Lord Coaker
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(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 70, page 2, line 26, at end insert—
‘(1A) Payments may be made in respect of capital expenditure under an Academy agreement to an additional school only where the Secretary of State has first consulted with—
(a) local parents and children,
(b) the relevant local authority,
(c) any other persons deemed appropriate.
(1B) The purpose of the consultation under (1A) shall be to establish whether there are outstanding requirements for capital investment for existing schools in the area where the school is (or is proposed to be) situated.
(1C) Where a need is demonstrated the Secretary of State may not make payments with respect of capital expenditure under subsection (1).
(1D) A school is an “additional school” for the purposes of this section if—
(a) it does not replace a maintained school that has been or is to be discontinued, and
(b) it is not a school in respect of which an Academy order has effect.
(1E) For the purposes of subsection (1D)(a) a school does not replace a maintained school if it provides education for pupils of a wider range of ages than the maintained school.’.
It is a privilege to be back standing here as the hon. Member for Gedling—
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
We will never look at the shadow Minister in the same way again.
Vernon Coaker
I know. Perhaps it is the way I speak. Anyway, it is a delight to be back here. It does not seem long ago that we were finishing the debate last night—[Interruption.] No, it was not long ago. I am sure we have all had plenty of opportunity to enjoy ourselves in the intervening period and not think of anything but the Academies Bill and all the other relevant papers and documents.
Amendment 70 is an important amendment, particularly given the fiasco—frankly—of the past few weeks with respect to the Building Schools for the Future programme, the cuts to it, the reassessments and the other problems with the list. I will not rehearse those problems, but the relevance of and the need for the amendment are even more acute than they would have been had it not been for what has happened over the past few weeks. Schools up and down the country were expecting capital moneys to be provided for them to improve schools and tackle problems with school buildings. Many of those proposals were developed by local authorities, and many hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber will have helped to work up those plans over a number of months and, sometimes, one or two years, because the school-building programme was linked to school reorganisation for school improvement. But of course that was all dashed by the lists published and the review announced by the Secretary of State for Education in order to prove that he could cut budgets.
The Government are now looking to create new schools using money from their budgets. Their defence is: “Don’t worry, this isn’t coming from Building Schools for the Future money. It’s actually coming from cuts to low-priority computer programmes”, and they talk about £50 million. However, neither the Secretary of State nor the Schools Minister ever add that the £50 million is up until March 2011 only; and neither do they mention that there have been, I understand, 38 expressions of interest to the New Schools Network, which has since sought to talk to the Department. Is it 38? When he replies to the amendment, will the Minister tell us how many free schools he expects to open? I understand that the first is due to open in September 2011. How many such expressions of interest have there been so far? How many of those have changed from expressions of interest to applications? How many does he expect to open in 2011? Alongside that, how many does he expect £50 million will pay for? What will that £50 million mean for those 38 schools?
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend seen the podcast on the Department for Education website by the Secretary of State, where he says that all schools will get more money, more efficiently and more cheaply? How is that possible, given that he has just cut the BSF programme?
Vernon Coaker
Frankly, the reality is that it is not possible. What we are getting from the Secretary of State is an explanation for what he has done on the grounds that the money was not there in the budget for the Building Schools for the Future programme, when the letter from the permanent secretary to the shadow Secretary of State quite clearly points out that the money for BSF was set aside in the proper way. The school rebuilding programme in my hon. Friend’s constituency has not been cut; it has been absolutely massacred. That money was there, and the permanent secretary—this is an extremely important point that will bear repeating on a number of occasions—said in the letter to the shadow Secretary of State that if the proper procedures had not been followed according to Treasury rules, the permanent secretary would have required a ministerial direction to proceed with the policy, as my hon. Friend knows. The permanent secretary at the Department for Education has confirmed that, in fact, no such ministerial direction was given, so my hon. Friend now knows the reality.
As for this £50 million, we are now being told, “Don’t worry, it’s not going to affect school budgets. It’s not going to be a problem with respect to school buildings.” However, free schools are already being affected across the country.
Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He was very generous yesterday too, and the Committee appreciated the answers to some of the questions. However, he is talking now as if, under Labour’s proposals, the money for Building Schools for the Future was already in the bank—that is, already in the Department. However, it was made clear time and again that the money for Building Schools for the Future would be made available from savings made elsewhere. He talks as if the money was already in existence and had been earmarked, but that is complete and utter nonsense. It is now being spread about that schools would have been assured of that money, but the previous Government gave no such assurance.
Vernon Coaker
The hon. Gentleman and I often agree on education matters, but on this particular matter I do not agree with him. He will know—not only from his experience in the House, but from his local authority experience, which he had on a local education authority, as he reminded us yesterday—that when we talk about money being available, that means money being accounted for in the proper way, so that proposals to do certain things in the future are made according to the rules laid down by the Treasury. The Treasury will not allow anyone to say that they will involve schools in various waves—for example, in Building Schools for the Future—unless they conform to certain rules. The point that I was making to my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) is that the then Secretary of State—now the shadow Secretary of State—conformed to all the Treasury rules to ensure that when those schools became ready for rebuilding, the money was there in the proper way.
I was also making the point that free schools, which are the Secretary of State’s preferred route forward, are already saying they are feeling the consequences of the changes that the Government have made. In the Yorkshire Post on 9 July—I will not read out the headline, in order to save the Secretary of State from embarrassment—it was reported that free school pioneers are worried about the impact of the changes that the Government are making and feel that they have “dealt a blow” to their proposals to establish a free school in Kirklees. Whether it is right or wrong to have a free school in Kirklees, it is not just those on the Opposition Benches who are saying that the position with respect to Building Schools for the Future has caused problems for existing schools. People whom one would have expected to support the Government—indeed, to come out dancing on the streets about what they are doing—are now turning round and saying, “Actually, the route the Government are pursuing is causing a problem.”
One of the good things about being in Committee is that it gives us the opportunity to look at things in detail. When the Minister replies to this debate, I wonder whether he will comment on the terms of reference for the capital programme, which I want gently to share with the Committee. I do not know whether my hon. Friends or other members of the Committee have had a chance to look at the terms of reference for the allocation of capital funds—they might want to refer them to their constituents, because they are contained in one of those papers that gets tucked away, but which has huge significance—but there are five of them. The second is:
“To consider how to generate sufficient places to allow new providers to enter the state school system in response to parental demand”—
that refers to free schools or additional schools, or whatever we want to call them. The fifth is
“To enable the establishment of new schools.”
I do not know about my hon. Friends, but the Minister might need to tell us how the Government can reassure us on that. He has turned round and said, “Don’t worry, the Building Schools for the Future money has nothing to do with free schools or additional schools.” However, we then read in the terms of reference for the review group that the Department has established that two of the five criteria by which decisions on how to allocate capital funds are made refer to how capital funds are to be allocated to these new schools. Anybody looking at that would say, “What’s going on there?”
When we look at the criteria under the heading “Distribution of capital investment”, we read the following:
“To increase choice locally determined by parental demand”.
When we read more about the review, we see why amendment 70 is so important, especially as it talks about allocating capital money. At the moment, there will be no consultation with local parents, the local authority or anybody else about what will be done; it will just be the Secretary of State determining that a free school in an area would be a great thing to have. A few people will get together, write out a bit of an application—a few hundred words here, a few hundred words there—and then go the Secretary of State, who will say, “Oh, what a good idea! We’ll set the free school up.” However, I would again like to share with hon. Members what the document that I have quoted says. I look at this with incredulity, especially after the great fanfare with which the Secretary of State made his announcement. In that document, the Secretary of State says:
“To review and reform the requirements on schools including the building/School Premises Regulations”.
What that actually means is as follows—and this is why amendment 70 is so vital.
When the Secretary of State and the Schools Minister talk to parents about establishing schools and so on, they should make things clear. Perhaps the Schools Minister’s constituents are different from mine, but I do not get many parents coming to me and saying, “Can I be on the fifth floor of a tower block?”, “Can I be in a disused Tesco?”, or, “Those portakabins are pretty good—can I pop round there?” Most people I speak to want to get rid of the portakabins. However, the Secretary of State’s vision of this new school world—this free school nirvana—is this: “It doesn’t matter where you establish schools; it’s fine.”
We all know—my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) often makes this point, and quite rightly so—that, at the end of the day, what really turns a school around is not its structure, and often not the buildings, but the quality of teaching and learning, and the quality of leadership. However, there is no one here who would not also point out to each and every one of us—there was a survey about this a couple of days ago—that the quality of school buildings is an essential part of how we, as a civilised society, provide the standard of education that we would want in our schools, for ourselves, our teachers and our children.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
The Labour party was famous for selling off school playing fields. To return to Building Schools for the Future, the majority of those building programmes were carried out under private finance initiative schemes. They were never put on the Government’s balance sheets. They are all off the capital account, and are being paid for out of the revenue of the next 25 years. So how can the hon. Gentleman say that he had the money for those programmes, when he did not know whether he would have that money over the next 25 years to pay the rent on the schools that he built?
Vernon Coaker
I have already answered the point about money for schools. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes round to the schools being built through PFI schemes and tells them, “We don’t want you in here building a school through PFI.” The programmes delivered through PFI, through local authority funding or through Building Schools for the Future have transformed the quality of school buildings, and over the next decade they would have transformed the whole of the secondary school estate, either through rebuilding or refurbishment. This is a choice that we have to make: the hon. Gentleman can oppose the programme, and that is absolutely fine. He can stand up and oppose it—
Vernon Coaker
Not now! This is one of the good things about being in Committee—we can get excited and nobody really minds.
The hon. Gentleman can oppose the Building Schools for the Future programme and say that what the Government have done over the past few years has been a waste of time, but I would say to him that we have a tremendous record and that Building Schools for the Future would have delivered that transformation.
Returning to the point about playing fields, it was our Government who introduced regulations to ensure that there was agreement, including from sporting bodies, on any such land that was sold, and that the money was reinvested in the school. In one or two instances, I supported the sale of playing fields in my area when schools were being rebuilt with gyms and all-weather courts as a consequence of the money that was realised from the sale. Often, land that was labelled as playing fields was nothing more than waste ground. Numerous Members from across the country asked whether it would be possible to sell off such land as long as the money was reinvested in sports facilities in the local area. I would have thought that the hon. Member for Burnley would have supported the amendment because it would introduce consultation with local people, the local authority, parents and children on any activities where capital expenditure is moved to fund the free schools.
However, my point is that tucked away inside “Reducing the burden on schools” is the fact that the capital review will cover not only school premises regulations and design requirements but also playing fields. Does the Minister therefore envisage some free schools being set up with no access to playing fields or other outdoor sports facilities? I have heard him quite rightly highlighting the essential role in the curriculum played by sport. How on earth is that to be delivered in the light of these regulations? I know that he will get up and say that they do not mean that at all, but I can tell him that that is exactly what they mean. This is exactly what the Secretary of State said when he was talking about capital moneys being made available for free schools. He wanted the schools to be able to be set up very quickly and cheaply, and that would involve changing the regulations that local authorities would normally have had to abide by. He wanted to reduce the central requirements so that a huge number of free schools could be set up as quickly as possible, funded by moving money from one departmental pot to another. Our amendment would ensure that that choice was made apparent to local people, and I know what their decision would be if they were asked those questions.
Vernon Coaker
I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies).
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. This is an interesting and important debate, but it would help the Speaker and the Hansard writers enormously if we knew who was rising and who the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was giving way to.
Vernon Coaker
I apologise. I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West.
Geraint Davies
Given the Government’s strategy for the use of disused sites, does my hon. Friend agree that there will now be a perverse incentive to let schools on valuable sites fail, so that they can sell off their land and use the funds to set up other schools in disused premises? Under Labour, certain schools on good sites had difficulties, but their infrastructure was supported. They might now be asset-stripped to pursue the new strategy involving free schools on disused sites.
Vernon Coaker
That is certainly a possibility. If we change the regulations, anything is possible. The Minister will no doubt say that that will not happen, but the thrust of our argument is our desire to place certain statutory requirements in the Bill to protect the quality of educational provision, including the provision of playing fields. Any weakening of the regulations or of the findings of the capital funding review could be very damaging.
Mr Mike Hancock
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. With your indulgence, Dawn—[Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I have a problem saying your surname, because I have a problem with Ps and Rs. Sometimes when I have addressed you in Committee, it has disturbed the Hansard writers. They wondered who the hell I was talking about. With your indulgence, I would like to make a couple of points. The first is about private finance initiatives in schools. Any local authority that has a PFI school building programme will know of the huge impediment that that brings, as well as the restrictions on developing anything in the school without enormous knock-on costs. I hope that no one is running away with the idea that everything about PFI is perfect, because that is far from the truth.
My second point is the more important, however. I agree with most of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but so far he has not raised the question of what happens if a local authority is forced into the invidious position of allocating certain resources from LEA funding, limited though it is, and one of the schools then fails. Who will pick up the pieces? Nothing in the Bill suggests the existence of a fail-safe system enabling those pieces to be put back together once the whole has been torn apart by the establishment of a free school.
Vernon Coaker
I was not trying to suggest that PFI was a panacea for all ills, and I know that it has sometimes led to problems. I was merely suggesting that it was one of the options that had allowed some local authorities to build new schools that might not have been built otherwise.
I was going to deal with the question of what will happen if a school fails, but the hon. Gentleman has made the point well enough to save me the trouble of making it myself. I entirely agree with him. As we discovered yesterday, one of the main drawbacks of the Bill is the huge amount of detail that it contains. In relation to one clause, we were told not to worry because a committee—I cannot remember what it was called—would be set up to examine all the issues that had been raised, as the Government did not know the answers yet. We as a Parliament, however, are being asked to pass the Bill.
Some of the problems with the Bill were illustrated very effectively by the comments of the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock), and other Members will doubtless make similar comments later. Moreover—let me make this point again to the Schools Minister—we cannot amend it. We can table amendments, but for a number of reasons the Government do not want it to be amended.
Does the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) wish to intervene?
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
I am sorry. I was simply trying to catch Miss P’s eye.
The Second Deputy Chairman
I do not think that my name is all that difficult to pronounce. It is Pri-mar-olo. “Dawn” or “Miss P” will not do, I am afraid. I call Mr Coaker.
Vernon Coaker
Thank you, Ms Primarolo. [Laughter.]
The Government are seeking to save money by cutting the Building Schools for the Future programme, but they say that this expenditure is nothing to do with those cuts. They say that they are economising on low-priority IT projects. That will provide £50 million, and they have already received 38 expressions of interest.
I do not think any of us believe that that really adds up. The £50 million is only until March 2011, and because of the comprehensive spending review, no one has any idea what will happen after that. On 20 April 2010—apparently everything has changed since then, but I think it useful to draw attention to this—The Independent quoted the Secretary of State as saying:
“The capital cost”—
of new free schools, that is—
“will come from reducing spending on the government’s extremely wasteful Building Schools for the Future programme by 15 per cent.”
