Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, before I speak to the amendments in this group, I wish to ask the Minister a question about her contribution at the end of the previous group. She said that it was inappropriate for Peers to refer to the word “criminalisation” because it was wrong. I used it when I spoke because parents are already writing to me and to other Peers with their concerns. These are the words that they are already using. They are already alarmed and worried because Clause 50, under new Section 436Q, “Offence of failure to comply with school attendance order”, states:

“A person … convicted of an offence under this section in respect of the failure, may be found guilty of an offence under this section again if the failure continues”


and in new subsection (8):

“A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale, or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 51 weeks, or both.”


Can the Minister explain why that is not a criminal conviction? If that is the case, the word “criminalise”—for very few parents, we hope—would be right, and I think that is what the Government seek.

Amendment 97D from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, proposes the addition of gender and ethnicity to the register, and I support that. Her work with the Roma and Traveller community shows that we always need to remember the children of those communities, who often end up out of school through no fault of their own and are often the children having the toughest lives. We need to make sure that we can identify them to provide the support needed.

I have also signed my noble friend Lord Storey’s Amendment 102, which proposes that a register of children not in school should list the reason why they are not in school. I will not repeat the comments I made on the two previous groups, but would say that it is vital that those in authority—in local authorities and prosecuting authorities—are reminded at every turn why a child may not be in school. Without that reason listed on the register, it would be too easy to miss, and it may not be obvious to the key personnel who need to look at the register.

I now turn to data. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for proposing how we group some of our discussions on Part 3 but, inevitably, data seems to be running through every group. In both previous groups, other Peers spoke about data issues. I want to go back to the principle of why the Government want to publish this data.

I do not think any of us disagrees that it should be collected, but my concern is that the phrase I seem to recall being used on the day the Secretary of State launched the idea of attendance orders and the register was “similar to the electoral register”, but it does not exactly say in the Bill what will be published; nor does it say who will have access to this highly sensitive and personal data. I ask the Minister: is there any other form of public register in this country that lists the names and addresses of children or their parents? Is that information available? The Bill talks about how long the data needs to be held and, from what I can see, it will be held for long after children have left the school system. If data is held, it should be deleted once the child reaches 18, unless that is because the Government want to track their future lives. If that is the case, Parliament needs to know.

The Minister may be somewhat frustrated that noble Lords are proposing to increase the data collected, but we want to ensure that the collection is of the appropriate data best to help the children, as we have discussed on previous groups. I want reassurance on exactly what will be published. In my view, only pseudonymised data should be published, and that at local authority level. Otherwise, with a very small number of children on the register, it will be all too easy to backtrack and find out where they live. It is not appropriate for families’ private information to be published and, as I said on the previous group, a high percentage of children out of school have SEND, are on free school meals or are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.

The Bill says in Clause 48, in new Section 436C(2):

“A register under section 436B may also contain any other information the local authority consider appropriate.”


New Section 436C(3) states:

“Regulations may, in relation to a register under section 436B, make provision about … (c) access to and publication of the register”.


We keep saying, on different parts of the Bill, that it is not ready to be enacted, is not going to work and is not fit for purpose. It seems completely inappropriate for the House to approve this part of the Bill without any notion of what personal information may be included or what will be published, or who will have access to that information. These are Henry VIII powers gone mad. As long as only the relevant staff, who will have to comply with GDPR, will see the raw data, a child’s personal information can be collected. Can the Minister reassure me that this is the case and, if it is not and is as printed in the Bill at the moment, can she please provide the House with a justification for why the Government are taking these very strong steps?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 98 in this group is in my name. I will also speak to Amendments 106, 107, 110, 113 and 114, and to support my noble friend Lord Storey on Amendment 103. I think we all need to try to speak as briefly as possible if we are not to have a totally hideous day on Wednesday, when we will be expected to finish Committee on the Bill.

All these amendments are at the request of home educators. Amendment 98 reflects that home educating may be undertaken by a single parent; the other may be estranged or simply not interested in the education of the child. Requests for the name and address of each parent may not be appropriate, and the alternative wording proposed—

“the parent or parents responsible for the education of the child”—

is much more relevant.

My noble friend Lord Storey will be proposing Amendment 103, but I recognise the value of a unique pupil number in ensuring that children can be identified as being secure and educated.

Amendment 106 reflects the concerns of home educators that all sorts of irrelevant information will be requested of them, so inserting “relevance” is important. Again, this follows on from some of the words of my noble friend Lady Brinton. This is also reflected in Amendment 107, where what the local authority may “consider appropriate” may not be universally appropriate. We do not need those two lines.

