Clause 20
Education and Inspections Bill
1:00 pm
Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)
As both hon. Members who have spoken on the amendments have accepted, both amendments would insert new requirements into the process of a school acquiring a trust, and arguably make it harder for a school to acquire a trust. I understand that the hon. Member for Brent, East in seeking reassurance through at least one of the amendments, and I hope to be able to provide that. However, in respect of the proposed requirement for a two-thirds majority, we have made it clear that although the option of acquiring a trust will be available to all schools, no school will be forced to acquire a trust. We believe that that decision should be for the individual school, which is why in the Bill we have taken the permissive and enabling approach that we discussed this morning.
Acquiring a trust should be a reasonably straightforward process. It is for the governing body of each school to decide whether it wants to publish proposals to acquire a trust, and it should normally be for the governing body to decide the proposals. I have provided for the Committee the guidance that will spell out the process of consultation and local accountability that we would expect to be gone through. That will ensure that there is scrutiny of and accountability for the proposals. In the end, however, the most important safeguard of the appropriateness of trusts will be the common sense of parents and other stakeholders in the local community, as well as the governing body.