Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Carter of Haslemere Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I will focus on the aspects of this Bill relating to academies, and I have two points. First, I have read the Second Reading and Committee debates in the other place very carefully, and especially the evidence given about the performance of academies. This was to the effect that 87% of them are good or outstanding, even though many were previously failing schools which became academies for that very reason. Apparently, the top five state schools in England are academies.

The Labour MP Dame Siobhain McDonagh gave examples at Second Reading from her constituency. She cited the Harris academies in Merton and Morden, and the St Mark’s Academy, which are all marked “outstanding” by Ofsted. She said that one of the keys to success of the Merton academy has been the “aspirational curriculum”, which is tailored to pupils’ needs. Forcing such schools to teach the national curriculum risks undermining that. All this is evidence that academies work well as they are, and their heads know how to run schools better than the Government, so why are the Government removing their flexibility to do so?

My second point is more technical and affects how future changes would be made to the way academies have to operate the national curriculum. The bottom line is that it would not be done by primary legislation but by statutory instruments amending primary legislation. This is in addition to Clause 63, which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has already mentioned. It is a rather “long and winding road”, but the essence is as follows. Clause 47 of the Bill inserts a new Schedule 1A into the Academies Act which mandates the application of the national curriculum provisions in the Education Act 2002 to academies. However, in doing so, it also applies to academies all the order-making powers enjoyed by the Secretary of State under the Education Act. These order-making powers enable the Secretary of State to amend the Education Act and are therefore Henry VIII powers which will now also apply to academies.

They are very substantial powers. For example, the Secretary of State can by such orders add further requirements to the basic national curriculum or amend all the four key stages, as well as the foundation subjects, including attainment targets and assessment arrangements. By virtue of Clause 47, all such changes made by Henry VIII powers will now be applied to academies, almost by the back door. These Henry VIII powers may have been considered acceptable in the Education Act 2002 for maintained schools, but is it really appropriate for them to be able to be used by a side-wind to change the groundbreaking new regime now proposed for academies?

In addition, under Clause 47(5), any such orders can directly amend the new Schedule 1A to the Academies Act, which sets out which provisions of the national curriculum are to apply to academies. This is another Henry VIII power, by which further provisions could therefore be applied to academies. I had thought that this Government were clamping down on Henry VIII powers. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response.