Clause 13 - Power of Secretary of State and National Assembly for Wales to give financial assistance for purposes related to education or childcare
Education Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
Amendments Nos. 139 and 140 have the same broad objective as that of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), but instead of requiring post hoc approval, they require more notice from the Secretary of State in advance of the terms under which he will offer assistance.
One of the great difficulties that people have in dealing with Departments is that they feel that they are operating in a fog of uncertainty. That fog is not lifted by some elements of the Bill. Indeed, this clause is one of the foggiest of all, because it is so broadly drawn. The Secretary of State should set out by order what the schemes are, so that they could be considered in more detail. Any scheme should set out criteria: how financial assistance is applied for, the means by which applications can be made and the criteria against which allocations of assistance will be made. I accept that that reduces the Secretary of State's discretion, but it also reduces his capacity to behave arbitrarily. It requires him to be clear about his objectives and to set out testable criteria for judging whether they have been achieved. That is a matter of good management. It certainly would be in the private sector, and I see no reason why it should not be a matter of good governance in the public sector.
The amendments would not put the Secretary of State in a straitjacket. They are designed to assist those seeking support from the Secretary of State, and to ensure that he does not devise a scheme so carefully that it will only suit one applicant. If the criteria for a scheme must be set out in advance, the Secretary of State can entertain any number of applicants who come forward on a fair, free and equal basis, rather than dream up a scheme and hand over money to the applicant for whom the scheme may have been dreamt up in the first place.