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Education and Inspections Bill

I shall be brief. We have had a vigorous and extremely interesting debate on an important group of new clauses and amendments. I believe that we have established a satisfactory procedure for community schools. I hope that my points about diversity, which have been written on to the record and will be in regulations, will satisfy Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), who I know feels strongly about the issue. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) raised some important points about safeguards. She said that the nine safeguards that I had listed were not in the Bill. Some are not in the Bill, but they are in statutory guidance and in regulations, which makes them very important. Four of them are in the Bill. The community cohesion provision will be there, if our new clause is carried. The provision for trust schools to be maintained schools is already there. The provision for trustees not to be involved in inappropriate activities is in statutory guidance, and the fact that trusts are incorporated charities, with all the safeguards that that involves, is in the Bill. The hon. Lady mentioned governors, and in particular, Criminal Records Bureau checks. Certain categories of person are disqualified from being school governors and will be disqualified from being trustees—for instance, those who have been banned from working with children or young persons—and enhanced checks will apply in all those cases. Let me now deal with what has become the central issue—ballots. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) made an entertaining and good-natured speech about that. I believe that it has been blown up out of all proportion to the issue with which I was trying to deal when I tabled our new clauses and amendments. Talk about Wilberforce and slavery and women’s suffrage suggests that we have gone just a teeny bit over the top. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) is not present, but in an intervention earlier he paraphrased Neil Kinnock, saying that a Labour Secretary of State would disgracefully overrule an elected local authority by referring matters to the schools commissioner. That will not happen: nothing will be referred to the schools commissioner. While we are on the subject, let me add that local authorities will take on new powers as a result of the Bill. When the schools organisation committee, which currently makes a number of decisions, is disbanded, those decisions will be made by the local authority. The main issue, however, is whether in all circumstances trusts must ballot parents, and whether that is really central to the democratic process. Unlike Opposition Members, I do not argue that it will be open to left-wing groups to influence debate. My argument is perfectly rational: it is for the local governing body to consult. It must ensure that the consultation is fair, and the local authority will have a role in ensuring that it has been conducted properly and has reflected the views expressed. It may or may not decide to do that by means of a ballot. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) made an interesting speech. He is entitled to his own views but, as an American politician once said, he is not entitled to his own facts. He said that trust status was irreversible. It is not. As I said at the outset, a minority—one third of the governors—can trigger the process of pulling out. Thereafter, it will be up to the other two thirds whether to vote in favour of retaining trust status.