DivisionNo.18] Blackman-Woods,Dr.Roberta Smith,Ms Angela C. (Sheffield,Hillsborough)Questionaccordingly negatived. Clause 36 ordered to standpart of theBill. Clause37Codefor SchoolAdmissions Mr.Chaytor: I beg to move amendment No. 444, in clause 37,page 26, line 38, after ‘requirements,',insert ‘including the use ofoversubscription criteria set out in subsection(2A),'. TheChairman: With this it will be convenienttodiscuss the following: Amendment No. 435, in clause 37, page 26, line39, at end insert ‘includingpractices prohibited byregulation,'. AmendmentNo. 445, in clause 37, page 26, line 39, at endinsert— ‘(3A) Aftersubsection (2)insert— “(2A) Theoversubscription criteria referred to in subsection (2) are to beapplied in the followingorder— (a) children witha statement of special educationalneeds; (b) children in publiccare; (c) children forwhom the school is most appropriate on medical or socialgrounds; (d) childrenwhose sibling or siblings will be enrolled at the school on the firstday of term and who permanently reside within the area from which the school's intake is normallydrawn; (e) children forwhom the school is the nearest appropriate school to theirhome; (f) safe walking distancefrom the school; (g) ease ofaccess to the school by publictransport; (h) transfer from anamed feeder primaryschool.”.'. AmendmentNo. 407, in clause 37, page 26, leave out line40. Amendment No. 211,in clause 37, page 26, line 40, leave out ‘act in accordance'and insert ‘comply in allrespects'. AmendmentNo. 231, in clause 37, page 26, line 40, at endinsert ‘; and after“code” insert “and in the case of a localeducation authority to establish and maintain a local admissions policyin compliance with thecode”.'. Governmentamendment No.427 Amendment No. 232,in clause 38, page 27, line 17, leave out ‘, and' andinsert— ‘(ba) in the case ofan admission forum for the area of a local education authority inEngland, to advise the authority on the local admissions policyestablished and maintained by the authority under section 84(3),and'. AmendmentNo. 233, in clause 38, page 27, line 18, leave out from ‘forum'to ‘exercising' in line 19 andinsert ‘such as is mentioned inparagraph(ba)'. AmendmentNo. 234, in clause 38, page 28, line 11, at endinsert— ‘(5C) An admissionforum shall, in the exercise of its functions, have regard to anyadmissions policy of the local education authority responsible formaintaining schools in the area for which the forum isestablished.' Mr.Chaytor: I shall speak to amendments Nos. 444, 445, 211,231, 232 and 234. I pay tribute to the work of the Secretary of Stateand her ministerial team in respect of the care and attention to detailthat they have given to the code of practice for admissions. Admissionswere raised during the initial discussions on the White Paper. It isimportant to remember that before the publication of the White Paper,few people in England, and certainly few Members of this House, knew ofthe existence of the code of practice for school admissions. Perhaps afew head teachers, governing bodies and parents in parts of the countrywhere competition for pupils is at its fiercest knew about it, but thecode of practice was not, it is fair to say, a high-profile document.It is extremely interesting to note how it has moved to the top of theagenda in the past six months. I pay tribute to the ministerial teamfor the seriousness with which they have taken some of the criticismsof the White Paper’s implications foradmissions. I welcomethe publication of the skeletal code—the document that theMinister circulated at the end of last week. If it is to form the basisof the new code, it will be a great improvement on the previous code.The status of the code is crucial. As hon. Members will know, theprevious code only required admission authorities to have regard to itsprovisions, whereas the Secretary of State and her colleagues have been adamant that the new code will have binding force and admissionauthorities will be expected to act in accordance withit. 4.15pm That is aparticularly important step forward, given the recent ICM Headspacesurvey of head teachers, which was published last week and showed thatabout a quarter of head teachers admitted that they did not follow theprovisions of the code in establishingtheir admissions policyor conducting admissions procedures. If a quarter of head teachersadmit to that in a survey, we can reasonably assume that other headteachers do not follow the code but were not prepared to admit to it.That is an indication of the scale of the problem, which becomes abigger problem in the case of schools that are their own admissionauthorities. I wantto make a few comments on the new skeletal code before speaking to theamendments. It is helpful that the new code refers to randomallocation. I am not sure that that was in the previous code; itcertainly seems to have a higher profile now. Random allocation, whichis used in a number of countries and accepted as quite normal, deliversthe fairest and most objective results. It is a comparatively new ideain the United Kingdom, but its inclusion in the code is welcome. Weshould discuss that further, as we should the concept of anonymisedadmissions systems, in which the Liberal Democrats have taken aninterest. Mr.Gibb: On a point of information, random allocation was inthe draft code that was published last year and withdrawn just beforeChristmas, in paragraph4.19. Mr.Chaytor: I am grateful for that correction, but it doesnot in any way undermine my point that random allocation is an ideathat needs to be debated far more widely. The concept of anonymisedadmissions does not appear in the code, but is something that theGovernment should take more seriously than they have to date. Some points in the draft codeneed further consideration. Sibling policy and the distinction betweensibling policy in schools