I know that when a party gets into power things change a little, but the Secretary of State cannot really have believed that there was not a budget for him to use if he wanted to fund his free school experiment. He did not say that last year; he said it on 20 April 2010.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Is not one of the saddest aspects of the debate on Building Schools for the Future the fact that it is being portrayed as simply a capital programme? It was never intended to be that. It was intended to bring about a transformation of secondary education. It was intended to improve the curriculum, improve inclusion and raise standards. Nothing that I have seen suggests to me that that will happen as a result of the free school programme. The Bill is being pushed through the House at great speed, and we are being given no evidence or details.
Vernon Coaker
My hon. Friend made a number of valuable contributions yesterday, and she is absolutely right to remind us of those facts. As I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, Building Schools for the Future was not just about school buildings; it was about transforming opportunities for young people.
Luciana Berger
May I ask my hon. Friend, very briefly, whether he agrees with what was said the other day by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes)? The hon. Gentleman said:
“It would be a nonsense to take money that could be used for improving existing schools to create new schools where, on the ground, the will of the local community is for the existing schools to continue.”
Vernon Coaker
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the devastating impact of the cuts in the Building Schools for the Future programme on Liverpool, although, of course, it can be seen throughout the country. She is also right to draw attention to the comments of the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who asked why money should be withheld from perfectly adequate existing schools to create new schools. That is a question that the Minister responsible for schools will have to answer.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The budgets of three schools in my constituency—among others—have been cut: Stopsley, Putteridge and Denbigh. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a question not just of new school buildings, but of capacity? In the Luton local authority area, 11 new schools have been cancelled—and, unlike the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), my constituency does need more schools. Is not the free schools policy a perfect storm for areas such as mine which need new capacity? The building of free schools is the only option for us now.
Vernon Coaker
That is exactly the point. If free schools are to be built, the money must be found somewhere, and the Government are struggling at the moment. They have raised £50 million by scrapping a few computer projects, which were described as low-capacity but would have been important to the people who would have benefited from them, but where will the money come from after that?
A week or two before the election, the Secretary of State said that funding the free schools programme would require cuts of 15% in the Building Schools for the Future programme. That is a direct quotation. It has not been corrected, and I have not heard it claimed that it was taken out of context. As I have said, that is really where the money will come from.
I am trying to be helpful to the Government and the Committee. We oppose the Bill, but we recognise that the Government will probably push it through. Even if that is the case, however, the whole point of the Committee stage is to try to improve the Bill by amending it, and to raise issues of great importance. That is why it is so disappointing that Members—on both sides of the Committee—cannot amend the Bill. I recognise that the Bill has come from the Lords, but it is astonishing that we will have spent three days debating it on the Floor of the House and not one amendment will have been allowed. I am not a political or legislative historian, but I cannot imagine that many other Bills can have spent three days on the Floor of the House without amendment. I say in all honesty to the Minister that I will not be surprised if we find sneaked into the Bill that will be coming in the autumn a couple of little measures tweaking and putting right one or two things in this Bill, because that is what usually happens when Governments rush through legislation—afterwards they think, “Oh dear, there is a problem.”
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
The hon. Gentleman will know that there are 75 amendments and five new clauses on the amendment paper, and the Committee is perfectly entitled to pass any of them.
Vernon Coaker
The hon. Gentleman and I have debated other Bills—indeed, we have served on Bill Committees together—and on those occasions he has made one or two good points to which I have said, “That’s quite a good point, and I’ll come back to it on Report,” and then a Government amendment is introduced. That is the usual process in the House, and when it happens everyone tells this joke: “If it was such a good amendment and the Government have come back with their version of exactly the same proposal, why did you not accept it when it was moved by the Opposition?”
The situation with this Bill is totally different from how the Minister has just described it. Not all the amendments on the amendment paper are in my name—some have been tabled by his hon. Friends, and comments have been made by other Members as well—but we are totally unable to amend the Bill. Let me say to any new Members on the Government Benches who might be tempted to strike out in a spirit of independence by organising to make a change to the Bill through proposing an amendment and seeking to press it to a Division that it would not be very long before those who traditionally sit on the far end of the Treasury Bench came to see them to explain that that was probably not the best thing to do. I just say in all honesty to the Minister that I think it is deeply disappointing that we cannot amend the Bill in the way that many of us would want.
Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)
I understand my hon. Friend’s surprise, but the Government have form on this. We have just completed our debates on the Finance Bill, all of which were taken on the Floor of the House, which never happens, and not one amendment was accepted—although, to respond to what the Minister has just said, there were many proposed amendments to the Finance Bill as well. There are two major Bills, therefore, that did not go upstairs to Committee for detailed scrutiny and to which not one amendment was made, because the Government are determined to steamroller both through the House.
Vernon Coaker
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I was going to say that what is happening in respect of the Academies Bill is a one-off, but he has pointed out that this happened in respect of the Finance Bill as well. One would hope, however, that it is not a precedent of how other Bills will be dealt with.
I have tabled amendment 70 in order to try to be helpful. The amendment does not say that no capital moneys can be paid to free schools. In fact, it says capital moneys can be paid to free schools, but before that money is paid there has to be the agreement of “local parents and children”, the “local authority” and
“any other persons deemed appropriate.”
I thought that we were all in favour of the new localism and local decision making, and the point of the amendment is to allow the local people and communities along with the local authority to determine whether the capital moneys proposed to be used to set up a free school—that will be agreed by the Secretary of State—should be spent in that way, when it might have been used for the benefit of other schools in, for example, Liverpool, Halton and Luton.
I am trying to be helpful to the Government, therefore. I am saying to the Government, “You establish the free schools—the ‘additional schools’ as the Bill calls them—but if you’re going to take capital moneys away from other schools in the community to establish the free schools, then let’s see whether the local people and the local authority agree.” Given the furore we have seen over the cuts to Building Schools for the Future, with communities throughout the country seeing their new school buildings taken away from them, I wonder what they would say when asked whether they would wish to see their new school buildings sacrificed on the altar of a school experiment that is unproven and supported by no evidence one way or the other. I know why the Government will not accept this amendment, therefore: because they would be frightened of the answer they would get from local communities, who would turn around and say, “We want capital moneys spent for the benefit of the whole community, not for the benefit of a few.”
I have some questions linked to the amendment for the Minister. How many free schools does he expect there will be? How much money does he expect to spend on each free school? What do the changes in the review of capital expenditure actually mean? Are there going to be any regulations or are we going to allow children to go on the 13th floor, let us say? I note that the head of Tesco property offices is one of the advisers to the capital review group, and we will see what happens there. Can the Minister confirm that he expects the first free schools to open in 2011? Does he expect to spend all of the £50 million? Does he expect that to be enough money to develop the 38 schools in September 2011?
While we are talking about Building Schools for the Future, may I also ask the Minister to confirm how many academies have been affected by the BSF cuts? Looking at the list, it appears that while many local authority-maintained schools have had their BSF money stopped, lots of the academies are listed as under review. Will the Minister take this opportunity to explain to us exactly what is happening in that regard?
How much does the Minister expect the free schools to cost not only over the next six months or year, but over the next five years? How much money will the Department for Education be trying to get from the Treasury in the next spending review? What evidence does he have that the moneys to be invested in free schools is a policy worth pursuing and that it is worth taking money from the vast majority of schools to fund what I regard as an educational experiment?
We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and the comments of other Members who may also want to contribute to this important debate. At the heart of the debate on all the amendments, including amendment 70, is the fact that there are those of us who wish to try to ensure that opportunity and excellence for all is made a reality in every single community. There is a difference between the Government and the Opposition on this. Sometimes we are characterised as wanting to pull down those who can excel. Far from it: we want all children to achieve, including those who have talents and ability. We want all children to have school buildings of which they can be proud. The amendment before us seeks to ensure that, where the Government want to divert capital moneys from one set of priorities to another, that is done on the basis of local support—the support of local parents and the local authority—and not done at the whim of the Secretary of State.
