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Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 52:
- Page 17, line 33, leave out sub-paragraph (ii).
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak to both Amendments Nos. 52 and 53. Clause 28(1) states:
- "Once in every school year the governing body of a maintained school shall prepare a report (a 'governors' report') dealing with such matters, and otherwise complying with such requirements, as may be specified in regulations".
The clause goes on to deal with the regulations which may:
- "impose requirements on the governing body of a maintained school with respect to . . . the giving of copies of a governors' report to such persons as may be prescribed, and ... making such copies available for inspection at the school"—
- "enabling the governing body to determine the language or languages in which a governors' report is to be produced and the form or forms in which it is to be produced".
That is where I believe it should end. It should be a matter for the governing body, which knows its own school, its parents, children and community, to determine the languages in which the report should be produced. If the Government are concerned that governing bodies cannot be trusted to do that, the subsection should say something like:
- "appropriate languages meeting the language needs of all its community"
- "to comply with any direction given by the local education authority with respect to any additional language to be used or with respect to any additional form in which the report is to be produced".
I want to trust the governing body to know what it is doing and to understand its own client group—the children, parents and the local community. It is wrong to then require governing bodies to be under the direction of the local education authority to add yet more languages for communicating with schools and communities.
Amendment No. 53 refers to yet more regulations. I am still awaiting a reply about how many sets of regulations there will be in the Bill. Subsection (3) states that regulations may:
- "require the governing body of a maintained school to provide the local education authority with such reports and other information in connection with the discharge of the functions of the governing body as may be prescribed or as the authority may require (either on a regular basis or from time to time) for the purpose of the exercise of any of their functions".
The statute book is littered with requirements for schools, head teachers, teachers and governing bodies to provide information, but it is already public information. The annual report is public; meetings with parents are public; Ofsted inspections are public. They are visited by endless numbers of people who have the right to see such information.
It is absurd to lay yet another set of regulations on schools. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, Amendment No. 52 would mean that a school maintained by a local education authority would be under no obligation to comply with any direction from that authority with respect to any additional language in which the governors' annual report is produced, or any additional forms in which it is produced, such as in braille.
Of course, we accept the thrust of the noble Baroness's argument; namely, that governing bodies have the prime responsibility for determining the
languages, or forms, in which their annual report is to be produced. However, we differ from the noble Baroness in the following respect. We believe that there are circumstances in which a local education authority, by virtue of its knowledge over a wider area than the school, may be better placed to determine an additional language, or form, in which the report could be produced that would benefit the local community, or part of it.As I believe the noble Baroness indicated, this sub-paragraph is a re-enactment of Section 42 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, under which there are existing regulations. We are not aware of any complaints that the existing requirements, which we want to continue, have caused any difficulties. These provisions provide an additional guarantee for the local community that the interests of all parts of it will be taken fully into account. We see nothing to be gained in dropping the provisions, and possibly something to be lost for some parts of the local community. I hope that the noble Baroness is reassured by my response and that she will decide to withdraw her amendment.
On Amendment No. 53, I should like to emphasise that the scope of the regulation-making power in subsection (3) of Clause 28 is very similar to the content of the current provisions to which I referred in Sections 42(3) and (4) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. The only addition is to allow regulations to prescribe information that must be provided.
I hear what the noble Baroness says about regulations; indeed, we have heard her complaints about them on numerous occasions. However, I should point out that some of those regulations flow from Acts of Parliament introduced during the 18 years of the previous administration. I take note of what she said about the issue of seeking to keep the number of regulations that are required under constraint. We believe that it would be helpful, and add clarity and consistency, to have the scope to prescribe in regulations what information must be provided by governing bodies and head teachers.
