.—(1) For the purposes of this Act a maintained school serves an area for which there are one or more minor authorities if the area served by the school is—
- (a) a parish or community;
- (b) an area in England which is not within a parish and is not situated in—
- (i) a county for which there is no council, or
- (ii) a county in which there are no district councils; or
- (c) an area comprising two or more areas each of which falls within paragraph (a) or (b)
(2) Where the area served by the school is parish—is the minor authority in relation to the school.
- (a) the parish council (if there is one), or
- (b) the parish meeting (if there is no parish council),
(3) Where the area served by the school is a community, the community council is the minor authority in relation to the school.
(4) Where the area served by the school is an area falling within subsection (1)(b), any district council for the whole or part of the area is a minor authority in relation to the school.
(5) Where the area served by the school is an area falling within subsection (1)(c), each of the relevant authorities is a minor authority in relation to the school.
(6) In subsection (5) "the relevant authorities" means the bodies which, if the two or more constituent areas referred to in subsection (1)(c) were taken separately, would be minor authorities in relation to the school.
(7) References in this section to the area served by a school are references to the area appearing to the local education authority to be served by the school.")
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 168 and 178, 527 Lords amendments Nos. 237 to 240 and the Government motions to disagree thereto, and Lords amendment No. 244 and the Government amendment in lieu.
§ Mr. ByersWe agree with the Lords in amendments Nos. 153, 168 and 178, which make technical changes on minor authority provisions, and complement the Government amendment. I urge the House to disagree with amendments Nos. 238, 239, 240 and 244 on minor authority representation on school governing bodies. We have tabled our own amendments, which we believe meet the concerns that were expressed on this issue by the House of Lords.
Minor authorities have been campaigning for the automatic right to representation on community and voluntary primary school governing bodies. The Government's amendment meets those concerns. When a school serves more than one minor authority area, the governing body will retain the right to decide which minor authority should be represented. The key difference is that there must be a minor authority representative on the governing body.
In line with the amendment, we propose to make an additional co-opted place available for the minor authority nominee. However, we believe that the minor authority representation should continue through a co-opted member of the school governing body. Our amendment provides for a minor authority nominee to be an additional governor appointed by the existing school governors, who are not co-opted.
§ Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent)I must confess to ignorance in this matter, so perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to enlighten me. Is there a limit to the size of governing bodies? That is important, because some minor authorities will have difficulty finding people to shoulder the responsibility of being a governor. We certainly do not want to arrive at a situation where the space is effectively vacant but governing bodies are statutorily obliged to provide it.
§ Mr. ByersNo. Minor authorities will have to nominate individuals, and it will then be for the individual school governing body to decide who should be co-opted on to that governing body. We have taken the view that that should occur via a co-option route rather than by booking up one of the places on the existing school governing body. That would have the consequence to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
This is a new mechanism, which is already in the Bill, for authorising or requiring additional co-opted governors who are nominated by particular categories of persons in specified circumstances. We are building on a provision that is already in the Bill. When schools serve more than one minor authority area—there are occasions when they do—this measure has the significant advantage of allowing the governing body to decide who the appropriate minor authority representative should be. We believe that it is right for the school to make that decision as it is in the best position to know who can best serve, the interests of the minor authority locally.
We have listened to the concerns of minor authorities and to concerns expressed in the House of Lords. I believe that the Government amendment will ensure that 528 minor authorities get the place that is reserved for them, which was their key objective. We believe that the school governing body should select the minor authority representative. We do not agree with the view expressed in another place that the minor authority representative should automatically and exclusively be from the minor authority where the school is located. Many schools may be located just outside the area from where the majority of children come. In those circumstances, a minor authority that is responsible for the well-being of those children will feel aggrieved if the place is reserved solely for the minor authority where the school is located.
The amendment tabled by the Government in the House of Lords allows all minor authorities to submit names to be considered by the school governing body. It will then be for the school governing body to identify which of the minor authority nominees should take up the co-opted position on the school governing body. We believe that that is a sensible approach. It builds on the approach taken in the House of Lords, but in a more practical and effective manner. It will work in practice.
§ Mr. LuffWill a school be obliged to take a nomination, if one is forthcoming, from a minor authority, or will it have the discretion to say, "No; we don't like this nomination and we will not have a minor authority representative"?
§ Mr. ByersIn line with the amendments tabled in the House of Lords and the Government amendment before us, the minor authority will be able to nominate an individual, and there will be a requirement on the school governing body to select one of those nominated by the minor authority. That is how we can meet the objective to have a minor authority place on a primary school governing body. The governing body will be required to co-opt one of the individuals nominated by the minor authorities.
