The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century Follow-Up Report

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Liaison Committee The Ties that Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century Follow-up Report.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, it has been nearly six years since the Select Committee was first constituted to look into issues of citizenship and civic engagement, and I was asked to take the chair. We published our initial report, and the Government gave their response in June 2018. As a committee, we were very disappointed with what the Government had to say and in particular when we had a follow-up meeting with Ofsted which seemed to have very little grasp of the issues and a lack of understanding of what the report had said. We were able to return to the fray using the new Liaison Committee procedures which enable follow-up inquiries to take place. Our follow-up report was published about a year ago and the Government response—which we are debating this afternoon—came out shortly thereafter, towards the end of May. This report will enable us to put the pink ribbon around the file after nearly six years.

It is important, therefore, that I place on record my thanks to all members of the committee who have kept the faith, in particular those who are speaking today, namely the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and a bevy of Baronesses—if hope that is still a word that I can use—my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lady Redfern, the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris of Yardley and Lady Barker, and not overlooking the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, who joined in for the second round, which we also enjoyed. I need also to record my thanks to our clerk, Lucy Molloy, who has been a tower of strength. Members of the committee and of the House will probably not be aware that Lucy will be moving on, leaving Parliament and going to pastures new in May. I am sure that she will be sadly missed. Equally, and probably more importantly, Lucy has also recently got engaged. I am sure that I speak for the committee and indeed the whole House when I say that we wish her every happiness in her future career and future life.

What has our committee achieved in these six years? I think that the candid and truthful answer is not a lot, certainly not enough. I fear that we have not been able to convince the Government—we certainly have not been able to convince Ofsted—that citizenship represents a discrete policy area, moreover, a policy area that carries with it significant implications for the future social cohesion of our country. Let me repeat the truism that our world is undergoing an unprecedentedly rapid rate of change from which our society is not immune. In particular, the impact of globalisation has meant that many areas of the UK have lost the economic activities that underpinned our communities, which has led to a degree of disillusionment with our society. At the same time, rapid population growth means that 28%—more than one-quarter—of the children born in this country last year were born to mothers who were not themselves born here.

Against this background, it must be more important than ever that young people learn what it means to be a British citizen, the rights and responsibilities that go with it and, last but not least, the various ways that individuals can make their voices heard. You do not learn this by osmosis; it has to be taught, and taught well, not just theoretically but with practical explanations and examples.

There are two leading actors in this play: the Government and Ofsted. I turn first to the Government. To redress the increasing neglect of this subject, they need to give sustained, consistent support to citizenship education. In particular, that means a stable policy framework. Too often, our committee found evidence of what we called “initiativeitis”—individual, unconnected policy ideas set in train by a particular Minister, many of which were not tracked or followed up to assess relative success or failure. Therefore, a key recommendation of our first report was the need to create this stable framework to give consistent support to this subject. To date, I am afraid, I do not think that our committee is clear that this has been achieved or accepted by the Government.

The Inter-Ministerial Group on Safe and Integrated Communities, which had citizenship as one of its core purposes, met rarely and, after 2019, never met again. By the time of our follow-up report, another set of responsibilities had been established and now, a year later, these have all been swept away as part of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. When she comes to reply, can the Minister explain to the committee how this Bill can provide reassurance about the future provision of citizenship education?

In particular, I draw the Minister’s attention to the paragraph on page 6 of the government response to recommendations 1 to 6 of our follow-up report, which states:

“We are reflecting on the best practical ways to deliver citizenship and civic engagement policy across Government. We will share an update on this work with the committee in due course”.


I am not sure that the committee has yet to receive that promised update. Do we have a date by which we can expect its delivery?

The second major cause of concern about the Government’s commitment is the downgrading of the role of specific training of teachers in this subject. It is generally recognised that the number of teachers in this area has halved in the past few years. The Government no longer give the numbers in training, and citizenship education bursaries are no longer available.

The second major player is Ofsted. To cut to the chase, our follow-up report made a number of recommendations at paragraphs 72 to 77 about Ofsted’s work. It is no exaggeration to say that Ofsted rejected the lot. It persistently mixes up citizenship education with PSHE—personal, social, health and economic education. In truth, they are completely different. As has been made clear in a very telling way by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who I am glad to see is here now, PSHE is about “me” and how I am developing as a person, and a very important issue that is, but citizenship education is about “we”—how our society works, how we all benefit from it and how we must contribute to it—and therefore has a completely different focus. Ofsted’s disregard for citizenship education is further evidenced by the fact that it does not undertake any deep dives in this subject, as it does with other policy areas.

The only other area that I wish to deal with before I finish is the Life in the UK Test, which is a mirage that never gets any closer. Since 2013, we have been promised that it will be updated, and it has not yet happened.

To conclude, of course our committee understands the need for our education system to focus on practical skills. However, unless we all learn about our joint stake in our society and our responsibility for it, we risk the emergence of an increasingly atomised, unconnected and disgruntled population.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, the Order Paper for today says that the Committee will rise at 7.45 pm. It is now some way past 7.45 pm, and it therefore behoves the chairman not to detain the Committee any longer than is strictly necessary. Therefore, let me just make a couple of quick points. First, I thank my noble friend for a very full and thoughtful reply. There were lots of statistics in there, which I look forward to having a chance to read and inwardly digest—I could not very well take them on as they came at me, but they all sounded very impressive.

