HC Deb 19 June 1992 vol 209 cc1217-24

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

2.31 pm
Mr. Roger Sims (Chislehurst)

It may be unusual, but I hope it is not out of order, if I start by adding my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) on his maiden speech, which we much enjoyed. He comes from a distinguished family, but, clearly, he will establish himself as a parliamentarian in his own right. I also hope, in common, I am sure, with all hon. Members, that his father makes a recovery.

My debate continues the theme of education. Every year, thousands of families, up and down the country, experience the transfer process when their children move from primary to secondary educatoin. I have experienced that process three times. Parents visit the schools, usually in the autumn, complete forms to show their preference and, by April, receive offers. Perhaps, they are offered their first or second choice or another option. Sometimes, the parents will be delighted, but, on occasions, they will be disappointed. However, at least they know the school to which their child will go in the following September and, remain at, one hopes, for a number of years.

At the beginning of April this year, a letter was sent to the parents of 255 children in the London borough of Bromley. It began: I am writing to explain why, at this time, it is not yet possible to offer your son or daughter a place in a Bromley all ability school. A substantial proportion of those parents are my constituents, but some are the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant), who hopes to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, later. Some of the parents are constituents of my hon. Friends the Members for Ravensbourne (Sir J. Hunt) and for Orpington (Mr. Horam), who, because of constituency engagements, cannot be present today, but who have asked me to emphasise that they fully support my representations.

It is not difficult to imagine the distress caused to families by that letter, and especially to the children who found, perhaps, that they were the odd ones out in the class because they did not know their future. Gradually, the situation has been resolved and, by now, I hope that virtually all the children affected have been offered a place at a school somewhere in the borough. But that is after many weeks of uncertainty and worry which should not have occurred and which must not be allowed to recur.

There are two elements to the problem—the rapid development of the grant-maintained sector and the impact of the Greenwich judgment. The idea of grant-maintained schools has caught on in Bromley. Of the 17 secondary schools, eight are now grant maintained. Parents who want places for their children in those schools apply direct to the schools and not to the education authority. So inevitably there is double, if not treble, booking.

The difficulties were compounded by the fact that the grant-maintained schools were able to offer places in December whereas the education authority's date is April. Some parents who perhaps wanted a specific LEA school held on to their grant-maintained offer just in case they did not get the LEA school of their choice.

The problem is a lack of co-ordination and co-operation between the two sectors. I am not seeking to apportion blame but stating a fact. We are in new territory here, and there is no mechanism for co-ordination.

The grant-maintained schools co-operated with each other and organised a database at one of the schools to co-ordinate all the applications, and where they found that parents had accepted two places, they were asked to decide which one they wanted. It must be possible to devise a system of co-ordination of the application and offer procedure.

The local education authority is asking if it can have the grant-maintained lists in December to assist it in what it must do. The grant-maintained sector, understandably, is nervous about doing that, particularly in view of the aspects of confidentiality. The parents may not he happy and would need to be reassured that the disclosure of an application for a grant-maintained school did not prejudice an application for an LEA school and vice-versa.

It would not have to be the LEA that operated the scheme. The grant-maintained schools already have their own scheme, and next year we shall have three more grant-maintained schools shifting the balance to 11 grant-maintained to six LEA schools. I am not necessarily urging the Minister to devise and impose a detailed scheme, but guidance from his Department would be helpful, not only to Bromley but to other LEAs in a similar situation.

The other dimension is the outcome of the legal proceedings encapsulated in the phrase the Greenwich judgment. It has long been the practice for LEAs to accomodate applicants from adjacent authorities where places are available, but the effect of the Greenwich judgment is that where the nearest school to a child's home is in an adjacent authority, that authority must accept the application regardless of any other pressures. So the education authority is obliged to take children from another authority in preference to its own children. For historical and geographical reasons, a number of Bromley schools are very near to the borough boundaries.

That makes planning by education officials extremely difficult, because they must accept, or try to take into account, unspecified and unforecastable numbers who will come from elsewhere to schools in the borough, in addition to those being taken from within the borough. It also means that Bromley parents are incensed at being unable to get their children into the schools of their choice, while seeing that children from other authorities can get into them.

An effective demonstration of the problem occurred when, in April, the borough wrote to 255 borough parents telling them that there were as yet no places for their children, and it had to write at the same time to tell 351 out-borough parents that their applications had been accepted.

