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Baroness Blatch: I should have said at the outset that my argument, like that of Andrew Adonis, is not against comprehensives per se. It is on the record—I shall say it again—that my own children went to a comprehensive school in Cambridgeshire. They did very well and I have no complaints about the school at all. I am talking about "one size fits all". I have heard the Minister herself say that they do not believe that one size fits all and that there is room for diversity. Of the 24,000 or so schools, we are talking about 166 grammar schools. I simply do not understand how a group of schools can be so offensive to the Minister and her colleagues.
The Minister criticises my amendment on the basis that the proposals have been discussed on a number of previous occasions. There is no law against returning to a subject. In fact, during our debates, the Government have returned to a number of previous statutes and proposed changes to them. I have not used the argument that we have been here before, that the proposals have been discussed endlessly and that we should therefore not accept them. Legislation is a dynamic process. Times change and the world changes and legislatures go back to previous statutes and discuss them again. I make no apology for returning to previous debates.
The Minister also said that there should be no extension because the Government fundamentally do not believe in this form of selection. My amendment has nothing to do with extension. Although, as she knows, I would not object to any extension for these schools, my amendment is not suggesting extension. It is merely suggesting that there should not be this continual war of attrition on these schools.
Another argument used by the Minister is that the Conservatives introduced balloting for grant-maintained schools. That is absolutely true. However, the very important distinction is that that balloting did not change the nature of the school. Schools that became grant-maintained schools retained their nature. If they were selective before, they were selective after; if non-selective before, they remained non-selective; if comprehensive, they remained so; if specialist, they maintained that status. There was absolutely no change in the nature of the school.
These ballots would result not only in the school's nature being changed but in the school's abolition. It would no longer be a grammar school, and there is no guarantee that it would remain a school at all. As was confirmed in previous debates, in some cases, post-ballot, the school would disappear entirely. In other cases, it would be converted to a non-selective school. In fact, we tried to introduce an amendment providing that the local authority should say in its business plan what would happen if a ballot were successful. The Government insisted that that should not happen and that the business plan should follow and not precede the grammar school's demise.
I do not think that the arguments are very strong, but I shall not press my amendment. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 249A.
- Before Clause 66, insert the following new clause—
The noble Baroness said: I am disappointed with the answer from the Minister as the amendment was intended to simplify the incredibly Byzantine rules currently surrounding grammar school ballots. There is a great deal to be said for trying to simplify the rules and make them fairer and easier for parents. However, given the lateness of the hour, I shall not move the amendment.
[Amendment No. 249A not moved.]
Clause 66 [Proposals for additional secondary schools]:
Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 250:
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment I shall also speak to Amendment No. 252. I do not pretend that this is anything like complete drafting. It is merely intended to introduce the general proposition that we should seek to move towards the Dutch and Danish method of organising school systems; that is, to allow not any party but any sensible party the right to establish a school if they can establish that there is a demand for that school. That school would then become part of the state system subject to the usual terms and conditions of that system.
For a long time, certainly when my party was in government and all the way through this Government's term of office, there has been a long debate about surplus places as if that was something which could be cured only by planning, by placing bureaucratic restrictions on the ability to create new schools and by bearing down ever more on the availability of surplus places—surplus places, of course, being the only mechanism that was available to enable school choice on the part of parents to take place. So, we have the uncomfortable position whereby a lot of parents are not getting the schools that they want for their children, but there is an inability to create the schools that parents would want.
If one looks at the Dutch and Danish systems—as was done a few months ago with great care and insight by the Robert Adam Institute—one sees that allowing freedom for schools to be created within the state system does not result in a widespread waste of money or surplus places but in an efficient system where schools in an area tend to be the sort of schools that parents want in that area. If there is a demand for, say, a new Roman Catholic school, the Church will propose it, recruit the parents that it needs to reach the minimum level, provide it and it will just happen. If there is a shrinkage of demand, as happens in the private sector, a school will reduce in size or go out of existence if that is what parents want. A system is
This measure is just a first step in the right direction. It suggests that the Secretary of State should designate a number of bodies. She could start with the Churches. The principal Churches would be obvious people to be allowed to propose the establishment of a new school. One might name a number of other bodies which have successfully established, say, city technology colleges or other state educational institutions and allow them to propose a school if there is a local demand for it. If there is a local demand, they should be allowed to go ahead and create a school.
If someone is doing that with their own money and providing the capital cost of a school, I cannot see that that would result in any disadvantage to the state system. It would provide a great influx of new ideas and new blood and it would at the end of the day be an alternative to the old grammar school system and selection. If people could establish schools which were intended to attract bright kids from the inner cities and that were free of the old dusty, discredited state schools in the area, and could provide arrangements for parents to get to them and prove that parents wished to use them, that surely would be a great deal better than allowing the system just to run on as it always has because there is no mechanism for changing it.
I do not myself like selection except where it cannot be avoided but I do like parental choice. Over the next 10 or 20 years we shall have to make real strides in making parental choice a real possibility. As we can never be in a position where there is an enormous number of surplus places, choice has to be achieved by allowing parents to create schools where they need them and to abandon schools where they do not. I beg to move.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: In responding to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I should like also to speak to government Amendments Nos. 252A and 252B. These technical amendments put more fully into effect our original intentions in respect of the newspaper notice inviting proposals for additional secondary schools.
As currently drafted, the clause requires the notice to specify all the information that must be contained in any proposals that are brought forward in response to the notice. We never intended the notice itself to go into that level of detail. The first amendment therefore removes the need for all the information that proposals must contain to be specified on the face of the notice. That will instead be listed in regulations, but in practice we expect that interested parties will refer to the guidance on statutory proposals, which will be updated to include pro formas giving all the necessary information.
The second amendment provides for regulations to prescribe the information that must be contained in the notice, in addition to a possible site for the school and the date by which the proposals must be submitted, which are specified in the clause.
The additional information that will be required by the regulations will be based on that specified in the first paragraph of the policy document that was prepared in another place for the Committee and deposited in the Library of your Lordships' House.
That approach is really a technical adjustment to clarify our original intentions, and I trust that noble Lords will agree that the Bill should be amended accordingly. I shall spare Members of the Committee specific details on the newspaper notice—although I should be happy to go into them if any Member of the Committee requires it.
I turn to Amendments Nos. 250 and 252. Their effect would be to permit a charitable body approved by the Secretary of State, as well as the LEA, to publish a notice inviting proposals for the establishment of a maintained secondary school or academy. That is unnecessary because the amendments would not increase the powers of any person to bring forward proposals. Under existing legislation any person may already bring proposals for the establishment of a secondary school. Section 28(2) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 allows any persons, generally referred to as "promoters", to publish proposals for a new foundation or voluntary school. Section 482 of the Education Act 1996 enables any person to enter into an agreement with the Secretary of State to establish an academy.
So there is no constraint on charitable bodies making proposals. Furthermore, Clause 66 provides that the LEA can publish proposals, as I have previously said in your Lordships' House, only for the establishment of a wholly new secondary school subsequent to it publishing a notice inviting others to bring forward proposals. If, for some reason, individuals or bodies do not want to publish proposals themselves but encourage others to do so, they are perfectly free at the moment to take any steps that they wish in order to achieve that.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the Dutch system. I should very much enjoy discussing that with him, but I fear that tonight may not be the best moment. I understand what he said in that regard and we have of course looked into the system on the basis of his known interest. We have also looked at the Learning from Europe report, which recognised in its foreword that the Government are interested in diversifying the provision of public services. That is a major element of the Education Bill.
With those assurances, I therefore hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
"GRAMMAR SCHOOL BALLOTS: EXTENDING ELIGIBILITY TO LOCAL PARENTS
(1) The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (c. 31) is amended as follows.
(2) In section 105(2) (procedure for deciding whether grammar schools should retain selective admission arrangements), paragraphs (b) and (c) are omitted.
(3) In section 106(1) (eligibility of parents to request or vote in a ballot) there is inserted "primary" before "schools".
(4) In section 106 subsection (2) is omitted.
(5) In section 106(3)(a) (proportion of parents required to request a ballot) for "20" there is substituted "5".
(6) In section 106(3) paragraph (b) is omitted.
(7) In section 107(3) (information provision by the authority or body on intentions or proposals following a successful petition) for paragraph (c) there is substituted—
"(c) a statement by the authority or body on intention or proposals for a non-selective education system which may include information on options, costs and planning assumptions in the event of such a result."."
Page 44, line 22, leave out "local education authority in England" and insert "permitted body"
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