On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At column 1391 of today's Hansard, I am reported as having participated in the debate on the Animal Welfare Bill, talking about elephants, poodles and alligators. I can assure you that I made no such comments, and that they should rightfully have been attributed to the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). I wonder whether that could be corrected.

I should say to the hon. Lady that it is always advisable to check one's speeches afterwards—

But I did not make one.

I am answering the hon. Lady's point of order for the benefit of the whole House. Obviously, if the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) had checked her speech, she would have known that there was a problem. I thank the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) for raising the matter. I am sure that due note has been taken by the Official Report and that that correction will be made.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a limit on the percentage of household income spent on water and sewerage charges; to provide for the capping of domestic water and sewerage charges so that the percentage limit is not exceeded; and for connected purposes.

Water and sewerage charges have increased by an average of 48 per cent. in real terms across the country since privatisation in 1989. The increase is an alarming 85 per cent. in the far south-west, mostly due to South West Water having some of the largest infrastructure and environment protection liabilities falling on one of the smallest customer bases. Indeed, the sewerage element of the water bill in the south-west has increased by over 100 per cent.

Failure at the time of privatisation to protect customers in areas where disproportionate charges would have to fall under market conditions, and inaction since, have compounded a problem first identified 30 years ago, and the situation is not set to get any better. Presently, households in Devon and Cornwall on fixed and low incomes are finding the £449 average South West Water bill too much to accommodate. Many people in the south-west are spending more than 3 per cent. of their disposable income on water and sewerage bills alone. That situation is unsustainable. It is projected that bills in the south-west will, on average, be £675 within the next four years. That is not only unjust but a wholly disproportionate burden, especially in the context of the low average incomes in the far south-west. In my constituency people earn 23 per cent. less per week than the United Kingdom average, yet their water bills are 33 per cent. higher than the average. The greatest burden is falling on those who are least able to carry it.

Water poverty is defined as spending more than 3 per cent. of disposable income on water bills. Nationally this year, nearly 10 per cent. of households were in water poverty, and that is set to rise. It is estimated that by 2010, 40 per cent. of the lowest quintile of earners will be spending more than 3 per cent. of their disposable income on water. Families and pensioners should not have to fear the next water bill to arrive, and worry about how it is to be paid.

Those figures are unacceptable. More than 21 per cent. of average-income households in the south-west spend more than 3 per cent. of their income on water and sewerage. That is only the burden on the average household; the position of pensioners, families and vulnerable groups is much worse. In Devon and Cornwall, pensioners spend more than 6.5 per cent. of their incomes on water and sewerage before they find the money to pay their council tax, electricity bills and escalating gas bills.

As we know, the council tax protests started in Devon as a result of what were considered to be high council tax charges. A campaign began, with people withholding some of the increase in their council tax. As the Government are well aware, 75 per cent. of a local authority's income comes from central Government and not the council tax payer. An enormous number of people would have to withhold council tax for it to have any impact on local Government services.

There has recently been talk of a similar campaign over water charges. As 100 per cent. of the charge funds the company, not many consumers would need to withhold a proportion of their payment for its share price to plummet. Who would be there to pick up the pieces if a water company went into liquidation following the cutting off of its income stream by its own customers? The Government would have to intervene to deal with the chaos caused by lack of water and sewerage supplies. That is why the issue demands the Government's attention.

Pension and benefit rates are supposed to reflect essential outgoings such as payment for water and heat, but national rates do not reflect regional variations. Many reasons and excuses are given for that regional disparity, but there seems to be no willingness to change. The far south-west must bear most of the burden of cleaning up the nation's coastline: 3 per cent. of the population pay for the cleaning of 30 per cent. of it. Just under 10 million tourists visit the area each year, and local people must accept the knock-on cost throughout the year in the form of higher water charges. Projects in other regions also have an impact on their water bills—for instance, the renovation of Victorian infrastructure—yet their bills are not increasing by as much as 10 per cent. a year.

There are a number of ways of helping customers who are stuck in this situation. First, there is water bill equalisation. The precedent in Northern Ireland demonstrates that the Government are willing to consider fairer charging, and a similar method could be introduced in the rest of the United Kingdom. The Consumer Council for Water has said that the circumstances of Northern Ireland and the far south-west are identical in terms of low population, lower incomes and huge coastlines.

