David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 450, in clause 43, page 32, leave out line 27.

Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 451, in clause 43, page 33, line 1, after ‘that', insert

‘a balanced intake of pupils is achieved, that is'.

No. 94, in clause 43, page 33, line 8, at end insert ‘(1) or'.

No. 217, in clause 43, page 33, line 9, at end insert—

‘(2B) If the admission authority for a maintained school in England is the governing body, the governing body may only make such provision for selection by ability as is mentioned in subsection (1A) with the consent of the local education authority.'.

No. 452, in clause 43, page 33, line 10, leave out from ‘(3),' to end and insert

‘for “subsection (1)” substitute “subsections (1) or (1A)” and add at the end of the subsection “, in Wales or section 17 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 in England”.'.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I want to speak briefly to amendments Nos. 450, 451, 217 and 452—I am conscious of the time pressure, but the clause is an important one. Amendments Nos. 450 and 452 are essentially technical amendments that would clarify the operation of banding arrangements in England and Wales. They are so technical that I am not sure I can explain precisely how they would clarify the arrangements, but my assistant assures me that they will, and it would be helpful if the Minister could say whether and how he envisages arrangements will vary between England and Wales.

Amendment No. 451 calls for specific reference to the importance of balanced intakes as a definition of the purpose of banding, and amendment No. 217 would require the local authority to agree any new banding arrangements. The advantage of clause 43 is that it builds on the current banding arrangements in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which permit schools to band from within the group of pupils making applications to the school. It has generally been agreed that that is a very restrictive form of banding, because the group is self-selecting. Certain schools have an intake or applicant group of exceptionally high ability, and therefore banding within that high-ability level does not necessarily give a broad distribution of pupils, because of the self-selective nature of the intake.

In clause 43 we have three new forms of banding, two of which will be generally welcome. I have some queries about one of them. First, schools will now be able to band in accordance with the national average distribution of ability. Secondly, they will be able to band in accordance with the distribution of ability within the local authority in which they are situated. Thirdly, they will be able to band in accordance with the distribution of ability of the applicants to their own school and one other school. It remains to be seen why it is only one other school and what the implications will be for the nature of the intake of the school that chooses to band.

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

As I understand the hon. Gentleman’s amendment and argument, he is suggesting that banding should be effectively separated from applications. That would perhaps lead to the  circumstance where the admission rate for a school bears no relation to the choice of local people about that school. Is that possible in practical terms?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

It is in the nature of banding that it implies some limitations on the exercise of pure parental choice. It goes without saying.

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

The hon. Gentleman misses my first point. The banding arrangements in the clause, which he describes as better than the 1998 Act, link banding to applications, so the school is making a judgment about applicants and people who have already expressed a choice. What the hon. Gentleman is describing, as I understand it, is banding that is dissociated from such choice. That might lead to an extraordinary situation in which a school was obliged to band before it knew who wanted to go to the school, and it might not be able to draw people from the relevant bands if they did not exercise the choice that the school hoped they would.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I think that I understand the point now, but it relates to the provisions in clause 43. Under the arrangements that I am describing the situation that the hon. Gentleman described would not arise because banding would be used only as an over-subscription criterion, so pupils would already have made their application to the school before the banding arrangements were brought into play. I do not think that his point is valid for that reason.

The issues to which I wish to draw attention are as follows, starting with amendment No. 217. If a number of schools within a local authority area are allowed to band according to any of the three criteria or methods in clause 43, together with the method that still applies in the 1998 Act—that is, banding from within the pupils applying to the school—there is inevitably the possibility of a large number of schools within the same local authority area choosing different banding systems. I question whether this is going to lead to efficiency in the administration of admissions or to a multiplicity of different tests being taken by pupils. It is a legitimate criticism of our system already that pupils here are tested to a far greater extent than those in many other countries. The banding arrangements described here would be likely to result in even more tests being taken by children as part of the process of primary to secondary transfer.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I wonder what thoughts the hon. Gentleman hasabout children with special educational needs and whether he thinksthat banding should apply to them also.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I see no reason why it should not. The bandingwould apply to all children.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that once academiesthat use the fair banding system have completed their allocation ofchildren with special educational needs by selecting the ones that theywant to take, no more children with special needs can go  there? The banding allocation has been fulfilled. That means that theremainder of the community of maintained schools has to take far morechildren with special needs than thoseacademies.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I think that that is a question for the Ministerto answer. His earlier reply on the proportion of children with SEN,with or without statements, and the proportion who get free schoolmeals, probably answers the hon. Lady’squestion.

