The
Chairman: That is not a point of order for me. It is a
point of debate and argument and I have allowed the hon. Lady to put it
on the record.
Jim
Knight: Further to that point of order,Mr. Cook.
I will write to the Committee setting out the situation in full; the
effect is the same. My noble Friend Lord Adonis wrote to the Chairman
of the Select Committee in March stating clearly
that “if an Academy were
to refuse to admit a child following a SENDIST decision and seek
support from the Secretary of State for their position, I think it
highly unlikely that there would be circumstances where it would be
appropriate for the Secretary of State to do otherwise than direct the
Academy to admit the
child.” I will
give the Committee statistics that show that3.3 per cent. of
pupils attending academies have statements of special educational needs
compared to 2.3 per cent. nationally and that 27.5 per cent. of pupils
attending academies are identified as having special educational needs
but no statement, compared with 14.3 per cent. of pupils attending
maintained secondary
schools.
The
Chairman: I am grateful for that enlightenment.
Mrs.
Dorries: On a point of order, Mr.
Cook.
The
Chairman: No. There will not be additional debates on
matters we have already discussed.
Clause
42Objections
to admission
arrangements Amendment
proposed [2 May]: No. 92, in clause 42, page 31, line 26, at end
insert— ‘(1A) After
subsection (2)
insert— “(2A)
Where an objection is made under subsection (2), the person making the
objection to the adjudicator (the “objector”) must
provide a detailed meritorious case for his decision, setting out why
the specific admission arrangement to which he objects damages his
school or, in the case of a local education authority, other schools
within the authority area, and providing substantive evidence to
support his case. (2B) If the
objector fails to provide the detailed meritorious case and evidence
required in subsection (2A) the adjudicator shall not hear the
objection.
(2C) If, in the reasonable opinion of the
adjudicator an objection by an objector is unreasonable, vexatious,
frivolous or otherwise unmeritorious, he shall not hear the
objection. (2D)
Where an objector has made objection on the same grounds at any time in
the previous three years, the adjudicator shall not hear the
objection.”.'.—[Mr.
Hayes.] Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
The
Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are
taking the following: Amendment No. 216, in clause 42, page 31, line
26, at end insert— ‘(1A) In
subsection (2) leave out paragraph
(c).'. Amendment
No. 52, in clause 42, page 31, line 27, leave out subsection
(2). Amendment No. 54,
in clause 42, page 31, line 31, leave out from ‘made' to end of
line 32. Amendment No.
55, in clause 42, page 31, line 39, leave out from
‘arrangements' to ‘and' in line
40. Amendment No. 53,
in clause 42, page 31, line 46, at end
insert ‘, provided those
modifications are in line with the character and ethos of the
school.'. Amendment
No. 57, in clause 42, page 31, line 46, at end
insert— ‘(5D) Where the
adjudicator makes a decision in relation to the admission arrangements
of an admission authority, the admission authority may appeal to the
Secretary of State. (5E) The
Secretary of State may by regulations make provision in relation to
appeals under this section, including
provision— (a) as to the
time by which an appeal is to be
made, (b) as to the manner in
which an appeal is to be
made, (c) as to the procedure
to be followed in connection with an appeal, and
(d) as to the matters to be taken into account in
deciding whether to allow an
appeal.'. Amendment
No. 93, in clause 42, page 32, line 22, leave out subsection
(6). Clause stand
part. New clause
11—Abolition of
adjudicator— ‘(1) The
office of adjudicator is hereby
abolished. (2) Section 90 of
SSFA 1998 shall cease to have
effect.'. Mr.
John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): In our
last debate, before the new Minister joined this happy breed, we were
discussing amendment No. 92. I, too, welcome the Minister and hope that
he has an exciting time here. He must not expect the mundane or
prosaic; the Committee has ranged widely and considered matters with
the appropriate seriousness, which it will apply to this
amendment. To reprise
the argument briefly, our case is that complaints should not be
vexatious and should have merit. In that spirit, the objector should be
obliged to explain fully a detailed case and the adjudicator should
have the right to dismiss cases when it is not clear why the objector
believes— Mr.
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): Why do we need an
adjudicator?
10.45
am
Mr.
Hayes: You will not let me range too widely on the point,
Mr. Cook, because I am responding to what the previous Minister said,
but there is an argument that the Bill goes a very long way towards
increasing the scope and powers of the adjudicator. Indeed,
adjudicators will need to be wise people to deal with all the extra
things that they have to do as a result of the Bill. The new Minister
may want to focus on that for a moment. However, I do not wish to stray
from proper consideration of what the previous Minister said about the
amendment. The new Minister will have read that his predecessor
acknowledged that there was no desire to encourage vexatious
complaints, which is precisely why we believe that they should be
covered in the Bill. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will intervene on
me to give some feel for the number of complaints currently heard, the
percentage that is agreed, and whether adjudicators believe that they
are vexatious. The Minister obviously does not want to intervene, but
no doubt he will come back to us on those
matters. I was not
entirely convinced by the previous Minister’s argument that
omitting such provisions from the Bill would not lead to a trend of
unacceptable objections. This Minister no doubt appreciates that people
make their case based on particular personal reasons—we have all
had that in our constituencies. A parent, or even a group of parents,
may be unhappy with the arrangements at a school, but their case is not
always based on a clear, empirical argument; sometimes it is based on
all kinds of other things, and it would not be right to go down the
road of clogging the system with unnecessary
objections. That was
the case made by the Opposition, and the previous Minister replied. At
the outset I said that the amendment was a probing one. For that
reason, and also so as not to introduce an unnecessary note of
contumely early in the new Minister’s career, I beg to ask leave
to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
The
Chairman: Order. Clause stand part was debated along with
other
amendments.
Mr.
Leigh: I do not
understand.
The
Chairman: Let me explain in words of one syllable. If the
hon. Gentleman looks at the selection list of amendments, he will see
that clause stand part was debated along with a string of amendments
and with proposed new clause 11.
Clause 42 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill.
Clause
43Pupil
banding Mr.
David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab): I beg to move amendment
No. 450, in clause 43, page 32, leave out line
27.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments:
No. 451, in clause 43, page 33,
line 1, after ‘that',
insert ‘a balanced intake of pupils
is achieved, that
is'. No.
94, in clause 43, page 33, line 8, at end insert ‘(1)
or'. No. 217, in
clause 43, page 33, line 9, at end
insert— ‘(2B) If the
admission authority for a maintained school in England is the governing
body, the governing body may only make such provision for selection by
ability as is mentioned in subsection (1A) with the consent of the
local education
authority.'. No.
452, in clause 43, page 33, line 10, leave out from ‘(3),' to
end and insert ‘for
“subsection (1)” substitute “subsections (1) or
(1A)” and add at the end of the subsection “, in Wales or
section 17 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 in
England”.'.
Mr.
Chaytor: I want to speak briefly to amendments Nos. 450,
451, 217 and 452—I am conscious of the time pressure, but the
clause is an important one. Amendments Nos. 450 and 452 are essentially
technical amendments that would clarify the operation of banding
arrangements in England and Wales. They are so technical that I am not
sure I can explain precisely how they would clarify the arrangements,
but my assistant assures me that they will, and it would be helpful if
the Minister could say whether and how he envisages arrangements will
vary between England and
Wales. Amendment No.
451 calls for specific reference to the importance of balanced intakes
as a definition of the purpose of banding, and amendment No. 217 would
require the local authority to agree any new banding arrangements. The
advantage of clause 43 is that it builds on the current banding
arrangements in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which
permit schools to band from within the group of pupils making
applications to the school. It has generally been agreed that that is a
very restrictive form of banding, because the group is self-selecting.
Certain schools have an intake or applicant group of exceptionally high
ability, and therefore banding within that high-ability level does not
necessarily give a broad distribution of pupils, because of the
self-selective nature of the
intake. In clause 43
we have three new forms of banding, two of which will be generally
welcome. I have some queries about one of them. First, schools will now
be able to band in accordance with the national average distribution of
ability. Secondly, they will be able to band in accordance with the
distribution of ability within the local authority in which they are
situated. Thirdly, they will be able to band in accordance with the
distribution of ability of the applicants to their own school and one
other school. It remains to be seen why it is only one other school and
what the implications will be for the nature of the intake of the
school that chooses to band.
Mr.
Hayes: As I understand the hon. Gentleman’s
amendment and argument, he is suggesting that banding should be
effectively separated from applications. That would perhaps lead to the
circumstance where the admission rate for a school bears no relation to
the choice of local people about that school. Is that possible in
practical terms?
Mr.
Chaytor: It is in the nature of banding that it implies
some limitations on the exercise of pure parental choice. It goes
without
saying.
Mr.
Hayes: The hon. Gentleman misses my first point. The
banding arrangements in the clause, which he describes as better than
the 1998 Act, link banding to applications, so the school is making a
judgment about applicants and people who have already expressed a
choice. What the hon. Gentleman is describing, as I understand it, is
banding that is dissociated from such choice. That might lead to an
extraordinary situation in which a school was obliged to band before it
knew who wanted to go to the school, and it might not be able to draw
people from the relevant bands if they did not exercise the choice that
the school hoped they would.
Mr.
Chaytor: I think that I understand the point now, but it
relates to the provisions in clause 43. Under the arrangements that I
am describing the situation that the hon. Gentleman described would not
arise because banding would be used only as an over-subscription
criterion, so pupils would already have made their application to the
school before the banding arrangements were brought into play. I do not
think that his point is valid for that reason.
The issues to which I wish to
draw attention are as follows, starting with amendment No. 217. If a
number of schools within a local authority area are allowed to band
according to any of the three criteria or methods in clause 43,
together with the method that still applies in the 1998 Act—that
is, banding from within the pupils applying to the school—there
is inevitably the possibility of a large number of schools within the
same local authority area choosing different banding systems. I
question whether this is going to lead to efficiency in the
administration of admissions or to a multiplicity of different tests
being taken by pupils. It is a legitimate criticism of our system
already that pupils here are tested to a far greater extent than those
in many other countries. The banding arrangements described here would
be likely to result in even more tests being taken by children as part
of the process of primary to secondary
transfer.
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