In Amendment 110, there is concern about the register being published, with too much information being put into the public domain. We want “publication” to be deleted, because this is not necessary.

Amendments 113 and 114 would both insert “reasonably”. Once again, the concern for all sorts of information to be requested and recorded surely needs justifying in some way.

The home educators are very concerned about the Bill. They have sent me rafts of material, which they consolidated into amendments. I have tried to reflect this. We are naturally concerned about those who claim to home educate but are using it as a cover to abuse, indoctrinate or otherwise do damage to children. However, we are also aware of the amazing work that most home educators do and wish to ensure that they are not unduly disadvantaged by the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to speak briefly as well, for several reasons: first, because I want to get home tonight; secondly, because I am cold; and, thirdly, because I quite agree that we do not want a terrible day on Wednesday.

Part of the fallacy on this children not in school register is the idea that local authorities do not already have the information about children who are not in school, but that is not true. For the most invisible children, who have had no contact with any service at all, of course it might apply; otherwise, the truth is that local authorities have a great deal of information about almost every child, whether they attend a school or not. Instead of adding yet more data collection, there should be an overhaul of how local authorities collect and process this data, and perhaps some sort of universality about it. That overhaul should be made in a code of practice, as set out in my Amendment 171S.

I have three other amendments in this group, which are basically probing because I feel that the legislation just does not have the detail that we need to understand exactly what it is going to do. Turning to the new registration requirements, I think the Bill really ought to be clearer about what information must be provided by home-educating parents to the local authority. We are left at the moment with “other information”, which leaves a large void of worry for the parents who will have to provide this information, which could be very probing and intrusive. I would much rather see such broad wording removed altogether or made subject to being necessary and in the child’s best interests. This group contains a range of possible ways forward, but the general gist is that the Minister must convince your Lordships’ House that any of this intrusive bureaucracy is needed in the first place.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 91 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. Helping children to understand the different opportunities and career paths that might be open to them, what sort of work they involve and how to pursue them is one of the most important tasks for schools to undertake—in partnership with parents and employers.

It is therefore disappointing that the Bill says so little about careers education, information, advice and guidance. The schools White Paper in March included commitments about careers education that do not appear in the Bill, such as the one covered by Amendment 91 on launching a new careers programme for primary schools in areas of disadvantage and the one on improving professional development for teachers and leaders on careers education, including strengthening understanding of apprenticeships and technical routes.

The importance of starting careers education in primary schools was recognised in the 2017 Careers Strategy. Its aim has been well described by the Careers & Enterprise Company, CEC, which has done so much valuable work in promoting and supporting careers education. It states:

“Career-related learning in primary schools is about broadening pupils’ horizons, challenging stereotypes and helping them develop the skills and sense of self that will enable them to reach their full potential.”


The CEC has conducted a number of research studies and pilot programmes both to demonstrate the effectiveness of primary careers education in achieving these aims and to establish what approaches work best in practice. From these studies it is clear that there is not only a clear appetite for careers education in primary schools but growing evidence that such education has a positive impact on overall school engagement and attainment, raises pupils’ aspirations, enhances their motivation and helps to clarify their life goals and break down biases about the world of work. There is plenty of good experience, best practice and resources to draw on, such as the CEC’s report What Works? Career-related Learning in Primary Schools, the Career Development Institute’s Career Development Framework: Handbook for Primary Schools, and the Teach First report that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, referred to.

I strongly support this amendment but ideally I would like it to be extended, with a requirement that the delivery of a careers programme within the framework required by proposed new subsection (1) to be inserted by the amendment should be mandatory for all primary schools. There are three questions I ask the Minister in responding to this amendment. First, what are the Government’s plans to ensure that all primary schools have a careers programme in line with the Gatsby benchmarks? Secondly, how will they ensure that adequate resources and facilities are available to deliver these plans, including not just financial assistance for disadvantages schools but an adequate pipeline of fully trained and qualified career guidance professionals, as well as careers leaders in schools? Thirdly, what action will they take to ensure that all teachers learn about careers education as part of their training?

I also support Amendment 158, which sets out a number of subjects which should be a mandatory feature of every school’s curriculum, including digital skills, financial literacy and life skills. In my view, one of these life skills should be first aid training, which I shall say more about, noble Lords will probably be relieved to hear, when we get to Amendment 167. It always astonishes me that skills such as these, which are so vital to everyone, and which schools are ideally placed to teach, are not taught as a matter of course. Digital literacy in particular is rapidly becoming a category of functional skills complementary to, if not on a par with, literacy and numeracy. This was suggested by the House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills in 2015, which pointed out that

“Digital literacy is an essential tool that underpins other subjects and almost all jobs.”