that select by ability, whether wholly orpartly, compared with sibling policy in schools that select by aptitudeis riddled with anomalies. It is conceivable that a school thatselects10 per cent. of its pupils by ability in foreignlanguages could sit next door to a school that selects 10 per cent. byaptitude in foreign languages, yet the sibling link could not be usedas a criterion for admission to the school that selected by ability,but it could be used by the school that selects by aptitude. Ihighlight that point of detail to show the small anomaly in siblingpolicy. The subjectof supplementary application forms is also worth highlighting. The useof supplementary application forms by certain schools to elicit moreinformation about the individual pupil, their family background, theirgeneral level of ability and the level of cultural capital in the homeis one of the most regrettable forms of covert selection that routinelytake places in some schools that are their own admission authorities.That needs to be eliminated. I can see no reason why supplementary application forms should be used, because thecode suggests that they should be used only where it is necessary toproduce a letter of verification of the pupil’s faith. Thatcould be done, of course, by attaching the letter to the initialadmissions application form. I welcome the text in paragraph1.27 in respect of faith schools and the encouragement of diversity.Again, the Government have taken seriously the criticism of theadmissions policies of some faith schools that are reluctant to opentheir schools to children living in the immediate neighbourhood. We allaccept faith schools’ right to select children according tofaith, but that must be balanced against the need for them not to becompletely exclusive and to be more open to children and families ofother faiths. Thefinal aspect of the new code to which I want to draw attention is thematter of first preference first and the recommendation that inselective areas parents who apply to selective schools for places fortheir children should be able to find out the result of the test forthe selective school before they submit an application to anon-selective school. Oddly, the section of the code about firstpreference first describes it as poor practice in selective areas butgood practice in non-selective areas. It is hard to see how a procedurecan be both good and poor practice. The real source of the problem isthe existence of selection. If there were no selection, firstpreference first would be good practiceeverywhere. Mr.John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): I amsure that the hon. Gentleman wants parents to have as much informationas possible before choosing a school for their child. Surely thatapproach would favour their having the information in advance in aselective area, where they might want to opt for the local grammarschool if their child had achieved the sort of results that would getthem there. That does not seeminequitable. Mr.Chaytor: The difficulty is that, although the generalprinciple of parents having as much information as possible isobviously right, there is an issue in whether the information availableto one group of parents can adversely affect another group ofparents’ chances of obtaining places for their children in theirpreferred school. Very often where first preference first is used,parents whose children are submitted for the 11-plus test but do notpass it get a second bite at the cherry by seeking a place for them ata non-selective school, at the expense of other children whose parentsdid not submit them for the test, either because of a principledobjection to testing or because they did not think that their child hada cat in hell’s chance of passing the test. It is a question offairness: parents whose children happen to be in the upper abilitybands get a greater chance of securing their first choice of schoolthan parents whose children happen to be in the lower ability bands.The parents of the academically brighter children get two bites at thecherry. Mr.Hayes: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving waya second time, but surely I have misunderstood him. Surely he is notsaying that children should be disadvantaged because their parents put them in forthe 11-plus. In the scenario that he describes, the child who did notget through the 11-plus and whose parents did not opt for the schoolmight not get a place at a local secondary school, because theirparents put them in for the 11-plus. It would be monstrous to usechildren as pawns inthatway. Mr.Chaytor: No. I am saying that the same procedure shouldapply equally to all parents. That is precisely what the High Courtjudge said in the case of the adjudicator’s decision on Wirral.If my memory serves me correctly, the local authority was subject to anobjection from a group of the non-selective schools about the practice.The matter was referred to the adjudicator, who made a ruling in favourof the non-selective schools—against the use of first preferencefirst—and that ruling was endorsed by the High Court judgmentwhen the local authority took the matter tocourt. That brings meto my final point on the specific issues relating to the code. Will theMinister tell us how the ruling in the Wirral case affects theprovisions in the code endorsing the use of first preference first inselective areas? As far as I can see the code seems to contradict theruling of the High Court judge, but I may have missedsomething. Mr.James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): The hon. Gentleman hasobviously looked into the matter in some detail. I am sure that what hesays about the judgment is right, but he will know that there are oftendifferent reasons for judgments. Will he assist the Committee bytelling us the name of the judgment in the case involvingWirral? | 
