Education and Inspections Bill |
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Mr. Gibb: The right hon. Lady is almost certainly right on that last point. There will be a lot of issues to deal with. The 23 per cent. of secondary schools in this country that are underperforming will almost certainly be the No. 1 priority of an incoming Conservative Schools Minister. I am heartened by the Minister’s agreement that clause 3 is a fundamental part of the Bill. I agree with her that it is, which is one of the key reasons why we supported the Bill on Second Reading. I shall not push the amendments to a vote, because they are essentially probing amendments. We have tabled amendments with the same principle on previous occasions, because of the concern that guidance is becoming a form of tertiary legislation. We need to take great care to ensure that it has political scrutiny at some level beyond Ministers. I take the Minister’s point about the difference between the admissions code and general guidance—the admissions code is a statutory instrument that receives scrutiny in the House—but I hope that local authorities will adhere strongly to the guidance relating to clause 3, because it is very effective
I agree fully that guidance has been placed in the House of Commons Library in recent years. I am delighted to hear that no examples can be found of guidance that has not found its way to the Library. I accept the Minister’s assurances, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 4 Duty to identify children not receiving education Mr. Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 13, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, at end insert—
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 89, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, at end insert—
No. 90, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, at end insert—
Mr. Hayes: When I spoke earlier, I inadvertently failed to welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Chope. I hope that you will not hold it against me. I know that in your usual benevolent spirit, you will chair our affairs with erudition, courtesy and, I hope, kindness. Our considerations bring us to the duties of local education authorities to make arrangements to identify children not receiving education: those who are not registered at school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. However, as we know, there is a growing problem of children registered at schools who regularly play truant and therefore do not receive a proper education. Amendments Nos. 13, 89 and 90 draw attention to that problem. They follow a theme. Column Number: 156 You will have studied the amendments in detail, Mr. Chope, as will other Committee members, but it is worth drawing attention to them. They would extend the scope of the Bill to take account of children who are registered but who are in effect not receiving an education because of their truancy. Anne Snelgrove (South Swindon) (Lab): I welcome you to the Chair as well, Mr. Chope. Clause 4 does not deal just with young people who play truant. The illustrative guidance also identifies 13 vulnerable groups. I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to vulnerable groups, such as young carers and looked-after children, who are also at risk. I do not want the Committee to think that we are talking only about truants. Mr. Hayes: I do not mean to be unkind, but the hon. Lady did not quite understand what I said. We do not wish to dilute the Bill in any sense respecting the groups that she referred to; it is absolutely essential that it should deal with those people. Our concern is that it should deal with more young people—that is, those playing truant. We are not seeking to replace the aspects of the Bill that address vulnerable groups; we are adding children who are registered but not attending. We should not underestimate the scale or depth of that problem. I hope that she does not underestimate it, although I find it hard to believe that she would. I think that she wants to reassure me. Anne Snelgrove: I do wish to reassure the hon. Gentleman. I beg his pardon if I misunderstood him. I have looked at the amendments and the section quite closely, because it places a new and welcome duty on local education authorities. The regulatory impact assessment suggests a figure of 10,000 children falling into the category, but it is a difficult assessment to make. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but the amendment would seem to turn the clause about-face. I interpret it as giving the LEA a duty to consider the 8 million children who are currently registered, rather than 10,000. The Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Lady has had long enough; the point has been made. Mr. Hayes: The hon. Lady’s interpretation—I am trying to choose my words as gently as I can—is perverse. The amendments are worded with the formula “at end insert”. They would add groups of children that we consider should also be the Bill’s and local education authorities’ proper concern. We are quite content with the idea that looked-after children and other vulnerable children should be the proper concern of the Bill and local authorities, but we are most worried about those children who are registered and who are not receiving an education, who are, in effect, in similar circumstances to those who are not registered, because they are playing truant. I was about to say that I invite the hon. Lady to re-examine the matter and that I consider the difference between us to be a happy one, and not born of anything sinister. We may come to an agreement about it in debate on the group, but I return to my theme. Truancy is a profound problem and, as I was about to
I refer hon. Members to a question asked at Prime Minister’s Question Time by the then Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard):
The Prime Minister, honestly enough—the Under-Secretary shakes his head, but the Prime Minister was rather more candid—said:
He went on to say that there were
I shall come to the figures a little later, but the story continues, because once again, with typical diligence, my right hon. and learned Friend raised the matter on 9 February last year. He drew attention to a report by the National Audit Office that said
But, he said,
The Prime Minister, on that occasion, was a little more defensive, and said:
Perhaps it was too tiny a proportion, if there was some relation between cause and effect. He went on to acknowledge once again that the Government had failed to meet their truancy target. That sad saga continues, because later last year my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), after pointing out that in 2001
asked the Prime Minister about the issue again.
said my hon. Friend, with typical boldness,
The Prime Minister, with frankness for which he should receive our praise, repeated:
He went on, as he often does when under pressure in such circumstances, to talk in general terms about investment and spending. Given that sorry history, the Committee will understand our focus, in proposing the amendments, on children who are registered at schools but are not receiving an education. I have some even more shocking news for the Committee, and I hesitate to bring it to its attention because I know that hon.