We feel that the Government amendment tabled tonight meets the concerns expressed in another place, and those expressed by many town and parish councils throughout the country, which value the fact that they have representatives on primary school governing bodies. We have listened to representations from many hon. Members. I have written literally hundreds of letters on the issue. There has been a very effective lobbying campaign, without employing lobbyists as such. Probably there is a lesson there for many people—but I must be careful what we say on these issues.
§ Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire)Is the hon. Gentleman on message?
§ Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East)It will.
§ Mr. ByersWe do have 24-hour monitoring, so the hon. Gentleman may well be right. I believe that I was responsible for introducing that monitoring, so I must be careful what I say.
We believe that the amendment tabled by the Government meets the concerns that have been expressed, to which hon. Members on both sides of the House 529 have drawn our attention. We have listened to those representations. I hope that the House can agree with the amendment that has been tabled tonight, which we believe will build on the decisions taken in the House of Lords.
§ Mr. KeyRegrettably, I am not convinced by what the Minister has just told the House. I had hoped, as I watched the Bill's progress through the other place, that I would be convinced.
As recently as yesterday, I received a telephone call from the chairman of the Wiltshire association of local councils. I must declare an interest, in that I have the honour to be the president of that association. On Friday, in Devizes town hall, we shall have our annual general meeting, for which this subject is an agenda item.
I have been asked to express at that meeting the opinion, which I share, that there is still a tremendous amount of disquiet among parish and town councils about the fact that the tradition that we are discussing has been stood on its head for no apparent reason. In fact, many of us believe that the Government sleep-walked into this without realising what was happening, and that, when they noticed, they tried to dig their way out. They dug their way out with a fudge, and that fudge simply will not do. I regret that, but I shall report to the Wiltshire association of local councils what has happened in the House tonight, and let the Minister know what it decides.
I regret very much that, at this late hour, at this late stage of the Bill's passage, it has not been possible for the Government to abide by the well-tried maxim, "If it ain't bust, don't fix it."
§ Mr. WillisWe welcome the movement that the Government have made to recognise the genuine concerns, especially of parish councils, about their automatic representation on governing bodies, especially small village schools. For instance, in my constituency, in Knaresborough, the town council has nomination rights on the governing body of King James school. It values those rights very greatly.
The village where I live includes Rufforth primary school, where I was a governor and the chair of governors for many years. It is a very small school, with fewer than 40 students. The parish council has a very close relationship with it. At times, money was hard to come by—although there will be rejoicing in the streets tonight, in the street party, with all the new money going into the school. When money was hard to come by, when the school needed security lights because equipment was constantly stolen, the parish council came to the rescue. [Interruption.] It was the only one that was not charge-capped. The parish council had a representative on the governing body. The governing body was able to argue its case before the parish council, and the latter was able to help.
The Department has recently given King James school, Knaresborough, technology school status. The bid for technology school status was based partly on the fact that the town council of Knaresborough was prepared to make a significant donation from local taxes to support the school.
Those are two excellent examples of the sort of relationship that exists. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) is right—if it is not broken, why should the Government fix it? It has worked extremely well, 530 especially in rural areas. People have prized the relationship between the parish or town council and their local schools, and we want it to be preserved.
Amendment No. 153, which was introduced in the Lords, was an excellent amendment. It met the concerns of the House. We do not see why, simply because the Government did not agree with it in the first place, they should not accept it. It would be extremely gracious at this late hour, on the last group of amendments, if the Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box and said that the matter was not worth fighting over and that the Government would concede.
Thousands of parish councillors have lobbied through their associations. Like the hon. Member for Salisbury, my local association has lobbied me. This is the only issue on which the Yorkshire association of local councils has lobbied me over the past year—the association still thinks that I am a Conservative. When I addressed its conference in Scarborough recently, it was the one major issue about which the association felt strongly.
The need for flexibility must be recognised. The Minister is right to say that we need flexibility on these matters, but his approach is wrong. He is saying, in effect, that there could be nominations from a number of parish councils for the one place that is available, and the school would then choose. Is that the sort of democracy about which we are talking? If the parish councils had to get together to make that one nomination, as has happened in the past, that would be real local democracy working to choose the best person.
I hope that the Minister will agree that, on this occasion, he has got it slightly wrong, and that it would be better to allow Lords amendment No. 153 to proceed.
