Schools: Admission Policies
Lord Avebury Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)
It is the turn of this side, but we shall be very quick and then we shall hear from the other side.
Schools: Pupil Premium
Lord Avebury Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, agrees with me on the importance of the role of governors generally in concentrating on the performance of the school and the achievement of pupils. One of the key indicators that there will be, through Ofsted and the performance tables, is how schools are doing, particularly for children on free school meals. Governors can play an extremely important part in holding the head, and the rest of the school, to account for delivering that.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, noble Lords cannot speak at the same time. I think it is my noble friend’s turn.
Lord Avebury
Further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, will my noble friend confirm that, in future, Ofsted inspections will pay specific regard to the position of GRT—Gypsy, Roma and Traveller—pupils, bearing in mind that they are the most deprived group of any section of the community in terms of educational achievement and attainment?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, as I think I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, the focus of the Ofsted inspection is particularly on children suffering from economic disadvantage—those on free school meals—and those are the criteria and judgments that Ofsted will be using.
Schools: Curriculum
Lord Avebury Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
As it happens, I have read the material to which the noble Lord referred. Many views expressed in it are not ones to which I would subscribe. However, there are many pieces of information, material and literature that contain views to which I do not subscribe, and I do not have a great desire to ban people who hold views different from mine.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, is it not taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut to ask parents or others who object to homophobic material being used in schools to apply to Ofsted or take action under the Equality Act?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am sorry; I did not hear the beginning of that question.
Lord Avebury
The noble Lord implied in an earlier answer that the only remedy that a parent had if they objected to the use of homophobic material in the classroom was to apply to Ofsted or bring proceedings under the Equality Act. Is that not taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope that I said that there was a range of routes. Those options are at the extreme end of the routes. Complaints may also be made to the school, the governing body and the department, and to the YPLA on behalf of the department.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Deben
I listened with very considerable care to how the amendments were introduced by the noble Baronesses. In both cases, the suggestion was that the kind of schools where teachers’ religious beliefs were taken into account, apart from the chaplain or the like, would be schools of which they disapproved because they felt that it was better for children to be educated in circumstances in which there was a wide range of teachers with a wide range of views. I am merely saying that I want a society in which parents can choose and do not have that dictated to them by those who think it would be better for them to have a particular kind of circumstance. I am pleading for that on the basis of discrimination. I do not wish to discriminate against the poor. I am pleading for it also on the basis of liberalism.
In a free society, people should have the choice to the widest possible degree. It is illiberal to say that a person’s belief that a faith-based school is in some way—I think that the word was used, but I will not use it myself; I shall just say “restrictive”, as it makes people unable to share in the rich variety of life. That is an unacceptable position in the sort of society that we have. Young people have a difficult enough time in any case in maintaining standards and values. They have a difficult enough time in any case upholding the faith in a society which is dedicated to its destruction, and parents and religious organisations, either Catholic or Anglican, wanting to make sure that they have the best possible opportunity, should be encouraged. These amendments make it more difficult and I therefore believe that they should not be supported.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I have seldom heard a more hysterical and inaccurate speech than the one that we have just listened to from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, which is clearly based on a total misunderstanding of the amendments and of the motives of the people who tabled them. I do not think he can have heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said in her intervention—that Amendment 85 and the other two amendments have nothing whatever to do with the choices that parents make of the schools that their children will attend. I hope that he will think carefully about the remarks that he has made and, perhaps, hesitate on future occasions to leap in with the wild assertions that he made today.
Lord Avebury
I had no objection to the noble Lord intervening, if that is what he was doing.
Lord Deben
I merely say to my noble friend that the point that I was making is that parents may wish to choose a school in which the restrictions on the choice of teachers expected under these amendments are not ones that they would wish. It is perfectly reasonable for them to choose those schools.
Lord Avebury
No one is suggesting that there should be any restriction on the right of parents to choose whatever school they think is best for their children. The noble Lord’s remarks are based on a total misunderstanding of the amendment and what the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, said. But perhaps I may move on to the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, who I thought said that these amendments were fine but unnecessary. I am hoping that he is in support of the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, because surely there may be teachers who are not entirely opposed to the faith basis of a school who belong to other religions or none but have a particular aptitude for mathematics, say, or geography, and are therefore suitable for those subjects in the school, although it has a religious ethos. He said, rightly, that the schools would want to choose persons who were best capable of teaching the non-religious subjects and that they would not wish to discriminate in making choices when appointing those persons.
I am afraid that we have made no more progress on the issues covered by the noble Baroness on religious discrimination than we did on collective worship since Committee, although, with the noble Baroness, I was grateful to the Minister for writing to us and entering into a detailed discussion with us in the interval between Committee and Report. The Minister will remember that he was handed a dossier of legal opinions, which the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, mentioned, including one commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that challenged the compatibility of the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998 with the European Union employment directive. The focus of these opinions was Section 60(5). Looking back at the passage of this subsection through this House in 1998, I see that the original wording of the equivalent part of the Bill, then Clause 58(4), was entirely benign and unobjectionable. It provided that in a voluntary aided school of a religious character, no teacher of subjects other than religion would receive any less remuneration or be deprived of, or disqualified for, any promotion or other advantage by reason of his religious opinions or of his attending religious worship.
The amendments to that clause, to which we are now objecting, turned the original words on their head by saying that preference may be given, in connection with the appointment, remuneration or promotion of teachers at a voluntary aided school which has a religious character, to persons whose religious opinions are in accordance with the tenets of the religion or religious denomination of the school. Those amendments were drafted following a delegation to the Home Secretary led by the then right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, who acknowledged in the House that the amendments had been,
“prepared in consultation with the Churches”.—[Official Report, 4/6/98; col. 576.]
He understandably expressed his delight that the churches were “completely satisfied” with the amendments then inserted. No other amendments were made by any other noble Lord.
Those proposals were made by the Church of England and accepted by the Government at the same time as the employment directive was being drafted in Europe to combat precisely that sort of unfair discrimination. They are the basis of the formal complaint lodged by the National Secular Society earlier this year to the European Commission, which I understand is still under consideration. If Section 60(5) is left alone, they may yet be the subject of litigation by teachers who consider that they have been treated less favourably than others in terms of their appointment, remuneration or promotion to posts involving the teaching of history, English or mathematics, for example, because they do not subscribe to the particular religion or denomination which gives the school its religious character. I suppose that the same would apply not only to Christian but also to Muslim schools, where a teacher might be discriminated against in the same way because he belongs to the wrong brand of Islam.