There areproblems inherent in the clause. It raises the prospect of a largenumber of schools within a local authority area choosing differentmethods of banding. That would mean children who wish to apply to anumber of schools having to take several different tests.

Neither the clause, the Billnor the skeletal code of school admissions specifies the number ofbands considered to be best practice. I know that the Specialist Schoolsand Academies Trust has either made a statement or distributed acircular to its member schools suggesting that a 10-band system wouldbe the preferred model. That would gain a general consensus amongschools interested in banding, but it is not made clear in the clause.The option is therefore open to schools to adopt a five-band orthree-band system. The arrangements are inclined to lead to greatercomplexity, administrative confusion and an increase in the number oftests that children transferring from primary to secondary schools willhave to take. Many Labour Members would strongly encourage bandingsystems as a means of getting a fairer distribution of intake, butlocal authorities should approve banding systems and have a role inco-ordinating them to iron out the potential administrativeinefficiencies.

AmendmentNo. 451 demands a “balanced intake” of pupils. It isimportant to clarify the nature of intakes. As defined in the clause,banding refers simply to ability, not to other means by which a broadand balanced intake can be achieved. It does not refer to a genderbalance, so it is possible that a school could operate a banding systemand still have gross inequality between boys and girls. That wouldobviously depend on the availability of single-sex education elsewherein the neighbourhood, but it is a possibility. Slightly moreworryingly, a school could operate a banding system and still havegross inequality and a lack of balance in the proportion of childrenfrom different religious or ethnic groups. The concept of balancedintake needs to be put into the Bill, to demonstrate the objective thatthe Government seem to be moving towards: a fairer distribution ofpupils in our schools, not just in terms of academic ability but interms of a wider social mix and a gender, religious and ethnicbalance.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman hasput his arguments clearly. He has moved on quickly from banding byability to admission according to other criteria. How does he proposeto overcome the difficulties that might arise in an area where there isa preponderance of people of one religion or ethnicminority?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

The answer to that question is contained withinthe skeletal code of school  admissions. It continuously stresses the importance of admissionsauthorities using the admissions process to avoid the worst excesses ofsocial and ethnic segregation. The hon. Gentleman and other members ofthe Committee will know that that is not an easy matter. He will alsobe aware of the enormous dangers if we, by default, allow ouradmissions system to make our schools increasingly segregated alongreligious and ethnic lines. I cannot give him an answer. My amendmentsimply flags up the importance of ensuring that our schooling systemavoids becoming more and more segregated. We all know the dangers towhich that canlead.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

Amendment No. 94 looks like a technical draftingpoint, but it seeks to make an important point on the power of a localauthority, as the admission authority for a maintained school, over thequestion of whether a school adopts a banding arrangement. Clause43(1)(b), which inserts proposed new subsection (1A) into the SchoolsStandards and Framework Act 1998, sets out the three types of bandingthat a school can adopt. Those are based on the ability range of theapplicants, the current type of ability selection permitted by law, orthe two new ones: the ability range of the local authority area and theability range across the age group in England as a whole.

Clause 43(1)(d) insertsproposed new subsection (2A) into section 101 of the 1998 Act. It saysthat where local authorities are the admission authority, the authoritycan introduce banding only if the school’s governing bodyagrees. It seems that the requirement applies only to the arrangementsin proposed new subsection (1A) and not to arrangements on the statutebook in section 101. The purpose of the amendment is to maintain thatsafeguard for the section as a whole so that all three types of bandingarrangement will require the authority of the governing body and cannottherefore be imposed on a school by the localauthority.