Mr Ward
May I say how much I, as a new boy, have enjoyed the Committee stage and how useful I have found it as a mechanism for at least asking questions and trying to clarify points? Yesterday’s proceedings were long, but very useful to me in trying to understand how this process works.
There is value in this amendment. It is always important to spend public money as wisely as we possibly can. There will be disputes about policy initiatives and priorities, but whatever the priority, we need always to get the best value for the money we spend. If that was ever important, it certainly is now. In the spirit of the Committee, I shall not go into why we are in the difficulties that we are in, but most people accept that we are in a time of great austerity where we face cuts, tax increases and spending decisions that require careful thought.
Vernon Coaker
I will be very brief, because I know that other things are taking place this afternoon. I will press amendment 70 to a Division to test the Committee’s opinion, and I thank those who have contributed to the debate on it, including my hon. Friends the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). The Minister will know that it is not just my hon. Friends and I who believe in the necessity for more local consultation on the Department’s capital spending priorities, because we also heard the concerns of the hon. Members for Bradford East (Mr Ward) and for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) about the Government’s proposals.
Amendment 70 seeks only to allow local people to determine their priorities for the spending of capital moneys. As I said, the new politics and the new Government were supposed to be about localism, but at one of the very first hurdles they have come to, they are clearly failing that test.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Temporary Chair
Things have now been clarified, and I would like to move on to amendment 71.
Vernon Coaker
I beg to move amendment 71, page 3, line 7, at end add—
‘(7) Before making any payments under an Academy agreement the Secretary of State shall make an assessment of the extent of centrally-provided SEN provisions that, were the school to operate as a maintained school—
(a) would be required by a school with the likely pupil profile of the proposed additional school, or
(b) is currently called upon by the maintained school which is converting to Academy status.
(8) Before making any payments under an Academy agreement the Secretary of State shall make an assessment of the likely disruption to centrally-provided SEN services that might result from equivalent reductions in local authority budgets.
(9) Payments made under an Academy agreement must reflect the assessment made according to subsections (7) and (8).’.
We come to another important amendment. However, before I start, I should like to welcome the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) to his new post. He has just been allocated a ministerial post in the Department for Education, as the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning. I congratulate him on that appointment, which I gather will involve shared ministerial responsibilities with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I very much welcome his appointment to that position, and I know that he will work with diligence and determination. He and I have known each other for a long time. We go back over a number of years, in our various roles in Nottinghamshire, so I sincerely hope that he does well. I wish him the best and wish him good luck with things over the next few months, years or whatever it turns out to be. [Interruption.] Well, maybe not decades—I certainly will not be here if it is, but that is another story.
I have tried to be conciliatory and reasonable in the debates on amendments that we have had so far in this Committee stage on the Floor of the House. The debate, on a whole series of issues, has so far been of a high standard, with contributions by Members from all parts of the House, as is appropriate for the Committee stage, which in many respects is different from the full debates that we often have on motions. The Committee stage is about trying to ascertain what the real meanings of clauses are and what the consequences of different parts of the Bill will be, and to see whether we can adapt, change and improve the legislation, or at least the guidance that goes alongside it.
Nowhere is that more important than in special educational needs. I do not doubt for one minute that Members from all parts of the Committee will have at the front of their minds how we can ensure that the provision that we make for special educational needs—particularly through the changed arrangements, with the academy model proposed in the Bill—protects those with special educational needs. Again to be reasonable, we also know that the Government made some amendments in the House of Lords that significantly improved the Bill. If I might say so, those changes—made as a consequence of the debate and discussion in the other place—have made a significant difference to the Bill, a point that is also worth putting on record.
The point of amendment 71 is to try to understand in more detail the consequences for special educational needs provision of the changed arrangements for schools, with more schools opting out, becoming academies—or free schools—and being independent of local authorities. We want to know what that will mean for the provision of services for those young people who we would all want to ensure received the quality of education and support that we would want them to receive.
There is no doubt—I am sure that this would be true whatever the challenges that existed—that we can all point to the quite exceptional services provided by local authorities to support young people with special educational needs, either in school or through their families. Often, the important thing is not just the support that the child receives in the school, but the support that the family receive to support their child in that school. Clearly, the local authority’s role in that is crucial. I am sure that we can point to many excellent examples, but I know that we could all identify instances where things have not worked out so well, and where a local authority has not provided the standard of service that we would want. Overall, however, the role of the local authority in co-ordinating support is extremely important.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend accept that there are far too many young people across the country who still have not even gone through the assessment process with their local authority and been identified as having special educational needs?
Vernon Coaker
That is a very good point. I mentioned yesterday that this is not simply a question of young people being assessed by a local authority and not receiving a statement, even though most people think that they should have received one. I have no professional expertise in that area, however.
To be fair to the Government, the inclusion in clause 2 of proposed new subsection 8A, which deals with low incidence special needs, is important and significant. We are talking not only about the young people who everyone would expect to have statements for their special needs, and for the first time the Government have put into the legislation the term
“low incidence special educational needs or disabilities”.
That represents a significant improvement to the Bill. I know from my own experience that young people with low incidence special needs often do not receive the support that they deserve, and neither do their families. They often do not receive the kind of educational or social support that they need.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Vernon Coaker
I will in a moment.
Proposed new subsection 8A is very well intentioned, but clause 2(6) also states that the Secretary of State may intervene when
“a local authority fails to secure satisfactory provision for pupils with low incidence special educational needs or disabilities”.
What does that actually mean? It is all very well to put that proposal into the Bill, but how will it be funded, organised and co-ordinated? How are we going to decide in a meaningful way what
“low incidence special educational needs or disabilities”
means? This is a huge problem. I am not criticising the Government; I think the inclusion of those words is very good. I would rather have the problem of trying to identify what they mean than not have them in the Bill, which would risk people not having those needs met.
The inclusion of the provision raises the serious question of how it is to be funded. Where will the funding come from? How much is it expected to be? Who will co-ordinate the arrangements if, instead of the local authority, we have lots of independent academies, special schools and free schools? How is this part of the Bill going to be achieved?
Vernon Coaker
We discussed special schools and the number of special school places yesterday, but let me say this. I approve of the policy objective—which has been shared across the House for a number of years—that, when appropriate and given the proper safeguards in regard to such matters as parental choice, we should include as many young people as possible in mainstream education. It is clear that, if that objective is implemented, the number of special school places will fall. A more difficult question is whether we are all certain that, in every single case, a young person has been placed in mainstream education rather than being given the opportunity of going to a special school, and I think that the answer to that is probably no.
The hon. Lady is right to suggest that this raises questions about special schools and about inclusion. I think that the policy of inclusion is right, but that does not mean we should not ensure that the process by which it is decided where a child should be educated is a matter for discussion and agreement, involving the child’s parents, rather than diktat.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr John Hayes)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome. As he says, we go back a long way, and as he knows, I have a great deal of respect for him.
We will discuss inclusion when I have a chance to speak at greater length. As I know that, rightly, you will not allow me to do that now, Mr Caton, let me simply say that the statementing process is critical to all this. A statement must be clear about the detail of needs, because the specificity of its analysis bears a direct relationship to the extent to which we can quantify and deal with those needs. Historically the standard has not been good enough, but the Government will consider it carefully in the light of what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Vernon Coaker
That is a fair comment, like the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) about the number of special schools, special school places and statements in process. All that needs to be kept under review.