Under the scheme in Northern Ireland, the water bills of some 200,000 households will be capped at no more than 3 per cent. of their incomes. That will not just help pensioners and those claiming benefits; all households will pay an average of £30 less, and some bills could be as low as £60.

The principle has also been tested north of the border, in relation to electricity bills. Customers in the north of Scotland were burdened with high bills, due to geographical circumstances that increased the cost of distributing electricity. To reduce this unfair burden, subsidies were put in place, saving the average bill-payer £27 a year and keeping 15 per cent. more people out of fuel poverty. That situation sounds remarkably similar to that of the people of the far south-west: geographical circumstances resulting in a higher utility charge.

Another option is a payment similar to the winter fuel payment to help pensioners stay out of water poverty. Pensioners are the group worst hit by high water and sewerage charges, and they would benefit most from support. However, such a payment to all pensioners would not target those who need support—those whose water and sewerage bills exceed 3 per cent. of their income.

So there are many mechanisms that the Government could consider, and which they have shown a willingness to implement in other contexts. They should have a duty of care to ensure that nobody in the United Kingdom lives in water poverty. More than 30 years have elapsed since the problem of disproportionate water charges was first identified, and it is more than a quarter of a century since legislation was introduced in this House to deal with it; sadly, it was repealed prior to privatisation. It is time that action be taken. This issue should not have to come before the House again in 30 years' time.

This is a piece of typical Liberal nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense and the kind of thing that we have come to expect from the muddled thinking of the Liberal Democrats. I thought that we had many legitimate concerns these days about water supply. In fact, a current concern here in the south-east—and, I suspect, in other parts of our country—is that the water supply is in some danger, so we should be very careful when discussing the delicate balance that inevitably must exist between consumption of water, the price charged for it, security of supply and future security of supply. The Bill would interfere with all that in a very negative and unhelpful way.

This is a very obvious populist pitch by a rather desperate political party, but we must not be seduced by that, must we? We must remain focused on the vital necessity of ensuring that the relationship between water consumers and suppliers remains properly balanced. I, being a great believer in the market—as the Liberal Democrats used to be but seem not to be any more—believe that the price mechanism is still the best means of maintaining that balance. We have to ensure that water suppliers can achieve enough revenue and be sufficiently profitable to invest in security and cleanliness of supply, and to address the environmental concerns that rank so highly these days, not least in respect of sewerage, which the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) mentioned.

I fail to understand how on earth the artificial limit on the amount that can be charged for water that the hon. Gentleman is arguing for would allow us to achieve security and cleanliness of supply. If revenue is arbitrarily limited, investment will inevitably be limited—unless the Liberal Democrats believe that the difference should be made up by the taxpayer. Perhaps they are prepared to contemplate passing on that additional burden to the taxpayer, turning the clock back to the bad old days when we had insufficient investment in the water and sewerage infrastructure. But I doubt whether anyone, except, perhaps, the Liberal Democrats, would deny that under the new regime we have seen a dramatic and consistent increase in investment in our water supply, for which we should all—householders and other domestic consumers, business and industrial consumers—be very grateful. That would be put at risk if we were to succumb to the argument that the hon. Gentleman made. I am sure that if right hon. and hon. Members were to study the terms of the Bill, they would find it completely unacceptable because it would destroy the relationship that has been built up very carefully between consumers and producers, which provides the investment necessary to ensure that our water supply is continued as we would wish.

A ready resort to capping or limitation cannot be the answer. There may be other answers, and the hon. Gentleman hinted at some of the other approaches that he might favour. However, they are not included in the Bill and, therefore, he undermined the argument for his Bill not only by failing to make the case for it, but by distracting our attention to other possibilities. I hope that the House will not support the Bill and that we hear no more about it.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Adrian Sanders, Andrew George, Matthew Taylor, Mr. Dan Rogerson, Julia Goldsworthy, Mr. Colin Breed, Mr. Gary Streeter, Mr. Geoffrey Cox, Mr. Anthony Steen, Angela Browning, Richard Younger-Ross and Nick Harvey.

Water and Sewerage Charges (Limit on Household Expenditure)

Mr. Adrian Sanders accordingly presented a Bill to establish a limit on the percentage of household income spent on water and sewerage charges; to provide for the capping of domestic water and sewerage charges so that the percentage limit is not exceeded; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 March, and to be printed [Bill 147].

