Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not yet heard anything I disagree with, so I shall try to make some different points. This is an odd, strange Bill. On the face of it, there is not a lot in it; however, the issues it addresses are of prime importance. There is nothing more important than the future structure of our school system. Otherwise, we keep revisiting it and do not do the things we really want to.

A lot of us here, especially those of us who have had the honour of having ministerial responsibility, would like to take this opportunity to put the structures behind us and get on with what really makes the difference: what happens in the classroom and outside the school, and the relationship with a whole range of children’s services. On one level, I welcome this opportunity and the Government’s intention to sort out the structures, because I do not like the fragmented, dual system: it is a waste and builds up bureaucracy. There is so much good will to sort it out that I am not quite sure how the Government have managed to mess it up as much as they have.

I find two things odd about the Bill. One is the broad range of powers the Government are taking—the way they are trying to solve this problem. The second is that it is really difficult to table amendments to it. I had a discussion with my Front-Bench colleagues yesterday about the detail of some of the amendments tabled. I asked, “Why have you put that down?” They explained very clearly that that was the only way we could get the debate going. The Bill is not written with a sensible structure—a clear vision, objectives and a means to achieve them: the Government’s clear thinking—which, as my noble friend Lord Knight said, we could amend. All it says is that the Government will take powers on anything they want. It is really tough to amend that, because it does not give the criteria against which they will judge whether to take powers, or what they will do with the powers they take. There is nothing to amend because it is all about the future. That is why the report from the Delegated Powers Committee is critical. There is nothing to discuss because the Government are not saying what they will do.

Therefore, I come to the conclusion—I do not often say this, and I say it in a very mellow tone—that they really ought to withdraw the Bill and think again. That is not to score a political point. The Government’s wish to make this coherent is laudable, and I should like to be with them on that and to have a really good debate on the things we disagree on and on which we agree, but we cannot, given the structure of the Bill.

There is a risk that we will miss the enormity of the changes because of the breadth of the Bill and because it does not spell out what it is doing. I am not saying that that is deliberate—it may be, but I am giving the Government the benefit of the doubt. It talks about academies, but in reality we are talking about every single school in our country. If the proposals in the White Paper are enacted and every school becomes an academy, the Bill will make changes not just to the 47% or 48% of schools that are academies; it is a blueprint for every school in our country.

If you look at the White Paper, there seems to be a wish to have every school as an academy by 2030. I want something better than that. I want to know whether the Government are going to do anything if that does not happen naturally by 2030, because it is important that we know whether that is what we are talking about. I do not want anyone to have to revisit this legal structure in five or six years’ time; that would be a waste of effort.

We are not really talking about academies because, if you look at some of the examples given, the powers that are going to go the Secretary of State are absolutely with academies currently, not the Secretary of State. Although the Bill talks about

“powers in relation to Academies”

and it is claimed that all the Government are doing is putting in law what is in the agreement, with respect, that is not the case. Looking down the list—I had only a quick look; I did not do any checking—I spotted five things. I would suggest that the curriculum, the length of the school day, the appointment of staff, the remuneration of staff and the admissions code are all freedoms that were given to academies but are not available to maintained schools. I am not saying whether I think that is right or wrong, but this clause takes all those freedoms away from academies and gives them to the Secretary of State. So this is no longer about academies. You can use that word but it will not mean an academy in the way we have known it if this Bill becomes law.

The Bill will also affect maintained schools, but they will not be maintained schools in the way we have understood them if it becomes law. At the moment, maintained schools have a relationship with the local authority. They will not have that relationship if the Bill becomes law, but it does not say anything about what the local authority’s relationship with any of these schools will be. That is what I find confusing because, essentially, the Bill sets up a structure for a school system that is neither an academy nor a maintained school in the way we understand them, but a new type of school that is part of a nationalised school system, with all direction, powers and control coming from the Secretary of State, with the local authority having some involvement in special needs and the interests of children, and with the freedoms that were formerly given to academies no longer there.

I am not saying whether that is good or bad—in my view, some of it is good and some of it bad, and I want a debate—but this is no way to change the school system. These changes are enormous. They overturn the work of Michael Gove and other previous Conservative Ministers, as well as that of my noble friend Lord Adonis and other previous Labour Ministers. One of them is sitting behind me; I suspect that others will join in. So I say to the Minister on this set of amendments —my noble friend Lord Knight put it very well—that we want the debate as well. It would be better for our country and the system if the Minister took this Bill back, as we need pre-legislative scrutiny of it, and came back in due course with a structure that will enable us to debate all these things.

If we were to set up a school structure that is neither an academy nor maintained, I would be very happy about that. I would like to put those old rows and debates behind me. If we have not learned something from both those things over the past 20 years, we need our heads examining. We could spend two years thinking up a name for it—I do not mind—but I cannot do that with this Bill. It is not written in a way that makes it possible to amend it in that form. Yet it is no more and no less than an attempt to set up a blueprint for a brand new structure of schools in this country. I really do hope that the Minister will volunteer to do this in a different way.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I follow two such experts in education on these Benches. However, I see an uncanny parallel with what has happened in the health service, which I know a little about, and education. At about the same time that my noble friend Lord Adonis was proposing academies, in the then Department of Health we were proposing the creation of foundation trusts. The idea of NHS foundation trusts was to get out of the kind of micromanagement that the report today on the NHS talks about, and to give much more control locally, making those foundation trusts which were going to be the best performers much more accountable to local membership and to the population.

However, after the initial enthusiasm of my good friend Alan Milburn and the team of Ministers then, the normal centralising powers of the Department of Heath took over. Gradually, it has assumed more and more control again over those individual trusts. Now there is virtually no difference between a foundation trust and a non-foundation trust. Listening to my noble friends, I think that there is an uncanny parallel where essentially the Secretary of State for Education is giving himself the tools to have direct responsibility for each school within the system.

My ministerial experience of trying to run the NHS, where we had 300 bodies accountable to us, is that this will not end happily. Do Ministers realise that they will have to answer here for the performance of each individual school? Do they realise the enormity of that task? It then brings us to the problem that we have: that this Bill is ill timed because the department have not thought it through. Whatever our view on academies—there is a somewhat mixed view, on these Benches at least—there is general agreement that it is right for the Secretary of State to set some standards for our school system, and that there must be much more coherence in the system.

I was very struck by the pretty dispassionate report by the Institute for Government three or four months ago on academies, in which it makes the point that, with academies now making up almost 50% of all schools, we have a very inefficient dual system. Local authorities must still support a diminishing number of schools with declining resources, and the regulatory system for academies is incoherent, with financial regulations split from performance management and no single person or office in the system able to hold multi-academy trusts accountable for poor educational performance. The institute then says it is no wonder that far too many multi-academy trusts do not add value to the schools within their control.

The Minister referred at Second Reading to the accountability system and the ability of her department and its officials to hold the system to account. She said that Ministers were launching a review to establish the appropriate model and options for how best to regulate the English school system. Why on earth does she not do the review, see what the outcomes are, then bring legislation to your Lordships’ House and let us properly debate and seek to amend it? I urge her to listen to my noble friends and take this Bill back, or at least to pause it to allow for more work to be done and for us to have proper scrutiny of this vital legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, may not be in the slightest bit surprised by this Bill. The argument can go rather wider. It has been said that the Bill has not been carefully thought out. I am not so sure. I think it has been thought out. We know that we have an Administration who wish to take more power, as has just been said, and wish to be free to do things whenever they want to do them without very much scrutiny.

It has also been said that the Bill lacks any educational philosophy. I am sure that is right. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made that point. We are up against the fact that you believe that education is either some sort of mechanical means to an end, which can be controlled by a Secretary of State assuming some sort of godlike position, or an end in itself. None of us knows how to get it completely right; hardly any of us knows how to get it even partially right. Therefore, the best thing is to decentralise it and, as many noble Lords have said, to recruit the best people you can into the teaching profession and the governance of schools and let them get on with it.

My father was Secretary of State twice. He used to come home and say, “My problem is that I can’t recruit enough good people to be teachers.” Therefore, maybe the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is also right: we should put more resources into education.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a specific question about Clause 1(6). It is odd to say that a standard may not be set about determining whether academy grammar schools should retain selective admission arrangements. When I first read that, I understood it as an assurance to grammar schools with selective admission arrangements that this was not an intention to change them, in the same way that there is an assurance to faith schools in the same clause. However, I want reassurance that this would not prevent any future Government changing the law if they wished to abolish selective education.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for something he said in his speech that helped me understand why I am more half-hearted in my support than others. I hope he will forgive me if I misquote him, but he implied that there had been no thought about areas that could be badly affected, including faith schools, until later. Actually, the Secretary of State and the Minister have been incredibly helpful and supportive in discussions with us about some of the later clauses. The department recognised that there are growing issues connected with voluntary-aided and voluntary-controlled schools and the move to MATs, which need to be dealt with and must be dealt with by legislation. Our experience has been of working behind the scenes with Ministers and officials in a very positive and helpful manner. That perhaps explains why we approach it more positively. Therefore, I say thank you and completely support the noble Lord’s Amendment 27A on the same basis—that these schools should have the protections.

However, picking up the concerns I expressed earlier about the overreach of the Secretary of State’s powers proposed here, I support the thrust and purpose of Amendment 2. The period is possibly too long but that is debatable. It is a proposal that helps to protect. It enables others from the sector to engage with us and for us all to express our opinions about proposed regulations, so that those regulations can be properly debated, the report can come back and the regulations can be amended. Amendment 2 is a really helpful proposal in principle, to assist with the restriction of the Secretary of State’s power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing some of the earlier speeches; the ones I heard were very helpful. I support this group of amendments because it emphasises the question of freedoms. The one thing I had agreed with the Government on in the past—there has not been very much—was the emphasis on the kind of freedoms schools would have, which is why I am completely bemused by what has happened with this Bill.

The other very important thing has been raised in other comments, which I would like the Minister to take away. If you tell anyone outside this place that there is a Schools Bill and you are talking about schools, interestingly enough they say, “What are the Government proposing for schools? What is the educational vision?” I have talked to teachers, parents and sixth-formers and they say, “What’s the vision?” I have read it all and I say, “There is none, other than that the Secretary of State will decide that later on.” Because there is no vision, these amendments really matter as they give a certain amount of freedom to people who might have some vision, even if I am not convinced that the Bill has it. I was glad to see these amendments.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make a very brief intervention. I struggle with the whole issue of the curriculum. I basically agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. When I look at many schools, there is not the time in the week for them to do the things that—as the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, just said—might need to be done in the school and community context. The school week is overcrowded and does not leave sufficient flexibility for teachers to use their professional judgment about what needs to be covered. I understand that.

I suppose it is my age—I do not know—but I have always welcomed the entitlement of the child that the national curriculum brought about in the day of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. I was teaching when the noble Lord, Lord Baker, introduced the national curriculum. My kids in an inner-city school got a better deal because we, as teachers, were made to teach them things that, to be honest, we had assumed they were not able to learn. That is a whole history of education to go into.

I find it quite difficult still to balance the entitlement the national curriculum gave to children to learn a broad and balanced curriculum, and still would. I worry that freedom on the curriculum means that a school will choose not to teach music, science or Shakespeare. When you have the relationship of all schools to the Secretary of State, I struggle to be really confident that the DfE, Ministers or civil servants could intervene if a child was being denied that access to a broad and balanced curriculum.

I have never quite worked out how it resolves. It is always the same; in most schools it works well, and they get it right, but we need to protect the right of every child to all the subjects in the national curriculum and all those experiences we think they need. I am asking the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in his response, to reflect on how his amendment would ensure that balance and that the protection of the child’s entitlement will be kept.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think that we are at risk of having a really interesting debate about the substance of what a child should learn in school, which the Bill does not actually allow us very easily to do. The benefit of what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is proposing is that he is very clear where he is coming from, why he is doing it and what he is seeking to achieve. There is a philosophical underpinning of the amendments that he is proposing, so at least we have something to hold on to when we either agree or disagree with him.