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Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 10:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 23, which is its parallel in relation to grant maintained schools.
The purpose of the amendment is to require governing bodies, when they undertake their annual consideration of the expansion of selection, to have regard to the financial consequences which would be expected to arise for the local education authority were the admission arrangements to be changed; and, mutatis mutandis, the same would be true for grant maintained schools.
This point arose in debate on Amendments Nos. 37 and 38 at Committee stage (Official Report, 24/2/97, col. 1011). Those amendments set out a series of criteria which governing bodies might be asked to consider in taking their annual decision. Your Lordships will remember that in moving the amendments, my noble friend Lady Farrington referred in particular to the impact on transport arrangements, where one school decided to expand selection and altered the pattern of movement among pupils both to itself and to the neighbouring schools. There is in transport a network, a reticulation, of arrangements which, if one part is disturbed, has repercussions on other parts of the web.
The issue was picked up by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon (col. 1011) who pressed the Minister to respond to the point that a governing body would be able to take decisions which had financial consequences for others and in particular for the local education authority. Transport simply forms a single direct example of the additional financial commitments with which the LEA might be faced. There are others. The likely consequence of an increasing number of appeals, for example, arising from an expansion of selection represents another potential area in which the LEA would incur additional cost.
But this amendment is not confined to those particular kinds of cost. It is set in a context of community. I remind your Lordships that in that previous debate I drew attention to the fact that schools are part of a wider community. We on these Benches place a great deal of importance on the community aspect of schools. A decision by one school to introduce or increase the proportion of pupils who are selected by reference to ability or aptitude is bound to have an impact, and an impact of varying magnitude, on other schools within its area and within the whole local education community. It will impact on the way in which primary schools conduct themselves. The way things are developing through this Bill, it will in fact affect how nursery schools work and the provision of nursery education in a community. In certain cases, the effect will radiate far beyond the area of the local education authority itself because people will be attracted to certain schools from well beyond the official LEA boundary. So we believe that no school should be able to take such a decision without due regard to the full implication of its actions.
I said a great deal more than that but I shall spare your Lordships my further reflections and turn simply to what the Minister said in his response. It was a long
it is by no means obvious that that will be the case if there is no requirement on them to do so. The overwhelming majority of people in this country will not commit murder. It would therefore be superfluous to create a law for perhaps one in 10,000 people. The vast majority of people go through their whole life without committing a single murder; people act in a rational and reasonable sort of way. The law deals with those people who do not behave in a rational and sensible way.
Obviously the majority of governors will consult and talk to local people; but what if they do not? That is what the law is dealing with. The sanction is vitally necessary. The Minister went on to say,
What "others"? Who is the Minister talking about? He said,
Obviously anything "can" be taken into account. Does the Minister mean "needs" to be taken into account? Does he acknowledge that it need not be taken into account? He goes on,
That is perhaps the most arcane sentence in what he said.
We are asking that governing bodies "shall" consider. How can that undermine anything? The Minister went on to say that he considered that transport costs, like other things (which he did not specify), might well balance each other out on different occasions. That I find extremely opaque. Is there any known example where that is the case? Can he point to any specific balancing out of transport costs as a result of the kind of activity which is the subject of this specific section of the Bill? Indeed, how could the transport costs balance each other out? How would he or anyone else know whether that had happened? Who gathers the statistics on the balancing out of transport costs in the event of that kind of activity taking place? Have any
I am afraid therefore that I found that the responses given by the Minister, though marvellously convincing at the time, do not stand up to the cold light of day when one sees them in print--that is something which affects us all. The Minister seems unclear as to whether he is arguing that governors "should" take such issues into account or whether expecting them to do so would undermine their right to take a decision. The legislative position, as the Bill is drafted, is perfectly clear: there is nothing to require a governing body to consider these matters at all, nor to talk to anyone else about them if it does not wish to do so. On that basis, the Minister's claims are simply without foundation.
Amendment No. 10 was tabled--it applies to both maintained and grant-maintained schools--to propose a minimum requirement that governing bodies should have regard to the financial consequences to another body--that is, the LEA--from its own decisions. The amendment does not bind the governing body except to the extent that it should have regard to that factor in making its decision. If the Government wish governing bodies to act responsibly, they can have no logical reason for resisting this gentlest possible amendment. The request is utterly minimalist and I can see no reason why the Government should now reject it. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I rise to support Amendment No. 10 and to bring attention to the transport costs that could arise from changes envisaged in this section of the Bill.
Transport costs already amount to a considerable proportion of an education authority's costs; it is usually several millions of pounds. The system is that pupils who live within a certain distance from their school do not receive free transport, but those who live further away than the minimum limit--for secondary schools it is three miles--and cannot gain access to a closer secondary school receive free transport.
If we were to allow secondary schools, for example, to increase their level of selection, bearing in mind the economic effect on the local education authority, a situation would be created where those pupils who are excluded from a school as a result of an increased proportion of selection would have to travel further afield. By definition, secondary schools are more widespread in their geographical distribution than are primary schools; they are big.
As a result of haphazard changes in some schools, a situation will arise where pupils cannot get into a school to which they could walk or pay their own public transport fares and will have to travel further to another school where the transport will be paid for by the local education authority. That could impose a serious cost on local education authorities.
I have struggled for years with the question of school transport and am horrified at the apparently light-hearted way with which the Minister dealt with the issue. It is
Children who come into a selected school from a distance will not become the responsibility of the local education authority because they are choosing to move further than they need. But the cost of those who are prevented from attending their nearest school will come on to the shoulders of local ratepayers. It is time therefore that the issue was given the serious consideration that it deserves.
Page 2, line 24, at end insert--
("(2A) In undertaking its consideration in accordance with this section, the governing body shall have regard to any financial consequences which might reasonably be expected to arise for the
local education authority from any variation in the admission arrangements for the school.").
"governors will obviously consult and talk to local people. If others have a view that serious financial consequences may arise, that is something which can be taken into account. But I do not believe that it would be right to undermine the right of governing bodies to consider those matters. I believe that those matters can be adequately considered and on some occasions--and I take the example of school transport--costs might rise on the one hand but diminish on the other".--[Official Report, 24/2/97; col. 1011.]
"governors will obviously consult and talk to local people",
"If others have a view that serious financial consequences may arise, that is something which can be taken into account".
"that serious financial consequences may arise, that is something which can be taken into account".
"But I do not believe that it would be right to undermine the right of governing bodies to consider those matters".
5.15 p.m.
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