| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the criteria would relate principally to the continuing connections between the local authority catchment area and the school. They would relate to the appropriateness of the funding and to whether the school's admission policy would fit in with the general admission policy of the two local
authorities concerned. There is not an absolute single criterion. Those criteria would all be followed, as of course would the assessment of the opinions of the two local authorities and of the school itself. All of those considerations have already been reflected to the department in relation to the Nonsuch High School. Indeed, officials have met both LEAs and the governing body of the school. All those considerations will be taken into account. Hypothetically, other schools might be in this position, but this is the only one which is actively being pursued. With that explanation, I hope that the House will accept the amendment.On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Whitty moved Amendments Nos. 47 and 48:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Whitty moved Amendment No. 49:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is the first of a batch of largely technical amendments. Most of them are not new. They fall into three groups. Amendments Nos. 211, 233 and 69 are the only new ones and are relatively straightforward. Amendment No. 211 is required because of an amendment to the Teaching and Higher Education Bill made in another place. Amendment No. 233 is a minor drafting change. Amendment No. 69 clarifies the term "maintained nursery school" and I shall come back to it in a moment. All the rest of the amendments except one relate, with a few minor drafting changes--Amendments Nos. 49 and 204--to those amendments which were tabled on the second day of the Committee stage. However, following a strenuous intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I withdrew them, partly because I had not provided to him or to the Front Benches any prior information at that stage. Since then, as with other technical amendments, I have written to the noble Baronesses, Lady Blatch and Lady Maddock, and to the noble Lords, Lord Tope, Lord Pilkington and Lord Lucas, explaining the effect of those amendments. I shall say a little more about that in a moment.
Amendment No. 210 relates to the interface with the further education sector. That amendment was tabled on the seventh day and withdrawn in the face of fairly detailed questioning from the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch.
I shall now say a little more about each of the amendments. Amendments Nos. 49, 204 and 233 all relate to the definition of the appointed day. "The appointed day" in Clause 20 should be read separately from the same expression in Part I and Schedule 32, which deals with transitional provisions.
Amendments Nos. 62, 83, 206 and 236 deal with land and property on trust for the purposes of the school and what that means. Amendment No. 62 is needed for clarification. Where land or property is held on trust for school purposes, that should include land or property actually used for the purposes of the school and held on trust for wider purposes. That includes the purposes of the school. In a number of places the Bill refers to land or property held on trust for the purposes of the school. Where the land is held on trust for a single school, the references are fine as they are, but sometimes the school land is held by wider trusts capable of being used for a number of purposes. That is why we need this particular amendment.
Amendments Nos. 63 and 64 provide for some clarification of property transfers. Amendment No. 64 deals with property transfers when a school joins or leaves a foundation body without changing the school categories provided for under Clause 21. When categories are changed that is covered by regulations in Schedule 8. We need the amendments to clarify the former case. Amendment No. 63 provides that rights and liabilities associated with property will transfer with the property itself.
Amendments Nos. 65 and 66 deal with foundation bodies and supplement the existing provisions in Clause 21 to enable the Secretary of State to make regulations governing foundation bodies which act for a group of schools. Amendments Nos. 67, 70, 207 and 211 to 214 all deal with charitable status. These all arise from discussions we have held with the Charity Commission. The new clause provided in Amendment No. 70 (which is the main one in this group) specifies that it is the governing body of a voluntary or foundation special school which is an exempt charity rather than the school itself. It does not in any way affect the school trustees or the relationship between them and governing bodies, and neither does it impose liabilities on governors which would not have applied had the Bill specified the school as the charity. Amendment No. 67 deletes provisions about charitable status of schools and foundations in the light of that new clause.
Amendments Nos. 51, 52, 55 and 61 deal with the allocation of schools to new categories. Amendment No. 51 allows regulations to require GM schools to provide information to persons other than parents--such as dioceses and school trustees. Amendment No. 52 follows from that. Currently, Schedule 2 allows regulations to be made only on the timing of the final decision on GM schools' governing bodies but not on arrangements for the meeting to take those decisions. Amendment No. 55 deals with that.
Amendment No. 69 refers to a "maintained nursery school". That needs to be defined to make clear that it does not apply to LEA-maintained special schools which provide for pupils aged two to five. They will be treated as special schools rather than in the category of a maintained nursery school.
I now come to the batch of amendments as regards Amendment No. 210 which was withdrawn on the seventh day, dealing with the interface with the Further and Higher Education Act. That Act contains a number of references that will have to be amended. The previous government established the FE sector and included within it sixth-form colleges, which, before they entered the sector, were classified as schools. The 1992 Act includes a range of provisions that deal with, for example, how those schools should be established as FE colleges and how the asset should be transferred.
A number of those provisions are time expired, but a surprising number are still technically live and require to be updated. Although following the 1992 Act it is no longer possible to propose that a school should become a local authority maintained sixth-form college, the Act includes a provision that any school which is principally concerned with the provision of full-time education suitable for the requirements of persons over compulsory school age may be incorporated into the FE sector. Accordingly, a considerable number of sections of that Act remain live, although their principal use was related to the establishment of the FE sector in 1993. It is therefore a necessary consequence of those provisions being still active upon the statute book that the draftsmen must update them. The consequential amendments to the 1992 Act seek to do nothing more than that.
Further education matters more generally, or other issues raised by the noble Baroness, are not affected by the amendments. Nevertheless, many sections of that Act are affected by the amendments and I can explain them at length, if required, either now or in writing. I believe that I have provided most of that information already to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord, Lord Tope. Therefore, I hope that at this stage the House will be prepared with those explanations to accept the amendments, given that most of that information has already been provided to the Front Benches opposite in detailed form.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Lockwood): My Lords, Amendment proposed: Page 19, line 26, after ("day"") insert ("(except in Part I of Schedule 32)"). I repeat, "Schedule 32", not "three--two"; nothing to do with the latest score!
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for his letter and for the explanation that he has given. I have only two questions. The noble Lord said that it would be improbable or unlikely that a school would become an FE college but that it could on rare occasions. What would be the procedure for that? It would be very unusual, so what would be the procedure for a school which is known to educate young people up to and through the age of 16
Page 19, line 19, leave out ("is") and insert ("immediately before that day was").
Page 19, line 20, at end insert--
("(4A) Where a grant-maintained school within subsection (3)(b)--
(a) was, immediately before becoming such a school, maintained by a local education authority ("the former maintaining authority") other than the one within whose area it was then situated, and
(b) remains outside the area of the former maintaining authority immediately before the appointed day,
nevertheless, if an order made by the Secretary of State before that day so provides, as from that day the school shall be maintained (as a school falling within one of the categories set out in subsection (1)) by the former maintaining authority rather than the authority in whose area it is situated on that day.").
Page 19, line 26, after first ("day"") insert ("(except in Part I of Schedule 32)").
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page