John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 91, in clause 41, page 29, line 25, at end insert—

‘(1A) In section 89 of SSFA 1998 (procedure for determining admissions arrangements) after subsection (3) insert—

“(3A) The requirement to consult under subsections (2) and (3) shall not apply where an admissions authority, prior to determining its admission arrangements, decides to make no substantive alterations to its admissions arrangements.”.'.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 50, in clause 41, page 30, line 2, leave out ‘a prescribed number of' and insert ‘the two'.

Amendment No. 51, in clause 41, page 31, line 2, leave out ‘prescribed number of' and insert ‘the two'.

Clause stand part.

New clause 10—Alteration of Admission Arrangements—

‘(1) A maintained school shall have complete freedom to alter its admission arrangements as it sees fit.

(2) Section 89 of SSFA 1998 shall cease to have effect.'.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

I know that the Committee is keen to make progress. The hon. Member for Brent, East has complained that on occasions, its members have been loquacious—

Mr. Chaytorindicated assent.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

And none more so than the hon. Gentleman. So I shall speak briefly.

Clause 41 locks schools into a three-year contract with their chosen admissions system. Two years would be more flexible, allowing schools to tailor their admissions system over a reduced period. The White Paper, which has become something of a bible for Opposition Members, says:

“No one approach towards admissions will work in all circumstances. This is why we want to ensure that all self-governing schools (Foundation, voluntary aided and Trust)”—

for that is what they were then going to be called—

“are free to use the approach to fair admissions that they think will best meet their local circumstances, as long as it is compatible with the Admissions Code. We want them to be able to do so without having to go through a complex and bureaucratic process.”

We, too, want the emphasis to be with the schools. The schools are closest to the needs of the children and, therefore, most able to assess the impact of their admissions arrangements. We feel that the greater flexibility offered in our amendments would be of immense benefit to schools and so improve the Bill.

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

What a pleasant surprise that the hon. Gentleman was so brief.

Fair and open admission arrangements help children to access good-quality schools, while unfair and unclear admission arrangements can increase social segregation and limit parents’ choice of school. Clause 41 therefore builds on the rules in the School Standards and Framework Act to ensure that admission arrangements that are approved as part of a proposal to open a new school or expand a successful or popular school should remain in place for a fixed period. That will also ensure that schools adjudicator determinations on objections to admission arrangements are binding for a fixed period.

As hon. Members will see, the draft regulations that we circulated would prevent further changes in admission arrangements in the two school years following the year in which a change was authorised to a school. That would make for a total of three years in which the arrangements were frozen, but the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings wants to restrict that period to two years. We proposed that the freeze should be for three years, because two years is insufficient time for good practice—whether in new schools or expanding schools, or following an objection to the adjudicator—to become embedded and truly effective.

In defence of the three-year period, I should say that we made it clear in the White Paper that we intended to take the route set out in the Bill. If the White Paper really is the hon. Gentleman’s bible, as he says it is, he will want to support this particular element of it. As it is, his amendments would change it. We should, however, stick with the intention in the White Paper.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

The Minister has been persuasive. The hour is late, and dinner awaits. [Hon. Members: “Where?”] I shall not titillate members of the Committee by describing my dining details. You know them, Mr. Chope, and you are holding them like a secret close to your heart. Suffice it to say that this was a probing amendment. I simply say that the Minister might want to look at the issue again because the admissions situation will be dynamic, particularly for the new and expanding schools that she described, and schools might need to react to changing circumstances with appropriate vigour. That is why we have probed the issue and why we continue to think that the matter could be considered. However, on the basis of the Minister’s persuasive remarks, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.