Before I call the Secretary of State, I must announce to the House that I have not selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the leader of the Liberal Democrat party. I have also placed an eight-minute limit on Back Benchers' speeches.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Today, I set out before the House a Bill whose very heart and purpose is to give every child—no matter who they are or where they come from—the opportunity to fulfil their potential. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to make interventions as we go along. I have spent many—mainly happy—hours debating these issues with my hon. Friends and other hon. Members over the past few months, and I will be generous. But with the permission of the House, I will make some introductory remarks before I outline the main provisions in the Bill, after which point I will be happy to take many interventions.

Last month, the parliamentary Labour party celebrated its 100-year anniversary. Every party has played a part in progress towards where we are now, but it is Labour Governments who have delivered the key reforms, backed by the investment that was so badly needed. We brought in comprehensive education, it was a Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, who 25 years ago led the debate on the national curriculum, and this Labour Government introduced free nursery places for all three and four-year-olds.

Almost nine years into this Labour Government, spending on school buildings has increased sevenfold, there are 30,000 more teachers and more than 100,000 more support staff in our schools. Thanks to our sustained investment and reform, our children have been doing better, but we must do more. Yes, we have record results at ages 11 and 14 and at GCSE, but still 45 per cent. of children do not get five good GCSEs. Yes, schools in deprived areas have improved even more quickly than the rest, but still seven out of 10 pupils on free school meals do not get five good GCSEs. Yes, we have record numbers of our young people staying on to study at A-level, but we still have one of the worst staying-on rates at age 16 of any country in the industrialised world. If Britain is going to go forward in the new global economy, I say to this House that that is simply not good enough. We must do better.

That is what this Bill is about. For the first time, it puts a duty on local authorities to fulfil the educational potential not just of the bright or easy-to-teach child, but of every child. In addition, for the first time in the history of this country, this Bill introduces a right to a high-quality vocational education for every young person from the age of 14, reversing the historic weakness in vocational provision.

If we want every school to be a good school, and that is our aim, we must act to make it happen, not just hope that it will. This Bill, through its proposals on trust schools, increased local authority intervention powers and stronger pressure to improve, does just that.

I turn now to the proposals in the Bill on trusts, one of the matters raised with me most frequently over the past few months. Every hon. Member knows that schools work best when they have an effective head teacher who gives strong and inspiring leadership. This Bill will build on what we know works. It will give heads the powers that they need to forge new partnerships and drive up standards in their schools. Therefore, trust school status will allow head teachers to work closely with other schools, with colleges and with external partners such as universities, charities and business foundations, bringing new energy and commitment to the education of pupils at the school.

Some people, including some Opposition Members, have argued that all schools should be compelled to become trust schools. However, I can tell the House that I will never force any school to become a trust school.

I am pleased to hear the Secretary of State make it clear that she will not force existing schools to become trust schools, and I should like her to confirm that. However, she has moved away from her initial statement that there would be no new local authority schools to suggesting that there could be new local authority schools, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. What criteria would underlie that approval? How can she convince me and others that the change is more than a change in wording and is, indeed, a change in substance?

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that she takes this issue especially seriously, and she is right to point out that the Government have, quite properly, made a move in that respect. Some Labour Members, and other colleagues in local government, have made the case very strongly that, where parents want a new community school because they think that that is in their children's best interests, we should not prevent them from having one. It is right that there should be a route for new community schools, but we must make sure that local authorities really think through what is in children's best interests. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State will, of course, allow local authorities that have done that thinking and that have a good track record to put forward such a proposals.

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that her Department will not prevent community schools by the back door, as it were, by starving them of resources? That has happened before, with plans for new schools being rejected unless they have an academy.

I can certainly give that assurance. Trust schools will be funded on exactly the same basis as any other local authority maintained school, because they are local authority maintained schools. I will not use my office to force local authorities to go down a route that they do not wish to go down. I will never force any school that does not want to become a trust school to adopt trust status.

In relation to the establishment of wholly new schools, will my right hon. Friend confirm that it will be possible to use the corporate performance assessment, the Audit Commission's quality assessment, to vary the approach of the Secretary of State to propositions developed at local level? Those with a high-quality assessment rating would therefore be exempt from intervention by the Secretary of State, on the principle of intervention in proportion to success.

