Mr.
Hayes: The Minister is right: the amendment is a probing
one, designed to oblige the Minister and the Committee to focus on the
precise role that we expect local education authorities to play in the
new schools that we all
envisage. Let me make
it clear that the official Opposition Front Benchers see a role for
LEAs in the process. Some of the Minister’s points on what LEAs
can bring to the process are valid. It is entirely unimaginable that we
should return—in the rather dramatic but none the less
compelling words of the hon. Member for Bury, North—to the
circumstances that prevailed before the Elementary Education Act 1870,
when we relied entirely on private endeavour to provide education for
our people. In those days, most of the working people in this country
were not properly educated. I believe strongly in state education. I
believe, as does the Leader of the Opposition, that Government can be a
force for good. The issue is not whether we think the state should be
involved in education, or whether we think that local government is a
good thing; we are committed and convinced that it is. The issue is to
what extent local authorities should be involved in schools. Our
caution is born of our fear that some local authorities will not be
convinced of the virtues of the measures in the Bill.
Twenty per cent. is a fair
proportion of a governing body. Those Committee members who are school
governors—I imagine that many have been or remain so—will
know that because the quorum in a school governing body is rather less
than its whole, if all the local authority governors and many fewer of
the other elements on the governing body were to be present, that 20
per cent. would be a powerful block on what the school might choose to
do. That is why in our probing amendment we suggested a smaller
proportion, which might make the process somewhat more straightforward.
However, it is a probing amendment. We might return to the subject, but
we shall not press the amendment.
I hope that the Minister will
consider our suggestion, perhaps before we enjoy high tea together, to
which I am looking forward with some degree of relish. A seductive
image is lodged in my imagination about precisely what that tea might
be and where we might have it. [Laughter.] Let it suffice to say
that it proves that there is no such thing as a free point of
order.
Mrs.
Dorries: I am in awe of the Minister’s larynx. She
has done so much talking this afternoon.
I am not as reassured by her
comments today as I have been before, because I do not see a role for
the LEAs. I am a rebel, as hon. Members might have noticed. I do not
think that the Minister heard my previous comments. The other day when
I quoted Essex as an authority, she laughed. It does not matter to me
what political colour an authority is. We have enough badly performing
LEAs in the country of all colours to bring their role into question,
and we have enough failing schools and children from deprived areas
being let down by their education to ask the question whether LEAs
should have any involvement in
schools. Does it not
go against the Bill’s essence to involve LEAs in trust schools
or foundation schools as they develop? The desire expressed in the
White Paper was for schools to have independence and freedom—the
same independence as the independent sector—so that they can
develop their resources. I do not agree with the comments of my
Front-Bench colleagues, although I wholeheartedly understand them. I
still think that we should not involve the
LEAs. The hon. Member
for Bury, North gets me wrong. I am not prejudiced against LEAs. The
fact that I do not feel that they should exist does not mean that I am
prejudiced against them. [Laughter.] I simply do not think that
they should be there. Prejudice is a strong word to use, and as the
moderate person I am, I do not wholeheartedly agree with it. We should
not be
prejudiced.
Jacqui
Smith: The hon. Lady is now playing the role of outrider
of the Opposition Benches. Given her previous comment that teachers are
letting down the education system and her comment this afternoon that
local authorities are letting down the education system, does she think
anybody is doing a good job in our
schools?
Mrs.
Dorries: I do, actually. I think that the independent
sector does a very good job, and I should like to see the state sector
in total do as good a job. I do not know when I made that comment about
teachers, but I must have made it if the Minister has it written down
somewhere. If teachers are not doing a good job, that is probably
because they are restricted by the local education authority from doing
what they want to do and teaching as they want to teach. The headmaster
of a school that I visited recently in my constituency made exactly
that comment. Teachers would like more freedom with the national
curriculum—more freedom to do what they want to do in schools.
They do not have that now, but we hope that they will under the
Bill.
Mr.
Chaytor: To return to the hon. Lady’s previous
point, could she share with the Committee her definition of prejudice?
If it does not include the concept of someone else not having the right
to exist, what does it
include?
Mrs.
Dorries: I do not have my dictionary with me, but
“prejudice” is a strong word. I do not loathe
education authorities; I just do not think that they have a role in
education after the Bill, with the development of trust schools. That
is quite simple. I have been accused of being extreme. I am extremely
angry that children in schools are deprived of a good education, but I
am not extreme. Although I am not as reassured as I was, we have had
some debate and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
31Requirements
as to
foundations
Mr.
Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 42, in clause 31, page
22, leave out lines 9 and
10.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 43, in clause 31, page 22, leave out lines 11
to 14 and insert— ‘(6)
Regulations may prescribe requirements as to persons who are to be
disqualified from acting as charity
trustee.'. No.
80, in clause 31, page 22, line 11, leave out from first
‘requirements' to ‘persons' in line 13 and
insert— (a) may include
requirements as to the objects or purposes of the foundation,
and (a) must include
requirements as
to'. No.
