Clause 59
Education Bill
10:30 am
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West, Labour)
The clause consolidates and extends the law on land occupied by academies. Together with schedule 13, it gives the Secretary of State additional powers to transfer publicly funded land to academies. Will the Minister tell us the intentions behind extending the Secretary of State’s powers in this respect? What evidence does he have to demonstrate that such powers are needed? What assessment has he made of their impact? Will he confirm to the Committee whether he intends that the powers will relate to the transfer of the publicly funded land of maintained schools to free schools?
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness, Conservative)
Under the clause and schedule 13, school land and property that become vacant as a result of amalgamation, closure and other reorganisations of school facilities may be forfeited to the Secretary of State rather than remaining under the ownership of a local authority. I represent a largely rural constituency with a greater than average number of schools for its population, including a number of small Victorian primary schools, many of which have fewer than 60 pupils on roll. I am extremely concerned about the provision. Many local authorities rely heavily on the receipts from the disposal of surplus accommodation and land to fund capital improvements in their area.
Areas such as the East Riding of Yorkshire received no money—absolutely nothing—under the wasteful, bureaucratic and outrageously unfair Building Schools for the Future programme. East Riding, along with Cornwall, has the greatest backlog of maintenance and building need. The cost of addressing the deficits and inadequacies of school accommodation and facilities in the East Riding of Yorkshire has been conservatively estimated at £491 million. Between 2008-09 and 2010-11, the council had on average less than £21 million a year for capital expenditure on schools. The sum available for 2011-12 is £10 million. We therefore have £10 million available for capital this year, thanks to the financial wasteland left behind by the previous Administration, versus £491 million of requirements.
My concern arises because excellent local authorities such as East Riding have worked creatively and innovatively to use capital receipts and to help put nurseries and junior schools together to form primary schools. They basically found ways of using every possible receipt they could to deliver higher quality services. Despite their best efforts, however, they are still seriously behind. Wilberfoss primary school brought in £364,000 and Bridlington lower school brought in £2.4 million. In each case, those moneys were repurposed and reused to provide better and more appropriate facilities for local children.
At a time when local authority funding is under significant pressure, we should ensure that schools have the flexibility to use surplus assets to improve what, in many cases, is not an acceptable situation. Will the Minister assure us that such points have been considered and that they will be factored into the implementation policy?
Richard Fuller (Bedford, Conservative)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee, who made some strong, general points. I have two precise questions about the transfer of land for the establishment of academies, which relate to local authorities and decision rights in federations of schools if one of those schools will have its land and buildings transferred to create an academy. In such circumstances, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for that to take place? If a request to the Secretary of State is made solely by a local authority without the support of the federation, is that necessary and sufficient to enable a transfer of land and buildings to take place? Alternatively, are there circumstances in which the transfer may happen at the request of a federation without the support of the local authority? On my reading of the Bill, both those circumstances would be sufficient to enable the Secretary of State to facilitate a transfer of land and buildings, so I would appreciate it if the Minister would answer my questions, either in this debate or at some other time.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Lady. I wish her a happy birthday. It is good to see that, on such an august occasion, she is taking her responsibilities to the House so seriously and scrutinising proposed legislation in such detail. I am sure that the Minister will feel ready for a specialist subject section of “Mastermind”, and we will be looking to see whether he gets through it without too many passes.
The Chair of the Education Committee asked crucial questions, and he was kind enough to refer to the situation in Cornwall. It is certainly my experience that, in an area similar to his with many small, ageing, rural primary schools, there is pressure and demand for investment. For example, on Friday I visited St Tudy school and St Mabyn school now in a federation under their excellent head, Karen Holmes, at a local leisure complex at which they were displaying their work. They put up a fantastic exhibition for parents and the community, and it was great to see the two schools working effectively in a federation. St Tudy was to be in receipt of money for a rebuild scheme—not under the BSF but a different mechanism—but there were problems with planning. After explorations, the first site identified was judged far too costly to get to the required standard, so the school looked at another site and eventually got planning but, by that time, the clock had been ticking and, unfortunately, the money was lost. The school is therefore looking keenly for the Government’s proposals for targeting capital spending at capacity in areas. The two villages have affordable housing being developed, hopefully expanding the number of younger families, which might give the opportunity to bid for some of the capital.
There is concern that capital that becomes available for improvements from sites surplus to requirement elsewhere should be focused on meeting identified need. The primary school in Camelford, another town in my constituency, has now moved to the site of the Sir James Smith secondary school—a school named after a Conservative MP, which I am sure the Minister is pleased to note. The original primary school site is now surplus to requirements, and there has been a lengthy process of discussion in the community and with the council about its future. It should secure a capital receipt for the local authority, so it will be able to meet the aspirations of the community in other regards, including the council’s existing capital programme.
I am delighted that we are starting to make progress with a new medical centre for Camelford on the site, as well as securing some of the playing fields as open space. I am not sure how well the Minister knows the geography of north Cornwall, but Camelford is a rather hilly little town and there are not that many flat areas where people can engage in sporting activity, so the playing fields are crucial.