The Minister should bear in mind—he may wish to discuss this when he winds up the debate—that new paragraph 8A and subparagraph (6) do not necessarily concern young people for whom a statement would be thought appropriate. They concern young people with low incidence special educational needs, which can involve a multiplicity of conditions and which will, I think, prove difficult to define. Certainly the criteria to be employed in the making of a judgment will be a matter for considerable debate. However, as I have said, I would rather have a debate about the meaning of the subsection than see it excluded from the Bill. It constitutes a good and brave step forward. However, as my amendment makes clear, it also raises questions about local authority co-ordination and funding.
Mr Hayes
I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. My own points are, first, that that should not be used as an excuse for not statementing children who would benefit from a statement for the reasons that I gave earlier, and secondly, that we should be as determined to help children with low incidence special educational needs as we are to help those facing more profound challenges. As the hon. Gentleman suggests, we need to be clear about the mechanisms that will be required, but I do not consider that to be incompatible with any of the provisions in the Bill.
Vernon Coaker
I do not disagree with the Minister, but I think we would all agree that statementing has not always taken place when it should have. It is always necessary to examine the process and see how it can be improved. Ultimately, irrespective of the severity of a child’s need, we must ensure that that need is met. For some that will require through statements, for some it will require special school education, and for some it will require inclusion in mainstream schools. The inclusion in mainstream education of as many young people as appropriate—which was supported by the last Government and the last Conservative Government and, I believe, by the present Government—is absolutely right, as long as it does not cause us to conclude that it must take place irrespective of the wishes of parents or the needs of the young people themselves.
Mr Mike Hancock
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way yet again. I entirely agree about the fallacy that will be perpetuated if the Bill leaves the House without a clear definition of low incidence special educational needs. The lack of clarity has been used as an excuse all along, which is why so many children have not received proper assessments or statements. It has been too easy to find a way around the wording, because it has been so vague. If the Bill leaves the House without a refinement of that definition, the lack of clarity will once more be used as an excuse, and those who are on the edge or the cusp of special educational needs will once more be left adrift. That will be the case not only during the first stage of their education, but throughout their educational career. I am with the hon. Gentleman 100 per cent. in trying to get clarification, but does he agree that it would be wrong for the Bill to leave the House without such clarification being written into it?
Vernon Coaker
I very much agree and it is important, given that the Government will not amend the Bill, for the Minister to read into the record the criterion that will be used to assess whether a young person has low incidence special needs. I say this as someone who thinks that it is very brave of the Government to propose the measure. But as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) said, if there is no defining criterion, we will have a well-intentioned measure, but what will it mean? That is extremely important.
There was a big discussion in the House of Lords and the measure was included in the Bill. A large number of Lords spoke about it and said that it was important. The Government accepted that but the situation has moved on. The hon. Member for Portsmouth South is right; for a local authority or school to be obliged to support a young person with low incidence special needs, do they need a statement? If not, there is no legal obligation—I am not an expert on these laws—on the school or authority to provide anything for that child. Yet everybody, including the Government—they have included it in the clause—thinks that there are young people with low incidence special needs who need additional support that they are not getting through the system.
This is a real problem for the Government to address; it is crucial. I am not trying to be smart or trying to attack; I am just saying that if we want to improve the Bill and we want to make a difference to those with low incidence special needs, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South said, we have to try to define that, at the very least by the Minister reading it into the record.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I wanted to add to the points about low incidence special needs, as there are other reasons why it is important to spell out the protection of services provided centrally. In those councils where the cancellation of centrally provided services has taken place on the assumption that schools would buy services back in, there has been a failure to take up that buy-back option, which affects SEN in particular but also other services. That is an important reason why we need that protection to be in the Bill. If not, as my hon. Friend says, Ministers need to take the matter on board so that there is robust protection for centrally provided services. Otherwise, those services will disappear.
Vernon Coaker
I agree with my hon. Friend who re-emphasises my point. This is part of the tension within the Bill; independence is to be given to schools. Some may agree with that; we have difficulties with the haste with which it is being done. But what mechanism is there to ensure that local authorities provide for these young people in a way that gives them the support they need?
Mr Hayes
Following the Education Act 1993, we have had codes of practice for SEN whose provisions are important in ensuring good practice. In the halcyon days when I was shadow Schools Minister, I was able to debate those codes of practice and the Government listened to some of the Opposition’s arguments. That is one important aspect of protecting SEN students and their parents. But also if the Secretary of State were unhappy with the provision, he retains the powers to intervene.
Vernon Coaker
That is true, and it is stated in the Bill that where a local authority fails to secure satisfactory provision the Secretary of State may intervene and make “alternative arrangements”. The problem is what does “low incidence special educational needs or disabilities” mean? How will a local authority or a school—an academy or special school—know whether they are meeting the expectations of the Secretary of State without a definition of what that actually is? Without that, the response will just be subjective, with people saying, “That isn’t very good” or “That isn’t working,” which is clearly unacceptable.
The Minister might not be able to do this today, but it is extremely important that at some point—even late on Monday—something is read into the record that defines what that term means. Other Members may disagree, but it is my view that for that to be done otherwise through guidance or a letter will not be sufficient. The force of Parliament needs to be behind some definition and criteria for the term, over and above its mere mention in the Bill and, even with the best intentions, something in a code of practice. I cannot say how important that is to making this bit of the Bill work.
Robert Flello
What I say will to some extent reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). For a host of reasons, not the least of them financial, local authorities will already decide how well to staff the team who go out and make the assessments, and if there is any wriggle room whatever they will wriggle: they will avoid putting resources into that team or department. It is therefore crucial for the future of some of the most vulnerable children in this country that we get something on the record today so that local authorities—of whatever colour—cannot wriggle out of their responsibilities.
Vernon Coaker
That is right, and my hon. Friend’s comments highlight that we are not trying to make a party political point. We want to ensure that that is the case for local authorities of all political colours and types; that is fundamental and crucial. As I have said, however, I accept that it may not be possible to do this today, as the lawyers will, no doubt, need to check it.
Mr Graham Stuart
I think that I share some of the shadow Minister’s concerns. Low incidence is not about the acuteness of the need; it is about the fact that it is pretty rare. One of the risks of having funds devolved to the individual academies is that they may see this rare condition only once every five years, when suddenly a pupil turns up out of the blue with that need. That is why there is an issue about the difference between where the resource lies and who has the incentive to deliver the service. We need reassurance as to how we will have the system and incentives in place to ensure that, without the Secretary of State having to intervene at a local authority level to assess the whole authority’s failing, the needs of the parents and child concerned are met and there is not a big fuss in doing that.
Vernon Coaker
I totally agree, and the hon. Gentleman makes his point very well. However, I am unclear about the legislative mechanism that we will use to try to stop bad situations arising. I cannot be sure what it will be without there being something either in the Bill or, perhaps, in statutory guidance.
Mr Hayes
Such is the silky charm of the hon. Gentleman and the persuasiveness of his argument that even in these few minutes he has already extracted the following from me. He is right that that needs to be set out clearly on the record. He is absolutely right about the code of practice in respect of SEN reflecting the fact that we now have reference to low incidence special needs in the Bill, as he has acknowledged, and about the funding agreement that was put in place for an academy reflecting not only the obligations in the Education Act 1996 but that code of practice. I make that commitment today, and he can claim that in this useful debate he has encouraged me to that end—although it may be an end that would have been reached in any case in my discussions with my fellow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who, of course, takes the lead in these matters. However, I would not want in any way to understate the hon. Gentleman’s contribution to that process.
Vernon Coaker
I thank the Minister for that. Perhaps he could clarify in his winding up exactly what he meant. [Interruption.] I am sorry; I am not trying to be rude. Is he saying that an existing code of practice is to be amended? If he is saying that, I gently say, again, that that illustrates one of the problems with the Bill, because most of us would like to see what amendment he is proposing to the code of practice.
