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Education and Inspections Bill

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The letter that was issued on 2 May to members of the Select Committee on Education and Skills did indeed give some clarification about the schools commissioner’s role. Indeed, the Secretary of State has said further helpful things in connection with the schools commissioner’s role in fair admissions for children with special educational needs, but we need to tease out further things from the Government: other hon. Members have already alluded to an important principle about the extent to which we rely on letters and guidance, as opposed to regulation and things stated in the Bill. Nothing lasts for ever. As I have said on a previous occasion, not even Labour Governments last for ever, and it is therefore important that we should tease out to the maximum extent whether the schools commissioner will have the role of promoting co-operation and fair access, not of being merely a cheerleader for the trusts. I say that advisedly, because concern has been expressed not just by me, my colleagues on the Select Committee and those hon. Members who support the new clause, but by other organisations in commenting on the Bill. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said in its initial response that the role of the schools commissioner, as originally defined, was far too narrow and could be used simply to promote trust schools, and it still has that concern. It is also important that the schools commissioner has a strategic role in overseeing admissions policies across the whole local authority area—again, something that the letter of 2 May does not make absolutely specific. So my hon. Friends and I will be looking for further guidance and clarification from Ministers—picking up the Secretary of State’s welcome words earlier—about how the schools commissioner will carry out that broader remit. That is important, particularly in the context of the collaboration issue. Many of the concerns that Labour Members have expressed about the Bill’s structure and the direction of travel have been caused by doubts about whether trust schools might act in an atomised fashion—in fact, in the sort of fashion that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) so enthusiastically endorsed only a few moments ago. Welcome clarifications of the Bill’s direction of travel have been provided by the Secretary of State and, indeed, by the letter that his predecessor sent to the Chairman of the Select Committee. However, it would be helpful to Labour Members, especially those who have continuing concerns about the collaboration issue, if Ministers were able to give more chapter and verse about how the schools commissioner will operate in that respect, and how he or she will be answerable to Parliament and to the Select Committee. However, I accept that we have already seen significant movement on that. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to federation and said that the amendments on that subject were either too drastic or over-prescriptive. Again, the issue is direction of travel. Many Labour Members and organisations involved have been concerned about what force lies behind attempts to get trust schools to collaborate, not just with other trust schools, but with other schools in their local authority. That is why I welcomed the comments by my right hon. Friend earlier. However, we have to consider delivery. The Association of School and College Leaders said in its response to the Bill that it was concerned that trust schools would reinforce a hierarchy of schools, instead of the focus being on making every school a good school. The Government need to provide stronger incentives to encourage collaboration and partnership work. After all, we have models for that in previous education legislation and in the excellence in cities programme. The whole specialist schools programme is predicated on the principle of sharing and spreading good practice across local authorities. The Institute of Education regrets the fact that the Government have not made federation the chosen model for trust schools, which they could have done on the face of the Bill, given the rhetoric about encouraging federation and collaboration. If Ministers will not accept prescriptive amendments on federation, my hon. Friends and I hope for stronger assurances that further attention will be paid to how the collaborative process will work. The issue goes beyond the narrow confines of the Bill and is a question of—if hon. Members will excuse the pun—trust in trusts. We need to trust trusts not to operate as rogue elephants but as central providers across a local authority area and to do so in conjunction with the new and expanded role for local authorities. I welcome some of the reassurances that have been given, but I want to see further progress. I also want further detail, because—as always—the devil is in the detail, on how the assurances about co-operation and collaboration will operate in practice.