The then Government compounded the offence of undermining the directive by insisting, at the 11th hour, as a condition of their acceptance of the directive, that previous legislation, including in particular the School Standards and Framework Act, should be regarded as being in effect exempt from the new directive. The Government were so desperate for unanimous agreement, as was required, that they were able to force the Council of Ministers to accept their demands.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has, on the grounds of pragmatism, gone only a modest way today to reverse these discriminatory 1998 amendments. I therefore appeal to the Government to recognise that these privileges granted to religious bodies create, as do all privileges, victims—those who would otherwise not have been disadvantaged. The innocent and undeserving victims of Section 60(5), which the noble Baroness seeks to replace in her Amendment 86, are teachers—there may be thousands of them—who are not of the faith of the publicly funded school or academy where they teach or apply to teach subjects other than religious education.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I have some concerns about these amendments, in particular Amendment 86 in the name of my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden and Amendment 88 in the name of my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen. Amendment 86 would dilute the existing legislative protection which allows Catholic schools to give priority to Catholics when recruiting to any post, without the need to provide justification for doing so. That has been a long established practice and it is essential that such preference is given to ensure that the Catholic ethos, which is the whole basis of having a Catholic school, is allowed to continue and to be maintained and developed. I suggest to my noble friend that the proposed subsection (5A) in her Amendment 86 is unnecessary since schools with a religious character are already obliged to comply with the Equality Act 2010, which includes appropriate exemptions for such schools.
Amendment 88 in the name of my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen relates to voluntary controlled schools only. There are no voluntary controlled schools in the Catholic sector but this amendment would affect Church of England voluntary controlled schools which convert to academy status. These schools, which currently admit only a certain proportion of children of faith, would be prevented from increasing that quota except in specific circumstances. My fear is that if my noble friend's amendment was incorporated into the Bill it would pave the way for imposing quotas on all schools of a religious character. I do not think that is reasonable, right or just. From the point of view of the Catholic sector, this would certainly limit the ability of Catholic parents to send their children to Catholic schools. For that reason, I could not support my noble friend’s amendment.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Avebury
My Lords, somewhat incongruously, my proposed new clause, which follows the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, refers to the closure of schools, whereas her speech and the clause that she is addressing refer to the opening of new schools. The proposed new clause removes the presumption in the existing guidance on the closing of schools that there should be no reduction in the proportion of denominational places in the area when consideration is being given to a school closure.
The Department for Education says that the current guidance, which is not on its website because it reflects the current legal position, may not reflect current government policy because it is to be replaced shortly by revised interim guidance. But the department does not intend to revise the section of the present guidance which provides in paragraph 4.32 that:
“The Decision Maker should not normally approve the closure of a school with a religious character where the proposal would result in a reduction in the proportion of denominational places in the area”.
The department says in an e-mail about the guidance that there is no special protection for denominational provision in the guidance inasmuch as it,
“simply requires that due consideration should be made when deciding closure proposals for denominational provision”.
The e-mail continues:
“It does not say that no such school should close, especially if the faith body supports the proposals, and particularly if the school concerned is severely under-subscribed, standards have been consistently low, or where an amalgamation of existing provision is proposed”.
In other words, where normal conditions do not apply, the guidance allows the closure of a school with a religious character, a proposition with which we do not seek to argue. What we are talking about in this proposed new clause is the closure of a school where there are no exceptional conditions. The Department for Education goes on to say that,
“if you are preserving the balance of denominational provision, you are likewise preserving the percentage of non-denominational provision i.e. if you remove a non-denominational school from the system, there is also an option to remove denominational provision and vice-versa if adding provision, as otherwise the balance has increased in favour of denominational provision”.
What this appears to be saying, if I have deciphered it correctly—I must appeal to the Minister to confirm my interpretation—is that within a given area the guidance does not have the effect of monotonically increasing the proportion of religious places in the schools. The closure of a secular school by itself is permissible, but the closure of a religious school is allowed only under the specified unusual conditions.
Let us see how the guidance works out in a particular area, the Freshwater and Totland area of the Isle of Wight. The council decided to reduce the provision of primary school places in the area because the number of pupils in reception had fallen significantly below the available reception places in the area over a whole decade. The closure of one of the three schools in the area was the solution, and in the council’s discussion of which it was to be, the headline argument in the case of the two religious schools was the guidance already quoted. The council said in each case that the guidance was clear, as indeed it was in this case, that the decision-maker would not approve the closure of either the Catholic or the Church of England school because to do so would reduce the proportion of denominational places in the area. The fact that closing the only community school in a 12-mile radius in the west of the Isle of Wight meant that the proportion of non-denominational places in the area was reduced to zero was neither here nor there in terms of the guidance.
It must be acknowledged that in the absence of paragraph 4.32 already quoted there were other reasons why the non-religious school might have drawn the short straw in this area, but if the three schools had been equally popular and of equal standards that paragraph would have been instrumental in reaching the decision. It certainly amounts to special protection for schools with a religious character where there is a need to close one school out of several in an area, other things being equal. This amendment seeks to create a level playing field for all schools when closures are being considered.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 70C in this group, which would remove subsections (3) and (4) of new Section 6A as inserted by Schedule 11. Subsection (3) introduces a requirement for a local authority to seek the Secretary of State’s approval before proceeding with an alternative model of school to an academy. Subsection (4) allows the Secretary of State to terminate the process.
It is very important that we do not reduce the ability of local parents, education providers and councils to respond quickly and effectively to new demand, and that local choice and diversity of provision are maintained. We all know that there is likely to be a big increase in demand for primary schools over the next three to four years. That will create a sudden boom in demand for pupil places and it is very important that we do not cause any delay in allowing councils to provide those places. My noble friend Lady Ritchie mentioned this in Grand Committee and she has given me permission to mention her name today although she is not able to be in her place.
Councils’ primary concern when encouraging new provision in their areas should, of course, be the needs of parents. If local parents do not want new schools to be established as academies, councils should be able to retain the option to reflect parental demand without having to approach the Secretary of State for permission. My concern, and that of my noble friend Lady Ritchie, is that the requirement within this schedule risks the creation of a potentially burdensome process, which could restrict the ability of local communities to respond quickly to demand. I was very interested to receive a copy of a letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, dated 20 October, in which the Minister points out:
“Schedule 11 removes this consent requirement from certain kinds of proposals. These comprise proposals for new primary schools where they are replacing infant and junior schools, proposals for new voluntary aided schools, proposals for new faith schools resulting from the reorganisation of faith provision in an area, and proposals for a new school resulting from a faith school changing or losing its religious character.”
At the bottom of page one, the Minister says:
“We are removing the requirement on the basis that it is additional and unnecessary bureaucracy.”
If it is an additional and unnecessary bureaucracy for those kinds of schools, why not for all?
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his kind remarks about his aspiration when he came into the other place, but does he realise that my amendment was not concerned with the creation of new faith schools, but was entirely a matter of the closure of existing schools? I am not attempting to prejudice the decisions that are made by the adjudicator, but simply to create a level playing field when it is a choice between closing a faith school or a non-faith school. Such a decision should not be determined by a requirement that the number of places of a denominational character should be preserved.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I was responding to the two speeches that went before and, of course, the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, try to limit the creation of new voluntary-aided schools. I accept what the noble Lord says about his own amendment and I simply say that there are no widespread complaints about the present arrangements. These things are usually best worked out on the ground. In the city of Liverpool, which I know well, one thing I have been very impressed by, and others in your Lordships’ House will be able to confirm this, is that in areas where once there was a sectarian and very hostile relationship between different Christian denominations, they have, through local collaboration, come forward with proposals and set up joint schools across the denominations. These things are best left to local determination, a point made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. This is something that is best left well alone because there is no widespread complaint about the present arrangements.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Avebury
“Collective worship
(1) Section 70 of SSFA 1998 (requirements relating to collective worship) is amended as follows.