I suspectthat the amendment may not be necessary, but I want to put on therecord how important it is to ensure that local authorities cannotimpose a banding arrangement of any sort on a school without theexpress approval of the governing body. On banding in general, theGovernment should tread that route with extreme caution. It is born outof the left’s obsession with the intake of a school and thenotion that the quality of a school is determined by its intake ratherthan by the quality of its teaching and leadership.

Results will in part bedetermined by the intake, but whether children achieve their fullpotential and emerge from the school as fully educated as their abilityallows will depend absolutely on the quality of the teaching, the headteacher and the ethos of the school. Most parents simply want to beable to send their children to the local school and they want the localschool to be good. That aim should be the objective of policy and notsome complex form of bussing arrangements, where a bright child isdenied access to her local school because the quota for her abilityrange has already been filled, forcing her to spend an hour or more aday travelling travel across town, away from her friends, to anotherschool that is short on her ability group.

That bears all the hallmarks ofthe worst social engineering experiments of the 1960s and ’70s,which is presumably why it is so popular with Lord Hattersley. He wrotein The Guardian on 10 October2005:

“The ideaof ‘banding’ was pioneered by the ILEA... At thetime it was derided as a futile socialist attempt to make non-selectivesecondary schools work. The new scheme goes far further than anythingthat the London Labour party ever dared tosuggest.”

He went on tosay:

“A‘banding’ system diminishes prospects of parentalchoice.”

According to theregulatory impact assessment, since 1999 just 15 secondary schools havepublished proposals to introduce banding, 13 of which were approved,with two rejected. I hope that we shall not see many more schools goingdown that route, and that head teachers will focus on raising standardswithin their schools rather than concern themselves with intake andsocialengineering.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

I have some sympathy with the view that there arecertain situations in which social segregation is so considerable andunhealthy that action needs to be taken to break it down. However, I amuneasy with the concept of banding and with the idea of moving childrenover wide distances, often away from their community. I am far moresympathetic to the idea of lotteries. I am happy for local authoritiesto have freedom to experiment with different methods and to see howthey work, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that if we are to usebanding, it needs to be used across a wide area. If schools are allowedto use banding in small areas, middle-class schools could easily removethe ability of other schools to join in the system, and socialsegregation could beworsened.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

I want to refer to the effects of banding onchildren’s special educational needs, and I shall quote somefigures from schools that operate a banding policy. Obviously, they arecity academies, and the effect of the banding policy on children withspecial needs is that such children have to travel out of the boroughto receive their education. In Southwark, the academy at Peckham takeschildren with special needs at a level of 28.7 per cent.—aboveits banding requirement of 18 per cent—but the local maintainedschool, Kingsdale secondary, takes 65.6 per cent. and Bacon’scollege takes 33.87 per cent. So the maintained schools take far morechildren with special needs than academies, and I could list academyafter academy—though I am sure you do not want me to,Mr. Cook—for which the figures stack up the same. That isbecause of the banding system. Academies do not have to take childrenwith special educational needs. When they do, and once their quota isfilled, the children have to travel further. From the point of view ofsuch children, I oppose banding. They suffer more than mosteducationally, and banding would make thatworse.

Schools shouldreflect the community in which they are based, and not be sociallyengineered to look the way a political party wants them to look. TheConservative Administration did things wrong with education, as I amsure that this Government are doing now and as every Government will infuture, but we should plan education on a long-term basis, rather  than on the basis of short-term ideology. We should think about how itwill look in 20 or 40 years’ time for the children of thefuture. Banding will make things worse for children with specialeducationalneeds.

James Clappison (Hertsmere, Conservative)

We all recognise that the issue is difficult,and I recognise the care and thought that the hon. Member for Bury,North has given to it, but I agree strongly with the reservationsexpressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis andLittlehampton (Mr. Gibb). Applying banding too rigidly and putting toomuch emphasis on it carries real dangers for parents and children. Twoexamples spring to mind. First, there is the danger of thinking thatthe only way to improve a school is to change its intake, as the hon.Gentleman implied, rather than examine the quality of leadership andteaching, the school’s ethos and everything else that makes agood school. There is a danger that rigid, mechanistic application ofbanding doctrines causes those steps to beoverlooked.