I understand the very interesting proposition put forward by my right hon. Friend. The CPA criterion that he suggests as an objective measure of whether a new community school should be allowed is a potential answer to the problem, and I can assure hon. Members that the use of the Secretary of State's power will be based on objective criteria that can be judged and scrutinised by the House. However, I am not convinced that the CPA is precisely fit for purpose. For example, a local authority might not perform very well according to that assessment, but might also be improving its educational performance very rapidly. In such cases, it might make sense for a new community school to be proposed. That is precisely the sort of matter that I shall want to discuss further in Committee.

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I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), and then to the hon. Members for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis).

I thank my right hon. Friend. Many colleagues on this side of the House have been worried about the concept of trust schools, and especially because of the ethical and financial probity of the sort of organisations that may get involved in such schools. We all seek reassurance about that. As the Bill goes through its Committee and Report stages, will she think about introducing an approved list of those who could bid to become involved in trusts?

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I can tell the House that there will be very strong safeguards to prevent the acquisition of inappropriate trusts. That is essential. As a result, they will be regulated by the Charity Commission as well as by the local authority. They will be funded by the local authority, which will be able to object on educational grounds to any trust that it thinks will damage children's educational standards. However, perhaps the most important safeguard will be the common sense of parents and governing bodies. They will decide whether it is in a school's interest to adopt a particular trust. Moreover, I can reassure my hon. Friend about how that accountability will be reinforced. It should be possible to remove a trust if the non-trust governors on a governing body—parents, local community representatives and staff—decide that that should happen because the relationship has broken down.

The Secretary of State said that she would not force community schools to become trust schools. However, if it is such a great deal, can she explain why only 23 secondary schools and one primary school have expressed an interest in becoming trust schools? Those figures were contained in the Government's response to my request under the freedom of information legislation.

I can tell the hon. Lady that I have spoken to dozens of schools that are interested in becoming trust schools. Only this morning, one head teacher wrote to The Guardian and said:

"This is about putting the interests of pupils first, to raise standards and improve outcomes for all. That is why we have such a strong commitment to collaborating with others".

The author of that letter said that he thought that it was his school's duty to consider adopting a trust. Where schools want to raise standards and see opportunities for doing so within the local authority framework, they ought to be able to do just that.

On potential inducements to schools to become trusts, there is an element of suspicion about the Waltheof school in the constituency of the Minister for Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), to which children from my constituency go. It has been made clear to the local authority and the local community that unless they accept an academy, there will be no money for a new school. That was the inducement. Will she say explicitly that there will be no inducements or pressures on schools to become trusts schools? Will she extend that commitment to the future provision of academies, so that that sort of pressure is not put on local authorities to accept, with the obvious proviso being that they will not get the money unless they do?

I can give my hon. Friend the commitment that there will be no financial inducement for schools to become trusts schools. They will not benefit from any additional capital or from any additional revenue funding. They will be funded by the local authority under the local authority distribution formula, which is then agreed locally by heads. That is the way in which the system will operate because trust schools are local authority schools and operate within the local authority framework. My hon. Friend has an issue about academies, but it is important that authorities think through from first principles on how to raise standards for children. However, I can give him the assurance he is seeking on trusts schools.

A few weeks ago in the White Paper, the Government's position was that there should be no new community schools. Under intense pressure from their Back Benchers, they now say that there can be new community schools subject to a veto. When the pressure dissipates after the Bill is passed, what is to stop the Secretary of State, or indeed any of her successors, changing her mind, going back to the White Paper position and vetoing any new proposals for community schools? Some of us think that that would be a very good idea. Will the Government go back to where they were with the White Paper?

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has not been seeking the views of his local government colleagues. He only has to ask Alison King, the Tory chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people's board, what she thinks about the proposals for new community schools. She has been arguing that there should be a route for new community schools to be established because that is what is right. I have told the House that the Secretary of State's judgment will be based on objective criteria. We will have that debate in Committee, where we will examine exactly what the best criteria should be.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will continue to encourage trust schools. As a former sceptic about city academies, I think that we need to look at the evidence. The evidence of the London academy in my constituency is that since September 2004, GCSE passes are up by 9 per cent. and A-levels by 40 per cent. The academy is now in the top 5 per cent. of schools nationally in terms of progress for 11 to 14-year-olds and in the top 3 per cent for 14 to 16-year-olds on the same intake as it had before. It is now over-subscribed twice over. Some 45 per cent. of the pupils are entitled to free school meals and more than half are from minority ethnic groups—

Order. One page was enough.