(2) For subsection (1) substitute—
“(1) Subject to section 71—
(a) each pupil in attendance at a foundation or voluntary school of a religious character shall on each school day attend an act of collective worship;(b) community, foundation or voluntary schools which are not of a religious character and Academies that are not religiously designated may hold acts of collective worship at the discretion of the governors.(1A) Governors should be under an obligation to consider representations made to them by pupils and the parents of pupils as to whether or not schools or Academies hold acts of collective worship under subsection (1)(b).”
(3) In subsection (2) for “community, foundation or voluntary school” substitute “foundation or voluntary school of a religious character”.
(4) In subsection (3) for “required” substitute “permitted”.
(5) In paragraphs 1 to 4 of Schedule 20 to SSFA 1998 (collective worship) for “required” substitute “permitted”.”
Lord Avebury
I declare an interest as an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, to which I am greatly indebted for its advice on the amendments. First, I must thank the Minister and the Bill team for the time and efforts that they have devoted to correspondence and meetings on the collective worship issue since we discussed it in Committee three months ago—although there has been no meeting of minds since we began this process.
The Minister's main argument for the retention of this provision is that it is a long-standing school tradition. That is indeed so. It goes back at least as long as the Education Act 1944 and, as far as I know, even further than that. That underlines the fact that England is a very different society today from what it was towards the end of the Second World War. Eighteen per cent of the population now reports having no religion. Of the 72 per cent who identify themselves as Christians, fewer than one-third say that they actively practice their religion; that falls to just over one in five among those aged 16 to 29. The number of people who attend church at least once a month has declined every year from 2004 onwards. Even more telling, the number of confirmations has slumped from 140,000 in 1950 to 25,000 in 2009.
It is time for the long-standing tradition which no longer reflects the beliefs of more than a tiny fraction of the people to be jettisoned. The Minister goes on to say that the act of collective worship makes a valuable contribution to the spiritual and moral development of all young people and that that view is shared by many parents who still expect their children to understand the meaning of worship. That children should learn the moral and ethical standards which are common to mankind is unarguable, but that they should be linked to particular rituals based on obeisance to a supernatural being for which there is no scientific evidence lessens the respect and credibility of the standards themselves.
Humankind should have advanced to the stage where moral principles should be seen as essential in themselves, without the need to be reinforced by threats or rewards from above. We need kindness, compassion, toleration, right speech, action and livelihood so that we can live in harmony with each other and mitigate the unsatisfactoriness of the human condition. The ills that we suffer are the consequences of neglecting those truths, not because we have failed to pay respect to God or Allah.
That is not to say that if a majority of parents still want to have an act of worship at the beginning of the school day, their wishes should be ignored, but the converse is also true. If the majority would prefer that morals be taught without an accompanying religious ritual, they should be allowed to have their way.
In a poll commissioned by the BBC in September, 64 per cent of parents questioned said that their children did not attend daily worship and 70 per cent of them said that they were not in favour of enforcing the law which prescribes that act. The most recent Ofsted report on collective worship eight years ago found that 40 per cent of the schools inspected did not comply with the legal requirements and that in the remainder there were tensions and difficulties. It states that few secondary schools met fully the legal requirements for collective worship. Indeed, detailed examination of the evidence from 96 full inspections revealed that not a single school complied fully with the letter of the law. Revealingly, one school in Greater London was highlighted where, instead of having to exercise their legal right to withdraw their children from worship, parents were asked to opt in, resulting in 800 of the 900 pupils withdrawing from collective worship.
It is no wonder that Ofsted has not returned to the subject since then. It was already embarrassing enough to have to reveal such widespread non-compliance with the law, and if a similar inquiry was conducted today, no doubt the finding would be even more remarkable. In 2004, David Bell, then head of Ofsted, abandoned asking inspectors to take provision for worship into account in their reports after running into what he called a firestorm of protest from schools over the issue. He claimed that 76 per cent of secondary schools were failing to provide the daily worship. The Minister said that where schools’ non-compliance with a statutory duty is considered to be having a negative impact on pupils' spiritual or moral, social and cultural development, inspectors will reflect this in their assessment of the school. The fact that none has done so in the last eight years must indicate that inspectors are unanimous in concluding that the absence of worship has not had a negative effect on pupils’ development.
An analysis of SACRE reports undertaken by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in 2004 similarly found that compliance with legal requirements for the daily act of collective worship was “a significant problem” for secondary schools. They reported a sense of impotence, as there appeared to be neither any way of ensuring compliance nor of changing the law. There was a common concern that having unworkable statutory requirements puts schools in an impossible position.
We have ignored this situation for too long. As far back as 1994, a National Association of Head Teachers survey of 2,346 schools found that seven out of 10 heads said that they were unable to satisfy a requirement to hold a daily act of Christian worship in their schools. The NAHT stated that,
“schools cannot be expected to accept responsibility for promoting daily religious observance when parents themselves do not practise it” .
A member of the association’s executive went further, saying:
“The law is being flouted. We are living a lie and the nation is living a lie”.
Without the ability to opt out of worship head teachers, acting in the best interests of their pupils, are being forced to act outside the law. Despite this, obviously there has been a high level of non-compliance, particularly in community secondary schools, for the best part of 20 years.
Such widespread flouting of these outdated and discriminatory obligations brings the law itself into disrepute. The first of these amendments proposes therefore that governors should be free not to hold acts of collective worship, taking into account representations made to them on the matter by pupils and their parents. This will enable us to comply with the spirit of both Article 18 ICCPR and Article 9 ECHR on freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which are violated by ramming worship down the throats of non-deist pupils in community schools.
There would still be acts of collective worship in schools where the majority of parents and pupils want them. And the second amendment—Amendment 61B—makes these acts optional so that the minority of pupils who do not believe in worship are not forced to attend them. The legal requirement for pupils to take part in collective worship on every school day is a clear breach of young people’s rights under not only the ICCPR and the ECHR but also under Article 14.1 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. If my noble friend cannot defend the imposition of religious behaviour on a child who disagrees with it, he has no option but to accept this amendment.
The third amendment, Amendment 61C, is an alternative to the second, and less satisfactory in that it extends the opt-out from collective worship available to sixth-form pupils at mainstream schools and maintained special schools only to pupils with sufficient maturity, understanding and intelligence to make an informed decision about whether to withdraw themselves. That was the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which pointed out that the UK is under an obligation to assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting him or her and to give those views due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
This obligation finds expression in UK law in the concept of Gillick competence, according to which a child should be treated as legally competent to make their own decisions if they have “sufficient maturity and intelligence” to understand the nature and implications of their decision.
I do not imagine for a moment that the Minister will be able to accept any of these amendments, knowing from our correspondence that he is not prepared to give an inch. In any case he will be on a tight rein from the Secretary of State, who showed his colours when he wrote in the Catholic Herald that Catholic schools should avoid “unsympathetic meddling” by secularists if they converted to academies. So even if he was convinced by the arguments, my noble friend could not make the smallest concession. Recognising this, but respecting my noble friend as someone who is fair-minded and rational, I ask him to seek the views of teachers, parents and pupils on the reforms that we are debating today, and to come back with amendments of his own at Third Reading if he finds that my arguments are overwhelmingly endorsed by those who are being forced to take part in rituals they do not agree with.
