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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Before the Minister sits down, since his answer seems to imply that for once we are in agreement as regards what we seek to achieve, can he assure us that he supports the philosophy that children who are excluded through behavioural problems should be fully occupied during normal schools hours and that the Government will consider the amendment between now and Report? Does the Minister agree that we should seek to meet the objectives, the general principle and ethos underlying the amendment?
Lord Henley: I cannot accept the noble Baroness's precise words. I believe that the appropriate provision should be made by the LEA. Some provision is not as good as it might be. Some is extremely cost-effective and is very good. There might be times when pupils do not have to be occupied to the full length of the school day. The matter warrants further examination. However, I am not happy with this amendment on the three grounds that I gave: first, potential cost implications; secondly, over-prescription on the face of the Bill; and, thirdly, the definition of full-time education.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his remarks. I do not accept the three reasons he gave for the clause not being acceptable. Cost could be worked out--if necessary, within the framework of the capabilities of LEAs. I do not believe the amendment is over-prescriptive. I also think that one does not need to become so "hung up" on legal definitions of full-time education. I agree with my noble friend Lady Farrington that many provisions would qualify under the term "full-time" education and were certainly intended in the clause.
However, given the Minister's indication that he is willing to enter discussions about the matter, I am willing at this stage to withdraw the amendment. I hope that on Report we can arrive at a proposal that is mutually satisfactory and satisfactory to all sides of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 116A:
After Clause 26, insert the following new clause--
(" .--(1) The governing body of a county, voluntary, maintained special school or grant maintained school shall ensure that policies designed to promote partnership between home and school are pursued at the school.
(2) The governing body shall in particular prepare, and from time to time review, a written statement "a home school policy" specifying--
(a) the school's aims and values;
(b) the responsibilities which the school intends to discharge in connection with the education of children admitted to the school; and
(c) the parental responsibilities, that is the responsibilities which the parents of such children are expected to discharge in connection with the education of their children while they are registered at the school.
(3) In determining the provisions to be included in the statement the governing body shall have regard to any guidance which the Secretary of State may from time to time issue.
(4) Before making or revising the statement required under subsection (1) above the governing body shall consult in such a manner as appears to be appropriate--
(a) the head teacher;
(b) the staff of the school;
(c) the parents of pupils registered at the school; and
(d) other bodies or persons who appear to the governing body to have an interest in the school.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I shall also speak to the amendments grouped with it; namely, Amendments Nos. 126A, 127A-C, 128A-C, 129A-C and 130A-C. I am sure that the Committee will be relieved to know that I do not intend to speak to each of them at this stage. I am sure that others will wish to enter the debate in support of this group of amendments.
The home school policy is an extremely important part of the clauses in this part of the Bill. Amendment No. 116A seeks to insert after Clause 26, in Part IV of the Bill, the following provisions on home school policy:
We believe that the home school policy provisions proposed in the Bill need support. They also need a degree of strengthening and clarification. Many issues are addressed in this batch of amendments. I hope that the Committee will feel able to support the proposals. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: This is a very large grouping. Some amendments seem to us to be more important than others. The two that seem to me important are Amendments Nos. 126A and 127B, to
The purpose of Amendment No. 126A, and indeed of the whole group, is to make what may appear to be substantial deletions to Clause 30 in Schedule 5. However, they arise mostly because of the structure of the drafting that has been necessary. The effect of the amendments is to require schools--that is, governors and head teachers jointly--to make a partnership document available to parents but to remove the admission condition attached to the present wording. That is what we find we have to insist upon.
This section of the Bill arises from good intentions on the part of the Government. It arises from an idea put into practice by some schools on an entirely voluntary basis which seems to have worked perfectly well. Many have argued that the provision should be more widely extended. As I say, the Government have proceeded from excellent intentions. However, the drafting of the Bill before us is not well thought out; indeed, it is ill thought out and could have unlooked for and damaging consequences. This amendment is designed to improve the Bill by retaining those good and laudable elements while eliminating the problematic aspects of the present drafting.