I support the other amendments in this group, including the amendment on British values introduced by my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries, and Amendment 171I tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, to make work experience mandatory—to which I add only that it needs to be high-quality work experience.

If we are looking for the Schools Bill to help create an education system that is designed to meet the growing needs of the future, it should ensure that all young people are taught the subjects listed in Amendment 158, are made aware of the values set out in Amendment 168, undertake high-quality work experience as required by Amendment 171I and are helped to start thinking about their own career aspirations and potential from primary age onwards, in line with Amendment 91. I hope all these requirements and amendments will find their way into the Bill.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on Amendment 91, to which I added my name, to ensure that careers education is supported in primary schools. It is really important that young people are introduced to a range of careers before they become convinced that some jobs are boys’ jobs and some are for girls. We need women engineers, firefighters, police and military officers, just as we need men to become nurses, teachers, hairdressers and carers. If very young children are encouraged to see where their interests lie, it will serve them well later on.

There was a wonderful programme—I do not know if it is still going—called Drawing the Future, where primary children drew their ambitions. One eight year-old girl had drawn a very accurate picture of an RAF Hawk aircraft and written “When I grow up, I want to be an RAF Red Arrows pilot”—no matter that the Red Arrows have hardly ever had women; that did not daunt her. What a wonderful aspiration. She and the other prize-winners were then greeted by an appropriate adult in their chosen field, and an elegant woman pilot appeared to give her a prize and talk to her about her aspirations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in supporting all these amendments I add my support for Amendment 171R, which my noble friend Lady Wilcox will speak to from the Labour Front Bench at the end of the debate.

This is a very good means to rescue the missing third of children. This is the large number of children who are capable of further education but never get to the starting point for a variety of reasons. Prejudice and discrimination play a part, for instance in the case of Gypsies, Travellers, Roma, boat workers and the children of showmen. It is really important that schools get ahead with this kind of arrangement.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, given the way in which she champions the Roma community.

I support all the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Shipley and those from the Labour Front Bench. They indicate the important role of further education colleges in our education system. They link to the demand for young people in schools to be aware of all the possible programmes of learning available in colleges at an early enough stage to be able to make informed choices about future work and study opportunities. It is really important that colleges be funded at the same level as schools and that college teachers and tutors should be paid at the same level. It is quite wrong that college pay should be lower than school pay.

Amendments 171A and 171B would ensure better continuity of education. Too often, FE has been the forgotten element in our education system, but it is a vital part of the options available to young people, as it spans school, vocational options and university provision. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us of the value the Government place on the FE sector, and perhaps indicate the parts of the Augar review—whatever has happened to that?—which concern FE that the Government intend to implement.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we support the principle of Amendment 171B. There are currently many barriers to further education institutions working effectively with academies and MATs, and it is apposite that this is being raised. Funding further education appropriately continues to be a prime issue, as noted by several noble Lords. Schools are more often part of the solution, not the problem, so we need a concerted, cross-government commitment to improving the life chances of young people in our most marginalised and deprived communities and addressing the root causes of underperformance, as noted by my noble friend Lady Whitaker.

Our Amendment 171R obliges the Secretary of State to consult on and establish access to further education for all schoolchildren aged 14 to 16 within one year of the Bill’s enactment. We understand that the Minister has discussed the matter of academies working effectively with FE organisations, and I wondered whether she could update the House on any progress made on identifying and unblocking the barriers to working together.

Apprenticeship Levy Scheme

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely reassure the noble Earl that the department is actively engaging with all key sectors, including the creative sector. On the specifics, obviously the apprenticeship model is push and pull. The department is delivering what employers are asking for, but we need employers to respond to that across every sector.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, what efforts is the department making to get schools to know about apprenticeships and go into them? Currently, schools are measured largely on GCSEs, A-levels and university entrants. When will they be able to celebrate their apprenticeship leavers with the same enthusiasm as they celebrate their university entrants?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will be aware from our debate last night, it is not the Government’s plan to micromanage schools in terms of how they celebrate. We are promoting apprenticeships in schools and colleges through our ASK programme—the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge programme— the Get the Jump programme and the Skills for Life programme. She may have seen some of the materials from Get the Jump recently, which were very engaging.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

I hope the Minister and officials might be able to meet the two children’s groups that I have described. I will go into more detail about these two particular groups in later amendments that I have laid for the Bill, but there is a very specific question here about whether these children are getting the support they need, rather than schools using the money only to fund investment in tutoring for those who have traditionally had access to it. This amendment seeks transparency—that schools have to be held accountable —to make sure there is provision.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend, who has raised some very serious issues. I will speak to Amendment 84 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey. This would require the funding formula to provide for transport costs for 16 to 18 year-olds on the same basis as those eligible children up to the age of 16. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, for sort of agreeing with this amendment.

