HC Deb 11 January 1978 vol 941 cc1821-30

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Scrape.]

11.1 p.m.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Stockport, North)

I am pleased to have this opportunity to raise an issue which affects a small number of my constituents but which is also of national significance.

In the first few years of this century the people of Reddish, in the northern part of my constituency, had a choice during local government reorganisation of whether to be swallowed up by Manchester or Stockport. During the campaign the Stockport authority made a series of promises for education if the people of Reddish opted to go with Stockport rather than with Manchester. Many people claim that the promises made were decisive to the vote. Many people now feel that since then Stockport has let them down and has failed to carry out the promises that were made in the town hall so long ago.

I shall give an example of the way in which the people feel that Stockport has let them down. I hope because of the debate and the action that the Minister could take that the Minister will be able to persuade Stockport to put this anomaly right. If the Government cannot do that I hope that they will bring forward legislation to amend the Education Act 1944 fairly soon to stop this anomaly and to ensure that there is greater choice of primary schools for parents.

The problem faces the parents who live north of the north Reddish railway line and west of Gorton Road in such roads as Broadfield Road, Broadfield Grove, Bellfield Road, Lonsdale Road and the area round Beresford Crescent and it is a particular problem to the parents of children who are coming up to school age.

By a quirk of the boundaries Aspinall School is nearer to Stockport children than it is to Manchester children. If Stockport had planned to build a school for its children it would have built it on this site. It is ideal for the children of this area.

For almost 30 years Manchester allowed Stockport children to attend this school. It was ideal. There were no main roads to cross. Children could walk to school while parents stood on the front door step and watched them. Infants could walk alone to school safely and happily after only a few days.

In 1974 it looked as though a problem might begin to develop as a result of new housing, particularly in Stockport, including the building of Broad-field Grove. It appeared that the numbers would make it difficult for Aspinall School to admit all the children who wanted to attend it. But fortunately, just as the discussions were taking place about restrictions, it was realised that with a falling birth rate this problem was not likely to last very long. Therefore, after a short period in 1974 the situation changed. Aspinal School was able to take all the children who wanted to attend it from Manchester and this area in Stockport. Everything went on very satisfactorily until almost 12 months ago, when Stockport Education Committee made a new policy decision, that no primary school children in Stockport were allowed to go to out-district schools.

The result was that children in this area would in future have to go to a Stockport school. Although about half a mile away as the crow flies, the nearest is, because of the railway line, three-quarters of a mile away. Parents living in Broadfield Grove must come out of their houses, look straight at Aspinal School, then walk past it down Bellfield Road along the busy Gorton Road into Station Road and round the present waterworks disruptions—I hope that they will not last long. Then the parents must walk along Station Road, where there is much heavy lorry traffic, cross that road, and then, via a series of back passages and Sandford Lane, go into the rear entrance of Firtree School.

It is certainly not a journey that an infant can do on his or her own, nor is it the sort of journey that parents are happy to see eight-year-olds or even nine-year-olds make. If a parent has to take a child backwards and forwards to school four times it is certainly an unpleasant and long journey. If one has to push a pram at the same time it becomes a nightmare, particularly now, with the disruption caused by the work in Station Road.

The journey by public transport is even further, involving two buses. It is expensive and often entails long waits. Anyone taking the bus journey passes a different Stockport School, the North Reddish School, on the way to Firtree.

It might be a solution if Stockport said that all the children from the area could go to North Reddish School. At least there would be only one bus journey. It seems ridiculous that children must walk past one primary school with space to accept them and then find that they must get on a bus and go down the road to a different school. Stockport cannot guarantee places at North Reddish School for all these children.

I am not really concerned whether one school is better or worse, nor are the parents in the area concerned about the merits of the schools. They are simply concerned about the difficulties of getting to school. I stress that from what I have seen and heard all three schools involved do a first-class job. I should be very happy if my children went to any of them.

Since Stockport made the ruling last year, a few parents have accepted the decision. They have cursed bureaucracy but have put up with it. Some of them have appealed to the education committee. It looked at first as though the committee, having made a ruling for the whole of Stockport, would show sympathy and compassion in this area, treat each case on its merits and find that it could make exceptions to its rule. That would solve the problems for the people in the area.

At least one family in the area, upset by the ruling, sold their house and moved out. I am told that another family narrowly avoided buying a house in the area because they became aware of the problem. The problem has not been solved by people moving or avoiding buying houses, or by the committee looking with sympathy at particular problems. The committee decided that by looking at each case on its merits it was beginning to create an exemption for the whole area, and it started to be particularly harsh.