79, in clause 31, page 22, line 14, at end
insert— ‘(6A) Requirements
under subsection (6)(b) must provide that a person shall be
disqualified for holding, or continuing to hold, office as a charity
trustee if— (a) he is
liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act
1983; (b) he has been adjudged
bankrupt or sequestration of his estate has been awarded and (in either
case) he has not been discharged and the bankruptcy order has not been
annulled or rescinded; (c) he
has made a composition or arrangement with, or granted a trust deed
for, his creditors and has not been discharged in respect of
it; (d) he is subject to a
disqualification order under the Company Directors Disqualification Act
1986 or to an order made under section 429(2)(b) of the Insolvency Act
1986 (failure to pay under county court administration order);
or (e) he is included in a list
of teachers and workers with young persons under any other enactment
whose employment is restricted or
prohibited.'.
Mr.
Hayes: In essence, our amendments deal with who might
serve and who might be disqualified from service on a trust. The
Minister presented a draft schedule listing the individuals who may not
act or continue to act as a charity trustee. The amendments would
specify those individuals in the Bill, making it crystal clear who
should be disqualified. There are important differences between the
draft schedule and the amendments. The amendments would disqualify
someone liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983, whereas
the draft schedule would disqualify only someone who was detained under
that Act. We have in mind someone who is in the process of being
detained or someone who is unfit for other
reasons. We have to be
very careful about who serves on the charitable trusts. That point was
made by Liberal
Members. I understand their concern about inappropriate people being
part of that process. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the
Committee share that concern. In this respect, we might find common
cause with Liberal Members—but I imagine that I am about to be
disabused of my happy
thought. Sarah
Teather: I have great sympathy with the intention behind
the amendments. I am concerned, though, about the definition
of “liable to be detained
under the Mental Health
Act”. Could the hon.
Gentleman clarify exactly what he means? I have concerns that so widely
drawn a measure could lead to all sorts of people being affected. I am
thinking of people who may have had a nervous breakdown and recovered
from it and who are perfectly well able to function
normally.
Mr.
Hayes: That is a good point, which I thought about when
considering the amendment. The definition in the amendment is perhaps
slightly broader than the very clear arrangement that will pertain if
the Bill remains unamended. However, I am concerned that we might be
talking about people—we have all come across them in our
constituencies—with a history of serious mental disturbance.
Sometimes that will have involved their being detained previously and
they might be about to be detained again because of a pattern of
behaviour that could be perceived as dangerous to children or others,
although they have yet to be detained and so would not necessarily be
included in the category that the Bill currently defines. The hon. Lady
is right. This issue is not easy, but I am anxious to ensure that no
one who is unsuitable finds their way on to one of the
boards.
3
pm Perhaps it will
reassure the hon. Lady and bind us even more closely together, given
her warm words about the principles of our amendments, if I say that
this is a probing amendment, intended to enable us to look at how the
Government have considered the matter and ways in which they might
consider it further by drawing in others whom we would all regard as
unsuitable to play a part in the process.
Given the seriousness of the
question of who should be allowed to serve as charity trustees on a
foundation, it is only right that the safeguard should be in place and
that the Secretary of State should have that power. It would be less
than responsible to be vague or imprecise about powers that the
Secretary of State might exercise, particularly in light of the
revelations in recent months about the sort of people working in
schools who have access to children, and the public worry about the
involvement of unsuitable people in education.
I do not suggest that the Bill
will be a vehicle for all kinds of people with malevolent intent who
want to get involved in schools. We must be careful about that, of
course, although I do not think it will be a significant problem, but
it is possible that someone inappropriate could find their way into an
influential position in a school’s governance in which they
could be involved in decisions about our children. It is my judgment
that we
need to probe and to press the Government; we need to ensure that a
belt-and-braces approach is taken to the membership of trusts. That is
the purpose of the amendment. Sarah
Teather: As I said earlier, I have considerable sympathy
with the intention behind the amendments. Although they repeat much of
what is included in the draft regulations circulated at a previous
sitting, there is some merit in putting it in the Bill. If nothing
else, it will shore up confidence in the system. The Minister has
spoken with some irritation at persistent questions about whether
McDonald’s or other unsuitable people could run a trust school.
Including such provisions in the Bill would at least shore up
people’s trust in the system.
As I said earlier, however, I
have some anxiety about the definition of
“liable to be detained under the
Mental Health Act 1983”.
I suspect that it will be open to
considerable legal challenge. Many people diagnosed with serious mental
illnesses may be perfectly well for long periods; and many have nervous
breakdowns at some point in their lives. People can be detained under
the Mental Health Act not only because they are a danger to others but
because they can sometimes be a danger to themselves. They may recover
and go on to lead a perfectly normal life. One period of serious
illness does not necessarily mean that a person will have others; and
they could be healthy for long periods and could serve the community
very well. I have some concerns about that provision. I understand the
point being made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings,
but I suspect that it is not the right way to go about it.
Other issues have
been raised, which I shall deal with later, but they are relevant now.
We need flexibility in the system to ensure that the charitable trust
is able to vote off members that it considers to be unsuitable. Those
are the kinds of things that probably should be written into the
guidance, rather than in the Bill or regulations. There needs to be the
ability to vote off members who are considered unsuitable. That would
probably deal with some of the worries that the hon. Gentleman has
raised about somebody with a recurrent mental health problem whose
behaviour during a particular period means that they are unsuitable to
serve on a committee, but who may be well for the most
part.
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