§ Mrs. BrowningI hope that the Minister listened carefully to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). Like him, I am concerned that, although the Minister seems to have made a concession tonight, it is not clear how or why the Government have changed their mind. When we discussed in Committee an amendment similar to the Lords amendment, it was clear that the Government's policy was driven by different priorities. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), who led for the Government in the debate, stated:
We shall…encourage local authorities to consider using one of their appointees from a minor authority if they have room to do so.He also said:I agree that in some circumstances, it may be appropriate for LEAs to appoint minor authority nominees as their representatives—to use up their allocation by bringing on parish, town or community council representatives."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 10 February 1998; c. 427–28.]It was clearly in the Government's mind in Standing Committee that that was to be just a sopping-up of spare places at an LEA's behest, if it happened to have any. The Under-Secretary said that parish and town councillors would have to earn their place, which caused great disquiet and offence among parish councillors.In my constituency of Tiverton and Honiton, we have scattered rural communities with parish councils that for generations have had a close working relationship with the local village primary school.
531 I am sorry that the Minister stated in his opening remarks that he would not accept amendments Nos. 238, 239 and 240. It has never been clear how the Government arrived at their policy. Originally we suggested that it was an omission, but it is evidently a deliberate policy to remove from locally democratically elected representatives at town and parish level a relationship with their local schools that has existed for generations and is valued in the community where it exists.
When the Minister reached his decision about the policy, why did he not follow customary practice and organise a consultation? It came as a shock and a blow to parish and town councils to learn that the Government intended to remove arbitrarily their right to represent their local councils, particularly in the case of rural primary schools.
§ Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome)I may be wrong, but I think that the hon. Lady's area—like mine in Somerset—has a system of community designation, which applies to community schools even at primary level. Does she agree that there is something very curious about having a community designation for a school but not having the community represented on the governing body? That close relationship needs to be maintained if community designation is to mean anything.
§ Mrs. BrowningThe hon. Gentleman is entirely right. Indeed, the Secretary of State said in the introduction to his White Paper:
Partnership for change means commitment from everyone, from the family and from the wider community".As the hon. Gentleman has just said, the parish council and the village school are at the heart of small rural parishes and communities: indeed, it could be said that the whole community revolves around them. That has been accepted for generations.Although the Minister has appeared to make a few concessions as a result of the Lords amendments, I ask him to look again at the amendments that we are discussing. If his Government are serious about the role of rural communities and the role of democratic representation at the lowest level in such communities, he must surely see that for the Government to step in and wipe away democratic representation that has existed for generations is an act of arrogance that will not be forgiven or forgotten—certainly not in the rural communities in my constituency.
§ Mrs. MayThe Government have produced what they claim to be concessions in relation to some of the amendments. We are pleased that they have been willing to move some distance on the issue of minor authority representation on governing bodies, but—as has others have pointed out—they have not moved far enough.
I shall want to test the House's opinion on the motion to disagree with Lords amendments Nos. 237 to 240, which would reinstate the right of a parish or town council to have a representative on the local governing body. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) made clear, the Government opposed that right in Committee. Considerable offence was caused by the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. 532 Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), when he said that, in future, representation must be earned. The implication was that parish council representatives on governing bodies had been "passengers"—that they had not taken their role seriously, and had not contributed to their local communities.
Like many other hon. Members, I have been contacted by parish council organisations, and, indeed, by parish councils in my constituency. Cox Green parish council, for example, referred to
an important connection within the local community".Wargrave parish council wrote:Local schools are an important part of the community and this link ensures that the community can participate in the decision making of each governing body.Ruscombe parish council said:the local Parish Councils have the feelings of the community at heart, from ground level, and their views should have a voice.Woodley town council said:Schools in Woodley play a key role in the community and the Town Council has an opportunity to offer support on many issues through its nominated governors.Sonning parish council said:The Council believes that by having representatives on the governing body it is in a unique position to assist the school in achieving many of its aims.Those councils have earned the right to be represented on governing bodies. They earn it at every governing body meeting that they attend. They earn it through their contributions to the life of local schools. They earn it through the contribution that their position on the school governing body makes to the life of the local community. That is important for local communities.The Government's initial proposal to abandon the right of parish councils to an appointed position on governing bodies was another blow aimed at our village and rural communities throughout the country, like so many others that we have seen from the Government. They do not understand local communities, as their amendments show. They have moved some way, but they have not gone as far as they need to on reinstating the current right that has been exercised well in villages and towns throughout the country. That link is an important element at the heart of our local communities. It should stay in its entirety in the way in which it has been operating for generations.