I paytribute Wroxham primary school in my constituency, which I visitedrecently. Not that long ago, and with exactly the same intake, it wasmoving in the wrong direction, but with different leadership anddifferent teaching it has achieved excellent results which are nearlythe best in Hertfordshire. It has, I understand, had advisers from No.10 beating a path to it to see what can be done to turn a schoolaround. As I said, that was with no change whatever to thatschool’s intake. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides ofthe House know of similar examples. If the first thing we looked at wasa school’s intake, we would not draw lessons from it, so we needto consider other things first.

The second problem with bandingthat springs to mind—in particular the wider from of bandingadvocated by the hon. Gentleman, which is not just banding by abilitybut according to religion, membership of ethnic groups and otherfactors—is that parents simply will not go along with it. Theywill go to ever more elaborate and extreme measures to avoid therigidities of banding being imposed on them. They have gone to theextent of moving to different areas and taking the extreme step ofeither they or their children having to travel substantial distances togo to school. That is simply not the way to get parents into schools.The way to attract parents to schools is to provide good schools withgood teaching and good leadership. That is what parents are lookingfor, and that is what will get them beating a path to the door of theschool.

There areadditional dangers from the social segregation that the hon. Gentlemanadvocates. It could in some cases lead to even more movement away fromurban centres to more development in the countryside. It is a dangerouspath to go down, and is too rigid an approach. It could be entirelycounter-productive and have the opposite result of what is planned. Ihave a distaste for social engineering, and would much rather providepeople with opportunities and good services in the firstplace.

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

In responding to these interesting amendments, Ihope that it will help if I make a few initial comments about theclause as a whole, to put it into context.

Clause 43 enacts our WhitePaper commitment to make pupil banding easier to implement and to giveadmission authorities the flexibility to adopt the most appropriate form of banding for their circumstances. To right a misunderstandingthat has been referred to in Lord Hattersley’s article, bandingis by no means going to be compulsory. The provision enables individualschools to band, or provides for two or more schools to adopt jointbanding arrangements. In addition, it enables them to band and securean intake that is representative of the range of abilities of allapplicants to the school, or an intake that reflects the local area orthe national ability profile. Provision in the 1998 Act already permitsadmission authorities for schools to introduce banding of the firstkind that I referred to, and we are looking to extend that.

Amendment No. 94 proposes thatwhere the admission authority for a school is a local authority, itshould be required to consult governing bodies before introducingbanding to admission arrangements. However, local authorities mustalready consult the governing bodies of community and voluntarycontrolled schools before making any changes to a school’sadmission arrangements. So, if the local authority wishes to introducebanding on the basis of applications made for an individual schoolalone, it would, under current legislation, have to consult thatschool’s governing body. We therefore believe that the amendmentisunnecessary.

Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)

I know of two comprehensive schools in inner west London that are very similar. One uses banding and the other does not. There is at least a suspicion that the school that uses banding may do so to increase the academic excellence of pupils entering the school, because it can work out how clever its pupils are before it offers them a place. There is at least the risk that banding can be criticised not just because of social engineering, but because it makes schools less comprehensive.

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

We have certainly been mindful of that risk, which is why we are seeking to introduce fair banding, so that it reflects the whole ability range. We have set out elsewhere in the Bill that there will be no new selection by ability. Once the ability assessment has been made for banding, schools cannot then cream off the best scores of ability within each band. They will have to take evenly, according to the criteria within each band which are set out in the legislation. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman.

Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)

On a point of clarification, after the assessment process, will young people and families know what band they fall into? Will they be given that information or will it be confidential? If it is intended to be confidential how do we ensure that families do not find out that information?

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

I understand that the information is not disclosed but I will reflect on the hon. Lady’s point in  respect of whether safeguards are needed. The substantive point is that the information is not disclosed.

