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Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 108: Page 59, line 17, leave out ““and 11”” and insert ““, 11 and 11A”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving government Amendment No. 108, I wish to speak also to government Amendments Nos. 109 to 112. These amendments extend the provisions for free school travel for low-income groups to include secondary-aged children attending the nearest school preferred on the grounds of religion or belief within a 15 mile radius. The intention of these amendments is to further promote two of the principles that run through this entire Bill: diversity and fairness. The amendments will play an important part in ensuring that disadvantaged parents make a genuine, informed choice when expressing preferences for their child’s secondary school. Evidence suggests that choice of school, particularly for low-income groups, is often restricted by parental concerns about the cost and availability of transport. Some 41 per cent of parents living in social housing cite travel convenience as the most important reason for choosing a school, compared with only 33 per cent of owner-occupiers. There is also real inequity in how far children travel to school—only around 10 per cent of children entitled to free school meals travel more than three miles to school, compared with 18 per cent of children not entitled to free school meals. To create equity in the system, it is therefore crucial that lack of affordable transport is removed as a barrier to choice. The existing proposals to extend rights to free transport for low-income groups to one of their three nearest schools will do this. However, we believe that lack of affordable transport should not stand as a barrier to parents exercising a choice based on their religion or belief—such as a parent with strong religious beliefs expressing a preference for a more distant faith school than is available within their three nearest schools; or a parent of no faith expressing a preference for a more distant community school where they do not have a choice of such a school within their three nearest. I refer to the distance requirements currently set out in the Bill. Amendment No. 109 will apply where a child of secondary school age from a low-income family attends a school because his or her parent has expressed a wish for them to attend that school, and that wish is based on their religion or belief. Amendment No. 110 provides that ““religion”” or ““belief”” for these purposes have the same meaning as in the rest of the school travel provisions—that is, it covers all religions, religious or philosophical beliefs and a lack of religion or belief. Amendments Nos. 108, 111 and 112 are consequential amendments arising from Amendment No. 109. The amendments follow extensive consultation with interested groups, including, but not restricted to, the faith communities. I believe that these proposals will be welcomed by them. I beg to move.