My hon. Friend was making a very important contribution, because academies can be vital in raising standards for children in under-achieving schools—the worst schools in the country, sometimes—who face the most challenging circumstances. Last year, on average, academies improved the results at GCSE at three times the national average, which is why our commitment to introduce 200 academies by 2010 is so important.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the majority of secondary and college heads in my constituency to whom I have spoken about the trusts and the freedoms proposed by the Bill warmly welcomes them, particularly the additional freedoms? Is she also aware that my LEA is putting forward proposals for two academies in conjunction with our beacon status college, Barnfield college? Does she agree that that will assure parents and heads that we have good quality academies coming forward and that we will be able to raise standards in the two failing schools involved in those proposals?

I agree. Trust schools will be another route that schools might want to consider if they think there is an external partner that could help them to raise standards. That external partner might well be another school. Recently, we had a presentation in Downing street from a group of head teachers who are already working in successful schools, but are helping to drive up standards in schools that are performing less well. That is why federations will be such an important way of raising standards for children and one example of where trusts might well come to be of great benefit.

On the question of schools collaborating to have a trust, I welcome the statement that my right hon. Friend has just made. May I ask her to go further and confirm that that will entail looking at the league tables and performance measurement of whole collaboratives, not just individual schools?

I agree that collaboration is important. In effect, I see adopting a trust as a way of forging deeper collaboration between schools within the local authority system. For example, if a group of schools decided that they wanted to introduce the 14 new specialised diplomas, mixing vocational and academic studies, they might want to establish a permanent relationship, share staff, set up new facilities and bring in outside experts to help. Our proposal is one way to achieve that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) points to how we will have accountability measures that will affect the proposal. First, the Bill introduces a new duty to secure the educational potential not just of the average child, but of every child, taking a real step forward in making sure that all local authorities concentrate on the difficult to reach children and not the easy to reach children. Secondly, my hon. Friend is right about progression. That, too, is important and we are looking at whether we should introduce progression measures to see how children fare after they leave school, as well as when they are at school. These are all issues that complement the five GCSE external accountability measure that is so important for our young people.

I welcome what my right hon. Friend has just said about collaborative trust working. Does she think that such working may—indeed, should—encourage employers to work effectively and properly with local authorities and schools in developing career pathways for our young people?

I do, and that is an important point. Getting right the careers information, advice and guidance to our young people is so important and was the key element looked at by the Women and Work Commission. I am very concerned that our young people may be pigeon-holed into studying one type of option rather than another, and may not be aware of the significance of the choices that they make early in the school system. Schools must collaborate to deliver real choices within the school system.

One of the things that concerns me and my colleagues is the issue of double standards when it comes to assessing the suitability of an organisation to develop a new school. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that local authorities should prove their fitness for purpose in terms of developing a new community school. Yet it appears that by putting down £2 million, a crackpot creationist will be able to open a new school and develop an appropriate curriculum. Where in the Bill are the criteria to determine the suitability of organisations other than LEAs to open and develop new schools?

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that we do not want inappropriate trusts to work with our schools—that is not what the Bill is about at all—and I have said that trusts will operate within a strong framework of accountability, where local authorities can object to a trust, where parents and governing bodies do not have to work with a trust at all and can remove a trust if they think that the relationship is not working, and where they are within the Ofsted inspection regime.

Of course, I will issue guidance for decision makers—school governing bodies—to take into account when they consider whether a trust is the right one for them. The schools commissioner, based in Whitehall, will advise schools on the track record of trusts, so that they take those decisions in the full knowledge of what will work for children, but the Bill is about enabling schools that see an opportunity to do the best that they can for their children.

What I cannot accept for a moment is that there should be top universities in our country cheek by jowl with some of our most struggling schools and that they should not be asked to commit to the future of those schools. If we can get universities, further education colleges and public and voluntary sector institutions to commit to the future of our schools—not just on an ad hoc basis, which may or may not last for a few years, but on a permanent basis—we have a real chance of making a difference to school standards.

I very much agree with the point that the Secretary of State makes about trusts encouraging co-operation between universities and schools, but will she clarify a point about trusts' access to possible extra funds? If a foundation has a trust behind it and that trust has finance from other sources, will the trust school be able to access extra funds via the trust?

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is relevant to any community school that is working with a specialist school partner, but the Bill is not about financial gain and it is nothing to do with money; it is about expertise, skills and commitment, to help to raise standards in our schools. As the hon. Gentleman said that he wants to encourage collaboration, can he tell me why the Conservative party has consistently tried to characterise our policy of introducing trust schools as a return to the failed old Tory policy of grant-maintained schools?