Bromley was not caught unaware. It realised the implication two years ago and warned the Government. I drew attention to the matter, as did many other hon. Members, several times. Indeed, I introduced a private Member's Bill to remove the effect of the Greenwich judgment. It was resisted by the then Minister; his response to my pleas was that I should, first, wait until the legal proceedings had taken their full course and, secondly, see what the effect of the judgment would be in practice. The legal proceedings have culminated in the confirmation of the Greenwich judgment as law, and education authorities have had the experience of having to allocate accordingly. Bromley has now had two years' experience.

In January 1992, the then Minister wrote to me explaining the Government's reaction to the position. He said: we will not be pursuing a change in the law to allow LEAs to give priority to their residents when allocating school places. He said that, although he understood the difficulties: On the basis of the evidence submitted to us, however, it does not appear to us that such practical problems as LEAs have encountered have been sufficiently serious to warrant our pursuing a change in the law". How much evidence does the Department want?

I have raised the issue in the context of Bromley but it is not confined to Bromley. I accept that the problem may have arisen only in certain areas such as conurbations, but the problem has arisen in London and some other parts of the country such as the west midlands. Representations have been made by the London Boroughs Association, 13 of whose 20 members are experiencing serious difficulties. There are problems in Barnet, Kingston, Westminster, Redbridge, Richmond and Sutton. My hon. Friends the Members for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) and for Surbiton (Mr. Tracy) have asked to be associated with my representations.

Mr. Hartley Booth (Finchley)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene on one point in his support. Is he aware that 265 homes are troubled with anxiety and misery in the London borough of Barnet, which includes Finchley, because they have been unable to have their first choice of school agreed by the local authority. That is principally because 167 children from another borough have had their first choice permitted, which means they go to school in Barnet. That is educationally useless because, instead of putting pressure on and giving an incentive to boroughs around Barnet to improve their education, extra pressure and burden is put on a local authority that is known in the south-east to have excellent education provision.

Mr. Sims

I did not have those figures in my mind, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for illustrating the point that I sought to make: the problem affects many areas and is not confined to Bromley.

The position is most unsatisfactory and is intolerable in practical and legal terms. As the Minister knows, education authorities have a duty, under section 8 of the Education Act 1944, to secure provision of education for children in the authority area. That cannot be reconciled with the requirement now placed on authorities to provide places for children from other areas. The two requirements are simply incompatible. Incidentally, I invite the Minister to consider what will happen in a few years' time if all the schools in Bromley become grant maintained, but the local authority retains responsibility for securing provision.

I do not ask for a radical change in the law but simply that the law be restored to what everybody thought it was until the courts decided otherwise. There are strong indications that we can expect an education Bill in the autumn. All that I am asking is that it should include a clause to deal with the issue. I can offer my hon. Friend a ready-made clause, at no extra charge, in my private Member's Bill.

School allocation procedures are never likely to be completely painless. It is rarely possible to meet everyone's first choice. Families change their minds and move in and out of areas, which causes complications. The process should, however, be as smooth as possible. The trauma experienced this year in Bromley must certainly not be repeated. To that end, my pleas to my hon. Friend are that he should initiate a co-ordinated admissions procedure and implement a reversal of the Greenwich judgment. I hope that he will consider both sympathetically.

2.45 pm
Mr. Piers Merchant (Beckenham)

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) for sparing some of his valuable time to enable me to back up many of the excellent points that he has made. May I take this opportunity to congratulate him on tabling this Adjournment debate and to endorse the general tenor of his remarks. I stress to the Minister the very grave concern that is felt across the London borough of Bromley, of which Beckenham is part, by large numbers of parents—not just those with children of secondary school age but those with children who, in the years ahead, will be of secondary school age.

I have received a particularly heavy mailbag on the subject and have attempted to help in a number of individual cases. I have no doubt, however, that there are other equally deserving cases. A letter that I received reads: My daughter is the only girl in her class who has not been offered a place at the local secondary school. What do I tell her? She thinks there's something wrong with her. The problem does not affect just parents, who are obviously ambitious that their children should have the best education. It also affects their children. In the last few weeks it has even extended to primary school admissions. Some small children feel rejected if they are in a minority, particularly a minority of one, in having been unable to obtain a place at the local school.

This is not just a technical or an administrative issue. It affects children at particularly vulnerable times in their lives and is therefore causing them heartache. That is why it is a serious issue which must be addressed.

Even if the problem that is experienced in Beckenham, Bromley and some other London boroughs is not encountered nationally, some guidance from the Government is still necessary to help to sort out the specific problems in these areas. Earlier this month the education committee in Bromley took a number of steps that it hopes will alleviate the problem in the year to come.

Bromley does not suffer from a bad education system. It has excellent schools and offers the superb, wide choice of schools that was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) in his excellent maiden speech in the previous debate. The widening of choice, which I hope will be widened still further, must not, however, be at the expense of people's traditional expectation of a place for their children in the local school. That is what is being brought into question, for the two reasons that were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst.

