Education Bill

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the government amendments not to repeal the duties in Clauses 30 and 31. The Minister probably had to do some convincing back at the ranch, so to speak. It would be rather surprising if he did not, but I am certainly glad that those provisions will remain on the statute book. I have a few questions about the situation now. Despite the measures in the government amendments, there is some confusion about the Government's commitment. I perhaps echo something of where the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is coming from. Amendment 62 restores Section 10 of the Child Care Act 2000—the duty to co-operate to improve well-being. That Section 10 refers to academy as one of the schools on which the duty is imposed, but as we know, Clause 52 of the Bill creates three different types of academies: academy schools; 16 to 19 academies; and alternative provision academies. First, for the avoidance of doubt, is it the Minister's understanding that the duty to co-operate will apply to those three types of new academies, as well as the generic term in the Child Care Act? Secondly, there has been a revocation of regulations that were introduced some time ago to apply the duty to pupil referral units. The Government have already revoked that requirement. Can the Minister assure us that he will now overturn this revocation and bring pupil referral units back into the duty to co-operate, as was originally the case before the Government acted? Thirdly, there is some confusion now around the children and young people's plan. Originally that was the responsibility of the local authority. After the first three years, those plans needed replacing and the duty then fell to the children's trust. However, again, the regulations requiring the children's trust to produce the children and young people's plan was revoked by regulation, with effect from 31 October 2010. As I understand it, there is now no duty on the local authority or the children's trust board to produce a children and young people's plan, and if one is produced there is no duty on anybody to have regard to it. Can the Minister confirm that, in spite of Amendment 63, if a children's trust board or local authority produces a children and young people's plan, no school is currently under a duty to have regard to it? I should be grateful for clarification on that point, as would many people in local areas. Fourthly, in July last year the Government released a press notice of their intended reforms to children's trusts. The first two elements were the removal of the duty to co-operate and the removal of the requirement, among other things, to have a children's plan and to have regard to it. The third element of their proposals was to revoke the regulations underpinning the children and young people's plan and to withdraw the statutory guidance for children's trusts on what they must do in relation to the children's plan. Apparently no statutory guidance about the children's plan now exists. Do the Government intend to reinstate that statutory guidance? Finally, in summing up, can the Minister say what his amendments—welcome though they are—actually mean in practice? There is a feeling that there may be some ambivalence in the Government's position on co-operation locally and on children's trusts and so on. His letter to me on 6 October, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has already referred, suggests that that might be a temporary measure while, "““we work through how to achieve better collaboration in relation to children with special educational needs””." The wording of the second letter, on 12 October, does not appear to give the Government's wholehearted support for local authority and school co-operation. It says: "““We are persuaded that the duty in itself provides schools, colleges and others with sufficient freedom to determine the arrangements that work best for them””." It begs the question of whether the Government really do want to see close co-operation between those different agencies, including schools. Are the Government committed to a wide-ranging, overarching duty on schools to co-operate with the local authority and other partners? Can the Minister confirm that the Government will not make further attempts to repeal the duty in Section 10 from schools some time in the future?