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Education and Inspections Bill

We have had a lively debate on school admissions. The Bill creates a more equitable and transparent admissions process for parents and children. Labour Members have always been opposed to any extension of selection by academic ability, and the Bill reaffirms that stance. I am delighted that we have now won the argument, with the Opposition today agreeing that, far from having a grammar school in every town, there should be no new selection. That is a great victory for progressive politics. Perhaps thehon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) will have to inform one or two of his Back-Bench colleagues about that policy; they did not seem to be that informed about it during the debate. Nevertheless, we welcome it. It will be unlawful for any school to introduce selection by ability to its admission arrangements, or, if it already selects part of its intake by ability, to increase its level of selection. I shall address in a little while the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) made about that issue. Schools that set their own admissions arrangements need to know what is and is not acceptable, so that parents are treated fairly. Clause 37 sets those limits by creating a new, stronger schools admissions code with which admissions authorities must act in accordance. The skeleton code that was issued to Members in Committee and circulated among the educational community has been widely welcomed. Opposition Members seek to undermine the new, stronger code through amendments Nos. 103 and 104, and I strongly urge the House to oppose them. We will ban interviews as part of the school admissions process. They have long been perceived by many to be an unfair and subjective means of deciding which applicants should be offered school places, and the provision banning them has been widely welcomed. Members in all parts of the House asked for more to be done to give priority for admission to looked-after children. I am delighted that in Committee, clauses 43 to 47 were inserted to give local authorities powers to direct the admission of children in public care to appropriate schools, in order to ensure that that most vulnerable group is not disadvantaged in the admissions process. Of course, we have considered how schools and local authorities can work together to ensure that admissions processes work for parents, take account of local circumstances and do not restrict fair access. We believe that we have provided helpful clarification, and that the Bill’s provisions will ensure a fairer admissions process. New clauses 24 and 46 and amendment No. 95 illustrate the concern, shared by Members in all parts of the House, that some admissions authorities might not administer their arrangements fairly. The proposal is to give local authorities or some other, more independent body responsibility for allocating places to all maintained schools, by considering applications against published admissions criteria. I fully appreciate Members’ motives in proposing the new clauses and amendment, but we are already taking the right steps to create a fairer admissions system. We now have a single-form application via the local authority, and we have created a robust system of checks and balances. Legislation and the schools admissions code establish parameters within which admissions arrangements must be set and operated. The schools adjudicator and the Secretary of State both have a role to play in dealing with complaints and objections. Under the current system, individual admissions authorities are accountable for decisions to permit or refuse admission to their schools. We do not want to change that, particularly because they, as individual admissions authorities, might be better placed to consider applications against their own admission arrangements—especially where they relate to faith criteria or require an aptitude assessment. As I said in Committee, there is nothing to prevent schools and local authorities from agreeing, through their admissions forum, to take such an approach if their admissions arrangements lend them to it. Indeed, I am interested to know whether any areas are keen to pilot that approach, so that we can learn from it. I hope that Members will accept that as a sign that we are relatively relaxed about that approach, and that we do not feel the need to include such a statutory requirement in the Bill.