One case which concerns me particularly is that of a mother in a one-parent family with one child aged seven, who is at Aspinal school, and another child aged four. The child of four could start at once at Aspinal school, but the local education committee has said that the mother must take it to Firtree, and that if she wants her two children to attend the same school she must take the child of seven years out of Aspinal, where it is doing well, and move it to Firtree.

It is hard enough for two parents to look after children of this age, but it is harder still for a woman on her own who is also trying to get work. To add to the problem, Stockport Education Committee says that the child must travel the longer distance to Firtree, whereas going to Aspinal would mean crossing only one minor road. If a woman in that position is looking for work, it is one thing to ask a neighbour to mind a child after school when it has to travel only a short distance, but quite another to ask that neighbour to take a 20-minute journey to a school in order to collect the child. I feel strongly that Stockport should have shown more compassion in this case.

There is another family in which a child should be starting school next September. There will be a small baby which will have to be pushed in its pram while the older child is taken backwards and forwards to school.

I know that the Minister has persuaded Stockport to obey the law on different education matters, and I hope that in this situation although she has less power, my hon. Friend will use her charm to persuade Stockport to be more compassionate towards the small number of parents in this area who would like their children to attend Aspinal. If my hon. Friend cannot persuade Stockport to show compassion and concern for these children, perhaps she will consider speeding up proposals to amend the Education Act 1944, because it seems to me that that Act is unsatisfactory in the way it deals with the question of parental choice.

Two sections of the Act apply. There is Section 67, which does not really give parents very much power at all. If parents feel that the authority is acting unreasonably they can ask the Minister to allow their children to go to the school of their choice. But it seems that the Minister has to come down in most cases in favour of the authority even if, in her view, it is acting unreasonably.

On the other hand, if a parent wishes to be awkward and does not mind jeopardising the education of his child for a while, he can use Section 37 and simply refuse to send the child to school. Thus, if someone keeps his child away from school for six months or so, eventually forcing the local authority to prosecute him under Section 37, when that case goes to court there are powers in the Act which enable the parent to exercise choice. Therefore, the parent who has kept his child from school may well find that he can appeal to the Minister, and that the Minister will, under Section 37, have to agree to allow the child to go to the school of his choice.

It would, therefore, be possible for parents in this area, if they wanted to be awkward, to keep their children from school until they were prosecuted. Then, as a result, they would almost certainly gain permission for their children to go to Aspinal. But I say to those parents that it would be foolish of them to take such a course, because it would jeopardise their children by keeping them out of school for six months—indeed, in some instances, it would be longer since in some cases in practice the children would be allowed to start school before the statutory age. It is wrong to have these two conflicting sections in the Act because the situation tends to give more benefit to the parent who proposes to be awkward and take on bureaucracy than to the parent concerned for the best interests of his child.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to persuade Stockport to find an equitable solution. If she cannot, I hope that time will be found in this Session to amend the 1944 Act in order to set out clearly the parents' right to choose a school, particularly if they are choosing on the ground that it is the school that is nearest and most convenient for their children to attend. I hope that my hon. Friend can offer some help and concern to these parents in this small area of North Reddish who feel that they have a major problem.

11.15 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Miss Margaret Jackson)

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) has admirably expressed his great concern about parents from North Reddish who are worried and are affected by the Stockport education authority's policy on the admission of children to schools in Manchester and Tameside. It is always particularly difficult for parents affected in this way when the situation is due to a policy change—more difficult even than just the application of a policy of long standing--and particularly hard for them to understand. My hon. Friend has admirably sketched the history of the area, of the schools involved and the implications of the problem.

in essence, the position is that some parents from this area have been told by Stockport that their children may be refused places at the schools involved because the authority in Stockport does not wish to have to pay the extra district charges to the neighbouring authorities which this would involve.

The position in law is quite clear. It is, briefly, that an education authority is required to pay what is known as an extra-district charge for any child who lives in its area and is admitted to a school maintained by another authority, as would be the case in the circumstances raised by my hon. Friend. Without such a payment, of course, the receiving authority in this case, perhaps Manchester, will often be unwilling to take the child into one of its schools. The home authority has a duty to pay such a charge and can be relieved of the charge only by a direction from the Secretary of State. In deciding whether to give such a direction, my right hon. Friend has to have regard to the availability of suitable places in the child's own area and all other circumstances of the case.

Each case, therefore, has to be looked at individually, but in general, if the home authority has a suitable and reasonably acceptable place available, my right hon. Friend will give it a direction relieving it of the extra-district charge unless there is some particular reason why the child should attend the school outside its own area. Sometimes, for example, a brother or sister already goes to the extra-district school, or the school is very much easier to get to by public transport, or is a denominational school. Sometimes parents have changed address across a local government boundary or the boundary has changed but the parents would prefer a child not to change schools. My right hon. Friend would be reluctant to give a direction to relieve the home authority of its responsibility of paying charges where any of these circumstances exist, unless the authority has advanced exceptional reason for her to do so.

