“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, publish guidance for local authorities and school admissions authorities on the admission of summer-born children with education, health and care plans.

(2) Guidance published under this section must—

(a) detail the factors which must be taken into account when considering a request for a summer born child with an EHC plan to be placed outside of their normal age group;

(b) include a presumption that requests relating to the placement or admission of summer-born children with EHC plans should be considered on no less favourable terms than requests relating to summer-born children without EHC plans; and

(c) outline circumstances when it may, or may not, be appropriate for a child who has been placed outside of their normal age group to be moved to join their normal age group;

(d) detail how parents may object to the placing of their child with their normal age group, and the process by which such objections will be considered.

(3) In developing guidance under this section, the Secretary of State must consult with—

(a) groups representing the interests of parents;

(b) individuals and organisations with expertise in supporting children with special educational needs and the parents of such children; and

(c) other such parties as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(4) For the purposes of this section, ‘summer-born children’ means children born between 1 April and 31 August.”—

Brought up, and read the First time.

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 69—Collection and publication of data relating to summer-born children—

“(1) A local authority must collect and publish data on—

(a) the number and proportion of summer-born children who started school in the local authority’s area outside of their normal age group;

(b) the number and proportion of summer-born children—

(i) with EHC plans, and

(ii) without EHC plans, who started school in the local authority’s area outside of their normal age group and who have been required to join their normal age group; and

(c) the number and proportion of summer-born children with EHC plans who started school in the local authority’s area outside of their normal age group and who have been required to join their normal age group in a—

(i) special school;

(ii) mainstream school.

(2) The Secretary of State must annually—

(a) conduct a statistical analysis of, and

(b) publish a report on the data collected by local authorities under subsection (1).”

I am moving the new clause on behalf of my hon. Friend Daisy Cooper, who has raised the issue that summer-born children with SEND are often placed in the following year group at school, often at the request of their parents, but when they transfer into or out of special or mainstream school, they are then placed back into their chronological year and, as a result, end up missing a whole year of education. Guidance exists for summer-born children who do not have EHCPs but not, strangely, for those who do. New clauses 68 and 69 would simply require guidance to be published for local authorities and school admissions authorities on the admission of summer-born children with education, health and care plans and would require local authorities to collect and publish data relating to summer-born children.

The Government agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham that local authorities have important and complex decisions to make when parents ask for a summer-born child with an EHC plan to be placed outside the usual year for their age. The Department’s existing guidance for the admission of summer-born children without education, health and care plans sets out a recommended approach for those key decisions. Many of the considerations in that guidance will be similar for children with an education, health and care plan. Getting those decisions right can make a huge difference to the child’s outcomes and their experience of school, so such decisions need to be made thoughtfully and fairly, with due consideration given to what the parents want for their child. That is why, in July last year, in response to a parliamentary question from the hon. Member for St Albans, I committed to consider whether we should publish guidance on how these decisions are best made. We have been doing just that, and will confirm our decision in the coming months. In the meantime, it would not be appropriate to pre-empt the content of any such guidance by confirming the details now. However, I can say that we have been giving careful consideration to many of the matters outlined in the new clause and deciding how best to proceed.

On new clause 69, the Department conducts a voluntary biennial survey of local authorities about the admission of summer-born children. That asks local authorities to include data, where they hold it, about all schools in their area. The Department publishes a report on the findings of the survey, those findings show that only a small proportion—1.5%—of parents of summer-born children ask for them to be admitted to reception at age five. The vast majority of such requests—nine out of 10—are approved. The first summer-born children admitted out of their normal age group are now transitioning to secondary school. Our next survey will ask local authorities for data about the number of children who remain out of their normal age group at that point. The survey does not currently ask local authorities to specify how many requests relate to children with an education, health and care plan but we regularly review the survey, and that is something that we may consider in the future. Given that the existing arrangements to collect data about the admission of summer-born children are working well, it would seem disproportionate to impose a new statutory duty to make the data collection mandatory. I therefore respectfully ask the hon. Member to withdraw the new clause.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Proceedings interrupted (Programme Orders, 8 January and 21 January).

The Chair put forthwith the Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83D).