§ 1. Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has to issue guidance to grant-maintained schools on the question of admission of children permanently excluded from their previous school. [33195]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire)The Secretary of State has no plans to issue such guidance. However, she has stressed in a White Paper entitled "Self-Government for Schools" and in a new circular on school admissions that grant-maintained schools should have the maximum flexibility to shape their admission arrangements to reflect the wishes of local people.
§ Mr. RendelDoes the Minister accept the figures for Berkshire—which I sent to the Secretary of State at the beginning of June—which show that pupils excluded from local education authority schools are not being taken on by grant-maintained schools, but that pupils excluded from grant-maintained schools are being taken on by local education authority schools? Does the Minister accept that, whatever the Government might say about having a level playing field between different types of schools, in practice their policy is that all schools are equal but some are more equal than others?
§ Mr. SquireWhile I have no reason to dispute the figures that the hon. Gentleman has submitted, I dispute the conclusions that he draws from them. Instead of the conspiratorial thesis that the hon. Gentleman puts forward—which reflects the anti-grant-maintained view of the hon. Gentleman and his party—a more prosaic reason is that virtually all grant-maintained schools are over-subscribed and full, and it is logical that more LEA schools accept exclusions than GM schools. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there is power within legislation for an LEA to direct a GM school in specific circumstances to accept a pupil who has no other place.
§ Mr. RoweMy hon. Friend is right to be concerned about children who have been excluded from schools that they might otherwise wish to attend. I refer to children who are kept in schools, under the force of law, but who are getting absolutely nothing out of their education. Would my hon. Friend consider the possibility that such children might be able to take the money that the local education authority is wasting on their education and spend it somewhere else?
§ Mr. SquireMy hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion. As he knows, since April the Government have been consulting on the way in which 14 to 16-year-olds are educated and the other opportunities that are being developed. Schools should be able to find the correct way to educate children, whatever their particular talents. I am happy to look at my hon. Friend's suggestion.