Grant-maintained schools were bribed to opt out of local authority control. They were unaccountable to parents or the local community and able to select their pupils. They were schools for the elite, of the elite. Our new trust schools are completely different from Tory grant-maintained schools. Our schools are at the heart of their communities and are accountable to parents, with fair funding, fair admissions, collaboration with external partners and with one another to raise standards, while working within a stronger local authority framework.

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I know will vote in favour of reducing academic selection.

The right hon. Lady mentions fair funding. Can she explain why, since 2000, the gap between the best-funded primary school pupils and the worst funded has increased in Somerset by 90 per cent., in Southwark by 135 per cent. and in Isle of Wight by 46 per cent.—all authorities under Liberal Democrat control? Why has that happened?

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman makes the point about Liberal Democrat authorities. The Government are giving more resources than ever before to deprived schools and deprived children, and we intend to continue to do so. Under the Bill and as proposed in the White Paper, we will spend an extra £500 million over the next two years to support the individual learning of children and the best teaching and learning for this century, because we want to give every pupil—no matter what their prior attainment when they reach secondary school—the chance to catch up with their peers if they have fallen behind, with one-to-one tuition or small group support and, indeed, if they are gifted and talented, the chance to have their talents stretched and their potential reached. The personalisation of teaching and learning—individual support—with the funding geared to those schools that need it most, is an incredibly important part of our package of reforms.

With regard to catching up, I am really concerned about one of the schools in my constituency—I have mentioned it to Ministers before—where only 11 per cent. of the students achieve five GCSEs. We do not have a top university in Keighley, so I wonder what will be the solutions for that school.

My hon. Friend presents me with a challenge, but a welcome challenge. That is why the schools commissioner, based in my Department, will be asked first and foremost to identify those schools with the worst results in the most challenging areas, where children are not fulfilling their potential, to find out how we can put in place the support to help them to succeed. Quite frankly, if that means getting a top university or a business foundation into my hon. Friend's constituency, that is the challenge that I accept and that we have to match.

My local council and all the MPs for the area will work with any Government to improve standards, which are, indeed, improving in Southwark at the moment. However, can the Secretary of State promise that when the Bill is law, no one who contributes, say, £2 million out of a total cost of £20 million to a new school, as a partner, will be able as a result to buy a majority say on the board of the new school?

The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the proposals before the House. There is no financial requirement for anyone to form a trust school. That will be done completely at the request of the governing body, and if the governing body does not want a trust to have majority representation, it need not have a majority at all. If it wants more elected parents, it can do so. Those are decisions for the governing body of the school, within a strong system of accountability.

Unlike the Opposition parties, Labour Members are clear about what we stand for and what we need to do: provide more devolved power for schools, but greater strategic control for local government. That is why Labour local government supports the Bill. Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Labour group of local authorities, said:

"We believe that these measures will be helpful to those councillors up and down the land trying to deliver better education on a daily basis."

He urges all Labour MPs to support the Bill. Why? Because, as he sets out, the Bill will enact a new strategic role for local authorities, making the local authority the key decision maker on school organisation matters, and—most importantly—will give local authorities greater powers of intervention not just in failing schools, but in coasting schools as well—a long-standing local government aspiration, now at long last, delivered by the Bill.

My hon. Friends have been concerned that any new system should ensure fairness in school admissions. In that respect, I have listened carefully and I have responded to the concerns that I have heard. In the Bill, there is no new selection by academic ability and a ban on interviews. The Bill will force schools to act in accordance with a tough new admissions code and the system will be co-ordinated. Admissions forums will play a new role in ensuring that local schools deliver for every child. I stress that hon. Members on both sides of the House who back the Bill will be voting for less academic selection in our schools.

We see in the Bill a requirement that local authorities must abide by the code of admission, but we do not have a code of admission because the previous one was withdrawn. Is it my right hon. Friend's intention that a new code will be published before the end of the debates in Committee, so that a code can be compared with what is in the Bill?

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is right that hon. Members should have the opportunity to scrutinise the contents of a new code. In actual fact, there is a full consultation process that a new code has to go through before becoming legislation. Of course, that process will have to take place, but I can give him the guarantee that the main contents of the admissions code will be there to be scrutinised by hon. Members during the Committee stage.

