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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I point out again that the amendment relates only to whether local authorities are allowed to put a proposal on the table. By no means are these proposals about always replacing poorly performing state schools. Frequently, they will be proposals for a new school where housing estates are expanding on the edge of a large community. As we know, somewhere in the region of half a million new houses are due to be built in the south-east of England. Many new schools will be required to meet the needs of those housing estates. As I said, the competition will be open to anyone to put forward proposals, and the question is whether the local authority should be allowed to put forward such proposals. We have whittled down our amendments. We have accepted the Minister’s view that poorly performing local authorities should not be allowed to put forward such proposals. We now propose to him that authorities which are rated either good or excellent in local government performance terms and are judged to be performing well in general should at least be allowed to put forward proposals. These are democratically elected local authorities. Why do we have elections? We have them so that people represent us locally when it comes to spending our council tax on such things as education. It is right and proper that such local authorities should be allowed to have a view on what best represents their interests; it is right and proper that they should be allowed to put forward such proposals. If they did so, decisions would be taken by the schools adjudicator, outside the range of the local authority concerned, because the authority would obviously be an interested party if it had put a proposal on to the table. It is demeaning to local authorities which are generally judged to be performing well to suggest that they should not be allowed to put forward such proposals. We would like to test the opinion of the House on this issue. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 73; Not-Contents, 207. Clause 37 [Staff at foundation or voluntary schools with religious character]: