater consistency for parents and schools.
On grammar schools, as I have said previously, nothing in these regulations or the code changes the primary legislation that prohibits the establishment of new selective schools. The code does, however, give a grammar school the same rights as every other school to increase its published admissions number if it feels that there is sufficient demand, and that it has the resources to meet that demand. It is worth noting that between 1997 and 2011 the number of grammar school places increased by 32,000. In many cases, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley would attest, grammar schools represent the very best that the state-funded sector can offer. Many already operate in close partnership with other local schools. Pate’s grammar school, for example, participates in the Teaching Schools programme, which it could not do under current arrangements without the full support of a large number of other local schools. I could cite many more examples of grammar schools working with non-selective schools in their areas.
The new code also introduces the concept of a primary national offer day. Currently, the day on which a local authority will notify a parent of the offer of a primary school place is decided locally. That day differs widely across the country and there can be as many as three weeks’ difference between different areas. As well as creating uncertainty and worry for parents, that system imposes higher costs on local authorities as they seek to co-ordinate different offer dates. That is why we proposed,
and have adopted, a single national date—the primary national offer day—the first of which will be 16 April 2014. The proposal has been universally welcomed by local authorities and parents, many of whom have petitioned for such a move for years. We hope the Committee will agree that the regulations will give much greater clarity to the parents of some 800,000 children every year.Although the new code will remove the requirement on local authorities to co-ordinate in-year admissions, local authorities will continue to play a pivotal role in the admissions process. For in-year admissions, we felt that parents should be able to apply directly to a school for a place outside the normal admissions round, enabling offers to be made without having to navigate an overly bureaucratic system. That change has been welcomed by local authorities, many of which are struggling to cope with the sheer volumes concerned. Kent alone had over 10,000 such applications last year.
Schools will now process those applications and will be required to notify the local authority of every application and outcome. However, the local authority role in admissions will remain central to the process. Local authorities will retain their strategic responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient schools in their area; they will co-ordinate the annual admissions round for all schools, including academies, and manage the process for some 1.5 million children every year; they must ensure that a fair access protocol is agreed with the majority of schools in their area, and implemented in all schools; they will provide information and support to parents all year round on school admissions; they will work on behalf of their communities to challenge admission arrangements in any other admission authority that they feel are unlawful or unfair; and they will report at the end of each admission cycle on the effectiveness of admissions in their area.
We know that local authorities are ready and willing to take on this role. At a recent Local Government Association event, its chair, Councillor David Simmonds, said:
“Councils take school admissions very seriously as a central part of their strategic role in ensuring that parents can secure a place in a good local school. I welcome the simplification of the new Code, and the explicit role for local authorities in working with all schools, including academies and free schools. As champions for local children and parents, councils look forward to building positive new relationships with more autonomous state schools and continuing to ensure a fair and transparent process for families at this important time.”
The Government’s overarching aim in the education policy is to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and those from wealthier backgrounds. The pupil premium is key to that objective. It is designed to help break the link between attainment and family background. Although not strictly delivered through the code, the new academy funding agreements will allow academies and free schools to give priority in their admissions arrangements to children attracting the pupil premium.
Under the previous code, if admission authorities sought to recruit for a skills shortage, they were allowed to give some priority to the children of teaching staff. To increase schools’ flexibility, we have extended that freedom to the children of all staff. In addition, schools may offer some priority to the children of staff who have worked at a school for more than two years.
It is important that admission authorities consult on admission arrangements so that parents are aware of changes. As part of the drive to reduce bureaucracy, under the previous code, provided no changes to admission arrangements were proposed, there was no need to consult for a period of three years. We do not think that goes far enough, so we have extended the period to seven years. Of course, consultation would be required if a school’s admission arrangements were to change. We have also made small changes to exemptions to infant class sizes to allow the limit to be exceeded for those in exceptional circumstances, such as children of multiple births.
I hope that I have set out the reasoning behind our changes to the code and its associated regulations. We have built on the previous Administration’s important work in introducing the concept of the code, but by reducing its size and complexity, we have, on the principle that less is more, improved and strengthened it while remaining loyal to its underlying principles. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
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Kevin Brennan: I thank the Minister for his explanation. I agree with much of what he said, particularly his comments about looked-after children—children in care. However, during this fascinating sitting, we have discovered that the Government are either in denial or are not fully revealing their intentions in using the code to extend selection and water down fairness. Despite the debate and the Minister’s remarks, we do not even know how far away a satellite grammar school must be from its mother ship so that it does not qualify as a new school. He said that there was a specific distance, but then said that there was not. Nor do we know whether a grammar school will be able to take over a private school and retain a selection process, as is proposed in Devon.
There are many things that we do not know, but we do know that the code waters down the concept of fairness in admissions and extends selection. For that reason, the Opposition oppose the regulations and I shall ask my hon. Friends to vote against them. I said at the outset that it will make absolutely no difference if we win the vote; nevertheless, it is important to put on the record our deep concern. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We will see whether the Minister is
right, whether admissions are fairer, or whether selection in our education system is expanded as a result of his actions.3.49 pm
Mr Gibb: I shall make one more attempt to persuade the hon. Gentleman out of his argument. On split sites, as I said, there is no change in the rules. We are using the same rules and regulations that applied when he was an Education Minister.
On the issue of fairness, I refer the hon. Gentleman to paragraph 1.8 of the new Schools Admissions Code, which says:
“Admission authorities must ensure that their arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly, either directly or indirectly, a child from a particular social or racial group, or a child with a disability or special educational needs”.
That covers the example the hon. Gentleman raised about a feeder primary school that serves a particular locality. We have not weakened fairness in the code, and on that basis I hope I can persuade all members of the Committee to support the regulations.
The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 7.
AYES
NOES
Question accordingly agreed to.
That the Committee has considered the School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012 (S.I. 2012, No. 8).