Queen’s Speech

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak on education. I was heartened to hear the prominence the Minister gave to education in his opening remarks—within what must have been a ragbag of possible subjects—especially since it seemed to have been lost or marginalised in the recent general election campaign. I am really delighted to follow so closely on from my noble friend Lady Morris in front of me. If ever there were a subject that deserved the best and the most dispassionate energies of our Parliament as a whole, regardless of party, it surely has to be education.

How many years ago was it that the clarion call was, “Education, education, education”? Surely we must restore the subject to that level of importance. We heard in the Queen’s Speech that:

“Legislation will be brought forward to improve schools and give every child the best start in life”—

who could be against that? There will be “new powers”—when we have witnessed the flooding of powers to the Department for Education and the accumulation of executive authority with the department and with the Secretary of State for Education—

“to take over failing and coasting schools and create more academies”.

I need not repeat the points made by my noble friend Lady Morris about 17 different school structures and the lack of ability of any single one to deliver all the objectives we wish for them. Pragmatism, variety and approaching issues according to the needs of a particular locality have to be in our minds as well as a one-size-fits-all, monochrome approach, which I sometimes feel the ideologisation of the question of academies has done for the debate on education. Like my noble friend, I have no hesitation in recognising the real qualities of good academies but I hope we can all agree that time has not yet lapsed sufficiently for us to take an objective, proper and balanced view of their contribution to the total scene we are seeking to provide. We must recognise that.

I note that in his speech the Minister itemised and named a number of successful academies—good for them, but I could name a similar number of schools in local authorities that are as successful. Since the Minister was bold enough to cite particular examples, I am going to boast. I am the chair of trustees of the Central Foundation Schools of London. When I became a governor of the boys’ school some 12 or 15 years ago, both schools were in special measures but now 85% of our kids doing GCSEs get A* to C, including in English and maths. The Central Foundation Schools of London can match any academy, in the most putrid and awful buildings and premises that one could imagine. I am proud of our headmaster and proud of our staff, and I will not have it that it is only academies that can register this degree of success. It is not fair to the discussion that education deserves.

What is more, we must look a bit more critically at the question of academies. The lawyers we retain at the Central Foundation School have just held a very high-level forum. Out of it all they noticed the following. This is a trend, not yet a final position, but your Lordships should note it well. It is about multiple academy trusts. MATs are not simply partnerships of schools. There are economies of scale. We can take advantage of shared experience. We can teach subjects across our schools and have a fantastic ability to harmonise a good result out of our disparities. But the report says that there is,

“also a danger that, with the imposition of rules and regulations across the chain, MATs might increasingly reproduce the bureaucracy of local authorities. Such bureaucratization might endanger the innovative character within MATs; standardisation of practice might also hinder the ability to respond to community needs in different schools or localities”.

I do not offer that quotation as a judgment on the whole experiment but I urge this House to look seriously and in a balanced way at the pluses and the minuses—the good things and the bad things, the dangerous trends as well as the wonderful accomplishments—of academies. They do not of themselves spell a future that is success. They must be looked at with more dispassionate eyes than that.

Because I am going to observe the time limit, I just want to mention that we are operating on budgets in our schools which will see a reduction in real terms as we face extra costs. We are looking at a reduction of 7.6% because of extra insurance and pension contributions, and savings of a considerable nature have to be made. Ring-fencing does not make sense when we are looking at budgets that have to be reduced in this way. We will of course look for greater efficiency and productivity but let us be honest about the fact that our schools are under great pressure at the moment. Let us not limit our attention to the academies, all of whose successes we laud but which are not a panacea for the educational needs of our country at this time in our history.