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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I apologise for intervening before the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. After the very nice things she said about me earlier, the last thing that I would want to do is to discourage her from speaking. I am only sorry that on this occasion we cannot agree with the amendment. It is not that we disagree with the objective, but we believe that it is met by the arrangements put in place by the Bill as it stands. The changes that we have made will ensure that the admissions system is kept under proper review, both locally and nationally, which is the concern of the Liberal Democrats in this matter. Locally, the core membership of admissions forums represents a wide range of interests in the local admissions process, including schools. The reports of the admissions forums will reflect these different perspectives, ensuring that their decisions are not swayed by the views of a single group and are properly representative of the views of local stakeholders. In addition, admissions forums must act in accordance with the new school admissions code of practice. The guidance given to admissions forums gives them an unambiguous responsibility for ensuring that the admissions system promotes social equity. All schools must comply with the admissions legislation and the new school admissions code and must also have regard to the advice given to them by the relevant admissions forum. As well as that, local authorities and other schools will act as a check on the operation of unfair admissions practices. Local authorities may produce their own reports, if they so wish, and they can refer admissions practices that they regard as unfair to the adjudicator. Locally, we believe that the system is kept under proper review by the arrangements in the Bill. Nationally, I agree with the noble Baroness that there should be a proper process of evaluation and review. That is provided for in the role of the schools commissioner, which is a new role—the first schools commissioner has just been appointed. Integral to the role of the schools commissioner is that they should promote fair access and report on it. I quote from the schools commissioner’s job description. His role shall be to, "““monitor and promote fair access, including through producing a two yearly national review of fair access, based on national data and the annual reports provided by Admissions Forums on their local admissions arrangements and how they impact on fair access for different groups””." We are committed to there being a proper process of national evaluation and reporting. In our earlier debates I undertook that the Government would submit to Parliament the reviews that come from the schools commissioner, so we believe that the objective of the noble Baroness is met without setting up an additional independent review process over and above that we have already provided for in the role of the schools commissioner. I hope that our objectives are shared. We believe that the ends of the noble Baroness are met by the Bill and that there is no need for these further provisions.