My Lords, Clause 53 covers the role of schools in general and academies in particular in relation to pupil place planning. As we know, in the vast Majority of cases, academies co-operate and fulfil their role in helping the local authority to meet its sufficiency duties, as the Bill says, so far as is reasonable. Clause 54 gives the local authority new powers to direct admission of individual pupils, despite the fact that those powers already exist for the Secretary of State to use within the funding agreement for all academies.

The policy notes say, slightly quaintly:

“Schools and local authorities’ interests may not always be aligned, and they are not expected to agree on all admissions and place planning matters. However, it is expected that they will behave reasonably and collaboratively, for example, considering the other party’s views, being willing to meet and discuss differences, and sharing information in a timely manner”.

All this is fine, but presumably the point of the clause is to get quicker decisions and to address a problem of academies apparently unreasonably refusing to accept these pupils. But where is the evidence that that is true? In the academic year 2023-24, there were just under 11,000 exclusions. Looking at the data on the department’s website for exclusions and suspensions, including repeat suspensions, one sees incredible differences, in the rates of permanent exclusion in particular, even in neighbouring local authorities. This is true for local authorities where almost all the secondaries are academies and for those where there are predominantly maintained schools.

I understand that, with 85% of exclusions happening in secondary schools and with the vast majority of secondary schools being academies, we need to ensure that those pupils who can continue in mainstream schools do so and that those who cannot are placed in high-quality alternative provision. However, I have been unable to find the data on the number of pupils both where an academy has refused to accept them and where the Secretary of State has required the academy to do so. It is important that we understand both these figures, the first to give a sense of the scale of the issue and the second to quantify how many pupils are impacted by what might be defined as “unreasonable refusal” on the part of the academy. If the Minister does not have that data with her today, could she write to me with it? Ideally, we would also want to know how stable the placements of these pupils are and how many are excluded again.

Even without this data, we are worried about the principle of overriding the funding agreement powers, which we discussed in earlier groups, and about the potential or real conflict of interest of the local authority both running schools and having the power to place more challenging children in particular schools. My Amendment 452ZA seeks to get clarity that the legal status of the school will not have any bearing on where a child is placed. The Minister will be aware that concerns were expressed in evidence given to the Public Bill Committee in the other place around having large numbers of children who perhaps have already moved schools several times and been excluded—my noble friend Lady Spielman just gave the example of a third of children in year 7. What impact does that have on the perception of that school in the local authority? It is important that this legislation is fair and feels fair, so it is important that the Minister explains how this apparent conflict of interest with the local authority—in my words, as poacher and gamekeeper or, in the words of my noble friend Lord Agnew, as fox and chicken coop—will be resolved.

My noble friend has offered an alternative to Clause 54. Amendment 452 makes it clear that the local authority should be directing an academy to admit children only when the trust has failed to meet its obligations or where there is clear evidence of disadvantage or unfair treatment. It would also require the local authority making the direction to provide evidence and carry out a consultation with the admission authority before doing so. All this seems like common sense to me and brings a sense of balance to the desire to expedite the placement of children who are in need of a school place. I support my noble friend’s amendment 100% and I think it really does address the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, about not in any way interfering with the local authority’s duties.

My noble friend Lord Agnew has also highlighted some of the potential problems with Clause 55, which gives the local authority the power to direct admission of an individual child. I know the Government have argued that this is no real change in academy freedoms but simply a transfer of power from the Secretary of State to the local authority, but this is happening in the context of mainstream schools being asked to take children who, arguably, should be in either specialist or alternative provision. Of course they need certainty about where they will be educated, but the pressures to be inclusive need to be weighed against the needs of the other children in a classroom.

Clause 56 introduces a power for the Schools Adjudicator to determine school admission numbers as a result of upholding an objection or referral. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill say that

“the government intends to amend these regulations to enable local authorities to also submit an objection where the admission number has been increased or maintained at the same level as the previous year”.

Currently, the Schools Adjudicator can consider objections only where the admission authority has decreased its public published admission numbers—PAN. The change presented by the Government will mean that the adjudicator can consider objections where a school is seeking to retain or increase its pupil numbers, and the adjudicator’s decision will determine the PAN, which the school must adopt. We think this clause needs rethinking, and my amendments offer the Government different ways of improving on it, as well as arguing that Clause 56 should not stand part of the Bill.