By all means continue the valuable tradition that assembly is a time for considering the moral and ethical values of our civilisation—and for emphasising in particular the values of inclusion, tolerance and respect mentioned by my noble friend in his letter. Let us do that in a way that is itself inclusive and not one that requires children and teachers to participate in behaviour that excludes many of them at the beginning of the school day. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for their characteristic clarity in putting their arguments. However, as someone who frequently attends collective worship in both religious foundations and community schools, I have to say that the picture they have presented of our education system today is simply not one that I recognise.
These amendments, were we to pass them, would create a rift between schools with a religious foundation and those which do not have such a foundation, and that is inimical to the whole way in which the maintained education system in this country has been established. Indeed, proposed new subsection (2) in Amendment 61A seems to withdraw the right of parents to remove their children from worship within a school with a religious background, and I would deeply regret the withdrawal of that right. I believe that there should be a right to withdraw pupils from collective worship and, if that right were removed, Church of England schools might be less able to encourage local community integration—something on which I believe they have a very good record.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, spoke about how our society has become much more multicultural over the last generation. One way in which that has been encouraged and supported has been through the work of faith schools. Many Church of England schools have significant numbers of Muslim pupils. Indeed, in hundreds of them more than 80 per cent of the pupils are Muslim. Through the constructive and positive use of the law as it stands, they have been able to integrate those pupils with pupils from Christian backgrounds and pupils from families with no faith background. The danger is that, if we split community schools from those with a religious foundation, we shall create a more segregated system within our country. Most Church of England schools are not in any way segregated; they are primary schools which work with their local village. The fact that a very small number of children are withdrawn from worship seems to indicate that parents, including those who do not themselves take part in Christian worship or worship in the tradition of other faiths, are willing for their children to be present at worship. They see it as being important to the life, development and growth of their children.
So far as worship in community schools is concerned, Ofsted reports high levels of compliance with the law and high levels of quality of worship, particularly in the primary sector. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, that is less the case in the secondary sector, and the Church of England stands ready to provide whatever help it can to improve the quality of acts of worship within that sector. There is a good deal of excellent practice that can be pointed to, although it is certainly true that secondary schools find the situation more difficult than do primary schools.
We do not want to marginalise worship or spirituality within the life of our schools. We recognise the need for, and place of, worship within our own proceedings at the beginning of each day here in this House. When the nation faces a time of crisis or indeed of joy and delight, it tends to do so in terms of prayer. Children need to know what prayer is about, and one of the best ways for that to happen is through the worship that takes place in both church schools and community schools.
I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said that Amendment 61C was undesirable. It seems to speak of an extraordinary decision which someone has to take regarding whether a 15 year-old has the maturity to decide whether he or she should attend worship. That seems to be completely unworkable and we should certainly not go in that direction.
Lord Avebury
I am sorry to interrupt the right reverend Prelate. I said that Amendment 61C was less preferable than Amendment 61B but the reason for tabling it was that it was in accordance with the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
I still think that the amendment is undesirable and I think that the noble Lord does so, too.
The main point is that within the maintained sector we have a dual system in a country where more than 70 per cent of people describe themselves as Christian, and it serves very well the duality of purpose in terms of the whole development of the child. It is a system that has led to significant degrees of integration within our communities, and much of that has been led by faith schools. I hope that we shall reject these amendments and that we shall do so in the cause of community integration.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Avebury and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, for coming to see me and talk about this and other issues that we will come to later on Report. I thank my noble friend also for setting out the issues and his position with his customary clarity and from a position that we all recognise is one of high principle. He knows from the conversation that we had where the Government stand on these issues, which is pretty much where the previous Government stood. As has been said by a number of noble Lords, our starting point is that the requirement is long-standing. It is difficult to dissociate that from the history of the country and the role that the church has played over a long period in individual schools and also collectively in society.
The Government believe that the experience of collective worship makes a contribution to the spiritual and moral development of young people, not just for those who attend religious schools. Collective worship in schools is different from the worship people choose to attend in a church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship. The purpose of this requirement is not to force pupils or school staff to worship a deity but rather to understand and experience the benefits that joining together, inspired by the positive values found in Christianity and other religions, can bring to the individual and to the community. The guiding principle is that these arrangements should be flexible and fair to pupils and parents, as well as manageable for schools.
It is a matter of historical fact, as argued by the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Anderson of Swansea, and by my noble friend Lord Cormack, that the Christian traditions of our country have influenced and underpin our systems of law, justice and democracy. It is true, as has been said, that they have inspired and supported a tolerant and inclusive culture that welcomes and celebrates diversity. In the British Household Survey of 2010, more than 70 per cent of people said that their religion was Christian, and we think it right, therefore, that these values should underpin the ethos of our schools.
The law requires schools to provide collective worship that is relevant to all pupils, no matter what their background or beliefs, which should ensure that collective worship is presented in a way that benefits the spiritual, moral and cultural development of all children and young people. The requirement is for “broadly Christian” provision. It does not preclude the inclusion of other religions or consideration of the values that inform the practice of worship, which are common to many religions, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, rightly pointed out. Schools have the freedom, under the Education Act 1996, to apply for a determination from the local authority if they judge that it is not appropriate for the requirement for collective worship to be of a broadly Christian nature to apply to their school. That safeguard is in place. The Government respect the right of parents—
Lord Avebury
I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend but can he confirm that there cannot be a determination to have no act of collective worship at all where the majority of parents would wish to have that?
Lord Hill of Oareford
It is the case. I probably will not get the precise words right but my noble friend Lord Avebury accurately sums up the clause; they could make arrangements for provision to encompass a different religious belief. Parents can withdraw their children—
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am afraid that I do not know specific figures. I understand that overall there appear to be few cases of parents triggering such a thing. If we have better particulars I will send them to the noble Lord.
Parents can withdraw their children from collective worship if they wish to do so. Sixth-form pupils, as we have discussed, have this right. We think that the balance in allowing sixth-formers to decide for themselves whether to attend in line with their increasing maturity and independence is about right. We think that parents should be able to exercise those rights on behalf of children of compulsory school age. We would expect that, in exercising this right, parents would take their child’s views into account.
It is a sensitive area in which schools have to balance the rights of parents to have their children educated according to their religious or philosophical belief and those of children who have the right to manifest their own religious belief. They also have the right to express their views on matters that affect them. In practice, we think that schools are able to balance those competing rights and we would expect both parents and schools to take account of the views of children in making such decisions. We believe that schools can and do use the current system for collective worship to make provision for a variety of different perspectives. The situation we have arrived at, which I recognise is unsatisfactory to my noble friend Lord Avebury, is one that successive Governments have considered fair and flexible, and this Government continue to take that view. With that, I hope that my noble friend Lord Avebury will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, it would be quite impossible to do justice to the extensive discussion that we have just been having, but it would be remiss of me not to thank all noble Lords who have taken part, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, with whom we had a similar discussion in Committee. Noble Lords have raised many different questions related to the collective worship issue, which has enabled us to make it clear that we are not talking about teaching about religions and the knowledge that children should have of the history of this country and the Christian background that we all share. That is part of religious education and we are not arguing that that should not be continued in the same way as it always has been and that it should not be underlined as part of the heritage of this country.
We are talking about a specific issue: whether people should be asked to pray to or worship a particular god at the time of the assembly that takes place at the beginning of the school day. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I would say that most schools—probably a majority—already have discussions on moral and ethical issues at assembly that do not involve prayer or worship. They are breaking the law and do so in a way that conforms to the spirit of the legislation in that children can imbibe knowledge of the background of moral and ethical issues that underline our civilisation. I shall not give a sermon on what those moral and ethical issues are but it is fairly obvious that they include tolerance, kindness, compassion, respect for others and inclusiveness. By imposing the act of worship on children who do not believe in God or who do not wish to take part, we are not being inclusive but are deliberately excluding all those pupils who have a conscientious objection to acts of subjection to a supreme being.
I know that we have not reached the end of this discussion but we are at an intermediate stage when it would be proper for me to ask to test the opinion of the House on this subject. I beg to move.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Avebury
Perhaps the noble Baroness did not hear the Minister say that he will write to my noble friend giving her the statutory reference. Is not that enough?
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I do not have a statutory reference. I am just responding to the words that the Minister himself chose to use. If I might get to that point, I will perhaps explain what I mean.
My noble friend Lady Morris rightly said that, even in the context of trying to free head teachers to run schools, it really does not make sense to enable each school to decide which pupils to admit and which to reject. In a local system, this atomisation of admission decisions by individual schools means that some children will be left out and that the interests of children as a whole will not be protected. My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth gave some good examples from his experience of how some schools will not abide by the admission codes and will not comply. The examples we have seen of that confirm the need for a duty or power outwith the system. That is the point that we were trying to get across to noble Lords.
My noble friend Lady Morris said it should be a referee; I would say a guardian of the rights of children and parents in this system. The Minister said that the duty on the Secretary of State was not strictly necessary, but when he went on to talk about what powers and duties the Secretary of State has in law, he said that the Secretary of State had full oversight of admissions through the school adjudicator. This gets to the principle of the role of government. We are seeking an active agency within government to make sure that admissions are fair across all children—not to have oversight through the adjudicator only. That is not an active requirement on the Secretary of State, either through the admissions code or directly on the Secretary of State himself. Yes, the Secretary of State has the power to ask the adjudicator to investigate, but that is not the same as the Secretary of State having the duty to satisfy Parliament that he is pursuing by every means possible the principle of fair access.
The Minister also said that he thought that the right level for that duty was the local authority. As I said in my opening remarks, local authorities will have a co-ordinating role on the admissions code, but that is a co-ordination in relation to the administration of the admissions, not to the actual decisions that schools will make. That is not where the qualitative decision lies; the local authorities have no power at all under the proposed arrangements to challenge. They will have a power to refer to the adjudicator if they think a school is not in compliance, but they do not have that overall duty, at least where most schools are academies, to ensure fair access. There is nobody actually holding that ring in the system at the local level or nationally. That is why we feel very strongly, on a point of principle, that it is the responsibility of government to protect the rights of children and parents. That is where democratic accountability lies in this regard, in our view—to protect) the interests of citizens who are, in this case, children and parents. Given the ambition of the Government that every school should be an academy and be its own admissions authority, and given the other changes that the Government are making to the system, we feel that these amendments are necessary. I wish to press the amendment.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Turner of Camden
All I can say is that the legal advice I had on the text before us is that it would be better to say in the Act that a head teacher did not have to be a reserved teacher. But if the right reverend Prelate says that that is not so, I am quite happy about that.
Amendment 130 sets out the arrangements in regard to voluntary aided schools, but an important piece has been put into the bottom of this text. Proposed subsection (5A) in Amendment 130 states that,
“nothing in this section shall be taken to permit discrimination which would be prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 other than in relation to religion or belief”.
I understand that that wording is in compliance with the European text to which I earlier referred.
Most of the other amendments deal with what we are trying to achieve, which is a situation in which the arrangements that have been introduced by the previous Government in relation to academies are applied throughout the educational setup. In other words, there should be arrangements for people who are regarded as reserved teachers, but the rest of the teaching population should not be restricted in any way, and they may or may not be religious or may have no belief at all. I am asking the Government to consider seriously what is proposed here.
The amendments, as I understand it, do not interfere with the rights of religiously designated schools. All they do is ensure that the basic non-discrimination law protects teachers. They should be appointed on the basis of their ability to teach their subject. Their religion or non-religion should be a private matter, unless of course they are specifically appointed because of their ability to teach RE and deal with religious instruction. That is met by the proposed amendments, which are in line with the EU directive. I had very detailed legal opinion here, which is in full support of what I have been saying. As I said earlier, the intention is to give protection to people who have religion which is not the same as the designated one, or have no belief at all. I hope therefore that the Government will consider seriously what has been said because, if the amendments are not regarded as suitable but they accept the concept, they can come back with different wording. I beg to move.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, which has been instrumental in securing that these amendments are before your Lordships today. There have been herculean efforts to get the matter considered, first, by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and now by your Lordships in Committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has made reference to the Council’s opinion, dated 24 March, which had been sought by the Equality and Human Rights Commission as a result of persistent representations by the National Secular Society about the unlawfulness of certain provisions in Section 60 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, and of amendments to that and other sections of the 1998 Act which are included in this Bill.
Yesterday, I alerted the Minister’s office to my intention of following the noble Baroness in referring to the 90-paragraph opinion by Mr David Wolfe of Matrix Chambers—he a distinguished lawyer in one of the leading chambers in the whole of England—which was deposited in the Library of your Lordships’ House following a Question for Written Answer dated 11 August 2011, col. WA 433.
If I were to go through the whole list of alleged violations and potential violations of the European directive 2000/78/EC, which were identified by counsel, we should be here all night. However, it might help if I begin by explaining that Articles 4(1) and 4(2) of the directive provide a partial derogation from Article 2 which says that direct or indirect discrimination on grounds of religion or belief is proscribed in the field of employment. The derogation, which must be narrowly construed, provides effectively that a difference in treatment on grounds of religion or belief shall not constitute discrimination where the characteristic is a genuine and determining occupational requirement, provided that it is proportionate. Whether that derogation applies to reserved posts in the present context is arguable but in counsel's opinion it cannot go beyond that.
To pick up on just a few points of detail, counsel says that SSFA,
“section 60(5) (and by parity also section 124A) falls foul of the Directive”,
for which he gives several different reasons. This section applies to all voluntary-aided schools, religiously designated academies and to up to a fifth of teacher posts in voluntary-controlled schools. He expresses concern about the,
“(potentially flawed) assumption that all voluntary aided schools fall within Article 4(2) for all relevant purposes”.
If this assumption is wrong they would not be able discriminate against all staff on religious grounds, as the law currently allows in voluntary-aided schools.
This concern is repeated about religiously-designated new academies or free schools and independent schools with a religious character. If they do not fall within Article 4(2), which as I have said must be narrowly construed, it is illegal for them to discriminate in the way the law at present purports to allow, and I dare say that this could be the subject of unnecessary litigation.