Every one of us can agree that parents should be given every encouragement to support the education of their children in the schools that they attend. Everyone can agree that the schools themselves should be clear about what they expect of pupils and parents and the ways in which they will help parents to support their children in the learning process. It is eminently sensible that these matters should be clearly understood and clearly written down in a document so that all parties can know where they stand. However, there are worrying elements about a law which allows schools to choose whether or not they will offer such a document and to impose their version of what it should contain. More than that, it seems to us dangerous that that should be done with the sanction of refusing a place at the school if the parents do not comply. The Government are, and always have been, keen advocates of parental choice. But providing a charter for schools to browbeat parents in this way is hardly an enhancement of that.
In Standing Committee D in the other place on 14th January, the Minister conceded that the Government's intention was indeed to tip the balance in favour of schools. In reply to my noble friend leading for the Opposition he said:
It can be agreed that parental responsibility is a good thing. However, there is an inconsistency here. Parental rights are set out in great detail in statute and in regulation. It is not left to individual schools to determine how far those rights should extend. Why should schools be the arbiter of the extent of parental responsibility? If the Government are now persuaded that parental responsibility is important, they must concede also that it is desirable that it is accepted by all parents.
In the public debate that has surrounded this issue there has been a great deal of talk of home school contracts or partnership agreements. The Bill is careful to avoid terms such as "contract" or "agreement". Such words are associated with voluntary agreements between parties of more or less equal standing. They cannot properly be used to describe a situation where one party is in a position to dictate terms to another. Yet we are here faced with legislation which is weighted in favour of schools, where a school can choose whether or not to offer a partnership document and to determine its content but parents have to accept the school's decision on that point.
However, the clause as presently drafted is not quite as simple as that. It recognises that there is a potential conflict between the ability of a school to refuse admission to a child whose parents will not sign an agreement and the right of access to free education. It makes it clear that admissions authorities can waive the requirement to sign; it gives the Secretary of State the power to strike down unacceptable conditions and to prevent certain kinds of requirement being imposed upon parents; and the final subsection, subsection (6), says that these documents:
In short, it is conceded that these documents are unenforceable. We have a document which purports to be enforceable but on closer inspection its sanctions are revealed to be ineffective.
What will the practical result be? The majority of parents surely actively support their children's education and want to work with their children's schools? For them, enactment of this part of the Bill will make no difference. Parents will happily sign up to a statutory document, just as they would have subscribed to an informal, non-statutory one. But what of the minority of cases? There are good but argumentative parents who are keen supporters of their children's education but who may object to some particular in the partnership document or may have a principled objection to being required to sign such a document. In those cases--and they will not be a few--there will be a dispute between the parent and the school. Either the school will refuse entry or it will back down and waive the requirement for the document to be signed. That will mean either that the parents' choice of school will have been defeated for no particularly good reason or that the authority of the school in insisting on its partnership document will have been undermined.
Surely neither of those outcomes is desirable? In both cases time and energy will have been expended, resulting in damage to the relationship between the
In most cases this legislation will have secured no practical advantages and in a small number of cases it will have been responsible for unhelpful or damaging consequences. That is the poor basis that we are presented with for law-making.
Perhaps most important of all, the amendment will require every school to draw up a statement of what it understands to be the mutual rights and responsibilities of school and parent. It will ensure that every parent has a clear statement of where the school stands on those important issues; it will provide the opportunity for a mature dialogue between the parents and the school; it will allow every parent to know what the school will offer them and what it expects of them; and it will provide a vehicle to assist schools in encouraging parents to live up to their duties and responsibilities. In short, it contains all the positive features of a home- school agreement idea and none of the disadvantages inherent in the present draft of the Bill.
If Members of the Committee will permit me, I shall say a few words on Amendment No. 127B, the purpose of which is to insert a simple requirement for consultation by the Secretary of State with parents on the partnership agreement.