It is so important that children from poorer families should be helped to remain in education and training beyond the age of 16. The Liberal Democrats wish to introduce a young people’s premium, based on the same eligibility criteria as the pupil premium, but a portion of it would be paid directly to the young person aged 16 to 18 to support them with travel and other education-related costs. It is entirely logical that the core funding rate for full-time students aged 16 to 19 should match that of secondary school pupils.

The UK faces a serious skills deficit, with many business leaders expressing concern that too few workers have the necessary skills to meet their future job needs. We need young people to enter the work market having learned relevant skills while in education. We also call for grants rather than loans for those over 16. Those entering the workplace, as well as adults, are unlikely to want to take on repayable debt. Government support for enhanced education and training would benefit not just individuals but the country too.

We recognise that transport costs currently present an insurmountable barrier to many people who want to learn and achieve. Transport costs across England can be extremely high, and the availability of discounts or free travel for children and young people varies considerably by geographical location. This means that, in many places, and particularly in rural areas—my noble friend Lady Humphreys will say more about this shortly—transport costs can pose a fundamental barrier to children and young people accessing the education and training which is most appropriate to their abilities and aspirations.

Since the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, or EMA, the only outstanding student support is extremely limited. A young person can apply from their college or school sixth form, but it is not guaranteed; it is discretionary and cannot be relied on. It is not sufficient for the numbers who require support, and not necessarily sufficient for transport costs, let alone wider needs. It would certainly not be enough to cover transport costs for potential further travel to undertake work experience placements, for instance, as required by the Government’s beloved T-levels.

This is a very modest proposal which would have an enormously beneficial effect on many young people, and I urge the Minister to accept it.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow my two noble friends. I wish to speak to Amendment 85, in the name of my noble friend Lord Storey, to which I have added my name. This amendment requires that the funding formula be accompanied by an impact assessment on state-funded schools in rural areas.

I live in a rural area of north Wales and, like other noble Lords, fully understand the vital importance of rural schools for their communities. If schools are forced to close, young families will not move to an area and this is not conducive to building the thriving, forward-looking rural communities that we wish to see. Rural schools are also an important employer. Even a small school with a handful of teachers will provide a range of other jobs—for example, in administration, caretaking, cooking and teaching assistance—that would be lost if the school closed. Crucially, as with other services, pupils should be able to access their schools within a reasonable travel time.

However, children in rural areas across England, such as Devon, are being short-changed and taken for granted by this Conservative Government. With the challenges ahead of us as education recovers from the pandemic, we cannot allow such children to be left behind in its wake. Why do I believe that children in rural England are being short-changed and are in danger of being left behind? According to the House of Commons Library, schools in Devon receive £345 less per pupil than the national average across the UK. This difference in funding obviously has an impact on school budgets, which needs to be analysed and recognised through an impact assessment. Any adverse impact of the funding formula on staffing and the quality of education provided, for example, needs to be assessed and addressed.

So much can be done to help rural schools. An impact assessment could help point the way forward, to fund schemes such as those my Liberal Democrat colleague Kirsty Williams implemented in Wales when she was Cabinet Secretary for Education. I know that this Schools Bill does not apply to Wales because education there is devolved, but I cite it as an example. In government, Kirsty Williams introduced a rural schools strategy, including a £2.5 million per year grant for rural and small schools to be used for improving digital technology, supporting collaboration between schools or providing administrative support in schools—

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

These amendments relate to Clause 41, which gives the Secretary of State the ability to make arrangements for in-year adjustments to schools’ funding allocations where pupils are permanently excluded, and will ensure that funding can follow excluded pupils where they move between schools in different local authorities. This amendment will ensure that these arrangements can operate properly in relation to academies under the new funding system that we are establishing in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to introduce Amendments 76A and 76B, tabled by my noble friend Lord German, who is currently on a working visit to the Gambia and so is unable to be here. These amend government Amendment 76, which the Minister has already referred to.

We on these Benches support the proposal to create secure schools and academies. Youth custody, by its very nature, means that those within them are the most vulnerable and challenging young people. I once taught in a secure school and was struck by the care and hard work of all the teachers, committed to improving the life chances of some very damaged and occasionally violent young people. It was quite a scary commitment. That is why Charlie Taylor, in his review, proposed secure schools as a major way of dealing with the problems of the youth custody system.