The opinion supports the proposal that Section 59 of the SSFA protections of staff in community schools should be continued when they convert to academies so that teachers cannot be required to teach RE, and of course staff should not be required to worship or believe. In the Minister’s Written Answer to me of 15 March, he said that the Government were satisfied that their approach was compatible with the directive, but at that time he had not seen this counsel’s opinion. When the NSS had a meeting with Minister Nick Gibb, some time in June, he appeared to be sympathetic to the amendment which counsel suggests.
There is support for conditions to be attached to the exercise of the Secretary of State’s discretionary power in Clause 58 and Section 124AA(2) of the SSFA to convert VC schools to voluntary-aided academies so that they have power to discriminate against 100 per cent of staff rather than a maximum of 20 per cent.
Having reviewed the several alleged violations and potential violations of the directive which he shows as contravening the limits on derogation from Article 2, counsel concludes that,
“the problem discussed above is far greater than even the NSS has contemplated so far. In particular, it would mean that schools which did not meet the Article 4(2) requirements would nonetheless be gaining a right to discriminate which Article 4(2) does not permit”.
He goes on to note that although he had not been asked to deal with Human Rights Act matters,
“there may be significant Article 14 and Article 9 issues particularly when it comes to the position in voluntary aided schools (in relation to section 60(5)) and in Academies falling within section 124A (after the introduction of section 124AA, namely the ex voluntary aided schools) which are all clearly public authorities”.
I just remind your Lordships that Article 14 ECHR prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion as well as other characteristics, and Article 9 confers the right of freedom of religion or belief. These are extremely serious matters. Given that the EHRC, as the Government’s statutory equality watchdog, had this hugely damming advice about legislation and proposed legislation being unlawful, one would have expected it to warn the Government immediately and to call for corrective amendments to be brought forward. However, predictably, it sat on counsel's opinion for nearly three months. It was on the desk of the chair, Trevor Phillips, while the Bill went through another place.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
They are precisely what I want to address, as well as the debate that has just happened. I was here on Monday, when it seemed to me that the debates reflected a common purpose. Although they came from slightly different slants and slightly different views, they were not very far away. It is difficult not to regard the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in a rather different way. Indeed, it is difficult for me to sit here without regarding it, perhaps mistakenly, as more akin to a full-frontal assault on the dual system as we have it.
I observe that the noble Lord began by saying that he is a member of the National Secular Society.
Lord Elton
The right reverend Prelate has not made the request but I make the suggestion that it might expedite things were he to be engaged in conversations between the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, with suitable support.
Lord Avebury
Perhaps I should answer the criticisms which have been made about my contribution to this debate by the right reverend Prelate. He seemed to be suggesting that there was something improper in my raising these amendments and talking to them this afternoon or in the manner in which I raised them, which he contrasted with the proceedings that we enjoyed on Monday. He was suggesting that because I was an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, I was in some way trying to undermine the dual system, when all I am trying to do is to ensure that the trusts which administer faith schools do so in conformity with both European directives and with the European Human Rights Act. I think that the Minister's proposal is an excellent one, but as there is a fundamental dispute between us on whether these provisions are compatible with European law and with the Human Rights Act, we should sit down with our legal advisers and the Bill team to try to resolve them as best we can. I suggest that that is the best way in which we can move forward, if my noble friend Lady Turner agrees.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, may I just say that in no way was I suggesting—indeed, in no way was I saying—that any of the comments were improper. I was rather pointing out that they were not neutral. Like the noble Lord, I would be very happy for the lawyers to be able to sit down, as has been suggested by the Minister.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Avebury
“Promotion of education of vulnerable children
The Secretary of State shall issue guidance on how local authorities can promote and improve the education of vulnerable children in their area.”
Lord Avebury
My Lords, this new clause is about the way that local authorities deal with vulnerable children. The group that I am specifically concerned with, as your Lordships may be aware, is that of Gypsies and Travellers. I declare an interest, as president of the Advisory Council on the Education of Romany and other Travellers, ACERT.
Statistics show that GRT children are severely deprived. They are in fact the most vulnerable of any ethnic group by a long way. The National Foundation for Educational Research showed, in a report produced last October for the department, that absence rates in primary schools were between 19 and 24 per cent, compared with the national average of 5 per cent. In secondary schools it was between 23 and 27 per cent, compared with a national average of 7 per cent. There were more than eight permanent exclusions for every thousand GRT boys, compared with less than two per thousand of all boys nationally. The figure for fixed-term exclusions of boys, mainly for persistent disruptive behaviour, was a staggering 25 per cent, compared with a national average of 10 per cent. Some 20 per cent of GRT pupils failed to make the transfer between primary and secondary education. For every 100 GRT pupils in year 6, only half get to year 11, compared with a national average of 92.4 per cent. From the cohort that did get to take GCSEs, the number achieving five A to C grades at that level in 2010 was 8.3 per cent, compared with a national average of 55 per cent.
These appalling figures do not tell the whole story by any means. More than half of all the children belonging to these communities do not identify themselves as such, fearing the discrimination and bullying of which they are unfortunately likely to be victims if they are known to be Gypsies or Travellers. Obviously they do not include, either, the high proportion of children from these communities who are not on school rolls. The children in these two groups are likely to be at the bottom end of the scale of vulnerability, and if they could have been included the record would almost certainly have been worse. Manifestly we have failed to do enough educationally for GRT children in the past, and that is one of the reasons why they are also at the bottom of society in every other respect as well.
Let us next see whether these children are likely to be picked up by the definition of vulnerable children who are covered by the coalition’s statutory framework, as was set out in the Minister’s very helpful letter to me of 31 August, which I hope that some other noble Lords will also have seen.
SEN children are covered by a code of practice that details what should be done to ensure that they get an appropriate education. They will be assessed by a statutory education, health and care plan, which was outlined in the recent Green Paper. A revised legal framework will deal with about 87,000 looked-after children, on which there is also statutory guidance to local authorities. For those looked-after for six months or more, the pupil premium of £430 will chip in.
Children in need—those who are unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development, including the disabled—are supported under a general statutory duty laid down in the Children Act 1989. Again, that is reinforced by a range of guidance.
The Minister concludes by saying that he hopes that those statutory frameworks and their associated guidance make clear the importance of local authorities and others with duties to improve the educational outcomes of vulnerable children, but, unfortunately, there are some gaps for GRT children. I shall try to explain why that is so.
Under previous legislation, the Traveller Education Support Service was ring-fenced, but after 2007 the sums previously allocated to that service were subsumed into general grounds aimed at disadvantaged children. Local authorities have therefore been dismantling the TESSs. It is predictable that, with the pressure on educational budgets, they will disappear altogether in a few years, despite their considerable achievements, particularly in getting a higher percentage of GRT children to attend and stay on in schools. The specific expertise that they have amassed over the years will not be inherited by the mechanisms that already exist or are being developed to cope with the needs of the three categories of vulnerable children cited by the Minister in his letter. Nor will the staff concerned with vulnerable children generally be likely to devote the same amount of time and effort to the specific problems affecting the GRT children as TESSs have done.