The first reason was grant-maintained schools. They are extremely popular in Bromley. That is why they were set up. They attract record numbers of applicants. However, parents have tended to hold more than one place. That leaves local education authorities appearing to be full, because of second places held. Later they find that all their places have not been filled, which has a knock-on effect on allocations.

In the long term, the grant-maintained problem is a minor one which can he solved by relatively easy administrative co-ordination. I am not talking about allocation by local education authorities. We have moved away from that. I am referring to a degree of co-ordination that could easily be put in place.

The second reason is the out-of-borough problem—the Greenwich judgment. The simplest solution is for the Government to reverse the Greenwich judgment.

That would be the easiest solution for Bromley and would do away with the underlying problem. It is not even that the Greenwich judgment provides true open enrolment as it gives that advantage to children in the neighbouring borough who happen to live within the zone of the relevant school. It gives them a preferential advantage over other children in the borough. If the Government are unable or not prepared to act, they still have an obligation to deal with the uncertainty caused by the Greenwich judgment and should give advice on how to tackle the problem without disadvantaging children in Bromley.

What is certainly needed and must be put in place for next year is a system to deal with all the new complexities. It must be thorough, understandable, transparent to parents and properly administered. To achieve that, Bromley needs the help of my hon. Friend the Minister who I hope will carefully study the options available.

2.51 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr. Eric Forth)

I join in congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) and for Westbury (Mr. Faber) on two of the best maiden speeches that I have had the privilege to hear. They were both fluent, knowledgeable and showed a commitment to their views. I am happy to say that they also showed a commitment to Government policy, which is always a relief, and I am sure that that will stand them in good stead for long careers in the House.

I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Chiselhurst (Mr. Sims), for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) and for Finchley (Mr. Booth), all of whom made no secret of their concerns for their constituents on this important issue. In their different ways, they have knowledgeably and persistently ensured that my Department is fully aware of the problem highlighted in the House today by my hon. Friend the Member for Chiselhurst. We all hope that we can find solution to the problems that cause such anguish to many parents.

I am aware that the allocation of school places in the London borough of Bromley this year has caused widespread concern. I wish to put on the record the different factors that have contributed to the difficulties that parents faced earlier this year. I understand that some parents even believed that there might not be any place for their children in Bromley. I am assured that that alarming view was not what the local authority intended to convey to parents through the letter read out by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst. It is unfortunate that the impression that there were no places gained currency in the borough. Looking back, it is easy to see how that happened, but we all hope that it will not be repeated in any form.

Views have been expressed about the effect of the Greenwich judgment. As the House heard, we know that it was a court ruling that judged it illegal for a local education authority to give priority to its own residents when allocating school places. The Greenwich judgment has meant that some parents in some parts of Bromley have found that their chances of gaining a place for their children at their preferred schools have been reduced. Understandably, those parents find the changes in admission patterns difficult to accept. My hon. Friends have made no secret of that and have expressed their views forcefully in the House today.

We should not exaggerate the importance of the Greenwich judgment. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst conceded, parents from neighbouring local education authorities sent their children to Bromley schools for a number of years prior to the judgment. The effect of the judgment on the increased number of out-borough children admitted to Bromley schools must be put in the context of the large number of children who attend the excellent schools in Bromley. The new system has had an effect by opening up places at Bromley schools to pupils from other boroughs who live nearer to those schools than do many Bromley residents.

My predecessor announced as recently as January this year the previous Secretary of State's decision, taken in the light of factual evidence from a number of education authorities, not to seek to change the law to reverse the effect of the Greenwich judgment. In preparation for this debate and other recent meetings with my hon. Friends representing other London boroughs—I have more such meetings to which to look forward—I, too, have looked carefully at the issues.

There is no doubt that the Greenwich judgment surprised my Department as much as it surprised those in the local education authorities. However, the ruling reflected some basic principles that we all recognise. Having one's choice of school affected, not only by a straightforward measure, such as distance from the school, but by the existence of an administrative boundary, is much less easy to justify now than it was 10 years ago. With the increasing delegation of power and influence to the school from the LEA, and in particular with more and more schools taking grant-maintained status and opting out of LEA control, the school and its local area are now of much more relevance than the LEA boundary. It would be odd to seek to reinforce such boundaries at this stage.

We must also consider the current review of local government, a timely reminder that administrative boundaries are not for ever or unchanging. The Greenwich case was brought because the new London borough boundaries cut across traditional patterns of school transfer. Parents were upset by being barred from nearby schools because of a boundary change. With any significant redrawing of boundaries, which must be a possibility, and particularly if there is a move to smaller authorities, we should have major problems on a national scale if at the same time we sought to give those new boundaries the force of law in school admissions.