I have a particularly serious allocation problem in my constituency. I am certainly given no confidence by the code that has just died, because that was in complete conformity to the allocation code and did not address the problems in any way whatever. Given that there will be different criteria in different schools as they so choose, does my right hon. Friend think that there is the potential for considerable chaos in allocations?

No, I have to say that I completely disagree with my hon. Friend on this point. I think that the system will be more robust after the Bill than it was before it. There will be less academic selection in our schools and we will have a tougher code that will make existing practices—which he may or may not disagree with—more difficult after the Bill than before it. I can give the House that assurance.

The admissions policy for most of the secondary schools in my patch is based on catchment area followed by siblings. How is it going to differ in any way if they become trust schools? There is a particular problem in that very popular schools sometimes find it very difficult just fulfilling the demand from the catchment area. Many people in the catchment area want their children to go to those schools, so will they be able to expand? How will the admissions policy change after the Bill? Will popular schools be allowed to expand?

On the first point, if the policy changes, it will be tougher rather than the status quo. Issues such as catchment areas and siblings will, of course, be the issues that schools take into account, but where a school is deliberately manipulating its catchment area to avoid taking certain challenging pupils into the school, that will not be tolerated in future. Admissions forums will scrutinise what is happening at a local level and will, on a yearly basis, produce a report examining what is happening and whether schools are, indeed, following the code of practice on admissions. The forums will examine how special needs children, children on free school meals and ethnic minority groups are faring. They will submit their report to the schools commissioner, who will review the impact on social segregation in a full report that will be available to Members of the House, so that we can show that we are reducing social segregation through the Bill and not increasing it.

The hon. Gentleman also made a point about whether successful schools should be able to expand. I have to disappoint him because there is nothing in the Bill on school expansions. There already is a presumption in legislation to expand. However, the decision maker will change from being the school organisation committee to the local authority—something, again, that local authorities have been calling for for years. There will be a stronger, more robust framework for admissions under this Bill than before it.

rose—

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) who, I know, has strong feelings on this point, before I come on to parents.

Have I interpreted what my right hon. Friend has just said correctly? Does that mean that selective schools will not be able to expand?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I can tell him something else that he may not have noticed. Under the Bill and for the first time, partially selective schools will not be able to expand either.

Children achieve more when their parents are engaged in their learning. This Bill will build on the excellent work of schools across the country by giving parents more information about how their child is doing at school—termly reports and regular dialogue with teachers. There will be more information about choosing the right school for their child and we will introduce better, cheaper school transport.

Parents are also concerned about behaviour at school. Most schools have good behaviour most of the time, but this Bill makes tackling bad behaviour a major priority. This Bill will create, for the first time, a clear statutory right for school staff to discipline pupils, putting an end to the "You can't tell me what to do" culture. This is exactly what teachers and teaching unions have asked for for years—reforms first proposed by the Elton committee in 1988, but rejected by the Conservative party when it was in government.

This Bill will transform the quality of the food that is served in our schools. Healthy food will not only help to halt the rise of child obesity, but many teachers believe that it will also improve pupil behaviour, motivation, readiness to learn and attainment.

Lastly, I have always said that, as a country, we need to place the same emphasis on vocational education as we currently do on academic education. This Bill will ensure that every young person, wherever they live, can take any of the 14 lines of the specialised diploma that we are developing as part of our radical reforms of the 14 to19 curriculum—first-class vocational education for the first time, as a right for every child.

I am afraid that I am a little behind my right hon. Friend's words, because I am still trying to fathom out why she is insisting on retaining the veto against new community schools. If the veto is going to be at the discretion of the Secretary of State, what thought has she given to its possible use in the future by a Secretary of State not as reasonable as her?

I have given commitments to Members that any local authority with a good track record that proposes a new community school should be able to have that proposal considered. I have also said that the criteria should be objective, to establish whether a local authority has a good track record. We will have a discussion in Committee about how we establish objective criteria and what those criteria will be, but that is the right place for that discussion. The issues involved are, indeed, technical and complex, and we have got to get them right.

On the very point about community schools and the Secretary of State's veto, is it not a fact that clause 2 builds in a presumption against community schools, because it clearly says that LEAs will be obliged to secure diversity of provision and

"increasing opportunities for parental choice"?

That being the case, is it not obvious that councils will be obliged to create non-community schools in order to provide the very diversity that will be a statutory duty if the Bill becomes an Act?