The Government’s impact assessment is clear that they want local authorities

“to have more influence over the PANs for schools in their area”.

This is happening at a time when it is well known that pupil numbers are falling, particularly in London. The impact assessment also says that

“this would include scenarios where ... a school’s PAN is set at a level which creates viability issues for another local school”.

This point was reinforced by Rachael Wardell, the new president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, in an interview with Schools Week in April, when she said that schools needed to be

“where the children are. So it’s not helpful to have one particular school of any type expand beyond its local community in a way that causes lots of children to seek to travel”.

She went on:

“It’s better to invest resource and attention in improving the school where it is to serve the community that it’s based in”.

I understand the pressure on a local authority when a school becomes unviable and potentially has to close—I spent many hours deliberating these things when I was in the department. However, we cannot allow a situation where good schools are forced to reduce in size to protect a less popular and usually underperforming school. This damages the opportunities for children and cuts across parental choice. To quote the Government again:

“If a school is required to lower their PAN, some pupils who would have otherwise been admitted will be unable to attend the school. This will negatively impact on parental preference, especially if the school was the parent’s first choice”.

My Amendments 453A and 457A seek to ensure, first, that the adjudicator takes into account the performance and popularity of the school, and, secondly, that the adjudicator can receive objections only in relation to cuts in PAN. Amendment 457B would allow high-performing schools to increase their PAN. To be clear, we are not wedded to the exact educational metrics in that amendment, but we think that there is an important point of principle at stake here.

Amendment 453B would remove the regulation-making powers in the Bill. As ever, we would like to limit the regulation-making powers in legislation, and I am not convinced that the criteria that the adjudicator will use to make a determination will change so frequently. Can the Minister explain why the Government need this flexibility? Could some of the criteria not be put in the Bill, as was done in relation to the definition of full-time education in an earlier clause?

There are real concerns about the role of the adjudicator in this context. Amendment 454, in the name of my noble friend Lord Agnew, would give admissions authorities the right to appeal. Surely this is a sensible addition.

To be clear, unless the Government accept at least my Amendment 457B, they are saying that they are prioritising the financial stability of an underperforming school over quality of education and parental choice—and, as my noble friend Lady Spielman said, potentially the safety of other pupils. We on these Benches are clear that this is the wrong choice.

I will speak briefly to my Amendment 502YC. If the Minister is wondering why this amendment is in this group, it is because I overlooked that it should have been in an earlier group, for which I apologise to the Committee. This amendment seeks to implement part of the Education Act 2002 that was passed under the previous Labour Government. For reasons that I do not fully understand, this section was never implemented, but it goes to the heart of the issue about how we create a self-improving school system. I hope that the Minister will take the amendment in the spirit that it is intended and not spend any time pointing out how definitions and inspection regimes have changed over time.

We want to create a self-improving system; a system for our schools that has new creative and intellectual energy, that is curious and wants to learn, that respects and listens to the evidence and that feels it has the agency to make change and the accountability to drive improvement. My amendment would achieve the Government’s goal of consistency in the way in which academies and maintained schools are treated, but would give the same freedoms to both high-performing academies and high-performing maintained schools. I think I am right in saying that this is the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, when she was Secretary of State, and my amendment gives the Government the chance to complete her work.

It would achieve that goal by increasing autonomy, rather than increasing central control. Our nation and our Government face a huge challenge in improving public services, and I urge the Minister to consider this carefully. Education was the area that saw the greatest improvements under the previous Government, and where the autonomy and accountability principle was tested at scale. Not every trust has used its freedoms at all and not every trust used them well, but the most successful trusts, particularly for disadvantaged children, did not just use those freedoms well but used them brilliantly. Our accountability systems have developed to address those that did not. Why would not the Government want to see more of this? At a time when we need to see the same outburst of creativity and effective practice in relation to special educational needs and disabilities, for example, this is surely an obvious choice.

If the Government reject my amendment, which would simply implement their own party’s legislation, we will all be left thinking that we should judge the Government by what they do and not by what they say. What do all the warm words about academies mean in reality if the actions of the Government go in the opposite direction? This is an acid test of their vision. I support the amendments in my name in this group and oppose Clause 56 standing part of the Bill.