However, we are concerned that local authorities have been ruled out of the objective of finding the best provision possible for these most challenging and vulnerable young people. There is a legal route open to local authorities to make a bid for running a secure academy, but such a bid would run counter to the Government’s policy. Yes, you can legally apply to run a secure school, but it is not government policy to accept your bid.

In his 2016 review, Charlie Taylor made two very clear points which are of relevance to this piece of legislation. The first was:

“Children who are incarcerated must receive the highest quality education from outstanding professionals to repair the damage caused by a lack of engagement and patchy attendance.”


The second was:

“Rather than seeking to import education into youth prisons, schools must be created for detained children which bring together other essential services, and in which are then overlaid the necessary security arrangements.”


The Taylor report pointed out the absolute importance of integration, not only of education but of a wide variety of services within the work of these schools. Health, social care, and services providing reintegration following custody are required within the school and not external to it. These are services that local authorities currently provide. Following the logic of local authority statutory provisions, particularly those on the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of their children and the need for a new form of integration, there is much that local authorities can offer.

The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, said in January:

“I accept that the Government’s policy remains that academy trusts are not local authority-influenced companies and that our position on secure schools is to mirror academies’ procedures. However, I can confirm that, when considering the market of providers of future secure schools, my department will assess in detail the potential role of local authorities in running this new form of provision … local authorities have a long-established role in children’s social care and the provision of secure accommodation for children and young people. In particular, the secure children’s homes legal framework may present a more straightforward route than the 16-19 academies framework for the expansion of local authority involvement in the provision of secure accommodation. However, I reiterate that there is no legal bar here.”—[Official Report, 10/1/22; cols. 825-26.]


It is against this strange backdrop of legal rights and government policy going in different directions that I look at government Amendment 76. It states that

“where the educational institution … is to be a 16-19 Academy”

and not that all secure schools are to be academies. Can the Minister confirm that the legal position on local authority involvement in secure schools has not altered since the Government’s statement to this House in January?

Engagement with local authorities in the work of secure schools or academies has always been seen as essential and welcome, so it is very concerning that proposed new subsection (2A) in Amendment 76 rules out consultation with local government or anyone else and makes consultation with local government only a possibility—and this for a part of our democratic structure which has been stated to have great value by the Justice Minister, speaking in the Chamber in January.

Restricting consultation with a local partner who has the statutory role for the provision of some services in relation to secure schools seems quite a bizarre approach. The words in the government amendment are quite clear: it will be a consultation on how the proposer of the secure academy should co-operate with local partners, and those are the local partners who the proposer of the secure academy thinks it appropriate to consult. There is therefore no duty for them to consult the local government of the area.

I would value an explanation of the ban outlined in proposed new subsection (2A)(a). I recognise that the siting of a secure academy is potentially controversial, so it appears that the rationale for the first part of the government amendment is to avoid normal planning requirements. If that is the case, I remind the Government of their failed policy to cut out local residents’ engagement when housing, building height extensions and other developments were proposed. Some government Ministers even suggested that this policy led to the Liberal Democrats winning the Chesham and Amersham by-election—oh joy.

These amendments seek to provide clarity. Although I recognise the difficulties of planning and siting a secure school as a principle—at the one in which I taught, local residents were extremely unhappy that they had these great thugs being taught near them—the Government should not ride roughshod over the rights given to local people through their local authorities. These amendments seek to recognise the importance of local government, in both the services it can provide and the representation of local interests that is part of its democratic mandate. I hope the Minister can clarify the Government’s intentions in respect of these matters, and as underlined in our amendments, as they affect secure schools or academies.

This is way above my pay grade, but I have been in the Minister’s position before. I humbly suggest, given the formidable opposition on her own Benches to the Bill, which threatens to undermine that of the opposition—we are doing our best, for goodness’ sake, but when it comes from the Conservative Benches it is quite difficult to match it—that she goes back to the department to put a stop on this Bill. We currently have three more days in Committee. I suggest they could be put to much better use than tearing the Bill apart.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments my noble friend has tabled really show how interconnected all the Bill’s clauses are. You cannot envisage one without the other; they are interdependent. It is very difficult to move an amendment to any one clause that does not affect other clauses.

I said last week that I would try to find out from our legal advisers the extent to which the Bill may threaten the charitable status of all schools. I had a letter this morning from our advisers, Stone King, one of the leading education law firms. I will read it to the Minister so that she and the officials can reflect on it:

“The Bill sees, accordingly, a material shift from a contract-based system to one which is statutorily controlled.”