There is a huge debate—the Chair of the Select Committee mentioned this—about what the term means. Does it mean a rare condition? This debate is not only about low incidence SEN, because the Bill also refers to low incidence disabilities. All I am saying is that this is a difficult area.
Mr Hayes
I complimented the hon. Gentleman—it was not flattery—but I do not want him to get too insistent as a result. I will, however, give him the assurance that I will deal with this matter when I sum up and that we are absolutely clear that the code of practice is salient. I do not want to tease him too much, but he will know that when he was the Minister, and when his predecessors were Ministers, the codes of practice were always published separately and debated in this House separately—indeed he and I have both participated in such debates. Of course I will speak about this again when I sum up.
Vernon Coaker
I thank the Minister for that. We will all wait to see what is said in the wind-up, because we are all motivated by a desire to see how we can make a brave amendment in the Lords a reality. We must not create something that is extremely difficult for ourselves. For too long, many of us, from across the country, have seen special educational needs not met, including those of people with profound difficulties. If we are making provision in respect of low incidence needs, we need to address how we ensure that we meet them.
Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
We seem to be having an outbreak of cordial co-operation in the Committee. Paragraph 8A is an improvement on where we were at the beginning of the Bill’s proceedings, and it deals with low incidence SEN and disabilities. Has the hon. Gentleman considered whether it ought also to include looked-after children, to ensure that the provision of services for them in any academy means that they are getting the expenditure and support that they need?
Vernon Coaker
That is an extremely interesting and good point. As I say, the problem is that there are a number of points like that. That one would be worth testing with an amendment to see where it is catered for in the Bill or, if the Bill does not cater for it, where it is catered for in any document relating to the Bill. For example, I think I am right in saying that the new model funding agreement does not contain a requirement for there to be a teacher responsible for children in care, whereas the old funding agreement did contain one. If I have got that wrong, I will correct it. All sorts of little changes sometimes take place in the documents, letters and guidance that go along with such Bills. The changes are sometimes not debated to the extent that they need to be and they then turn out to be crucial. Even Ministers get to the point where they try to do something and are then told, “You can’t do that because section (c) on page 48 of the guidance that you passed says you cannot.” They find that a little change that they had not properly noticed, which may have been implemented with good intent, has unintended consequences.
The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) was right to make the point that he did. One of the organisations that I shall refer to in a minute has made representations to us about how we ensure that the needs of children in care and of children with other associated needs are met within the new academy model arrangements that the Bill proposes. All sorts of questions like this arise, particularly if we strip out, as the Bill does in essence, the role of the local authority and devolve the funding to individual school. One unanswered question goes to the heart of the Bill: what is the co-ordinating mechanism at a local level to try to ensure that some of these things happen? That is not in place, and that is a real problem.
Mr Graham Stuart
On a slightly different track, is the shadow Minister aware of evidence that, despite the vast increase in the number of learning support assistants, the more time children with special educational needs spend with learning support assistants and the less time they spend with a teacher, the worse is their learning experience? One of the dangers of a centrally co-ordinated system is that schools that challenge a child’s being taken off for special support might deprive that child of being in the classroom with the teacher and, perhaps, having a better opportunity to learn. We must get the balance right between ensuring provision and not having a monolithic delivery that stops innovation, particularly for the most vulnerable in our society who are too often failed.
Vernon Coaker
I do not disagree with that. Again, the freedom for a school to determine the appropriate mix between teachers, teaching assistants and other staff as well as the appropriate delivery method is a matter for the school. The Chair of the Select Committee is right to say that. However, it does not negate the fact—I think he was making this point, too—that alongside that there is a need for some sort of co-ordinating mechanism. He is quite right that there is a need for balance and there will be debate and discussion about where that balance should be and where the line should be drawn. However, part of the problem is that, as I said yesterday, this is a bit of a leap in the dark. We are almost being asked to take a leap in the dark and being told, “Don’t worry, it will be okay.” There are some fundamental questions that Ministers have been unable to answer, even though they have the best of intentions, because the Bill is permissive and just says, “Well, we’ll allow this to happen but we are not quite sure where it will go.”
A number of concerns were raised by different organisations. We have heard concerns from the Adolescent and Children’s Trust about children in care and about how these services will be met. It is seeking assurances about looked-after children and young people in academies, and it says that it wants recognition from the Government that there is a need for a local agency to assess need and to plan and cost education support services and that necessary resources must be not only identified but ring-fenced.
The Association of Educational Psychologists has also written to us, extremely concerned about some of the changes to local education funding and about how we can ensure the protection of educational psychologists if all the money goes to the schools. The National Autistic Society has made many of the same points about protecting young people in schools. TreeHouse, another charity for autism, is concerned about what it will mean if funds and resources are devolved to individual schools.
Then we come to funding. The Local Government Association states in its briefing, which all Members will have received, that
“90% of funding for schools goes, via the local authority, directly to schools with the remainder allocated back to schools following consultation with schools through the local Schools Forum…Around 20% of this ‘central spending’ goes to private, voluntary or independent nurseries, and the majority of the rest (60%) is used to provide services for pupils with special educational needs, and those who are excluded from mainstream education…In the debate around the advantages to schools of seeking academy status much has been made of the advantage to schools of retaining this 10% of ‘central spending’. However, it is important to understand that this is funding to meet the need of the pupils with the greatest needs. It is crucial that this funding is distributed in a way that does not unfairly benefit academies over maintained schools.”
I do not know whether hon. Members have had a chance to look at the Government’s impact assessment, but tucked away, where it states that local authorities will face a reduction in the moneys that they receive for the provision of such services as it will be distributed to schools, it states the assumption that the savings to local authorities in administration costs will be negligible. So, although they will have fewer resources to provide for special educational needs in an area, they will not make any savings from an administrative point of view either.
It is also totally unclear exactly how all this will be worked out. What will a school that chooses to become an academy receive? I know there is a ready reckoner on the Department’s website, but will the Minister explain how it works? [Interruption.] That was not done yesterday: we asked, but there was no time to do it, so I am asking again today because I think we would all like to know how the ready reckoner works so that schools can understand what they will receive.
What proportion of the money that those schools receive would have gone to local authorities to provide, centrally, services for children with special educational needs? What proportion of the additional money they receive will go to schools and will not be retained centrally by local authorities? How will that be worked out given that every school that is fast-tracked to academy status is outstanding and has, as the Centre for Economic Performance has said, lower numbers of pupils with SEN?
How will schools that have a lower incidence of SEN and that apply to become academies be funded? Will it be on a per pupil basis or a needs basis? If schools are funded on a per pupil basis rather than on a needs basis, big schools with a low incidence of SEN that convert to academies will receive exceptionally high amounts of money that would previously have been retained centrally to provide SEN services to the pupils and children across the local education area who needed them. Why did The Times publish an article on 12 June saying that there was considerable confusion among local authorities and schools about how much money schools would receive? Why are some local authorities saying that when they add together all the amounts that the ready reckoner comes up with as being distributed to schools on the basis of centrally provided services the total is sometimes more than they receive? We need some explanation from the Minister about that.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Are not the SEN requirements on the new academies more stringent than those for the academies that were opened under the previous Government?
Vernon Coaker
The hon. Lady will know that I praised the Government at the beginning of my speech for making some amendments in the House of Lords. The amendment that applied measures in the Education Act 1996 to academies was a good one, as were the amendments that introduced paragraph 8A and subsection (6). I shall not argue with her about that.
Elizabeth Truss
Is not the hon. Gentleman essentially saying that the previous arrangements worked for the existing academies and that the new arrangements are even better?
