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Standing Committee A
Thursday 11 November 2004
(Morning)
[Mr. Bill O'Brien in the Chair]
9.25 am
The Chairman: Order. I wish to remind everyone in the Room that we will observe two minutes' silence at 11 o'clock. Clause 1
School travel schemes
Mr. Mark Hoban (Fareham) (Con): I beg to move amendment No. 45, in page 3, line 4, at end insert
I welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. O'Brien.
There must be common ground between the Government and the Opposition on amendment No. 45, because we both support the concepts of choice and specialist schools. It would be useful to allow a child who lives on the wrong side of town and who has a particular interest in attending a specialist school, because of the nature of its speciality, to attend that school and it would be useful to provide some support for their transport costs to it.
That raises the question of how one assesses whether the child ought to go to such a school and whether the school is a suitable one for the child. The Government have made some suggestions as to how we might determine what is a suitable school for a child and how we might introduce an objective test to measure it. In their response to the report by the Select Committee on Education and Skills on school admissions, they accepted the need for aptitude tests for certain types of school. The examples of that were special sports schools, and schools that specialise in visual and performing arts, and that specialise in languages. Those schools will be able to continue to set an aptitude test and select up to 10 per cent. of their pupils on the basis of their aptitude in sport, visual and performing arts or languages. If we are to go down the route of trying to encourage more pupils to attend a school that will meet their particular needs, in this case one that will give that specialist support, we ought to provide free school transport to the pupils who pass that aptitude test; it is an objective measure of whether that school is suitable for them.
Dr. John Pugh (Southport) (LD): I shall begin with a personal observation. Prior to this sitting, I had not realised the mysteries of starred amendments. I tabled a number of amendments yesterday and discovered that they would not be debated. Such are the penalties of being a novice. I am sure that the Committee is as disappointed as I am that I have not been able to prolong the sitting with amendments of the utmost ingenuity that would severely challenge the Government's proposals.
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However, that is all history and I will address this particular amendment. It is a logical corollary of having specialist schools—well, the Government say that it is—that some pupils will be accepted on the basis of aptitude; I think that about 6 per cent. of them currently are. If that is the case, the nearest appropriate school to a pupil might not be the nearest community school, but the nearest specialist school. That may be 3, 4, 5 or many miles away.
As the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) said, the amendment is in line and in keeping with the Government's thinking: provision should be made for transport to the nearest appropriate school. It is the same logic that applies to special educational needs and to denominational schools. He has missed a trick, because the same logic could equally apply to local authorities that have secondary modern and grammar schools. If it regards the secondary modern school as the nearest appropriate school for an individual and that is more than 3 or 4 miles away, transport provision ought to be laid on by those authorities as well.
That illustrates quite nicely the kind of muddle that we are getting in over this legislation. It also indicates one of the motives behind it: challenges with regard to the provision of specialist education and transport thereto will lead to an increasing transport cost for local authorities. The Government can see that coming and they have calculated how horrific that cost might be. Therefore, they are very comfortable with a piece of legislation that reneges on existing entitlements as given under the Education Act 1944. I can see reasons why some people might not wish to support the amendment, but I cannot see any reason why the Government should not.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Stephen Twigg): I, too, welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. O'Brien.
The amendment is very interesting; it highlights some of the anomalies in existing legislation and the need for the piloting approach set out in the Bill. As the hon. Members for Fareham and for Southport (Dr. Pugh) made clear, existing legislation does not give any particular transport support to someone who goes to a specialist school on the basis of passing an aptitude test. I cannot accept that pupils who pass such a test should simply receive free transport. If they attend their nearest school, they should be treated in the same way as other pupils; if they do not, they should be treated in the same way as other pupils whose parents exercise parental preference.
Every comprehensive school in the country is obliged to provide the full national curriculum, and we expect our plans for greater diversity and freedom for schools to drive up standards. If the amendment were agreed to, we might find parents applying for places in specialist schools some distance from home simply because that would secure free transport, and that could distort the admissions system. A further problem is that school travel schemes are likely to propose charges based on ability to pay rather than on the characteristics of the school attended or on pupil aptitude or ability. Providing free transport to pupils attending specialist schools simply because they had
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passed an aptitude test would be unfair to their peers, who might have to pay even if their family circumstances were less favourable.
I hope that the hon. Member for Fareham will agree that the amendment would create division between pupils in the same school and would not reflect the sentiment of the Bill, which is that the cost of school transport for all pupils should reflect family circumstances first and foremost. In light of that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Hoban: First, I shall comment on the admission made by the hon. Member for Southport. In the opening sitting, he described the Minister and me as amateurs. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced and distinguished Member of this House, who has served on many Committees. Perhaps in this case the amateurs have taught him a lesson.
I did not touch on the issue of grammar schools because that might have been divisive. However, the same issues apply to such schools and any form of selection or choice in relation to schools. It is interesting how this issue is developing; the Department would like some areas of Government policy to be supported through free school transport, but the Government are happy to leave other policy areas to scheme authorities.
I shall give an example. I rarely believe what I read in the newspapers, but today's edition of The Times reported that there might be free school transport between schools and places where extended school activities take place. It would seem that the Government are using free school transport to support one of their policy directions, but trying to deny people that right when they exercise a choice to go to a specialist school. Parents will choose whether they want to use those extended school facilities and will be provided free school transport to them, although some parents will not choose to exercise that right.
The Minister talked about some of the anomalies in existing schemes. Clearly, LEAs operate discretionary transport schemes at the moment; some operate such schemes for grammar schools, and provide free transport to those schools. Would the Minister be happy if, in their pilots, LEAs that had developed a good network of specialist schools came up with schemes that supported the choice of parents to send their children to such schools rather than to the nearest school? Although all schools are required to meet the full requirements of the national curriculum, most of us recognise that a specialist language college has greater resources and expertise for teaching languages than a school that does not specialise in languages. It would be helpful if local authorities had some indication from the Minister whether schemes that help to promote choice and enable parents to exercise choice by sending their child to a specialist school would be permissible.
Mr. Twigg: Clearly, we want to support parents in making such choices and to ensure that the full
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benefits of the specialist schools programme are enjoyed by those who can benefit from it. However, to repeat what I said just now, I do not want to create a position in which one child would get transport simply on the basis of having passed an aptitude test, while another in the same class would not. Through the Bill, as a consequence of the additional resources in the local system there is the potential for children attending specialist school who do not currently receive any assisted or free transport to gain access to subsidised transport whether or not they are at the school via the aptitude test. That is the route I want us to follow, rather than that of separating out the children who happen to be at the specialist school because of an aptitude test.
Mr. Hoban: I am grateful for that clarification. It appears that LEAs will be able to support specialist schools through the transport schemes. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw that amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): I beg to move amendment No. 27, in
clause 1, page 3, line 7, leave out from 'that' to end of line and insert
'there are met in relation to the child such criteria as the scheme authority shall select from the following:
(a) that the child is within section 512ZB(4);
(b) that the child's parent or guardian is in receipt of Working Tax Credit; or
(c) that the child's home is in an area of rurality of a degree specified by the scheme authority.'.
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