At the moment, the relationships between schools and the Secretary of State are as a contract: it is an agreement, and both sides can change it. It is subject to contract law. The Bill would change that to statutory control.

The letter continues:

“It also introduces much more stringent termination powers which include not only existing termination rights, but also the ability for the Secretary of State to flood the board of an academy trust.”


The Secretary of State has never had that power in the past, ever since 1870. This is a fundamental change—a major shift of authority from local authorities to Whitehall. Local authorities were responsible for closures in the past, but then they had checks and balances: before a closure could be decided on, they would have to check with the local community, local councillors and parents. There are now no such balances.

The letter continues:

“It was considered that such flooding rights were incompatible with the independence of an academy trust as a charitable company and that a contractual breach should lead to a contractual remedy—not to seek to control … the academy trust itself.”


This matter has been dealt with by the Charity Commission in the past, so I ask the Minister to reflect on, or find out from her officials, what the exact position is. The position was that, before 2010, the Charity Commission was very concerned about the independence of schools, so it made them all statutory charities. That gave them certain very clear rights. The letter states:

“The Charity Commission had doubts, in the late 2000s, about the charitable status of academies given the controls which could be exercised then by the Department for Education and Skills … This led to the provisions of the Academies Act 2010 which made academy trusts charitable”—


all the schools in our country today are statutory charities. The letter continues:

“It would be very hard to see how the Commission would be at all comfortable with these additional restrictions, and it would be interesting to understand whether there has been any dialogue between the DfE and the Charity Commission”.


If the Minister says that there has not been, I intend to write to the chairman of the Charity Commission tomorrow.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, the range of speakers in this debate indicates how close schools are to your Lordships’ hearts. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Knight, and realise that our passion for schools transcends party politics.

I taught in a number of schools during a peripatetic life with my wonderful RAF husband—we moved 24 times in 30 years—in between working as a filing clerk and a copy typist; I was a “thinking copy typist”, which got me into trouble as copy typists were not supposed to think. So, we come to your Lordships’ House with a wide range of experience. Teaching for me was always the most challenging, rewarding and occasionally terrifying work. My supply-teaching woodwork class remains an experience I would never wish to repeat. From time to time I taught my subjects, French and Spanish: but whatever class I was called upon to cover, it always seemed to me that education should be enjoyable and that learning should be fun—which was quite a challenge with French verbs but not impossible.

I would be thrilled to see a Schools Bill setting out the importance of music, art, drama, creative skills, coping skills, financial skills, preparing young people for adult life and, as my noble friend Lord Shipley mentioned, careers guidance, all the while stressing that learning must be relevant, and seen to be relevant, in order for young people to put their energy into their education. I strongly support the amendment on values as set out by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. However, there is none of that in this Bill; nor has there been in any of the other educational offerings from this Government. Even the skills Bill managed to be dull—quite a feat when we think how exciting and inspirational skills can be.

Having got that off my chest, I turn to the Bill. We have grave concerns about the provisions for special educational needs, but I shall leave my noble friend Lord Addington to speak on those areas that he is an expert in.

As a party which believes in localism and decisions being made as close as possible to the action, we are concerned at the growth in multi-academy trusts and the move further away from local authorities. My noble friend Lord Storey set out some of our major concerns about MATs. Surely local authorities need to have new functions in planning school places and co-ordinating managed moves, especially where children might be at risk of exclusion. Every school should have its own governing body, since every school is different and parents and others close to the school should have a say in how the school is run and what the priorities are, and an awareness of particular issues and problems.

Councils need backstop powers to direct academies to expand school places, to deliver on councils’ duty to ensure that there is a school place for every child who needs one, and to respond quickly to local needs and influxes in population. It is also for councils to have adequate powers to shut down illegal schools. That duty cannot be delegated to multi-academy trusts. Of course, as we have heard, home schooling will always be a hot potato. Home schoolers can be passionate about their choice and are already lobbying us on the provisions in the Bill. There are excellent reasons why some children thrive better with home schooling, but we must ensure that those children are not lost to the system.

Every child is entitled to protection from exploitation. We would like any adult in charge of a child to have a DBS check. This should be no problem at all for caring parents or guardians, and it would bring them into line with all other adults who deal with children. We need much better checks on unregistered schools, to ensure that the education they are providing is of good quality, fair-minded and caring. We have no truck with excellent home schoolers, but we must have a way of monitoring non-attendance at school.

Again, it should be for councils to have powers to check on children who are not in school, to ensure that they are receiving a suitable education, and for safeguarding purposes. We cannot give in to some of the more robust tactics of passionate home schoolers, who may be paragons of virtue themselves, but who cannot guarantee that all those who claim to be home schooling share their high standards of education and loving care.