The right of parish and town councils to representation on school governing bodies enables them to play an important role at the heart of their community, together with their local schools, and should be reinstated. That is why I wish to divide the House on the Government's disagreement with the Lords amendments.
§ Mr. ByersIt might help the House if I go through some facts behind the amendments. We need to be clear about the consequences of not agreeing with the Government motions. The Opposition amendments carried in the House of Lords against Government advice would remove rights currently enjoyed by hundreds of minor authorities. They would give nomination rights only to the minor authority in which the school was located. All other minor authorities, which are currently involved in a joint appointment of a minor authority representative, would be denied that role. It is untrue to say that the Conservatives are protecting the interests of 533 town and parish councils throughout the country. They want to deny involvement to hundreds of town and parish councils in deciding who should be on governing bodies.
§ Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire)So do the Government.
§ Mr. ByersThe hon. Gentleman clearly has not read our amendment, which will allow minor authorities to nominate a governor. There will be a minor authority entitlement for every school. Our definition of parish and town councils includes Welsh community councils, which the amendments carried by the Conservatives in the House of Lords do not. Any hon. Member who votes against disagreeing with amendments Nos. 237 to 240, on which I understand that the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) will seek a vote, will be voting to deny Welsh community councils a place on primary school governing bodies. The Liberal Democrats should be particularly aware of that. I think that they were about to support the Conservatives.
I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) say that it was important that minor authorities should decide who their representatives should be. It is true that minor authorities can agree whom they should nominate, but, at the moment, if they fail to do so, which does happen, the Secretary of State decides. If agreement is not reached, surely it is far better that the school governing body decides. That is exactly what the Government amendment proposes.
§ Mr. Don FosterI am grateful to the Minister for his explanation; I wish that he had made it very much earlier. Have I understood correctly that, under the Government amendment, it is possible for more than one minor authority to agree on the single preferred nomination, and that that would have to be accepted by the school?
§ Mr. ByersI am pleased to be able to confirm that that will be so. Such a nomination will be entitled to a minor authority place on the school governing body. If only one nominee comes forward on behalf of those minor authorities, that will be the place that will be co-opted on to the school governing body. The Government have thought long and hard about the proposals before the House.
§ Mrs. MayThe answer that the Minister has just given goes against—if I heard him correctly—what he said earlier. If two minor authorities do not agree a single nomination, is it not up to the school to determine which of the minor authorities will have the place on the governing body—not the minor authorities themselves?
§ Mr. ByersI am afraid that this is restating the obvious. If the minor authorities cannot agree, someone has to decide on their behalf. At the moment, the Secretary of State decides. The Lords amendments would allow that to 534 continue. I am sorry, that is not correct; minor authorities can no longer nominate their own people. The nomination is left to the minor authority where the school is situated. The Government motions will allow minor authorities to agree who their nominees should be. If agreement is reached, the nominated person will take a place on the school governing body. If agreement is not reached, it will be for the school governing body to select who that nominee should be.
§ Mr. Don FosterI apologise for interrupting the Minister for a second time. He gave me a clear explanation a minute ago. I draw his attention specifically to the proposed sub-paragraph (4) in the Government amendment in lieu, which states:
Where any such school serves an area for which there are two or more minor authorities, the relevant governors shall, for the purposes of the appointment of any such co-opted governor, seek nominations from such one or more of those authorities as the governors think fit.That seems to be in marked contrast to his response a few minutes ago.
§ Mr. ByersNo, it will be for the minor authorities to respond to the governing body's invitation to nominate. If there is agreement among the minor authorities, one nominee will come forward, and they will be the person who will be entitled to sit on the school governing body.
The House needs to be clear that the choice is either to agree with amendments from the House of Lords or to agree with the amendment and motions tabled by the Government. Hon. Members who vote to agree with the House of Lords will be denying a place for Welsh community councils and for hundreds of town and parish councils. When the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) goes to his meeting in Devizes on Friday evening, I think that he will find that town and district councils welcome the Government motions, and are deeply unhappy about the proposals of Conservatives in the House of Lords.
These are reasoned and responsible proposals that provide an entitlement for minor authorities on a school governing body. They do not deny a role for literally hundreds of town and parish councils, as the Conservative proposals would. On that basis, I commend the motions and Government amendments to the House.
§ Lords amendment agreed to.
§ Lords amendments Nos. 154 to 197 agreed to.
§ Lords amendment No. 198 disagreed to, and Government amendments (a) to (c) to the words so restored agreed to.
§ Lords amendment No. 199 disagreed to, and Government amendment to the words so restored agreed to.
§ Lords amendments Nos. 200 to 236 agreed to.