Vernon Coaker
I am saying that the existing state of play is not good enough and that the amendment that was made in the House of Lords to apply the 1996 Act to academies was a good one. We are debating the further changes that the Bill will make to delegate funding straight to schools rather than via local authorities—money that would have been retained centrally to provide services. Government Members—not only Front Benchers, but Members such as the hon. Lady—need to explain how SEN services that are currently provided centrally will be protected if all that money is delegated out to schools. How will that work? The point of this Committee is to understand the Government’s thinking about how that will happen.
Vernon Coaker
Before I give way, let me say what we did yesterday, very successfully. I gave way a lot, and nobody complained at the end that we did not get anywhere, so I will keep giving way, if it means that nobody complains.
Vernon Coaker
I agree with that, and it goes to the heart of the debate. To be fair, that is the point that the Chair of the Education Committee made about where we draw the line. Where do we draw the line between a school innovating, and a school having the ability to use its budget to provide for children with SEN?
I know that this is not being suggested, but we would not want the Secretary of State to make thousands of individual decisions about the right mix of teachers and teaching assistants, the curriculum, and so on; that would be a matter for the individual school. However, my hon. Friend is quite right: alongside that consideration, where do we draw the line to ensure that there is money for the central provision of services—local authority provision—so that we can ensure that the support that is sometimes needed is available? That is a difficult balance. The point of this Committee is to try to test the Government’s thinking on where they draw the line, and on what the funding amounts are. At the moment, we have a ready reckoner, but nowhere in the impact assessment, or anywhere, do the Government lay out exactly what they think the cost will be.
Mr Hayes
It is absolutely right that the central provision that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) mentioned will continue, but the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) should not underestimate the capacity of academies to purchase that provision. He will know that that already occurs; I think that it happens in Walsall, for example. The peripatetic services that a school will require can be purchased, and I do not underestimate their calibre and their appeal to academies. I do not think that he does either, does he?
Vernon Coaker
I am not trying to make the point that there are not perfectly reasonable people in academies, or in schools that may become academies, who would be able to purchase services. I do not disagree on that, but it does not answer the questions. Where do we draw the line between what we provide individually for schools, so that they have the freedom to innovate and take forward their provision for SEN, and what should be centrally provided? What is the estimated cost of all that? Is it all funded, particularly given that the Government have now included low incidence special needs and low incidence disabilities? Where is the extra money for that, and how much will it cost? How will it be co-ordinated? What does it actually mean? What are the criteria? How does that relate to the statementing process? The problem for the Government is that that has not been thought through.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The shadow Minister seems to be making a strong argument for reintroducing special schools, which is the opposite of the policy of the previous Government.
Vernon Coaker
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has taken that tone, because that was not the policy intention of the last Government or the previous Conservative Government. I am sorry to bore people who have sat through Committee proceedings for the past day and a half, because I have said this twice, but the policy objective—he may disagree with this—was not to close special schools. It was to ensure that people had the choice of being included in mainstream schools, if that was appropriate for them. That was the policy of the previous Conservative Government in the ’90s, as was absolutely right, and of the Labour Government until 2010, as was also absolutely right. I hope that it will be the policy of this Government.
Of course, that will mean that the number of special school places will sometimes go up, and sometimes go down. As long as that is done on the basis of having determined what is in the interests of the child, it should not matter, because it is the policy objective that is important. I tell the hon. Gentleman this: if there are 10,000 places in special schools—I do not know how many there are—and it was properly, and with parental agreement, felt that 3,000 of those 10,000 places should be in mainstream schools, I would be happy to stand at this Dispatch Box and say, “I support the reduction of special school places from 10,000 to 7,000,” but that is on the basis of need and individual choice, not on the basis of ideological diktat.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he was also generous yesterday. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), he acknowledged and paid tribute to the fact that the Government have strengthened the law so that academies will have the same SEN obligations as maintained schools. Will he also pay tribute to how the new model funding agreement also strengthens provision? It provides the Secretary of State with the power to direct academies to comply with any SEN obligations that were not in the previous funding agreements.
Vernon Coaker
I tried to make that point at the beginning; otherwise, we would not make any progress. I said that there had been improvements to the Bill and that there would have been improvements in some of the documentation associated with academies. That does not change the fact that, when it comes down to it, the Government are not clear on what the funding arrangements will be, how they will work and the correct balance between centrally provided services and the academies.
As the Chair of the Education Committee asked, where do we draw the line and what is the balance between those issues? The Government have not given us any definition of what they mean by
“low incidence special educational needs or disabilities.”
In Committee, we have to tease out those sorts of issues from the Government, to ensure that the legislation that we pass in this Parliament is as robust and effective as it can be.
Mr Ward
May I introduce one other aspect? The discussion is seemingly taking place on the basis that there is an abundant supply of learning support services and professionals. That is simply not the case. In many cases, the authority has to carry out a difficult rationing role. A good example is educational psychologists, of whom there is not an abundant supply. It is worrying that that rationing process, which most local authorities treat in a fair way, may now face a situation in which schools can simply buy in precious resources to the detriment of other schools in the district.
Vernon Coaker
That is right. The issue is not only the quantity of support services for children with special educational needs, but their quality. There is also the issue of the effectiveness of some interventions. This big area of debate is no doubt outside the scope of what we are discussing at the moment, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the provision of quality.
Bill Esterson
Whether we are talking about SEN provision, looked-after children, educational psychologists, behavioural support or other issues, what concerns me and many other Members is how we guarantee that the support will be there when it is needed, whether at school or centrally. There is also the matter of whether that can be legislated for or not. The Minister was beginning to drive at that point in his last intervention. That is what I want to hear about and I am sure that other Members are thinking the same thing.
Vernon Coaker
I agree with my hon. Friend; no doubt the Minister will try to pick up that issue in his remarks.
How will special educational needs be monitored? What is the role of the Young People’s Learning Agency? How will schools get help? How effective is the YPLA in respect of the quality of local, centrally provided services? What experience and expertise does the agency have? How will we ensure that all these things are effectively fulfilled? How much will it all cost? Who will be responsible for intervening if a school is not offering effective provision? How will the Secretary of State know that something is not being done? Who would make the decision about any of these failures? There is a huge raft of questions that I hope the Minister can begin to address.
Our amendment is simple. It tries to ensure that a decision is made about the effect on the provision of centrally provided services of decisions about what money should go to individual schools. At the heart of that is the need for better information from the Government about where the balance should be. The amendment seeks to clarify the situation by saying that we must retain sufficient resources at a central level within the local authority to provide the necessary level of support and help for children with special educational needs, notwithstanding that the Bill will delegate large sums to them. What will be the impact of that? It is a leap in the dark—we simply do not know. Frankly, the Government have not provided the level of detail that the Committee requires because they have not had time to do so.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
A man may not make a maiden speech twice. Due to a misunderstanding in Westminster Hall, I appear to have lost my maidenhood, so I apologise to the House. I would like to speak about amendment 71, but very briefly, with your permission, Mr Caton, I would like first to pay tribute to my predecessor, David Maclean of Penrith and The Border, and then bring my remarks back to this important amendment.
In Westminster Hall, I was unable to recognise the extraordinary service that David Maclean paid to this House over 27 years. I thought that I was stepping into big shoes, but I had no idea how large. I remember climbing up a snowdrift in December last year feeling like Scott of the Antarctic reaching an isolated farmstead to find that David Maclean, like Amundsen, had already been there before me, and repeatedly. As I have moved around over the past few weeks, I have seen the incredible care that he paid to his constituents. Every time I pick up a sheaf of documents, I can see that he has written no fewer than 11 letters of astonishing energy and specificity. During the debate over the past two days, I have often heard the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) ask people to answer the question. On the basis of the letters that I have seen, Mr Maclean answered the question repeatedly, and with vigour and honour. When asked, for example, about windmills, he did not simply say, like an ex-civil servant such as myself, “On the one hand, but then on the other,” but instead attacked the technology and the proposal and ensured that people organised as a social committee to oppose it.