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Does the Minister agree that under the banding system he described, schools will turn into a sort of McDonald’s of education? All schools will perform the same because they will have the same social, academic and special needs intake. There will be a levelling out of schools’ performance throughout the UK. Will not the schools all look the same?

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

I suggest that the hon. Lady visits Greenwich or Lewisham, which are not far from here, where there is banding across the borough, and she will see that there is diversity in the schools. We are offering more flexible banding arrangements to improve choice, which is a key driver in improving standards in schools. That is at the heart of the Bill. It is the opposite of what the hon. Lady might describe as the McDonald’s approach. I am not a great fan of McDonald’s in schools.

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

The Minister gives two suburban examples of Greenwich and Lewisham, both of which I know extremely well as I was brought up in south-east London. What about an area that is less densely populated? Would that mean bussing children over a wide area in order to achieve the mix that has been described, particularly with the addition of the two extra kinds of banding proposed in the Bill?

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

I was born in south-east London but, like the hon. Gentleman, I represent a largely rural constituency and I have asked the same question myself. The reassurance I had, which is logical, is that banding is not compulsory; for example, it would be inappropriate if a school was on an island, as is the case with a school in my constituency. We are considering situations in which schools are over-subscribed, and ensuring, through local determination, that the arrangements are appropriate for such schools. If I am allowed to continue with my comments, I will set out how the structure might work to bring that about.

Although the adoption of the existing form of banding has proved uncontroversial, it is appropriate for governing bodies to have a say in the adoption of new forms of banding, especially as it may alter the profile of the school’s intake and effectively widen its catchment area.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I was slightly concerned about the Minister’s statement that the local authority, as an admission authority, would consult a governing body rather than the governing body having to approve a system of banding, as I thought was the case with the first type of banding. Can the Minister assure me that the governing body will have to approve any system of banding proposed by the local authority and that it is not just a consultation process which can then be overruled?

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

As I shall go on to describe, the use of the admission forum is crucial. The admission forum  will produce an annual report; there will be a consultation process and there is the right of appeal to the schools adjudicator. That provides the safeguards that the hon. Gentleman wants. I shall try to sketch it out a little further as we go on.

I turn now to the helpful amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North. Amendment No. 217 proposes that governing bodies which are their own admission authority—foundation and voluntary aided schools—should have to ask the local authority’s consent before introducing banding. Of course, they should have to consult; they are already required to when considering any change to admission arrangements. We shall make that clear, but we do not agree that a local authority should have a veto on whether schools introduce banding.

I cannot see why the introduction of something that will ensure a more comprehensive intake into voluntary aided or foundation schools would be considered undesirable by the local authority, so that it would need that local authority’s consent. However, as the introduction of banding will come within the annual admissions consultation process that I have just described, local authorities, other schools and the local admission forum will all have the right to lodge an objection with the adjudicator if they disagree with the adoption of banding or with how the admission authority intends to operate it. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that his amendment is unnecessary.

I turn to amendments Nos. 450 and 452. In response to my hon. Friend’s opening comment, I should say that the provisions would make no change to the position in Wales; they apply only to England. The amendments would result in our having to retain the existing position in England—any admission authority wishing to introduce banding has to do so through the formal statutory proposal process.

Statutory proposals must be published when local authorities and governing bodies propose to open, close or expand a school, but we do not think it appropriate to continue to require them to go through that route to introduce banding. As banding constitutes an integral part of a school’s admission arrangements, approval of its introduction sits better within the existing admissions process, which I have described. That gives all schools and local authorities an opportunity to make comments and go to a schools adjudicator if they disagree. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend that the admissions consultation process, like that for statutory proposals, offers plenty of opportunity to discuss and comment on proposals to introduce banding, as well as the right of objection.

Finally, amendment No. 451 would ensure that all banded intakes were “balanced”. I assume that my hon. Friend’s intention is to ensure that no ability group is over-represented in a school that bands its intake. That is unnecessary because the clause already ensures that the intake of a banding school is balanced in that it represents all levels of ability across applicant children, the local authority area or the ability range nationally.

