Mr. Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): I beg to move amendment No. 398, in clause 86, page 66, line 21, leave out from ‘authority’ to end of line 24.

It is good to welcome you back to the Chair,Mr. Chope. The clause provides that a magistrates court will be able to take into account non-attendance at a reintegration interview when imposing a penalty order. It also permits regulations to restrict the power to seek a parenting order where the school that a child attends is not in the area or when the child does not reside in the area. The amendment would remove the restriction on seeking a parenting order where the child does not reside in the area of the local authority. If a child is at a school in a local authority area, the fact that that child resides outside that area should be irrelevant to the local authority’s decision.

I note that the power to restrict the actions of the authority with respect to pupils outside its area is not used in the draft Education (Parenting Contracts and Parenting Orders) (England) Regulations. I hope that the Minister can accept the amendment.

The Minister for Schools (Jim Knight): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Chope.

New section 22A of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which the clause inserts, contains a number of regulatory powers that, as we have heard, are intended primarily to avoid duplication in the use of parenting contracts and orders and to ensure that relevant bodies liaise with one another before using the measures. Our intention is that the school or authority in which the child is currently educated should normally take the lead in using the measures, unless the pupil has been permanently excluded from a school outside the authority in which they live, in which case the home authority or the receiving school should normally take the lead.

The exception to those arrangements, which is addressed by the amendment, is where the schools or local authorities have entered into local agreements to the contrary. Such agreements could, for example, be between schools working in partnership or between neighbouring authorities. The indicative regulations to which the hon. Gentleman referred demonstrated those intentions.

As I understand, the hon. Gentleman seeks to remove an aspect of the Government’s proposed regulation-making power, which we believe would prevent us from making comprehensive regulations and lead to a lack of clarity for schools and local authorities about which body ought to take the lead in the various circumstances that I have described. The amendment would make those cross-border collaborations much more difficult to achieve. The regulation-making powers are necessary to provide clarity about how an arrangement agreed between, for example, the education authorities in Dorset county council and Poole borough council would work. I am sure that we all agree that such collaboration can be useful for children where there is a lot of movement across borders, as there is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), for example.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands our intent, can agree with it and will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Gibb: I am grateful to the Minister for setting out that explanation. I understand the Government’s intent, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Gibb: The clause provides that a governing body must provide alternative education for excluded pupils from a day determined in accordance with the regulations. Under the present arrangements, schools only have to send work home for the pupil to complete, although for exclusions longer than 15 days they are expected to ask the local education authority for full-time.

Regulation 3(1) of the draft Education (Provision of Full Time Education for Excluded Pupils) (England) Regulations states that

Regulation 3(3) defines “the relevant day” as

That duty does not apply where the pupil is in year 11 and has already taken or has missed all the public examinations for which he was entered. Why does the duty not apply in these circumstances too?

Jim Knight: I was hoping that the in-flight refuelling that has just taken place would give me the answer to that question. Sadly, it did not. While I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that this is a good clause, I cannot give him the answer right now. I will write to him and copy my letter to all members of the Committee. I hope that that will suffice.

Mr. Gibb: I am very happy to accept that assurance.

Amendment proposed: No. 576, in clause 88, page 68, line 3, at end insert—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 12.

Brooke, Annette

Dorries, Mrs. Nadine

Evennett, Mr. David

Gibb, Mr. Nick

Hayes, Mr. John

Leigh, Mr. Edward

Teather, Sarah

Wilson, Mr. Rob

Blackman-Woods, Dr. Roberta

Cawsey, Mr. Ian

Chaytor, Mr. David

Creagh, Mary

Gwynne, Andrew

Hope, Phil

Knight, Jim

Moffatt, Laura

Morden, Jessica

Shaw, Jonathan

Smith, Ms Angela C. (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

Snelgrove, Anne

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Gibb: The clause relates to the duty of the local authority in respect of excluded pupils. The authority must make full-time arrangements for children excluded from schools and pupil referral units who have not been accepted by another school, and for pupils excluded for a fixed period from pupil referral units. That must be done by the prescribed day. It is helpful of the Government to have distributed the draft regulations so that we can look at them in connection with the relevant clause.

Regulation 4 of the draft Education (Provision of Full Time Education for Excluded Pupils) (England) Regulations defines the relevant day as the sixth day of a fixed period exclusion, in the case of pupil referral units, and the sixth day of a permanent exclusion. It also states that where the pupil was temporarily excluded immediately before the permanent exclusion while the behaviour giving rise to the exclusion was being investigated, the duty begins on the sixth day of the temporary exclusion—so it is not necessary to start again once the permanent exclusion begins.

At present there is no statutory time limit on providing that education. All local authorities are currently committed to providing education for permanently excluded pupils from the 16th school day following an exclusion. The regulatory impact assessment states on page 292 at paragraph 19.7:

Paragraph 19.8 states:

Given the difficulties that local authorities have had in meeting the 16-day target, even with extra funding, how confident is the Minister that simply making the matter statutory, albeit with a little more funding, will enable local authorities to meet the six-day target?

Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I shall make some brief comments on clause 88—clause 87 flashed past me before I could jump up to speak. I want to put it firmly on the record that we are very supportive of this provision. It is vital to provide full-time education for excluded pupils. Again, we are talking about a slippery slope: once someone is out of education, they never get back. I believe that the hon. Gentleman was right to ask about the details, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer.

Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab): One factor that may have caused the difficulties in reaching the target is the reluctance of some schools to accept pupils who have been excluded from other schools. Although the clause places a welcome new duty on local education authorities, it does not specify how they are expected to fulfil it. I want to mention the role of the protocol for hard-to-place pupils, which some local authorities have already implemented, while others are working on it. It is a crucial part of the range of measures that a local authority can use to fulfil the duty in the clause.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister say something about the Government’s view on the protocols, and if he cannot do so now, will he write to the Committee? I am sure that all members of the Committee recognise that there is increasing concern about the differential distribution of hard-to-place pupils in schools. Some schools display active resistance towards accepting such pupils. The only way to resolve that is by sensible peer group discussion between head teachers and the local authority. The local authority’s role is crucial, but so is a firm steer from the Government.