Ms Angela C. Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Hayes: I will when I have finished my sentence. That is an increase, as the right hon. Lady, with her razor-sharp mathematical mind, will already have calculated, of more than 200,000. I wonder whether she is as worried as I am—and perhaps a little guilty, which I am not—about that. Ms Smith: The fact that the hon. Gentleman is able to quote such numbers suggests that procedures are in place to ensure that data on children who play truant from school are readily available. In other words, local authorities are collecting such data and publishing the figures and the good ones are taking action to reduce the numbers of children who do not attend. Does he not agree? Mr. Hayes: There is no suggestion on this side of the Committee that there are not good local authorities doing good work. The right hon. Lady will already have heard me say that. I fully acknowledge that hard-working councillors across our country do excellent work. It is long overdue that people in this place should pay tribute to the work of councillors of all political parties and authorities up and down Britain who do that work diligently and effectively. It is also true that local authorities play a valuable role in all kinds of ways, including in dealing with this sort of problem. However, it is the responsibility of this House to provide the appropriate legislative support for that energy, and we seek, through the amendments, to strengthen the Bill where it applies to children who play truant. Given the figures that I have quoted from a very recent parliamentary answer from the Minister who is presiding from the Government Benches over the Committee stage of this Bill, we have real cause for concern. The problem is not easy to deal with; no Government would find it easy. However, there are concentrations of truancy in some of our most deprived areas and the problem is still more profound in poorly performing schools serving disadvantaged areas. There are schools in which a substantial part of the school population regularly truants. The teachers and governors of such schools and their local authorities deserve our support through the emphasis that we place on the matter, and that is precisely what we seek to give them. Ms Smith: I was heartened by what the hon. Gentleman’s hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough had to say about local education
The Chairman: Order. We cannot debate new clause 14. Mr. Hayes: My hon. Friend is a dear man with whom I have many discussions long into the night about many subjects, which it would be entirely improper for me to air in this Committee, and entirely out of order. If they are selected, we might have a chance to debate my hon. Friend’s amendments, at which point the similarities and differences between us will become clear and cause excitement in Committee. 2.45 pmThe Government have acknowledged the problem of truancy and, as a result, there has been a succession of campaigns to reduce it. In 1998, the Department for Education and Skills accepted a public service agreement target to reduce unauthorised absences by a third by 2002. In 2002, it agreed to a less ambitious target to reduce absences by 10 per cent. by 2004. The Minister, with the same honesty that the Prime Minister displays when answering questions from his right hon. and hon. Friends, said in answer to me:
Surely therefore it must be reasonable that the duties established under clause 4 to identify children not receiving education should be extended to children registered at a school, but who are not attending it regularly. I draw the attention of members of the Committee to amendments Nos. 89 and 90. We want information to be shared whenever possible and we want to enable a local education authority to consult any relevant information database referred to under section 12 of the Children Act 2004. I rushed out to my office for a copy of “Every Child Matters”. As the Committee can imagine, I study it daily. It makes it clear that the Government intend to create a synergy among those agencies with shared or similar responsibilities for children in a fresh way. That is a noble aim. We support the idea that, whenever possible, the agencies should share relevant information.We all know from experience in our political lives and in our real lives—we all have real lives—that sometimes that is not the case and that those disparate agencies with responsibilities for young people do not always act as co-operatively or collaboratively as they might. That is especially true when dealing with sensitive information that can be pivotal to the welfare of children and their education. We seek through the amendments to strengthen the Bill in that respect. I have every confidence that they will be readily accepted by the Minister. The Under-Secretary with his usual affable smile has nodded in agreement with almost every word that I have uttered. If the Government accept the amendments, it would be to their benefit and, more significantly, to the benefit of those children who play truant and the others to whom reference has been made in this short debate and who deserve our assistance in every way. Column Number: 160 Sarah Teather: This is a very welcome clause. As other members of the Committee have suggested, it attempts to safeguard young people such as Victoria Climbié who did not attend school and basically fell through the net. There are far too many cases of young people who are trafficked or who arrive on visas from other countries and disappear, especially in London. As for amendment No. 13, I am not clear what Conservatives Members want to achieve. The amendment would not implement a new policy to tackle the problem of truancy. It attempts merely to make it an obligation to publish truancy figures. It is my understanding that truancy figures are already published, which makes amendment No. 13 rather superfluous. Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 are helpful, and I urge the Government to consider them seriously. However, what would happen with independent schools? Who would be responsible for updating the databases with information from schools outside the state sector? Who would be responsible for monitoring them? Those issues must be addressed. Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 are helpful and could serve as a safeguard in addition to clause 4, which is very welcome. Dr. Blackman-Woods: I do not support amendment No. 13. At an earlier sitting we discussed children who are not in education and have not been identified. The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) commented that there are children under the radar of the education authorities. As they are outside education and other normal structures, it is hard to see how the Bill addresses their needs. It seems to me that clause 4 addresses the categories covered by Kids Company, which was mentioned. I would like the Minister to clarify that. Clause 4 is welcome. It would enable local authorities to identify the children of Travellers, homeless people and those asylum seekers who have been given leave to remain in the country, and it would give a much clearer indication of those children who are not receiving the education that we would like. Anne Snelgrove: I am concerned about amendment No. 13 in particular. I welcome the spirit of the remarks by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, and as a former teacher I am concerned about young people playing truant. However, clause 4 seeks to go much further than young people playing truant. It identifies the vulnerable groups that I mentioned during an earlier intervention. I am concerned that amendment No. 13 could tie up local education authorities and schools in a lot of bureaucracy, which is not what we want to do. There are approximately 8 million children between the ages of five and 16 in full-time education. In my interpretation, the logical outcome of amendment No. 13 is that rather than concentrating on the 10,000 young people who the regulatory impact assessment estimates to be out of education, either because they are wilfully truanting or belong to one of the vulnerable groups identified in the illustrative
The illustrative guidance rightly draws attention to the sensitive issue of children who do not attend school but are, quite properly, educated at home. The guidance states that there must be sympathy:
Although I understand the reasons for amendment No. 13, I fear that its phrasing would threaten that delicate relationship. I wonder whether the amendment was drafted before the illustrative guidance came out. Greg Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD): The hon. Lady raises a valuable point on home education. Will the Minister specify whether the clause covers children who are educated at home and whether they would be affected by the amendment? Anne Snelgrove: I am sure that the Minister will deal with that point. As it was in the illustrative guidance I had assumed that that was so. We need to be very careful about those young people and ensure that their needs are treated sensitively. The issues raised in amendments Nos. 89 and 90 are, in my reading, also covered by the illustrative guidance. Is it really necessary for them to be in the Bill? I will listen to the Minister with interest when he comes to the matter. It is extremely important that we deal in the Bill with this group of young people, who are vulnerable whether they are truanting or missing school for another reason. We must deal with them sensitively in the Bill and also in the guidance that goes out to schools. I am not entirely convinced that the amendments would help us to be sensitive to those children. Mr. Gibb: I do not want to go over the same territory as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who ably moved the amendments in the names of myself and my hon. Friends, but the clause is important. The Lord Laming inquiry found that Victoria Climbié was not attending school, and if the social workers involved had realised that that was an important point and followed up on it, perhaps she might be alive today. Anything that can be done to identify children who are missing from education—that does not just mean through truancy—is important as it could be a life-or-death matter. The regulatory impact assessment and the illustrative guidance point out that there are no official figures for the number of children missing education, but Ofsted puts the figure at about 10,000. If we look at the school census returns and compare the number on the school roll at the age of 14 in 2003 with the
Ofsted also reported that good practice in this area among local authorities is patchy and that there are significant weaknesses in the overall pattern of support. The regulatory impact assessment says that an alternative to clause 4 would be to implement the non-statutory guidance issued in July 2004, but when local authorities were asked whether they would meet the duties under the guidance, 11 per cent. said that they would not, due to a lack of funding, and 14 per cent. said that they would only partly meet them, for the same reason. Twenty-five per cent. of local authorities would not be able fully to implement the guidance on children missing from education due to a lack of funding. The Government’s conclusion, on the basis of those findings, is that they should simply make the duties statutory, forcing local authorities to do it regardless of their funding position. That is my interpretation of the regulatory impact assessment. Will the Under-Secretary address that point when responding to the debate? Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 have the support of the NSPCC. They are intended to make use of the databases that are being established under the Children Act, to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred. Whether or not one agrees with the establishment of such databases for all children regardless of the degree of risk that they face, if they are established and they function well it makes sense for local authorities exercising their duties under clause 4 to have access to that information. As the NSPCC has said about the amendment:
On those databases, paragraph 2.16 of the regulatory impact assessment mentions the issue of home schooling, which the hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) also raised. That paragraph reads:
Will the Under Secretary put it on the record that the Government do not intend to introduce such a registration scheme? With those few remarks, I look forward to his response. 3 pmThe Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Phil Hope): I shall speak to amendments Nos. 13, 89 and 90. This is the first opportunity that I have had to contribute to the Committee’s proceedings, and I am looking forward to your supportive stewardship, Mr. Chope. I am reminded of the words of my head of education at Wandsworth comprehensive school in the 1970s— Column Number: 163 |
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