In general, we hope—and we have expressed the hope frequently—that all education authorities will be flexible and allow as much movement across local authority boundaries as possible. Unfortunately, in recent months there has been evidence that a few authorities have taken an unneccessarily obstructive attitude to parents who have a good reason for wanting their children to attend extra-district schools. We can understand why an authority, faced with falling numbers of pupils, might try to persuade parents that their children would be better off in its own schools rather than in an extra-district school. However, we cannot condone any action that an authority might take to bully parents into accepting one of its own places when those parents have a good reason for an extra-district place. Fortunately, most authorities do adopt a reasonable attitude to parental preferences, and for them the present system works satisfactorily, as it does for the parents involved. Nevertheless, we are concerned to ensure that all authorities are equally reasonable.

My hon. Friend referred to potential changes in the law. The general question of schools admission procedures and how to ensure that local authorities take proper account of parental preferences in cases of this kind or others has been under review of late. We have realised in recent years that the law on school admissions is becoming increasingly confusing and contradictory. The Department wrote in October to a number of organisations and associations with a special interest in these matters setting out proposals for legislation and asking for comments on them.

The matters to which my hon. Friend referred in dealing with the implications, respectively, of Sections 68 and 37 were dealt with in very general terms in those proposals, and we expect to receive comments on them. However, the specific matter that my hon. Friend raised in the case of extra-district charges that we are discussing was also raised as a special case in itself, and when we receive comments on the proposals in general and on these aspects we shall consider what changes might be desirable, but in the context of our proposals for legislation generally on school admission.

Subject to the outcome of these consultations, our present intention is that the fact of a child's residence in the area of one education authority should not be a reason for automatically refusing admission to the school of the parent's choice in a different authority, but where a child is admitted to a school in the area of a different authority that authority will always be entitled to receive an appropriate extra-district payment. In other words, we have looked at the specific implications of parental preference and of schools which children attend—a matter which my hon. Friend is raising tonight—in a little more detail than in the general context of parental preference and how it might be exercised.

My hon. Friend referred to my attempt to persuade Stockport by using my charm. I am touched by his faith in that somewhat intangible commodity, but I place less faith in it. However, fortunately, it might not be necessary to rely on charm.

My hon. Friend referred to two specific cases from the area of North Reddish. Only one case has been referred to me so far—that was in September—and it concerned a child who was not due to enter school until September 1978. I am not sure whether this is the child to whom my hon. Friend referred. This child had a brother at an extra-district school to which the parent wished to send him, and I was able to advise my hon. Friend that the fact that the brother was at this school would be regarded by my right hon. Friend as significant if, in the circumstances of the child's potential admission, the Stockport authority came to her for a direction. In the event, I believe that these parents moved from the area, which leads me to believe that this is the case to which my hon. Friend referred.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

The difficulty is that the head of Aspinal School has been told, on instruction from Stockport, that he may not admit any Stockport children, because the extra-district charge will not be paid. The Minister seems to be saying that if the child was admitted the Secretary of State could use her power to ensure that the extra-district charge was paid. Can my hon. Friend deal with that? The particular instance is the one in which the parents, because they were so upset by the bureaucracy, sold their house and moved to avoid difficulties.

Miss Jackson

I thought that that was the case to which my hon. Friend was referring. If my hon. Friend has other cases which he feels he should refer to me, I shall look into them individually on their merits, because that is the only way in which one can deal with this question.

The answer to my hon. Friend's question is that it is not open to Stockport to say that the extra-district charge will not be paid for children who are admitted to Aspinal. If children are admitted to that school, Stockport must apply to my right hon. Friend for a specific direction to relieve it of the necessity to pay this charge. It might be that in some individual cases my right hon. Friend will conclude that there is no special reason why children should attend this school rather than another and decide that she will relieve Stockport of the necessity to pay the charge, in which case I presume, from what my hon. Friend said, that Aspinal would not admit such a child.

If my right hon. Friend were to reach the conclusion that in a particular case the authority was not on good ground and that the parents had a perfectly justifiable reason for wishing the child to attend this school rather than another, it would be within my right hon. Friend's power to refuse to relieve Stockport of the extra-district charge, in which case Stockport would have to pay it.

Those are the circumstances of the case that my hon. Friend has outlined. There are difficulties in every case. These cases are subject to individual examination, and individual decision. All of us wish to be fair both to the parents and to the authority, but I repeat that if my hon. Friend has cases that are of special concern to him and he feels that there are particularly strong cases for children to be admitted to this school I shall be willing to look at them.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock.