Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Hughes of Stretford and Lord Knight of Weymouth

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I do not want to delay the Committee, but this is really important. There is no requirement on academies. I can understand there being no requirement on academies if the number of academies is small, but if, as it would appear, we are starting to move towards a vision of every secondary school being an academy, how can we ever be sure that we have enough induction places for the workforce that we need to keep continuing to recruit?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

As I understand this—I may be wrong—teachers’ training is not fully validated until they have successfully completed an induction period. If the choice of whether there is an induction period rests with the school or academy and is not a right for the teacher, there may be a large number of people going into those situations whose training is never finally completed and validated if they have not done a satisfactory induction period.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Hughes of Stretford and Lord Knight of Weymouth

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My noble friend is making an important case, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Later, we will talk about behaviour and attendance partnerships. Does my noble friend think that the notions of fairness that have been discussed would shift if schools had to remain within behaviour and attendance partnerships and therefore had to make sure that excluded pupils were properly found a place within that community of schools?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My noble friend makes an extremely important point, which I was also going to try to make but he has made it very well. This is one of the problems with the way that the Bill has been constructed, tearing down, as it does—in my view, somewhat recklessly—a whole range of requirements and apparatus. When you look, as we will shortly, at the proposal to repeal the responsibility of schools to be in a behaviour and attendance partnership, and set that alongside the measures before us, you see that the situation is compounded. At least if schools were in such a partnership, they would have a responsibility to work with schools in their federation or partnership to find solutions for those difficult children whom some schools propose to exclude. Taking both away makes things very difficult. One cannot see what will happen to children when they are excluded through this process.

If the Minister is not minded to reconsider, will he explain to the Committee what safeguards the Government would put in place to assure the groups whom we have been discussing who are already adversely affected by permanent exclusion and would be more so through these measures? What safeguards do they propose to put in place, not just to contain but to reverse that trend?

Many organisations in addition to those mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have expressed their concern about these proposals. The Children’s Society, the National Children’s Bureau and the Children’s Commissioner have asked the Government to think again. Some trade unions have raised a slightly different but equally important point, arguing that rather than reducing bureaucracy there is a danger that, unless either the amendment that I am speaking to or that proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is enacted, removing the panels and taking away the power to reinstate may lead parents to think about taking legal action against schools. That would involve a great deal more work and unnecessary bureaucracy for schools.

The amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, would mean that all parents of permanently excluded children would be able instead to appeal to the first-level tribunal. That has much to commend it. Those tribunals, unlike the review panels, would be led by somebody who was legally trained, which is a big advantage. One could ask, as did the noble Baroness, what the consequences would be in terms of time, delay and expense of all the cases going to such a tribunal. Might there not be an argument for a remedy at a more local level for at least some of those cases? I am open to debate on that point; the main thing, as we have both said, is that there should be somewhere in the system a right of appeal to a body that has the power to reinstate.

Sir Alan Steer recommended in his independent review, Learning Behaviour:

“Independent exclusion appeals panels should be retained, both in the interests of natural justice and to prevent schools becoming embroiled in time-consuming or costly alternative legal processes”.

I have mentioned the Runnymede Trust, which has provided a number of case studies, one of which is particularly salutary. It is the case of the Formula 1 champion, Lewis Hamilton, who when he was 16 was excluded from school in a case of mistaken identity after he witnessed an attack. In his autobiography, he writes:

“I knew I was innocent but”,

the head teacher,

“did not appear to be interested. Subsequent letters to the local education authority, our local MP, the education secretary and even the prime minister, were of no help. No one appeared to listen—no one either wanted to or had the time. We were on our own, and I was out of school”.

However, Hamilton’s school career was saved due a successful case made by his father to an independent appeal panel, which reinstated him at the school.

While there is a chance of even a small number of cases such as that occurring, and given the arguments that we have all made about natural justice and fair process, it would be wrong to remove the power to reinstate. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, asked at our previous sitting what would then happen if that decision was taken. Yes, we can have a conversation about where that child goes. However, to have won your appeal puts you in a very different position from being excluded and there being no power to reinstate.