The community has therefore been involved with discussing all such issues. I have my frustrations with how long it has taken the Cornwall council property function to reach a conclusion in its negotiations with the primary care trust and so on, and to come forward with a plan for the site, but there has at least been a process with local involvement. Hopefully, the plan will secure the capital that the council needs to meet its commitments but will also secure a site meeting the needs of the local community.
I have some concerns about aspirations for free schools, for example, which might come to fruition in the near future but also might not, possibly causing other things to be delayed or to be influenced in unhelpful ways. So I share the concerns voiced by other Committee members about the provisions. I would hate to see too much power for the Secretary of State to step in and grab chunks of land which might well be used for other purposes in the community and which could provide capital resources to meet the already long list of priorities in local authority areas.
Nick Gibb (Minister of State (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
May I start by making an important point? The schedule does not extend the Secretary of State’s powers. It mostly re-enacts existing provisions, except that ex-academy land is now included.
Finding suitable land is a key hurdle for free school proposals so we want to help overcome that. The schedule is quite long, as a consequence, because we also thought it preferable, in making the change to include ex-academy land, to replace the existing schedule 1 of the Academies Act 2010, rather than introduce a further layer of amendments. Some of the former provisions of schedule 35 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which was added by the Education Act 2002, had already been carried forward into schedule 1, and the remaining provisions are now being carried forward into the schedule. We will therefore repeal schedule 35A as well.
In summary, the schedule re-enacts and amends the existing provisions in respect of school land, in order to give the Secretary of State additional powers to ensure that publicly funded land is available for free schools and to protect land at academies, including free schools, that has been provided or improved at public expense.
There is no doubt that the availability of land is the key impediment to new schools being set up by local groups. We are unapologetic about using powers to make land available for new schools to meet local needs, when that land is no longer needed by existing schools. The Bill contains no powers in respect of wholly private land or land that continues to be needed by schools, but when a governing body, a trust, or a local authority is of the view that publicly funded land can be disposed of, it is reasonable that one of the options considered is that the land be used for a new free school or an existing academy, as those are the institutions that will open up new opportunities for young people to be educated.
The Secretary of State already has powers in schedule 1 to the Academies Act 2010 to make a scheme to transfer local authority land to an academy. Those powers were carried forward from schedule 35A to the Education Act 1996, into which they were inserted by schedule 7 to the Education Act 2002. Schedule 13 to the Bill puts a replacement schedule 1 into the 2010 Act. The Secretary of State also has the power to direct the transfer of publicly funded land at foundation and voluntary schools when the school closes, and the schedule extends that power to situations in which a school or a local authority thinks that publicly funded land is no longer needed for the purposes of a foundation or voluntary school. Before a school or a local authority can dispose of the land, it must obtain the consent of the Secretary of State, who may instead direct that the land should continue in educational use for a free school or an academy. In many cases, there might be no viable proposal for a free school in the area, but if such a direction were made the Secretary of State would pay appropriate compensation for any private interest in the land, just as he would if the transfer were directed on the closure of the school. The schedule also applies those protections to land at academies, so that an academy cannot dispose of publicly funded land without the consent of the Secretary of State, who again may direct the transfer of the land to another school—an academy or a maintained school.
On the specific issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness, the Education Committee Chairman, I can reassure him that the clause and the schedule relate to the retention of surplus land for educational purposes, and I hope he approves of that. The phrase “unspecified purposes” has been used in the debate, but the power, which already exists and is being extended slightly to ex-academy land, enables the Secretary of State to use the land only for educational purposes. The power will be used only when a school converts or if there is a suitable free school proposal in the area. All alternative proposals will be considered before a decision is made, and in many cases it is likely that the land will continue to be disposed of by local authorities for the purposes that my hon. Friend suggests, of spending capital on repairs and refurbishment.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness, Conservative)
On special schools, often, as in the East Riding of Yorkshire, provision is never quite where we want it or how we want it. Plans are made—which are challenging from a capital point of view—to establish new provision and to restructure existing provision, using capital receipts for that purpose. Could there be a conflict if some parents wanted the existing special school to stay where it was, maintaining what they had and found convenient, even if it was not convenient for most children in the area? It might then be impossible to restructure special school provision in that area.
Nick Gibb (Minister of State (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
I am not sure whether I totally understood my hon. Friend’s point. If the school remains on the site, it will not be regarded as surplus land. If it continues to be used for a special school, the powers will not be invoked by the Secretary of State.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness, Conservative)
If it were proposed to close an existing special school and develop a new one somewhere else, it would be expected that some people would oppose the change even if, taken in the round, it would be better provision that was better suited to the needs of the area.
