Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Wilcox of Newport and Lord Davies of Brixton

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we degrouped the amendment because, although it was related to an earlier group, we wanted a specific ministerial response on this policy choice to remove local authorities from the allocation. To fully evaluate the changes, the public will need—and indeed deserve—a robust analysis of how they affect the funding by region when we know that there are already huge disparities in how different areas have been funded, as was alluded to in the previous debate. Indeed, in some cases, this has worsened over the duration of the pandemic. We cannot have this change just happen without detailed analysis and democratic scrutiny. Recent examples, such as the woeful implementation and less than satisfactory delivery of the National Tutoring Programme, clearly demonstrate that monitoring, evaluation and scrutiny of the implementation of policies are key drivers of success.

The DfE has acknowledged that there is a critical question over whether there would continue to be merit in local control of certain aspects of mainstream school funding, and we would argue that there is such merit. But what does the profession say? I will quote Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. I am sure that my noble friend, although she is not in her place, will agree with me that ASCL is not the most revolutionary of trade representative bodies. Nevertheless, he says:

“While we support the direction of travel, our bigger concern is that there is not enough money being put into the system in the first place. The cake is too small, no matter how it is sliced. We recognise that the government is currently investing more money in schools but we do not think this is enough to repair the damage done by years of underfunding and we are concerned that much of the new money will be simply eaten up by rising costs. This is even more critical because of the havoc wreaked by the pandemic and the pressing need for significant investment in education recovery.”


So if not this amendment—as I predict that the Minister cannot agree to it today—what are the Government’s future plans to assess these impacts? I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I totally support the amendment moved by the Front Bench. If this change in the system of funding schools goes ahead, it is essential that an assessment along the lines proposed is made.

However, I question the need for—indeed, am deeply opposed to—Clause 33 and Part 2 as a whole. I am against the proposal for a hard national funding formula, fundamentally because I am a believer in local education authorities—LEAs—as a matter of principle. My noble friend Lord Knight is not in his place, but he said that everyone would be raising their hobby-horse, and this could well be mine. I am in favour of a seamless education system that works for local people through their local representatives. I am prepared to accept that there is scope for debate on the structure of LEAs. Personally, I have a predilection for bodies of sufficient scale which have significant financial and organisational autonomy—basically, a service that is run democratically and is responsive to local voices. Unfortunately, the trend over the last 40 years has been the other way: centralisation and financial restrictions.

I have re-read the debates that have brought us here and it is my view that no case has been made for a hard formula. Some figures are quoted showing what might be thought were gross discrepancies in what individual schools were receiving in financial support, but without providing the context within which these figures have been reached, it tells us nothing. We are also told that the new system will provide “a consistent assessment,” as if that in itself was sufficient justification, when in my judgment it will be consistently bad. In truth, a close reading of the White Paper tells us that it

“supports the expansion of … trusts.”

What we have here is little more than a by-product of the move to full academisation.

I am against a hard formula in principle, but I am also against it in practice, because it will not achieve a workable or effective outcome. I endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, during the last debate, where the problems were made clear.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Wilcox of Newport and Lord Davies of Brixton

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two points. My tendency is to support Amendment 41 but, after hearing what my noble friend just said about the direction of travel, maybe that is sufficient. I find the idea of widely dispersed academies problematic. In the White Paper that came before the Bill, in paragraph 131 on the size of trusts, the Government say:

“we will limit the proportion of schools in a local area that can be run by an individual trust.”

This is a genuine question: how does that fit together with the debate we have just had?

My second point relates to Amendment 55. I heard what my noble friend Lady Blower said, raising the issues of parents being faced with a decision about which they have not been consulted. We sort of had an answer from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester, speaking on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, but the Church needs to take a more understanding approach to this issue. We have a case in point: a group of parents were faced with the reality of their school being moved from an academy into a multi-academy trust with a Christian ethos. In principle I am against Church schools, but that is not the point here. The point here is whether those parents should have some input before that decision is reached. I find it impossible to believe that someone would argue in principle against consulting parents about this major change in the way that their school is run.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a wide group of amendments. I shall speak first to Amendment 49, which says that, within a year, the Secretary of State must consult on whether the Bill is adequate enough a mechanism to enable schools to either de-academise or leave their trust. Once a school joins a MAT, it is trapped. We need to empower schools to leave failing MATs or those it has irreconcilable differences with. Where else in society would it be impossible to get out of an unsatisfactory agreement? No other organisation would be tied in this way to a compulsory contract with no get-out clause.

In our Amendment 94, we ask that the Secretary of State must report yearly on the financial health of academies, including any measures necessary to address disparities, especially over financial reserves, and that academies must state their intentions for the use of reserves over £250,000. Too many academies are sitting on reserves of millions of pounds. Notwithstanding the points made by my noble friend Lord Knight about reallocation and GAG—I had not heard that acronym before, but I will not forget it now—we need to encourage academies to be transparent about this. If they are saving for a huge capital project and can justify it, it is an acceptable way forward, but these institutions cannot be cash cows. Money needs to be invested for pupil benefit.