I now come to the special needs that are not covered by any of the three categories of vulnerable children in the Minister’s definition. There is undoubtedly a much higher proportion of children missing education among GRT communities than in any other sector of the population. Those children are exceptionally vulnerable, as an Ofsted survey in June 2010 concluded. It referred to the former DCSF’s statutory guidance for local authorities on the circumstances in which a child may not be receiving suitable education. They included membership of the GRT ethnic groups. Ofsted looked at 15 authorities, large and small, urban and rural. It found that none of the service departments in the authorities was confident that it was aware of all the children living in its area. The consistent response from officers was, “We don’t know what we don’t know”.
However, in a Times Educational Supplement survey last February, 12,000 children were listed as officially missing, and it was clear that the number would have been much higher if all the authorities had made as much effort as Leicester, which employs a full-time member of staff to trace CME, assisted by 20 educational welfare officers. Martin Narey, the former chief executive of Barnardo’s, said that the situation was deeply troubling. If my noble friend is not prepared to add CME to the categories of vulnerable children, I hope that he can tell your Lordships what alternative solution he has to offer. The Government acknowledge that the current guidance on CME is defective, because they are planning new guidance to be issued by the end of the year, but if that is all that my noble friend has to say on this after the Government have had the devastating Ofsted information for well over a year, I shall be very disappointed.
In the case of GRT children in particular, who must make up a significant element of the TES numbers, in the response by the inner London consortium co-ordinator, Brian Foster, to the Ofsted survey, it was pointed out that the TESSs’ relationship of trust, developed with those communities over time, had made it more likely that they would get information and that their development of a cross-borough database of families minimised the number of unidentified CME. Such arrangements may be discontinued with the disappearance of TESSs and the lack of any local authority responsibility for CME who are not covered by any of the three headings.
One thing that the local authorities covered by the Ofsted survey knew was that excluded pupils’ vulnerability was significantly increased because of their potential exposure to drugs, alcohol, crime, pregnancy or mental health problems. It is not clear whether excluded pupils are included within children in need. Without explicit guidance they may not be covered. Nor are local authorities obliged to keep a register of children in need, as they should be required to do in guidance. Here again, GRT pupils are far more likely to be excluded than any other ethnic group, with over one-fifth of Gypsy or Roma boys and one-quarter of Irish Traveller boys excluded in the course of an academic year. Ideally, CME should be added to the Minister’s three categories of vulnerable children, but if that is unacceptable because it is too broad, a way of picking up some—perhaps most—of the CME would be to add a category of “mobile child”, meaning a child who starts other than at the beginning of their phase. These are defined by authorities such as the London Borough of Hackney as “mid-phase admissions”.
The pupil premium of £430 in the current year does not necessarily cover these children who dip into education from time to time, including not only those of GRT origin but, for example, asylum seekers or the dependent children of migrants coming here for work. The proposal in the schools funding consultation to extend the payment from children currently in receipt of free school meals to those who have done so in the past three or six years would dilute the per capita grant because the total sum available would not be increased. It still does not necessarily cover these mobile children, who are disadvantaged because they are engaging with school for the first time or after an absence.
Some GRT parents say that they electively home educate their children just to give a reason why they are not attending school. It is very doubtful that the parents are competent to teach or that the lessons they give, if any, would enable the children to participate effectively in wider society or to earn a living in any skilled employment. They are likely to remain in the closed communities of their families, cut off from the rest of the population. Graham Badman’s recommendations—that parents should register a child who is to be home educated, submit a yearly statement of their educational approach, intent and planned outcomes, and accept home visits by the local education authority—might have focused more attention on these children and enabled local authorities to offer parents advice and assistance. However, as the Committee will recall, the report stirred up a hornet’s nest among parents who were effectively home educating their children as measured by their outcomes, and it sank without trace. I take it that the Government have no intention of revisiting the question of what to do about EHE, although some of the children ostensibly being home educated—not only those in the GRT communities—may be extremely vulnerable.
A further suggestion would be to add those who cease to attend at any point in their school career, particularly at the point of transfer between primary and secondary school, to the list of vulnerable children. We need to make far greater efforts to improve the attendance of secondary school-age GRT children, considering that one in five drop out at the end of primary school and just over half drop out before school-leaving age. Only 38 per cent of Irish Travellers go all the way through school so the disadvantages that they suffer, and their lack of affinity with the social system, are being transmitted to the next generation.
A final thought that I offer the Minister is that virtual schools should be given a chance to cover children missing education. Local authorities have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child looked after by them. By virtue of Section 52 of the Children Act 2004, that includes a duty to promote the child’s educational achievement. Outcomes were driven up by virtual schools for children in care in the pilot authorities, and the idea was rolled out in all but three local authorities by July 2010. If the virtual schools continue to benefit children in care, is it not likely they could do the same for CME?
I am not optimistic that the Minister can give your Lordships much reassurance on this amendment, which asks so little in the face of a task that has been ducked by successive Governments throughout the half-century of my political life. Gypsy, Roma and Travellers belong to a minority that clearly is not popular, as evidenced by the racism in the comments threads of the media whenever they publish articles on the subject. Now, having at least prided ourselves in the past on our human rights and equality law, we are under fire from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing over the inhuman eviction of Travellers from the Dale Farm site, due to start a week today.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. It is good to hear about the work that his department is undertaking. I think that I heard the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, talk about the demise of specialist Gypsy, Roma and Traveller education services. Maybe the Minister briefly said something about that at the end of his response but, I am sorry, I did not quite catch it. If he could clarify what is going on with those services, I would be grateful.
I apologise if I misled the Committee in any way by describing myself as “teaching” this boy. I was running workshops in a school environment. I am not a teacher; I should make that quite clear.
Lord Avebury
In answer to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the ring-fenced grant for the Travellers Education Service ceased in 2007, and the equivalent amount of money was made available in the general grant to local authorities for disadvantaged children as a whole. It was from that point onwards that local authorities started to see that there was money that they could use for other purposes and either made officials in the service redundant, in some cases, or did not replace them when they left. There has been a gradual process of running down that, as I said, if it is allowed to continue, will result in the complete disappearance of specific Traveller education services in a few years’ time.
What the noble Earl and my noble friend said about contact with parents is important. It was an essential feature of the Traveller education services; they managed to link the parents, the children and the schools, which is why they were effective. In the absence of these specialist services, I am afraid we will not have that advantage.
The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, also reinforced the point about mobile children. We are talking not simply about those who still live in caravans and are peripatetic—that is a declining number. What I was talking about when I defined what I hoped the Minister would pick up on—the term “mobile child”—was a child who enters at a point other than the beginning of an academic phase and is therefore potentially disadvantaged because he or she has not hitherto received education or has received it very intermittently. If we could add such children to the definitions that were specified in the Minister’s letter, it would go some way towards covering the children about whom we are particularly concerned.
However, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. We acknowledge the benefits of the pupil premium, which will cover many of the GRT minority. We believe that the revision of the guidance on CME will be effective but we have not seen it yet. I am grateful to my noble friend for mentioning the work of the DfE’s stakeholder group, which has a meeting in the coming week at which I am sure we will want to discuss some of the matters that have been covered in today’s debate. We are in the course of responding to the department’s educational funding consultation. That will also have an impact on how we treat this group. I cannot promise that we will not return to this subject on Report. We have not dealt with all the matters that have been raised. Perhaps we shall cover some of them in the later debates, particularly on virtual schools, which have an important role to play here. However, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Education Bill
Lord Avebury Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Avebury
“Collective worship
(1) Section 70 of SSFA 1998 (requirements relating to collective worship) is amended as follows.