However, my hon. Friend may intend to ensure that a banding school achieves a balanced intake from among its applicant children. It is important that we should allow schools the flexibility to band across the profiles that I have described, as well as across the  ability profiles of applicants. That will, for instance, encourage schools situated in areas of traditionally high academic attainment to send a positive message: that they are there also to serve less able pupils, who might not gain entry if the school simply banded across the ability range of local residents.

However, there is a problem with adding the word “balanced” to that part of the clause. The word would be open to interpretation, which could lead to a conflict of interpretation with other provisions in the clause that require the pupils admitted to be representative of all ability levels.

If it were not disallowed by another part of the clause, a school with five bands could, for instance, achieve a “balanced” intake by admitting a very small minority of its pupils from the highest and lowest ability bands and the bulk of its pupils from the middle range. That would ensure that it did not have to take many pupils of below-average ability, provided that it did not take many pupils from the highest ability group. We want to see an even—I shall not use the word “balanced”—distribution across the ability range. We seek to ensure that schools achieve such an intake by taking abilities across all bands. The amendment could also lead to conflicts of interpretation within the clause, as I have said. I hope that, on that basis, my hon. Friend will not press the amendment.

In response to a couple of other points made, I should say that we will set out in the code that it is good practice for local authorities and admission authorities to choose similar approaches, such as a common test, to banding and testing. The admission forum will consider and facilitate that.

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

The Minister just said that he will state in guidance that local authorities should adopt a similar practice on banding, but in reply to my earlier intervention he made it clear that he shared my concern that if a similar approach were adopted in rural areas, it would lead to the bussing of children across very wide areas. That seems to be a contradiction.

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

I think that the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood me. I was referring to the testing arrangement, on which we will seek guidance so that there is some conformity. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North was concerned about the effect of having a multiplicity of approaches.

On the matter raised by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, a governing body would have to approve new forms of banding. It would be consulted on existing, norm-based banding and could object to the adjudicator.

I hope that I have responded to all the points made in the debate and that, on that basis, hon. Members will not press their amendments.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s responses, and I am afraid that I am not reassured by them, particularly the last. There is a very good proposed new subsection on page 33 that says:

“If the admission authority for a maintained school in England is the local education authority, the authority may only make such provision for selection by ability as is mentioned in subsection (1A) with the consent of the governing body of the school.”

In other words, the three types of banding in proposed new section 101(1A) of the School Standards and Framework Act will require the authority of the governing body.

My concern, which the Minister has confirmed and which led to me to table amendment No. 94, is what will be done about the admission arrangements in section 101(1) of that Act, which allow schools to select applicants from each level of ability. It appears that such banding can still be imposed on a school by a local authority, with the mere safeguard of consultation. We shall therefore press amendmentNo. 94 to a Division. The Government should seriously consider it, because it is an anomaly for existing provisions to allow such imposition to occur when the clear intention of the Bill is that the governing body should give consent.

We are concerned about the notion of banding. It is social engineering, and if allowed to proliferate in the admissions system it could lead to some horrific problems in certain areas of the country. We shall therefore also vote against clause stand part.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification on the points raised in the debate, and particularly for his emphasis on the importance of consultation and the sharing of information. Banding is a sensitive issue, and should not be imposed on any admission authority. Nor should any authority seek to take a decision on banding in isolation.

I do not wish to reopen the debate on the importance of intake compared with other factors in school improvement, but I refer Conservative members of the Committee both to the evidence given to the Education and Skills Committee yesterday by Ofsted on the impact of a school’s intake on its overall chances of improvement and to the written evidence provided by Professor Gorard of York university, who is one of the country’s leading experts in the field. I do not wish to continue that debate, except to say that the debate on the significance of intake has well and truly been won. That is why clause 43 provides banding systems not as something to be imposed but as a useful option.

