Speeches by O'Brien.

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.”

“I rise to speak only to clause 56, which is a big old Henry VIII power. I am sure that their lordships will want to explore it in detail. In the interests of time, I have not tabled an amendment to it at this stage and I will not go into lots of detail, but it is always important to note such things. It is no small thi…”

“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed: 48, in clause 51, page 112, line 4, at end insert— “(5) After section 7A (withdrawal of notices under section 7), insert— ‘7B New schools to allocate no more than half of pupil places on basis of faith A new school for whi…”

“Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. “Harborough” is fine.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I will begin by asking a question up front, so that the Minister has time to confer with officials if she needs to in order to reply. We learned during the debate on clause 50 that, as well as existing schools, local authorities will be able to go to t…”

“I can see that very easily.”

“I pay tribute to the Minister for the reasonable way in which we have conducted this important debate. We have a huge disagreement with clause 50, which we think is a major mistake. We also have concerns about the process. We believe that it is better for this House to debate these big issues about what fairness is and…”

“I am extremely grateful to the Minister for her offer to write on this point. To avoid disturbing her flow any further, can I ask her to explain something? If a school is not happy with the decision of the adjudicator on its PAN, what will the appeal process look like for that school?”

“The Minister says that the Secretary of State can shut schools in other ways. The schools authority, under this law, will have the power to set a PAN to zero. I did not hear the Minister say that, according to guidance, that should not happen. Will she say that now?”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Of course it is a new power.”

“No!”

“Of course it is not. This is stupid. It affects the entire country.”

“I beg to move amendment 85, in clause 51, page 111, line 7, after “authorities” insert “, including academy trusts,”.”

“To be clear, is it the case that under the clause the schools adjudicator will have the power to set the published admission number to zero—in other words, to close a school?”

“If I can put it in my words, there is nothing in the Bill to stop the local authority applying to the adjudicator to stop the first year PAN of a new school. If I say, “I want to open my new school and the PAN is going to be X,” the local authority could say, “No, I think it should be half of X.” There is nothing to st…”

“rose—”

“This is a substantive point. I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; we are doing the proper business of a Committee here. Let us be clear: the whole point of the clause is to address situations, such as those in London, where a local authority has one in eight of its primary school pupils disappearing within fou…”

“It is not theoretical.”

“I am not suggesting that they cannot be adjudicated. I am pointing out to the Minister that for them to be adjudicated in a completely new way will mean something very different will happen to our education system. At the moment, the adjudicator can be brought in if a school dramatically wants to cut its numbers. That …”