(2) For subsection (1) substitute—
“(1) Subject to section 71—
(a) each pupil in attendance at a foundation or voluntary school of a religious character shall on each school day attend an act of collective worship;(b) community, foundation or voluntary schools which are not of a religious character and Academies that are not religiously designated may hold acts of collective worship at the discretion of the governors.(1A) Governors should be under an obligation to consider representations made to them by pupils and the parents of pupils as to whether or not schools or Academies hold acts of collective worship under subsection (1)(b).”
(3) In subsection (2) for “community, foundation or voluntary school” substitute “foundation or voluntary school of a religious character”.
(4) In subsection (3) for “required” substitute “permitted”.
(5) In paragraphs (1) to (4) of Schedule 20 to SSFA 1998 (collective worship) for “required” substitute “permitted”.”
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I declare an interest: as an honorary associate of the National Secular Society; as a Buddhist, which I have been since the middle of the 1970s; and as founder and first chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group from 1976 to 1997 and as vice-chair ever since. The group has always been very active in the defence of freedom of religion or belief, which includes the freedom not to believe, a right that is impaired by the compulsory participation in acts of collective worship in our schools.
Under the School Standards and Framework Act, a school can apply for a determination that the requirement for Christian collective worship is not to apply but then it has to conduct an act of collective worship in accordance with the tenets of some other faith. That would be decided by the SACRE, as I understand it, under the provisions of paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 20 to the Schools Standards and Framework Act, presumably at the behest of the governors. Here I would like to ask my noble friend whether the SACREs were considered for abolition under the bonfire of the quangos and why it is considered necessary to retain them rather than leaving schools free to get their own advice on matters of religious worship and education. Whatever the decision may be, it is almost certain to be contrary to the beliefs and practices of the majority of the population served by the school in today’s multicultural society.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I declare an interest as a Christian. I am concerned about these amendments. Currently there is a legal requirement on all schools to have a daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian nature. As has been said by a number of noble Lords, parents have the opportunity to withdraw their children from these acts of worship if they so wish and that seems to make perfect sense. These amendments erode this requirement.
Collective worship is important for two reasons. First, it is a visual recognition of the Christian heritage of our country—it is a Christian heritage. It enables children of whatever faith to engage and better understand this heritage. Secondly, it is an opportunity for children and young people to explore their own faith. For some children, that may be their only opportunity to understand the Christian faith.
I am Catholic and my family were Catholic but they were not practising. I first came into contact with the Catholic faith and Christianity by going to a Catholic school. The majority of youngsters at that time at the school were not Catholic. I might have been ahead of my time ecumenically but I went to half-past 9 mass as a Catholic and, because my neighbours were Baptists, at 11 o’clock, I went to the High Street Baptist Chapel in Abersychan and even took part in Sunday school anniversary singing “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam”.
The point is there was a good feel in the school and people took part in the collective act of worship. Some of the amendments undermine parents’ primary right as the educators of their children. Indeed, Article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights says that parents have a right to educate their children on their own religious and philosophical convictions. Amendment 93, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would alter this requirement for all children to attend collective worship from one which is compulsory, unless parents withdraw them, to one which is voluntary. The importance of collective worship would be undermined and children might choose due to peer pressure not to take part in the daily act of collective worship.
Lord Avebury
Is it all right for peer pressure to compel them to take part in collective worship, although not to compel them not to take part?
Lord Touhig
That is not the case. It is a question of parental decision. If we accept the European Convention on Human Rights, parents have a primary right to educate their children. That is what it says.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I cannot apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for my hubris but I shall do so later.
The Government believe that this educational experience makes a valuable contribution to the spiritual and moral development of all young people and not just for those who attend religious schools. That view is shared by many parents, who still expect their children to understand the meaning of worship as well as to have an opportunity to consider spiritual and moral issues, and to explore their own beliefs, whether or not they hold a faith. The right reverend Prelate referred to some statistics published in September 2010 by the Office for National Statistics, which suggested that 71 per cent of the population still identify themselves as being Christian.
In response to a specific question that I was asked, academies are covered by the provisions on collective worship. Parents can withdraw their children from collective worship if they wish to do so, and sixth-form pupils also have this right. The Government consider it appropriate for parents to exercise these rights on behalf of children of compulsory school age, and we respect the right of parents to have their children educated according to their religious and philosophical beliefs. We would expect that, in exercising this right, parents would take account of their children’s views.
The law also requires schools to provide an educational experience of collective worship that is relevant to all pupils, no matter what their background or beliefs, ensuring that the collective worship is presented in a way that benefits the spiritual, moral and cultural development of all children and young people. In addition, under Section 394 of the Education Act 1996, schools have the freedom to apply for a determination from the local authority if they judge that it is not appropriate for the requirement for collective worship to be of a broadly Christian nature to apply to their school.
Therefore, overall we believe that the current system of collective worship is sufficiently flexible and fair in making provision for a variety of different perspectives and attitudes to collective worship without imposing unnecessarily complex arrangements on schools. I understand the range of views expressed but I intend to take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, that this is an important issue to which we may need to return in a different context. With that, I ask my noble friend Lord Avebury whether he feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, we certainly will have to return to this matter in a different context but we will have to do so on Report, because we are not going to resolve it here this afternoon. As your Lordships will understand, we cannot have a Division on it. However, there are certain things on which we can agree. First, all noble Lords who have spoken have said that an assembly is a good idea—that all the pupils should come together as one and partake of a proceeding that has a moral and ethical dimension. Even the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would go as far as that, although he might not wish to add the word “spiritual”.
I point out that some among us are atheists—that is, we do not believe in a supreme being who is directing our procedures and telling us how to behave—but we believe that there are moral and ethical codes that should be common to the whole of humanity and we want them to be taught in assembly. We want children to have, for example, the virtue of tolerance, which has been mentioned. How can we have tolerance when children are separated into different kinds of religions, even if, as the Minister has just said—
Lord Avebury
I am in the middle of a sentence. I shall give way when I finish it. How can we have tolerance when children are separated into different kinds of religions, even if, as the Minister has just said, there can be a determination that allows the act of worship to be of a non-Christian character, which just means that it will presumably be of a Muslim or Hindu character, thus separating the children who belong to those schools even further from their contemporaries in the mainstream Church of England schools?
Lord McAvoy
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Will his tolerance for other people’s points of view stretch to engaging with schools that have the type of collective activity to which he is objecting? Would he care to consult them and get some measure of how they feel before we get to Report?
Lord Avebury
I was going to come on to the question of who is entitled to make this decision. I do not believe that there can be, as I think the noble Lord said, a diktat from on top, which is what we have in the Education Act 1944. This should be a matter for the schools themselves, and they should consult the parents and the pupils. If you want localism, if you want the decision to be made freely by the people who are intimately concerned with it, the pupils and their parents, this is the right way to do it.