I do not seek to deny the degree of concern that Bromley parents and others from other boroughs and authorities have expressed because their expectations—of a particular school in their own borough—have not been met, but it is important to remember that free trade across boundaries seems as self-evidently right to some parents and schools as the ability to get into a school in the same borough seems to others. Although I will consider carefully all that has been said today on this subject and continue to consider carefully the most recent evidence, I shall need some convincing that the current position should be further disrupted by legislation which, I remind the House, even on the tightest timetable envisaged could not affect admissions until September 1994—those admissions being planned in autumn 1993.

The second factor affecting this year's allocations procedure in Bromley is the number of new admission authorities in the borough. Grant-maintained schools, like voluntary-aided schools, are free to set their own timetables for admissions and there are now a number of such schools in Bromley, I am delighted to say.

It appears that some parents who exercised their right to apply to different schools and received several offers did not release any of the places they were offered until the result of all their applications were known, including the results of any appeals that they may have made. In some cases, they simply forgot to let other schools know that they had received an offer they preferred.

Let me make it clear that I am not seeking to blame parents in Bromley for the delay in allocating places. All parents want the best for their child and it is natural that parents should retain offers of places until they know the options available to them. Once they know which offer they are going to accept, however, parents should take prompt decisions and tell all concerned what they have decided so that places can be offered to other parents who want them.

I am pleased to say that the bottleneck which was created in Bromley this year is now almost cleared. Of the parents who were informed by the LEA in April that there were at that stage no places available for their children in Bromley schools, almost all have now been offered places. I understand that the authority expects to be able to offer places to the remaining handful of applicants in the next few days.

We will keep in close touch with the authority about those parents and children who still face uncertainty, but I should make it clear to the House that it by no means unusual for final decisions on school admissions to be taken at this time of year. For those who choose to go to appeal or ask to be placed on waiting lists, it may even be later.

To answer my hon. Friends, we are certainly prepared to consider taking steps to ensure that the admission arrangements set up by LEAs, grant-maintained and voluntary-aided schools are properly co-ordinated, so as to avoid the problems which have occurred this year. We know that Hillingdon and some other authorities plan co-ordinated arrangements with grant-maintained schools next year, and we shall keep in touch with progress to see how well they work.

I hope that Bromley, too, will be able to work together with local grant-maintained schools more effectively next year. I understand that it will consult grant-maintained schools on possible arrangements to share information. We have encouraged the LEA in that approach and will be writing to the grant-maintained schools to encourage co-operation. I hope that no more general central intervention will be necessary. LEAs have managed to work successfully with voluntary-aided schools for a number of years and I am confident that, with good will on both sides. Bromley will be able to do the same with grant-maintained schools. Local arrangements that meet the needs of local parents are surely to be preferred to any centrally imposed solution.

I appreciate, of course, that however smoothly the allocation of school places in Bromley may run in future, some parents, both those living inside and those living outside Bromley, may apply unsuccessfully to their preferred school and I know that they will be anxious about their children's future. That is natural and understandable. I urge parents in such a position to make full use of the appeals system. There can be no guarantee of success, but parents would lose nothing by exercising the statutory rights which we have given them. More than 40 per cent. of appeals are settled in the parents' favour.

We should like to increase the number of parents who are able to send their children to the school of their choice. We want to play our part by making available resources to allow some popular schools to expand, as my hon. Friends have said. We have recently consulted on those proposals. It is too early to say whether particular Bromley schools will benefit from any new scheme, but we will certainly give very careful consideration to any bids we receive.

When my predecessor announced that the Government did not intend to change the law to reverse the Greenwich judgment, he also made it clear that the needs of local authorities to incur capital expenditure to ensure that sufficient school places are available for their own residents will continue to be recognised in the allocation of borrowing authority for such expenditure.

The authority's schools have been popular with out-borough parents for a number of years. It is for the authority to decide whether its current level of provision remains appropriate. I understand that it put forward a bid for capital cover for a new secondary school in 1992–93, but withdrew the bid before we had considered it.

It was timely and right for my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst to bring this important subject to the House today. I give him my assurance that I am very much seized of its importance and of the widespread concern among parents, especially in Bromley, but also in other authorities. I assure my hon. Friends that I will continue to give the matter thought. I have not closed my mind to the possibility of making some of the changes that my hon. Friends suggested. I ask them and the parents involved not to be too—

The motion having been made after half-past Two o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at one minute past Three o'clock.