However, we have listened most carefully to the noble Baroness's arguments, which were also outlined in Committee. I should like to make progress on the matter. I am prepared to bring forward a government amendment on Third Reading that will replace subsection (3) of Clause 28 with the current provisions in Sections 42(3), (4) and (5) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. This will remove the regulation-making power and maintain just the current provisions, which we believe to be important. I hope that this addresses the point made by the noble Baroness on the question of regulations. I trust, therefore, that she will be prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, this is a very small victory; indeed, I should quite like to sweep away the requirements for regulations under the School Standards and Framework Act. However, I am grateful for small mercies. I am also grateful that, as I
understand it, subsection (3) will disappear from the Bill. I tentatively wait to see what will replace it at the next stage of the Bill.I am in a fairly cynical frame of mind. I have to say that the appointment of Mr Miliband to the department that I welcomed so readily the other day is turning out to be something of a disappointment. These are the earliest opportunities for actually living up to the very words that he spoke on accepting the appointment and sweeping away some of the bureaucracy.
I am sure that he did not mean it personally, but the Minister said that he had heard my complaints about regulations "on numerous occasions". But it is the schools, the head teachers, and the teachers who are going on and on about regulations. I am not burdened down with having to read them, interpret them, and, in turn, read and interpret the guidelines and the guidance: it is the schools who have to cope with this burden. Minister after Minister has promised the schools faithfully that he or she will do what can be done to reduce the amount of bureaucracy. But, as they speak those words, we mount on yet more bureaucracy. I do not, therefore, accept that criticism from the Minister.
The Minister also referred to the 18 years of the previous administration. One would not believe that this Government are actually in their sixth year in Parliament. Indeed, they are now in their sixth year and the level of regulations, guidance, guidelines, and bureaucracy that has been laid upon schools is unprecedented. I am not happy with the response that I received to my first request. I believe that we should trust schools to determine what languages they use to speak to their school community. We should leave this to schools; they should not be under further exhortation from a third party.
I am grateful to the Minister for what he said about Amendment No. 53, but I shall wait to see what replaces it. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 54:
- After Clause 30, insert the following new clause—
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is an important clause that relates to playing fields. Many of us will remember the exhortations of a number of Ministers before the 1997 election, the most vocal of whom was the right honourable Mr David Blunkett. He was very critical of the previous Conservative government for selling off playing fields. Such was the voluble noise from Ministers at that time that one would have been forgiven for believing that there was no more scope for disposing of playing fields.
I should like to refer to two newspaper articles: the first dated November 2001, and the second February 2002. In the Sunday Telegraph of 18th November 2001, Martin Bentham wrote:
Given that report, one would expect things to have changed for the better. But, on 27th February 2002, an article in the Daily Mail stated:
I have an answer to a Question asked by my honourable friend Mr Brady in another place. He asked what the proceeds of sales were for each playing field development application approved by the Secretary of State since 1998 and what went for sports and educational facilities. Out of 79 that are listed in that reply by the department, 47 were not to enhance sports facilities. That is 47 out of 79. Those that were to enhance sports facilities only partly funded them, and the money was used for other things.
We will take the criticism for what happened before 1997. I have no doubt that the Minister will not lose the opportunity to refer to that again. But, given what the Minister said at that time, as I said right at the outset, one could be forgiven for believing that the scope for yet further selling off of playing fields would have been reduced if not eliminated altogether.
Many people are concerned about this aspect. Certainly the schools are. At a time when sport is a concern in schools, particularly extra-curricular sport, and given the Government's policy of inclusiveness in wanting young people, both in and out of school, to benefit from sports facilities in their community, I believe that what is happening is unforgivable.
At this stage, the Government's criteria are informal. I want to make them formal by placing them on the face of the Bill. Those criteria are:
"PROTECTION OF SCHOOL PLAYING FIELDS
Regulations shall provide for the control by the governing body of a maintained school of school playing fields and sporting facilities, which shall, among other things, provide that neither the Secretary of State, nor a local authority, nor any other public authority, shall give consent to the sale, transfer or disposal of playing fields or pitches owned or leased by a governing body of a maintained school or local authority unless—
(a) it can be shown by the governing body or bodies, or local authority, concerned that the sale, transfer or disposal is for the purpose of providing playing fields or sporting facilities of equal or improved quality for the use of the school and, if appropriate, other schools;
(b) in the case of a sale, transfer or disposal made by a local authority, it is done with the consent of the governing body or bodies concerned;
(c) it takes into account the impact in the local authority area on team sports requiring extensive playing fields or pitches and demonstrates that children at schools in the area will still have full and regular access to practise those sports; and
(d) the parent body of the school or schools concerned has consented in a ballot to the sale."
