Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)

I have done slightly better this time than with the last set of Government amendments.

The amendments add to the provisions inschedule 4, which revises schedule 22 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which protects public investment in school land where it is owned by the governing body, foundation body and trustees of foundation, voluntary and foundation special schools—in simple terms, schools that own their assets. It is essential that public investment in schools should be protected. Local authorities have that responsibility where they own the assets of the school.

There has been some scaremongering to the effect that our encouragement of schools to benefit from owning their assets will mean not only the transfer of those assets from local authority ownership to school ownership, but the risk of permanent loss to the public sector. That is emphatically not the case with our proposals. Schedule 4 provides proper safeguards for publicly funded land held by governing bodies, foundation bodies and trustees of maintained schools. Those safeguards, which we touched on in relation to previous amendments, cover the disposal and transfer of publicly funded non-playing field school land and the situation where schools are discontinued.

Local authorities can object to disposal proposals for such land and to reinvestment proposals for proceeds, and can claim a share of the proceeds. They can also ask for the transfer of publicly funded land, if it is surplus to the school’s needs, for use by another school or in the delivery of children’s services. In all cases in which there is not local agreement, schedule 4 empowers the schools adjudicator to make the determination, having regard to guidance that the Secretary of State issues.

The main purpose of the amendments is to bring publicly funded land held by the trustees of voluntary aided schools within the disposal, transfer and discontinuance provisions of the schedule. Government capital support for voluntary aided schools is paid as capital grant by the Secretary of State under paragraph 5 of schedule 3 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. By including land funded in that way in the definition of publicly funded land, we bring voluntary aided schools in line with other schools or trusts that own their own assets.

I emphasise that we are not seeking to sequester in any way the assets of voluntary aided schools or their trustees. The amendments will affect only land that is acquired or enhanced by capital grant from the Secretary of State after 1 April 2007. The measures will  not be retrospective: they apply to land in respect of which public money is provided after that date. Further, they require that the Secretary of State give notice within six months of making the grant that these provisions apply. We do not seek to stop schools, trustees or foundations disposing of their own surplus land, or to give local authorities any claim on such land.

We are including voluntary aided schools now because there have been significant changes in capital funding of such schools since schedule 22 was brought into force in 1998. There is much greater Government investment in schools: from less than £700 million in 1996-97 that investment will increase to more than£8 billion by 2010-11. The voluntary aided sector continues to get its fair share of that money. In addition to the huge overall increase in public investment in schools, the proportion of Government investment in voluntary aided schools has increased over the years and, from 2002, was raised to 90 per cent.—in other words, voluntary aided schools must now contribute only 10 per cent. of their building costs. Recently, the Secretary of State decided that, because of the scale and targeting of the “building schools for the future” programme, she would, exceptionally, fund voluntary aided school investment through that programme at 100 per cent. It is important to ensure that that unprecedented public investment in the assets of voluntary schools is recognised and protected. We have had discussions with the Church of England and Roman Catholic bodies representing the interests of the great majority of voluntary schools, and have agreed with them that the changes are right.

Unless hon. Members press me hard on these issues, I do not think that it would be useful to go through in detail the many other, mainly technical amendments. The amendments add further protection for publicly funded school land, and I am therefore pleased to propose them.

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