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1.13 pm
Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and the Minister of State for allowing me to put in my five penn'orth. As my hon. Friend knows, we share the borough of Richmond upon Thames, and my constituency also spans the borough of Kingston upon Thames, which has a similar problem with the Greenwich judgment.
The problem in Richmond upon Thames is--judging by my postbag--mainly in the secondary sector, as all but one of our secondary schools are on the borough's borders. Consequently, 45 per cent. of children in secondary schools in Richmond upon Thames are not Richmond children but from other boroughs, which, as my hon. Friend explained, has caused much ill-feeling among the borough's residents.
If the borough had the money or could find a site to do so, we could move all those schools and plonk them in the centre of the borough. Although doing so would solve the problem, it is not possible.
We could expand our schools, although doing so would be against the wishes of parents and governors, who think that the schools are already large enough. Moreover, if we expanded the schools, more children from out of the borough would come in, as they would still be on the borders, and we would still run the schools nearest to many children in other boroughs.
I have sympathy for parents who are near the borders of a borough with excellent schools. It must be very difficult to live a mile away from a suburban school run
by the borough of Richmond upon Thames, and to be struggling to ensure that one's child receives a good education, when one's own borough is not providing the same education. Nevertheless, we shall have to deal with the problem in the ways suggested by my hon. Friend.
The Greenwich judgment has created an acute problem for some London boroughs, particularly Richmond, and I urge the Minister to consider possible solutions. Within the borough, we have tried everything that we can possibly do. I myself have been a councillor in the borough and have struggled with the problem. Although we have tried, we simply do not know what to do, to be fair to our own children.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on securing this debate on the consequences of the Greenwich judgment, and particularly on the reasonable way in which he addressed the issues. We are always pleased to have solutions proposed to problems as they arise, and I hope that we are a Government who are prepared to consider sensible propositions, from whichever political party they may originate. We want to put children's interests first.
I am pleased also that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) has been able to speak in the debate. We have corresponded on the issue, and--both since she was elected to the House, and for a few years before that, as a locally elected council member--she has shown concern for her constituents, and about the way in which they are affected by the Greenwich judgment.
It might be worth outlining the exact consequences of the Greenwich judgment, as there has been a good deal of confusion about the judgment's meaning in practice. Sometimes, there is a tendency to blame all the difficulties of an admissions procedure on the Greenwich judgment and its consequences.
The judgment was largely a result of the abolition of the Inner London education authority. Many London boroughs were within the ILEA, but they did not have responsibility for education. On the ILEA's abolition, the individual boroughs themselves became local education authorities, which caused some difficulty.
The abolition certainly caused problems in Greenwich and Lewisham. As the two boroughs were within the ILEA, over the years, many children residing in Lewisham went to schools in Greenwich, and many children in Greenwich went to schools in Lewisham. There was much free trade, as there was no local education authority.
On abolition of the ILEA, with education responsibilities being passed down to individual inner London boroughs, the two boroughs themselves became local education authorities. Greenwich decided that it wanted to give overriding priority to children whose parents resided within the Greenwich area, and to establish a boundary based on local authority areas.
In 1989, the Court of Appeal had to decide whether Greenwich's decision should be binding. The decision was that priority should not be given to an applicant solely because he or she resided in a local education authority area. However, the judgment does not mean that schools have to expand to admit out-of-LEA-area applicants. They can simply admit up to their published admissions limit and then refuse applications. Therefore, an admissions authority has the power to cap the number of pupils who may come to a school.
When a school is over-subscribed, the duty to comply with a parent's choice is disapplied and is no longer a priority. Instead, admissions authorities have to use any reasonable criteria to allocate places among applicants. If an admissions authority so wishes, it can give priority to those living closest to a school. That is clearly the case.
There is some confusion on the matter. The Greenwich judgment does not deny local parents a choice of school. It lays down that an admissions authority cannot give priority simply because an applicant resides within an LEA area. It is a question not of locality or proximity, but of an administrative area--the local education authority--which cannot be regarded as giving priority to a particular applicant.
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough):
Do not the Minister's comments fly in the face of the Rotherham judgment--the other judgment that must be considered--which gave a different primacy in admissions policy?