There are two crucial contradictions in the Conservatives’ arguments. On the one hand they are quick to criticise the intake of certain schools defined as comprehensive as being highly selective by mortgage, but on the other hand, when a means of alleviating that level of selection is introduced, such as banding, they oppose it. Quite frankly, they cannot have it both ways.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

That point is quite easy to address. The reason we said that mortgages were becoming the new school fees is that it highlights the drastic shortage of good school places in this country. The National Audit Office says that 23 per cent. of secondary schools are underperforming—that is the problem. We raised the  issue of application by mortgage and house price in order to highlight the severe shortage of good schools. Increasing the number of good school places should be the objective of every member of the Committee and of the Government.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

Of course, and one of the most effective means of increasing the number of good school places is to address the chronic problem of grotesque inequalities of distribution of able pupils between schools, as the clause attempts to do. However, with regard to the position taken by the Liberal Democrats, I do not understand why they oppose banding on the basis that it may result in certain children travelling further to school, when lotteries, which they support, would have the same effect.

I am not arguing that because banding is in the Bill I therefore welcome it. I do not think that anyone argues that it is a straightforward matter, and it has to be done with regard to local circumstances and with the maximum degree of consensus. The question of balanced intakes will not go away, however. Perhaps the best answer to the Opposition’s concerns is that the code contains provisions stressing that admission authorities that choose to band will not be allowed to select further by ability on the basis of the individual scores of pupils within the band. They will have to use other over-subscription criteria to select between pupils within the band.

I think that that is the key to creating a balanced intake in the broadest sense—one that has regard to the social class background of individual pupils, and to their religious affiliations and ethnic minority origins. Other forms of over-subscription criteria for selecting pupils from within each ability band would be extremely helpful in achieving a broader and more balanced intake.

On parents’ support for banding, we have to accept that it is not a new and revolutionary idea—it has a large measure of support among many schools and local authorities and it has operated in many parts of the country for many years. By and large it has a high level of support where it operates, because most parents accept and understand that a fair distribution of pupils between schools is one of the key mechanisms by which the quality of all schools can be improved and the number of good school places increased.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

Is not the point that banding can often be used as a substitute for genuine improvement in the quality of a school? The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me when he says that there is an issue of how to select within a band when a school is over-subscribed within certain ability ranges. I discussed the Thomas Telford school with the hon. Gentleman and his concern was whether that school, which has fair banding based on national criteria, selects the children in the top niche of each of the nine bands of entry in order to keep up good results. So even if one were to have a universal system of fair banding, the same complaints would come from the same quarters that even that system could be manipulated to create a higher ability intake—that there is no real difference between the qualities of school and their leadership,  and that it is all to do with intake. We will never win the debate on that with the left, which is why we should not go down that route in the first place.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

The issue of banding and the role of pupil distribution between schools is not a substitute for other means of school improvement; it is part of a package of measures for improvement. It does not substitute for quality of leadership—I have argued on many occasions in the Committee and elsewhere that quality of leadership is the key factor, but banding is another of the range of measures that can be applied.

On selection within bands, I refer to the point I made earlier about the provisions in the skeletal code which deal with selection. The skeletal code makes it clear that selection by pupils’ scores within bands will not be permitted, although other over-subscription criteria are permitted.

Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, as it gives me the opportunity to give some clarification on a point made by the hon. Member for Brent, East. If the tests are Qualifications and Curriculum Authority tests, parents will know the results, but if they are taken before 1 March—the date that allocations are made—the results will be known afterwards. At some point, they will be known, so that people will be able to scrutinise whether the code has been properly adhered to.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

That is a very helpful clarification.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I should be grateful if, through the hon. Gentleman, we could get some clarification about whether the pupils themselves will know what band they are in. That seems to be a terrible way of undermining the confidence of children who may be placed in a lower band. It goes against everything on which there is a consensus when it comes to grammar schools and selection—that we are going to tell children that they are in band nine or band one in a fair banding system. I thought that that was against the general ethos of education.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about the whole notion of selection by ability, but let us not go into that at this stage. The answer to his question is that it is entirely a matter between parents and pupils.

I am very grateful for the Minister’s clarification and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.