Let me conclude on the subject of my predecessor by saying that his greatest moment was during the foot and mouth crisis, when, with his staff, which he and I would call a cromach, in his hand, he moved across our landscape, denuded of livestock, with funeral pyres burning on the border, and defended his constituency—the ancient constituency of the Western March, that ancient mediaeval frontier—like a warden of the Western March.
In relation to amendment 71, I have been charmed by the reasonableness of the hon. Member for Gedling. I entirely agree with him about the importance of special educational needs provision; I have personal reasons to do so. I agree also about some of the dangers that he has mentioned, such as the potential confusion between funding arrangements and the responsibilities defined within the Bill. He and the bodies that he cited are absolutely right to be concerned about special educational needs provision. I am no expert on the subject, so these comments are meant respectfully to him.
As I say, I am not an expert on education, nor am I a lawyer, but it seems to me, as the hon. Gentleman has already accepted, that many of the things for which he is pressing have already happened under clause 1(8)(a). Some of this—again, I am not a lawyer—seems declaratory in nature rather than necessary. The focus on recognition of the condition and the right of appeal is central, but with respect I would say that there is some confusion about the amendment, and that it would not achieve the purposes that he wishes. He has talked at immense length about his concerns over funding, quality, and the definition of low incidence special educational needs. Amendment 71, to my non-lawyerly eye, would not achieve any of those objectives.
In fact, if one listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said, one heard him focus repeatedly on the word “mechanism”. He is very interested in process, and on that we have a philosophical disagreement. Instead of beginning from where we are and what academies are actually doing, and accepting that the Bill will improve rather than decrease the performance of academies in relation to special educational needs, he is obsessed with central processes. He seems to believe that local authorities are the ideal mechanism.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) for his excellent maiden speech. I am from the north and I know his beautiful constituency extraordinarily well. I also know David Maclean, who was a fantastic MP, and I pay tribute to him, too. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), whose constituency I know slightly less well, although I think that it is somewhere near where “Dad’s Army” used to be filmed.
One thing that I have picked up from this debate is that Members on both sides are concerned about special educational needs. The hon. Member for Gelding, the shadow Minister, made that clear. [Laughter.]
Vernon Coaker
On a point of order, Mr Evans. Is there any way of sending out a notice that would enable hon. Members to get right the name of my constituency, which is Gedling? Otherwise, as I keep saying, I am going to have to change my voice.
Neil Carmichael
I am sorry about that. I am deaf in my left ear, and I always assume that that is some excuse. Very many apologies. I am from Stroud, and that sometimes gets mispronounced, although not as significantly as the hon. Gentleman’s constituency can be.
Amendment 71 has a couple of problems. Funnily enough, the shadow Minister—I shall not make my mistake again—emphasised that. It is too much about assessment rather than provision. Assessing things raises the question of how long it will take and what the implications are. The problem with the amendment is that it will delay the arrival of academies. I believe that a step is being taken in the direction of improving special educational needs provision, and that is one of the points that I want to make. We need to talk a little about history.
Vernon Coaker
I agree very much with the Minister that this has been an excellent, high-quality debate. There were many contributions, and may I begin by apologising to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) for not being present for his maiden speech? I understand, however, that it was excellent, and I am sure he will be a worthy replacement for a friend of ours, Angela Smith. I wish him well in Parliament, and we look forward to hearing further contributions from him.
I was not quite sure whether the contribution of the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) was a second maiden speech or a maiden, but although he did not agree with me, I still thought it was a reasonable speech, if that makes sense. [Interruption.] No, I say in all sincerity that it was a good speech. Tribute was paid to his predecessor, David Maclean, by the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock), and we all had great admiration for the way in which he battled against some of the difficulties he faced. I am sure the new hon. Member for Penrith and The Border will be a worthy addition to the House and I wish him well.
I want to pay tribute to some of the other speeches made, particularly that by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass). Many Members have paid tribute to her contribution. Her speech was not only very well informed, but very moving. The power of the stories that Members can bring to the House from our experience as professionals outside it makes a huge difference, and there was great credibility in what she said and we all learned from her remarks. I am sure we will continue to benefit from her contributions as she pursues her parliamentary career. I also thank the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) for his generous remarks about my approach and for the conversations we have had about many of the matters we have been discussing today.
I am also very grateful to the Minister for his reply. It is clear that the Government are thinking of making a number of significant changes—I do not want to use the word “concessions” as that makes it sound as if there was a battle—on the issue under discussion as a consequence not only of this debate, but of contributions outside the Chamber. I have to say that some of the concessions—the changes—that are now being made ought to have been made before. I am not trying to be churlish; I am saying that because these are such important matters. As the Chair of the Select Committee said, the evidence base for the Bill—the impact assessment and the equalities impact assessment—really is not good enough, given the Bill’s importance. These are essential documents that go alongside a Government Bill. I say to the Minister and his colleagues that they are extremely important documents because they are the evidence base on which Government legislation is supposed to be based. The Chair of the Select Committee was harsher than I was, but I must say that those documents did leave quite a bit to be desired.
We are all pleased to hear about the Green Paper, the welcome review of SEN funding for academies, and the Minister’s commitment to examine the role of local authorities and to ensure that their role is properly recognised in the system as things progress. There was also a specific recognition of one of the points raised. I am not saying that this happened because of the point I raised, but I did say that the model funding agreement that had been published did not contain a requirement for a teacher in the academies to be responsible for children in care, and the Minister responded by saying that that will be changed. That, too, is very welcome.
It would be churlish of me not to say that significant change has been made as we have progressed through our consideration of the Bill, and that is very welcome. The amendment seeks to push the Government to recognise that important problems remain in how this structure has been set up. The definition of low incidence SEN and low incidence disability is fundamental to the Bill, but we are passing a piece of legislation that contains no definition of that.
As Members from across the House have said, that is a recipe for confusion, litigation and lawyers, because how is a local authority, an academy or whoever supposed to know whether they are meeting the requirements of the legislation, given that we currently have no criteria for determining that? I know that the Minister has given a commitment for this to be contained in codes of practice and in other places. In the spirit of trying to be helpful, may I say that it is essential that that kind of clarity is provided in respect of legislation, particularly with something that is such a key part of the Bill? I know that he will take that on board and take it forward.
The Minister has tried to address the other aspect of what our amendment was trying to ensure, but confusion remains as to what the funding will mean for individual schools and what it will mean for the amount of funding that is left for local authorities in terms of that central provision, which will be essential. Confusion also remains about the co-ordinating role in order to ensure that all of our young people get the support that they need. How the Secretary of State is supposed to do that from the centre right down to school level is a real problem, given that the Young People’s Learning Agency is supposed to be the vehicle by which academies are held to account. The YPLA is a new body, and it has no experience of dealing with special needs or of this provision. So to rely upon it as the vehicle or body that will try to ensure that the Secretary of State is informed about whether an academy is appropriately using the money that it gets to support children with SEN is simply a wish rather than something that the Government have evidence to demonstrate will actually work.
This has been a hugely important debate, and the Government have made some significant concessions. It is a shame that we cannot amend the Bill to give it the legislative and statutory force necessary to give all of us the reassurance that we need. However, given the Minister’s concessions, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Transfer of school surpluses
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 61, page 5, line 22, leave out from ‘proprietor’ to end of line 23 and insert ‘to appeal to a Local Commissioner’.