"The number of playing fields sold off for building development has leapt by 60 per cent in the past year, according to a leaked Government document. The figures, in a confidential report for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, show that 446 applications for building on sports fields were approved between April 2000 and March this year. That compares with only 279 approvals for the previous 12 months. In the vast majority of cases, no objection was made to the applications, despite repeated Labour promises to stop playing fields being sold off. The number of planning applications refused rose by just two".
The latter information was put to the honourable Kate Hoey in another place, who held ministerial office at the time. I quote her response, which appeared in the same article:
"These figures bear out what I am finding when I go round the country, and show quite clearly that our promises"—
that is, the Labour Party's promises—
"to save playing fields are not working. There needs to be a moratorium on sales because the people who are objecting to the loss of sports pitches are not being listened to".
The article goes on to quote Elsa Davies, the director of the National Playing Fields Association, who said:
"The loss of playing fields is proceeding at a rate which is totally unacceptable. For years the Government has talked motherhood and apple pie, saying that they will save playing fields, but nothing has been achieved".
"The new figures are contained in a draft report drawn up by a monitoring unit on the sale of playing fields, set up by the department in April 2000 ... the Government pledged that the unit would 'publish monthly figures on playing field disposals so that progress can be accurately charted'".
That has not happened. Martin Bentham then pointed out that:
"The figures, which the report says 'should not be released, quoted or used in any form', show that 860 valid applications for development on playing fields were received in the year ending March 2001 ...The statistics also show a steep rise in the number of applications that were then given final planning permission by the relevant local authority. Whereas in 1999/2000 the number of unconditional approvals was 279, by last year the total had risen to 446, an increase of 60 per cent. Another 21 disposals were approved subject to conditions. Only 47 applications were
19 Jun 2002 : Column 771refused, and not one application was 'called in' by the Secretary of State for detailed examination . . . The Government's failure to prevent the sale of playing fields comes despite a series of promises made during the 1997 general election campaign that sports pitches would be protected".
At that time the Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, while he was education secretary, was speaking a great deal on this issue. He said:
"I will ensure that those playing fields which schools and local communities need are not sold in the future".
That was in November 2001.
"Fresh evidence that ministers have repeatedly broken promises to protect school playing fields was revealed in official figures yesterday.
The Government has approved all but two applications to sell off sports pitches since laws to protect them were introduced in 1998.
Of the 100 applications received, by the end of January, [2002] 98 have been waved through by Ministers.
A further 77 out of 81 requests to sell off smaller fields were given the green light, giving an overall total of 175 approvals from 181 applications".
The article went on to say that,
"most applications are still being approved, with the figures suggesting the number of sell-offs is gathering pace".
It also stated:
"An independent panel was set up to examine applications before making recommendations to ministers, who have the final say. A total of 945 applications to build on playing fields are expected this year—up from 590 in 2000 and 860 last year.
Ministers were ... accused of reneging on their pledges to protect the field.
'They have not kept to their word', said Elsa Davies, director of the National Playing Fields Association.
'We were looking to the Government to protect playing fields, but what we have seen is tinkering in the system, which will not help'".
"(a) it can be shown by the governing body or bodies, or local authority, concerned that the sale, transfer or disposal is for the purpose of providing playing fields or sporting facilities of equal or improved quality for the use of the school and, if appropriate, other schools [in the area];
(b) in the case of a sale, transfer or disposal made by a local authority, it is done with the consent of the governing body or bodies concerned;
(c) it takes into account the impact in the local authority area on team sports requiring extensive playing fields or pitches and demonstrates that children at schools in the area will still have full and regular access to practise those sports; and
(d) the parent body of the school or schools concerned has consented in a ballot to the sale".
I beg to move.
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