School (Reform of Pupil Selection) Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I echo other noble Lords in offering my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, on securing a Second Reading for her Bill and in acknowledging her lifetime of commitment to children and the education system. While I understand the intention of her Bill, I must express our reservations about it.

As we have heard in the debate, it may be a truism, but selection by ability is certainly a controversial area. We know there are strongly held views both for and against selection by ability, as we have seen laid out here, in the other place and in the media. However, I am delighted to agree with the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Austin, in saying that the Government’s mission is to raise education standards for all. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said earlier this week, this Government believe in opportunity. To be absolutely clear, that is our priority: to raise the standards of education for every child. We live in a land where the education landscape is diverse; we do not have a uniform system where all schools share the same characteristics. The Government believe that this is one of the key strengths of our education system.

We have heard surprisingly little mention of parents in this debate. Parents clearly like to have a choice of differing types of schools. Schools of all types—small and large, co-educational and single sex, selective and non-selective, faith and secular; there are examples in every category—are oversubscribed. As your Lordships are aware, grammar schools are also oversubscribed. As a Government, we want to support and facilitate choice for parents. We can either look to make all schools the same or we can embrace the diversity of our school system and strive to ensure that all schools are good and outstanding. Your Lordships are aware of the considerable progress that has been made by this Government in that regard, with 87% of schools now rated as good or outstanding.

Fair banding aside, this Bill would, ultimately, end all forms of selection in secondary schools, in both England and Wales, including for entry to school sixth forms. I am not aware whether that was the noble Baroness’s intention, but that is the impact of her Bill. There are 457,000 pupils in secondary sixth forms in England, where selection is commonplace. Selection for sixth-form entry helps ensure that students succeed in the courses that they enrol upon. It helps ensure that young people are choosing the courses that are right for them and where they can thrive, whether they choose to pursue an academic route or more technical route.

As your Lordships have pointed out, selection by ability for children of compulsory school age is less common than in post-16 schools. As we have heard, there are currently 163 grammar schools in England—5% of secondary schools—providing education for 188,000 children. In addition, there are 40 schools that are permitted to select a minority of their pupils by ability or by a form of aptitude selection not otherwise permitted. This right was enshrined within the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. Finally, we have schools that select 10%—and only 10%—of their intake by aptitude in prescribed subjects: the visual or performing arts, modern foreign languages or sport. All these schools are part of the choice and diversity that our education system provides. I note that this Bill would retain pupil banding.

Some 97% of grammar schools are rated as “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted. They are popular with parents where they are located and regularly oversubscribed, just like good and outstanding comprehensive schools, including faith schools. Those grammar schools offer excellent standards of education and benefit the children who attend them. Several grammar schools share their expertise with other schools as teaching schools and are experts in stretching the most able pupils.

The majority of the 163 grammar schools now prioritise children eligible for free school meals or the pupil premium for admission. Even so, there is lots more for them to do in this space, as your Lordships have highlighted. I urge all good schools, including our existing grammar schools, to do more to increase the numbers of disadvantaged pupils—and, as my noble friend said, looked-after and previously looked-after children—who they admit, so they act as real drivers of social mobility.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, asked for the Government’s position on the expansion of grammar schools. As I have said, the department’s priority is to concentrate on ensuring that as many children as possible, whatever their ability, have access to an outstanding education, rather than creating more grammar schools.

In reference to the points made by my noble friend Lord Cormack about the importance of good behaviour within schools, that is clearly necessary across all our schools, and I would absolutely agree that it is a foundation on which good curricula and teaching need to be built.

My noble friend Lady Berridge asked whether the taxpayer funds 11-plus exams. I suspect that she knows the answer to her question. Admissions authorities pay out of their schools’ budget, so in effect the taxpayer does pay, but I hope that the House would agree with me that it is not the role of central government to micromanage small elements of school budgets. That feels like a path we should not be going down.

In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. As I said, we want parents to continue to have a diverse choice of good and outstanding schools that deliver opportunities for every child. Selective schools form a small but important part of this diverse provision. While we have no plans to open new grammar schools, neither do we believe that existing and excellent schools that have, historically, been selective for a very long time should be forced to remove their selective admission arrangements and become comprehensive.

I therefore hope that my remarks give noble Lords something to reflect upon, although I am not optimistic that I will change many minds. I look forward to working with your Lordships more broadly to ensure that all children and young people in our country continue to have access to the highest-quality, and diverse, education.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister made a major part of her contribution the assertion that parents like choice. I am not sure whether she is aware of the article this year in the Journal of Social Policy by Aveek Bhattacharya, the chief economist at the Social Market Foundation. In a comparison with Scotland, where parents generally do not have a choice of schools, he found that parents in England were less happy. They described themselves as “cynical, fatalistic and disempowered” in the situation of having choice in schools. In asserting that parents like choice, is it not simply the case that a few sharp-elbowed parents like choice and lots of other people suffer in that system?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I really do not think that it is helpful to be judging parents and accusing them of being sharp-elbowed. I think that every parent wants the best for their children. In relation to the Scottish education system, I point the noble Baroness to the attainment of children in Scottish schools compared with English ones.