My Lords, my name appears on Amendments 47 and 106. I want briefly to say that I am very strongly in favour of all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Amendment 46, in particular, is very powerful, and I hope the Minister will think carefully about it.
I turn first to Amendment 47, which relates to the provision of school places by academies. There is a problem here which needs to be solved before it arises. Local authorities in England must have a power to direct academies in their area to admit individual pupils and to expand school places. As I said in Committee, the question that arises is around what happens when there are not enough school places for a local authority to fulfil its statutory duty—for example, if there is a new housing estate and school places have to be found for the children living there. Given that local authorities should in my view have some power over appeals, local authorities must have the power to be more directional than the Bill currently permits.
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Amendment 106 seeks to define the local authority’s strategic educational functions that we think should apply. It is similar to the amendment we raised in Committee, and I do not want to go back through all that. I say simply that, if I were a parent looking at the Bill, I would expect my local authority to undertake the functions defined in Amendment 106, which seeks to add a new clause after Clause 67. It seems there are functions for a local authority to ensure that every child of compulsory school age living in the local authority area has a school place, to co-ordinate provision of education to children who are at risk of exclusion from school, to co-ordinate the provision of support to children with special educational needs or disabilities and, as I referred to a moment ago, to co-ordinate the appeals process.
There are other functions clearly shown in Amendment 106, but this issue of local authority powers is not going away. It is not just about powers; it is about responsibilities and the expectations of people who live in local authority areas. They will not understand why powers have been taken from their local authority. I am very supportive of all the amendments in this group and I hope the Minister is prepared to say some helpful things when she sums up.