Nick Gibb (Minister of State (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
I will come back to my hon. Friend on that point. The basic principle is that where the land that is being proposed to be disposed of is regarded by the local authority as surplus to its requirements, albeit that the local authority is buying land elsewhere, the land that is being disposed of would be subject to these provisions. However, I just want to clarify my own thinking, to ensure that I am right about where it is being done as part of an overall proposal, of swapping one piece of land for another piece of land, and I will come back to him on that point.
I will address some of the other comments about how the Secretary of State will divine when land is no longer needed. We are not trying to take land away from schools. The powers have already existed for 10 years or more and they only apply where a school is about to close or where the land has been clearly identified as not being needed for the school. If a school and local authority do not accept that the land is surplus, these powers would not be applicable.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow, Labour)
That is very helpful. Can the Minister clarify why paragraph 1(2)(c) of schedule 13 says:
“or the Secretary of State thinks it is about to be no longer so used”?
The Minister just said that if local authorities disagree that land is no longer in use they will have the right to veto any powers of the Secretary of State. Can he clarify why that line is in schedule 13 and what the intention behind it is, because it is quite hard to understand why the proviso exists—
“or the Secretary of State thinks it is about to be no longer so used”—
that will allow the Secretary of State to use these powers?
Nick Gibb (Minister of State (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
That provision simply replicates existing law; it does not change anything that has been in existence for the last x number of years, including the time that the hon. Lady’s party was in power.
I want to come on to some of the other points raised by hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford asked what the necessary and sufficient grounds are for land to be transferred to a federated school that wishes to convert. The federated school would need to apply to the Secretary of State for an academy order and the local authority would then need to provide the school’s land on a long lease, or the land could be transferred if the school was previously a community school. If the school was a foundation or voluntary school, appropriate arrangements would need to be made with the relevant landowner.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow asked a number of questions, many of which do not relate to the changes that we are making to the Bill. She is, in fact, questioning existing legislation rather than our amendments to the Bill. It would be better if I wrote to her to set out the answers to her questions where they do not relate to issues that are being changed by the Bill.
The hon. Lady also asked what discussions there had been with local authorities about the clause and its implications. The clause extends existing law and makes new provision only in relation to foundation and voluntary schools. We have discussed the land provisions with representatives of local authorities as part of our regular discussions and we made that point very clear.
I want to clarify one thing that I said earlier. I said that these powers do not extend the Secretary of State’s powers. What I meant to say is that they do not extend the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to community school land. That is an important point to make. I think that I also referred to schedule 25, when I should have referred to schedule 35A. I just want to ensure that the record is absolutely correct.
I hope that I have addressed all the points that have been raised.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow, Labour)
The Minister will not be surprised to know that I am very concerned that he does not know the answer to a number of my questions. The particular issue that really troubles many of us is whether he can rule out the notion that land can only be disposed of for the purposes of free schools or academies, so that where there might be a maintained school that would benefit from land, such as the school described by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, such a scenario would not be acceptable any more under the Bill. Perhaps the Minister can do things the other way round—if he does not know what the provision is for, can he rule out what it is not for?
Nick Gibb (Minister of State (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
Again, the hon. Lady refers to previous legislation, which existed under the Labour Government. I know that she is new to the House, but her points relate to existing legislation. I have offered to write to her and I am happy to provide her with a full explanation of the legislation that was passed by the previous Government.
The essential issue is that such matters will be dealt with case by case. Broadly, the provisions enable the Secretary of State to prevent a sale of land for cash where there are alternative provisions—where that land could be used for educational purposes. The Government are maintaining and continuing that position with the consolidation of the provisions in new schedule 1 to the Academies Act 2010. We are extending the provisions, however, to include former academies’ land.
To answer the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall about whether land is being tied up unnecessarily, I should say that land will be transferred to a free school only when the school is ready to proceed. It will not be held by the Secretary of State to await a future free school in the area, so we will not be creating a supermarket land bank that we can tap into when someone wishes to expand a free school in a certain area.
I think that I have covered all the points made by hon. Members and I have corrected one or two points on the name of the schedule. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members will accept the clause.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West, Labour)
It has been an interesting debate. As is the convention, the Minister will copy to the Committee his letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, and we look forward to that. May I, too, take the opportunity to wish her a happy birthday? I caution the Minister against saying that she is new to the House. Ministers usually use that phrase when they are thinking, “I have absolutely no idea of the answer to the questions that she is asking, but perhaps if I patronise her a bit, I might get away with not answering them.” That is not something that we should do to someone on their birthday. I am sure that he will be prompt in answering her letters. [ Interruption. ] It is not his birthday, so I can be rude to the Parliamentary Private Secretary—I would not be rude if it was. Perhaps he will reply to my hon. Friend today and include a birthday card with his letter.
We have had a wide-ranging debate. The Minister has made it clear that despite the incredibly long schedule that is attached to the clause, he is making a small change, which relates only to ex-academy land. In performing our textual exegesis of his letter to answer my hon. Friend’s questions, we will check that that is so. I do not intend, however, to press the matter to a vote.