Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Drefelin and Lord Greaves

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

I cannot help but notice that Members on the coalition government Front Bench have been struggling with the brightness of the light today. I hope that that is because they have seen the light on PSHE.

[Lord Greaves]

Will the noble Baroness agree that the sun shines on the righteous?

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

Well, I am sure that we are about to find out the truth of that. I do not want to keep the Committee any longer because I know that we have a great deal of work to do today. However, I want to support my noble friends Lady Gould and Lady Massey. Both have made strong and impassioned contributions—I do not want to rehearse their strong arguments—as have my noble friends Lord Howarth and Lord Layard. I was also interested in the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who, as ever, spoke wisely on these matters, and in the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.

We have debated these matters hotly at times; we certainly did so during the wash-up, when I think that things got a bit frayed. It is fair to say that what happened was not vague—the then Conservative Opposition opposed the measures in the Children, Schools and Families Bill to include PSHE following all the consultation and discussions with the faith groups, parents and specialists involved. I therefore hope that, with the confidence that the Conservative Party has in government, it will be able to think again. I hope that this is not a party-political issue, but one on which we can come together for the benefit of children currently going through the education system and more widely for our community. I hope that my noble friends will accept my support for their amendment.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Drefelin and Lord Greaves

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

I am very interested in the noble Lord’s view on this. Does he think there is a material difference between what a community might have to say about a primary school and about a secondary school? Is there a difference between those institutions in terms of the community engagement and collective responsibility?

[Lord Greaves]

I think there is a real difference between primary schools and secondary schools for other reasons, but the relationship between a school and the community in which it is situated varies hugely between schools. Some schools cut themselves off from the community, unfortunately, a tendency that has increased in recent years because of the pressures put on the schools, but other schools look outwards. I do not think there is necessarily a difference between a primary school and a secondary school, although primary schools—by their very nature, because they take in very young children and bring mothers in and so on—are often more closely involved in the community than some secondary schools. However, I do not think there is necessarily a direct relationship between that, and I know secondary schools that are heavily involved in the community.

The parish council in a village, the town council in a town and the district council can all legitimately have a say. I am not saying that they should have a right of veto; I am saying that these are community institutions and if a community is to have a proper debate, no matter how quickly, everyone in that community has a right to it.

There are two principles of general consultation. They help with the difficulties, which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, identified, of being too prescriptive about whom you consult or of trying to be prescriptive but vague at the same time and perhaps leaving things open to legal challenge. First, you must publish what you are proposing for general discussion so that anyone can pick up information about it and take part in the discussion, and you must publish the responses. That is proposed new subsection (1A) in my amendment. Secondly, once you have the responses, whether from parents, teachers, the parish council or just a group of interested people, you must obviously consider them and decide whether you want to allow them to influence your decision. If, after the consultation, you decide to send your application to the Secretary of State, you send a summary of the responses or the responses themselves to the Secretary of State alongside your application so that someone who is looking at the application can consider them at the same time. Those are the two principles of genuine public consultation and debate.

The argument against such a consultation might be that it will delay the process, but so long as you have a pretty strict timetable and people are fairly rigorous and efficient with it, it does not have to delay the process very much. I think there is also a worry on the part of the Government that if there is too much general public debate about a particular proposal, it will encourage people to decide not to go for it. They might say that it is a bit controversial and hang back a bit. However, given the scale of the interest which the Government assure us there is in these things, whether it is a free school or a conversion—they say that 1,800 schools at least have now asked for more details—the Government and the department cannot possibly deal with that very quickly and will have to go ahead with far fewer, so I do not think that the argument about putting people off carries any weight whatever.

I support the coalition Government, but everything that people have said and everything that they have published so far—in the original agreement and in the coalition document Our Programme for Government—talks about more public involvement, more consultation and more involvement of citizens. We are slowly learning what the big society means, but if it does not mean genuine consultation on something that is as important to a local community as the future of its school, what on earth does it mean? Something needs to be in the Bill about consultation, and it needs to involve not just particular interest groups in the school but the wider community.