There was once a proposal for a unique pupil number, so that each child could have their progress followed and could be traced if they fell out of the system. I do not know what happened to that. Registration of pupils is a modest measure. Surely no one could object to some means of ensuring that all children not in school were known, were not in danger, and were learning. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, set out, we will always be concerned if additional powers are given to Secretaries of State—Ministers who are here today, gone tomorrow; I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Nash—who often have no teaching qualifications or educational specialism. Please let us not resort to that as a backstop position. It should be for us in Parliament to take decisions on such important matters as education.

We also notice with great concern the growth in mental health problems in schoolchildren. What steps are the Government taking to increase provision for those who need support and counselling to help them through? Many of these measures impact on further education colleges. What discussions have there been with colleges about the proposals here?

Parts of this Bill are good, even if they are unambitious and differ substantially from the Bill that I would love to see, but we will be scrutinising with care where positive amendments can be made.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on tabling this amendment because it has helped to shift the Government’s thinking on T-levels. When they were originally announced in July 2021, it looked as though there was going to be a war between BTECs and T-levels. I never accepted that, because T-levels will survive as an important choice at 18 for students who want to take them. I am quite convinced of that. To show my confidence in them, of the university technical colleges for which I am responsible, two have been teaching T-levels in construction and skills for the past 18 months and another seven joined them in September last year.

Since the Bill was first debated, the attitude of the Government has moved. I read only a few minutes ago the letter from the Secretary of State, large parts of which the Minister, who has been very helpful in this matter, repeated. BTECs will still be needed in the future because over 200,000 are taken by students each year. I was very glad that the Minister said that the views of employers would be taken more into account, because three large manufacturers, JCB, Rolls-Royce and Toyota, have approached the Government and said that BTECs should run alongside T-levels until students decide whether they want to take them or not.

The real success of T-levels will be if students actually want to take the exam and see it as a way to get into university. Many of them will do that but, on the other hand, lots of students will not want to take them. We found in the two experiments that we were engaged in that students who get grades 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 in GCSEs are reluctant to handle T-levels as they are really above their capability. But they also want a technical way of getting to level 3; that is very important. AGQs, which the Minister mentioned, and BTECs do that. She did not actually mention the national diploma and the extended national diploma, but I hope they will be carefully considered by the Minister. That is how many people, particularly black and ethnic-minority students, get into a university.

I hope that this is a genuine change in the attitude of the Government towards BTECs. They are an important part of the educational process of our system. As I have said before, hundreds of thousands are taken each year. The letter from the Secretary of State is reassuring, but we will know only when we see the results of T-levels. We will have the first results of T-levels from a few hundred schools this August, more in August next year and more in August the following year before any BTECs are defunded. Then the House will have the opportunity to see whether the pledges given today by the Ministers are being fully implemented.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister and the Government for listening to our concerns. It was good to get the letter from the Secretary of State, although only this morning, which was cutting things a little fine. However, we appreciated the meeting with the Minister yesterday, which gave us a whole day to absorb what was planned. In this place, we have to listen and think rather rapidly.

Anyway, we felt very strongly, as the Minister knows, that defunding BTECs when T-levels were untried and untested could spell disaster for students wishing to learn practical, work-based skills. We constantly pointed out that BTECs are well understood and respected by employers, by academia and, perhaps as important, by parents. It is a benefit that they can be combined with A-levels, which T-levels cannot, giving additional opportunities to students in their choices.

We will continue to try to ensure that schools celebrate their BTEC and apprenticeship leavers with the same enthusiasm as their university entrants. Until the Government amend their highly academic criteria for schools, that may be a pipe dream, but there is hope that young people are increasingly looking at the high cost of university, the absence of social life during Covid—no getting drunk in the pubs, although that is mercifully coming back again—and considering that learning and earning is a better alternative than learning and being in debt.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. Given that this is a consultation, I really encourage her to share that as part of her consultation response so that we can take it into account in our plans going forward.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the noble Baroness, I do not think that the Minister entirely answered the point about initial teacher training. What is being done in such training to ensure that every new teacher is equipped to recognise special educational needs? There is early and accurate identification of need, but they can do that only if they are trained to recognise the different types of disability that children might have.

The other thing I want to ask about concerns the new statutory SEND partnership. How will this plan differ from the plan that is in existence at the moment for children’s health and care plans? Can the Minister explain that too?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand why the noble Baroness talks about initial teacher training, although she will be aware that it is outwith the scope of this Green Paper. Our wider vision for teachers is that they should have opportunities for professional development at every stage of their career, whether that is initial teacher training, early career development or beyond. We will consult on creating a SENCO NPQ, which will give teachers who wish to develop in that area an opportunity to do so.