I do not agree with my hon. Friend. The introduction of the duty on diversity was made to meet a very specific point. It has been introduced because local authorities need to be proactive in talking to parents, rather than reactive to poor education and poor education provision. Just as children's trusts in the area of children's services actively go out to map demand and talk to parents about what is required and provide a service that meets the needs of parents, so too should they do that for schools. That is the purpose of the duty; not the one that my hon. Friend infers.

I welcome what my right hon. Friend has said about the improvement to school meals, minimum nutritional standards and removing junk food from school vending machines. However, could she go further and perhaps consider introducing, at a later stage, a duty on schools to teach children about healthy eating, and also allow Ofsted to inspect school meals and report on the school food?

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about school food. It is about time that we brought back tough new nutritional standards to our schools and improved the diet of our young people. It is right that they should learn about healthy eating and how to cook healthy food. In fact, the personal, social and health education part of the curriculum does that up to a point at the moment, but I also know that the new schools food trust sees this as an important part of its agenda going forward.

The Secretary of State said that there would be no selection for foundation schools, but can she confirm that they will be able to select pupils on their ability in foreign languages? Given that they can do that, how will that aptitude be assessed? Will it be by interview, examination or continuous assessment?

No, that will not be the case. Only schools that are specialist schools in those subjects will be able to have an aptitude procedure. I am talking about the existing part of the specialist school system, which will work in the way that it does at the moment.

The guarantee that I can give the House on trust schools, the delivery of vocational education, children's services, and the "Every Child Matters" agenda, is that, after the Bill, every school will have to collaborate to deliver the best for their pupils, but they will have the powers that they need to collaborate as they see fit and to work with other schools and external partners to drive up standards for their children within a strong local authority system.

The Bill will help us to raise standards in our schools, especially the under-performing schools in our most challenging communities. It has been crafted on the basis of constructive discussion and dialogue. I am grateful to many colleagues in local government and schools and, of course, to my hon. Friends and colleagues here today who have contributed to the debate and helped to make this a better Bill. I look forward to an ongoing dialogue.

It is because education is so important to us, on this side of the House, that we debate it so passionately. We always have and we always will. We are united in our aim of using education as an engine of social mobility and social justice. That is why we are taking forward our vision of a modern, outstanding education system. The Bill will ensure that young people have a right to high quality vocational education.

On that point, will it be the case that parents who want to name a trust school for their statemented child will have the right to be able to force that trust school to accept them?

Yes, and not only that. I can tell my hon. Friend that in future all looked-after children will also have priority in admissions to all schools, whether they are at the beginning of the admissions round or even later, when the school is full. I will make it a requirement that looked-after children are put top of the admissions list.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

No, I must make progress.

The Bill will ensure that young people have a right to a high quality vocational education. It will introduce a tough new system to ensure high standards of discipline in the classroom. It will mean good quality school food for every child but, most importantly, it will ensure more good schools in our communities. This is a progressive Bill, a reforming Bill, a Labour Bill. I commend it to the House.

Raising standards in education is one of the most important tasks facing any Government, and any responsible person looking at the evidence of the state of our schools today would recognise that much more needs to be done: too many of our schools are simply not good enough.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will in a moment.

Our weaker schools are concentrated, as I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree, in some of our poorest areas where children most need a hand up from a strong, rigorous and effective education.

I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's appreciation of the importance of education and good schools. Will he explain why the Tory Government consistently failed to provide adequate funds for schools and why he has consistently voted against the extra resources needed for them?

The hon. Gentleman should contemplate the important question of why, despite the large increases in funding since 1997, the improvement in school standards has been so modest. The answer is that there has not been serious educational reform alongside the increases in funding. That is what today's debate is all about. At last, belatedly, we are seeing some school reform to match the extra funding.

Is it not significant that the areas with the deepest pits of failure are the areas that the Tories control, where grammar schools are prevalent?

That is complete nonsense. We know, sadly, where the problems of failure are concentrated: in some of the poorest parts of our country. No one, on either side of the House, can take any pleasure from the statistics. Some 77 per cent. of children from a more prosperous household get five or more good GCSEs; 32 per cent. of children from a poor household get five or more GCSEs. That is the notorious 45 percentage point gap in pupil achievement. Sadly, that is virtually no better today that it was in 1997, when the Government took office. That is why Government Members should tell us why, after nine years in office, they have made such little progress.