Clause 30 works by enabling admission authorities to make the completion of a partnership agreement part of the admissions arrangements of schools. Other amendments in this group draw attention to the contradiction that the Bill introduces between this proposal and the continuing duty of the LEA to educate children in its area. Amendment No. 127B looks at the narrower question of how the documents will be drawn up. It suggests that parents of existing pupils have a valuable role to play in offering views on the detailed content of the partnership documents and that they should be given a voice by the admissions authority before--under the Bill's proposals as they stand--it decides the content.
It is suggested that, solely for practical reasons, consultation might most easily be organised with parents of existing pupils while recognising that parents of future pupils will have a particular relationship with the documents if they are implemented in this form since it is they whose children will be most directly affected by provisions affecting admissions arrangements. Nothing would prevent an LEA casting the net wider in general consultation in its area.
I concede at once that there is one slight difficulty with this, which is that of identifying exactly what that constituency would be. I can offer no easy solution to saying who should be definitively inside and who should
The Bill rightly acknowledges the importance of consultation elsewhere, as subsection (6) requires LEAs to take note of representations from governing bodies about whether the admission arrangements for a school should include a partnership document and about the terms of any such document and parental declaration and provides for annual consultation thereafter about whether the terms of any existing document and declaration ought to be changed. If the principle of consultation is accepted here as a necessary and important one governing the vital relationship between LEAs and governing bodies within the system of accountability in our public education system, why should it appear to be so unimportant when it comes to the public accountability of the Secretary of State to the parents of children being educated in our schools?
Governing bodies expect to be accountable to the parents of children in their schools and to the wider community that they serve. As an inevitable part of their accountability, governing bodies will necessarily be sensitive to the views and interests of parents. The use of partnership agreements where they have already been introduced in many schools and in various forms demonstrates very clearly the value of such agreements in making the partnership between schools and parents work effectively to the benefit of the children educated in those schools. It is a shared commitment. Closer working together between schools and parents is the hallmark of good schools in this country and elsewhere. That commitment in turn depends upon effective communication and dialogue between the schools and the parents.
Consultation is an indispensable element in the public accountability of our system of democratic government. I hope that the Government will accept the amendment or clarify how the principle of consultation with parents is to be adhered to in relation to the extension and development of partnership agreements in our schools for which the Bill provides. I hope that the amendment is a sensible one within the context of the somewhat flawed plans set out in the Bill.
"The governing body of a county, voluntary, maintained special school or grant maintained school shall ensure that policies designed to promote partnership between home and school are pursued at the school ... The governing body shall in particular prepare, and from time to time review, a written statement 'a home school policy' specifying--
(a) the school's aims and values;
(b) the responsibilities which the school intends to discharge in connection with the education of children admitted to the school; and
(c) the parental responsibilities, that is the responsibilities which the parents of such children are expected to discharge in connection with the education of their children while they are registered at the school.
(3) In determining the provisions to be included in the statement the governing body shall have regard to any guidance which the Secretary of State may from time to time issue.
(4) Before making or revising the statement required under subsection (1) above the governing body shall consult in such a manner as appears to be appropriate--
(a) the head teacher;
(b) the staff of the school;
(c) the parents of pupils registered at the school; and
(d) other bodies or persons who appear to the governing body to have an interest in the school".?4 p.m.
"I concede one part of the argument of the hon. Member for Walton. He said that the provision tipped the balance in favour of schools--'weighted in favour of schools', was, I think, the exact expression that he used. That is true, and deliberately so, for this important reason. The Government have talked over and over again in recent years about parental rights, and we have gone to great lengths to establish parental rights to express a preference for a school, to give parents a role in electing governors, to establish school annual general meetings, and so on. It is now time to talk more in terms of parental responsibilities. If this provision does one thing, it enhances and encourages the role of parental responsibility".--[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee D, 14/1/97; col. 541.]
3 Mar 1997 : Column 1518
"shall not be capable of creating any obligation in respect of whose breach any liability arises in contract or in tort".
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