The noble Baroness also asked about the new approach. Some of the difference will be around clarity. First, the new approach brings together special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision. As the noble Baroness knows, one of the things the pandemic high- lighted was the number of children in AP with special educational needs and disabilities, so we want to bring those together. We want absolute clarity around standards of provision and on roles and responsibilities. We also want much clearer accountability and the partnership to work in a coherent way, including with the partners I mentioned in response to an earlier question.

Foreign Languages: Economic Value

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. The FCDO has some 800 specially trained linguists qualified in 46 languages, operating in 111 posts around the world. This figure includes almost 80 heads of mission.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, speaking other languages is very good for warding off Alzheimer’s, as well as playing a significant part in international trade, which is the point of this Question, so it is a win-win. Are the Government still serious about ensuring that the UK can compete on a global stage post Brexit? If so, how will they measure the success of the measures they are taking to ensure that the woeful decline in modern language learning stops and is turned around?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not have time to answer the noble Baroness’s question in full, but I remind her that the uptake of French GSCE is slightly up between 2017 and 2021, Spanish is up very substantially from 85,000 students to 109,000, and 41,000 participants in the Turing scheme, 48% from disadvantaged backgrounds, have been allocated funding this year.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

I am asking the Government to think again about this, because they have never justified why a student should be disallowed from taking two funded qualifications. It is very discriminatory and will affect the future life chances of many young children, so I would like to hear what other Members from different parts of the House think about my amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 15A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who is a tireless champion for education, including technical education. He has personal credentials in that field. It is also a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker. These Benches entirely agree with his amendment, too.

I had submitted an amendment, which covered the same ground as that from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, but I withdrew it to ensure we combined strength on this one to try to convince the Government of the extreme damage they are doing to young people’s prospects by their blinkered approach to T-levels. They have, after all, only just been invented. They have no track record and we have no way of knowing if they will really work. Okay, they have been developed by employers, but so has every work-based qualification in existence. BTECs were developed by employers, too; it is nothing new. Of course, employers are experts on employment, but qualifications need input from teachers at colleges and assessors at awarding bodies if they are to make sense.

Why do the Government not have a corporate memory? I was working for City & Guilds back when national vocational qualifications were introduced. Does anybody still remember NVQs? They were going to be the answer to the academic/vocational divide. They were going to break things down and ensure parity of esteem. Wow—they were great. There were six levels of attainment and employers were in the driving seat.

That was fine, but the retail sector decided that it did not need any outside help. All assessments were to be for real; there was to be no simulation. But two essential competences were dealing with fire and dealing with angry customers. The sector proudly printed umpteen boxes of the exciting new qualifications, until it was pointed out that, for anybody to pass them, many retail outlets would need to be burned down and many contented customers would need to have their feet stamped on to be angry enough to meet the requirements. Sadly, the boxes were pulped, as the sector acknowledged that teachers and assessors simulating assessments could be okay for some competences.

I was concerned to see this Government refusing to learn from the past and trying to develop T-levels without the expertise of teachers or assessors. Luckily, they have now been allowed in, but why is there only one awarding body per qualification? If choice and competition are good for GCSE and A-levels, why not for T-levels? It makes no sense to discontinue qualifications that are understood and respected by candidates, by parents—who are a particularly hard nut to crack—by employers and by further and higher education. They have been instrumental in ensuring that less academic, or in some cases more academic, students had choices in pursuing practical studies with enough academic content to satisfy universities’ entrance requirements, and which were capable of being studied alongside A-levels.

The Minister says that they will be withdrawn only if they overlap with T-levels but, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, they are very different animals. An engineering BTEC and an engineering T-level may suit quite different students. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, previously mentioned that, in the trial of his university technical colleges to which he has alluded today, only the brighter students took to T-levels, but there are many other students with different skill sets for whom the BTEC has been an ideal mix of knowledge and skills that has fitted them up for successful employment. Why on earth would the Government stop that?

In five years, we may know for sure whether T-levels are really the bee’s knees but, while they are still in their infancy, it would be folly in the extreme to put all the eggs in the T-level basket and possibly ruin young people’s chances of meaningful study or employment. I appeal to the Government to do nothing hasty and to keep BTECs funded as far into the future as possible. If not, they risk doing irreparable harm to young people’s prospects of meaningful employment and to addressing the country’s skills shortages.