Mr. Byers:
I am not sure that the Rotherham judgment does that. It concerns the expression of an order of preference by individual parents and is not related to where the parent may reside, so the two issues are quite different. The Rotherham judgment will cause a number of problems in certain local education authorities because of the way in which they have traditionally operated their admissions arrangements, but it is sensible to consider that judgment as a separate set of problems, to which we look forward to solutions being offered, as opposed to the problems created by the Greenwich judgment, which are different. The Greenwich judgment still allows proximity to be an issue--a reasonable criterion to be applied--but does not restrict it to residents within a particular LEA area.
We have been considering the implications of the Greenwich judgment in the light of the School Standards and Framework Bill and, in particular, the code of practice on admissions that we shall have to publish as a result of the provisions in the Bill. I am sure that we shall reflect upon some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Twickenham when we draw up the code of practice, which we expect to be able to publish some time early next year. There will be a full debate in the House on the details of the code, because it is subject to agreement by both this House and the House of Lords.
In the interim, guidance will be issued on admissions for September 1999. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hopes to issue that guidance within the next four to six weeks. Once again, it will be for consultation and will provide another opportunity for hon. Members who are concerned about the impact of the Greenwich judgment to make representations.
The Government's priority on school admissions, which will be reflected in the interim guidance, is to enable local education authorities and schools to meet the
preferences of as many parents as is realistically possible, regardless of where the parents happen to live. We have listened carefully to representations on what we can put in the Bill, but we are not convinced of the need to reverse the Greenwich judgment. Indeed, the White Paper, "Excellence in Schools", which we issued last July, referred explicitly to admissions and did not reveal a national ground swell of opinion for changing the impact of that judgment. In many areas, it has opened up opportunities for many parents.
Local education authority planning should support parental preference. Patterns of cross-border movement have become well established, some even predating the Greenwich judgment itself. LEAs should be able to plan school places around those admissions patterns. That does not mean that there should not be proper cross-border co-operation. Our proposed new framework for school admissions will require consultation and the agreement of admissions authorities throughout LEA areas.
I recognise that some parents feel strongly about the effect of the judgment. We heard this morning from the hon. Members for Twickenham and for Richmond Park, who represent Richmond, about the problems and the way in which parents feel the Greenwich judgment is affecting their choice. However, many parents have welcomed the removal of what they saw as an artificial restriction on their choice. On balance, it is preferable to have an open system in which all school applications are considered on an equal basis, rather than one that depends critically on residence within a particular local authority area. To put it bluntly, local authority boundaries should not be given preference over the interests of parents and their children. Under our proposals, those interests will be put first.
By removing a purely administrative criterion, the Greenwich judgment has opened up opportunities for parents and children. For example, it removes a barrier to children going to more distant schools that perhaps have a specialism and could best meet the educational needs of that youngster. Most significantly, in some cases it means that children can go to more local schools, which just happen to be over the road in another LEA area. We must recognise that many schools are situated close to LEA borders. In such situations, it cannot be right for children to be refused a place at their local school simply because they live on the wrong side of a line drawn for purely administrative purposes.
Cross-border movement works both ways. Local education authorities import and export. Bringing down an iron curtain, as a return to the situation before
Greenwich would do, would disfranchise hundreds of parents in many local authority areas. However, the status quo is not good enough. There has to be change because of the flaws in the present system, which have been identified and about which we heard most recently from the hon. Members for Twickenham and for Richmond Park.
The School Standards and Framework Bill provides the opportunity to overcome many of the difficulties at present being experienced. We shall give an additional responsibility to individual LEAs to plan the places in their locality, devolving power to local levels so that they can more readily respond to the needs of local people, and parents in particular. The proposals in the Bill will overcome many of the difficulties that exist at present.
The hon. Member for Twickenham referred to funding. Many of us have real concerns--we can hear parents or perhaps grandparents on the doorstep, asking, "Why am I paying more in my council tax bills when we are providing education for children across the border in authorities with lower bills?" That is an important point and one that we should not ignore. It would not be right to go back to the days of mandatory recoupment, when there was a paperchase and local authorities invested literally thousands of pounds to chase up and identify where a child had gone for his or her education. That would not be an efficient use of public money.
It is best to deal with the problem through the standard spending assessment system. We are in the middle of a wide-ranging review of education SSAs. Most of us recognise that the present system is flawed and needs to change generally. If LEAs feel that particular difficulties are being caused by the Greenwich judgment and have specific proposals for changing the education SSA formula in some way, I should be happy to consider such suggestions alongside the other options for change that we are considering.
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