When a chairman gets things wrong, he ought to say so. Well, “the pink ribbon” was not about giving up on the subject. I think we should go on with the subject until the walls of Jericho fall and we sound the trumpet. I think we should definitely do that—the pink ribbon is just that the committee has now really run its course, and that is why I used that phrase. Secondly, I wrongly attributed “me” and “we” to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I should of course have attributed it to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, so let me correct that.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, took slight issue with my use of the word “failure”. They are probably right. Probably, the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, got it right in saying “indifference”. I think that is the right word, rather than failure. We have lit a bit of a fire, but it is really only sputtering along, and indifference remains the prevailing view of it, I think—though, as I say, we must read carefully what my noble friend the Minister said.

We had some powerful speeches about the Minister, the importance of the Minister and the importance of education. Among them, as would befit an ex-Secretary of State for Education and a current professor at a university, were powerful voices from those who know what is really going on on the inside.

I shall just take a slightly querulous point of view about the Life in the UK test. My noble friend Lady Eaton may have set a hare running, but there is no hare: we are no further forward than we were three, four, five or six years ago. It is always going to be “in the autumn”, and this autumn never comes. I do hope we can now make it happen, because if you read the reports, it is always, “We are about to set up a group”, “We are going to do it”, “It is very important”—blah blah blah—“but it will take a little time, and we will come back to you when we are ready”. I do think we need to get that right.

I do not doubt my noble friend’s commitment to this—absolutely, she showed that this evening. Where I felt that I was listening to a very strange set of words was when she was quoting Ofsted. I think that Ofsted talks the talk, but it does not walk the walk. I really do not. It sends wonderful messages to the Minister and her officials, and the result is that that is regurgitated to us. I understand why that happens, but I do not think it is happening down on the ground, unless Ofsted has gone on a Damascene conversion in the last 12 months. All the interactions that we had with Ofsted showed that it was not interested, not committed and did not really care about this. If I add a last request, it would be for my noble friend to act as Dyno-Rod in connection to Ofsted and citizenship education.

Motion agreed.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in favour of all the amendments in this group, and in particular Amendment 168. However, before I get to that, I will speak in respect of Amendment 91, on careers education, and the amendments from my noble friends around work experience.

It is really important, in its own right, that we nurture in young people an interest in their future in work and the future careers they might have. I am particularly passionate that they should think about more than one career; it is about not just what you want to be when you grow up but the variety of things in a long working life that young people might want to do when they are older. I also believe in its importance for more than just that purpose, as part of a broader and more balanced curriculum than we have at the moment in our schools, at every one of the key stages, where things are particularly narrow. I would hope that, in the context of Amendment 158, which talks about digital skills, this might include media literacy—something we were talking about earlier at Oral Questions.

I would also say in passing that if any noble Lords are interested in how the career aspirations of children change as they grow up, they should talk to the people at KidZania. It is a rather unusual experience in this country, at Westfield shopping centre, where you drop your children off and they are immersed in a two-thirds size world where they can choose from different work options for them to enjoy as work experience while you go shopping. KidZania exists in various cities around the world, and it collects data about the different backgrounds and genders—all the aspects of diversity—of children and what their choices are, and it is fascinating to see how those change as they get older and become more gendered. The different aspirations according to background are indeed fascinating.

On work experience, I know that, as ever with anything where you are looking at a broader and more balanced curriculum, people in schools have to make some difficult choices about resources and what aspect of the curriculum they are going to let go to make space for something different and new. I think we need to be honest about that. My sense is that we have an overemphasis on academic and cognitive skills and not enough on some other skills. That is a point I make regularly, and it is where I would want schools to focus. I would also want them to use the good work of organisations such as the Careers & Enterprise Company, which has been mentioned; Founders4Schools, which has a great platform to help connect schools with local employers and people who run local businesses to ask them for work experience opportunities or to come in and speak in schools; Speakers for Schools; and the few remaining education business partnerships. In a world where every school is an academy, one thing I would really like to see is for all those academies to be in local partnerships with local employers so that they can help drive this important work at a localised level. I think the partnership in Hounslow still exists, but such partnerships are very few and far between, and I wish that they could be revived.

On Amendment 171F, transparency for parents is really important. They should not be treated as a third party in a school, as my noble friend talked about some being treated. They are an integral part of the community, and for community cohesion purposes among other things, it is important that such transparency exists.

That leaves Amendment 168 in the name of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, which is excellent. I am somewhat partial, in that I tried to introduce through a Private Member’s Bill “sustainable citizenship” as a way of amending the citizenship subject in order to introduce sustainability. I will not rehearse all the compelling arguments that I made during the passage of that Bill, but interested Members of your Lordships’ House can look it up in Hansard. But the rest of the amendment, in respect of codification of British values, is really valuable and important. Indeed, if we could introduce this really quickly, perhaps members of the Cabinet could take some instruction in citizenship and learn about equal respect for every person, an independent judiciary, government that is accountable to Parliament and freedom of assembly—all things that appear to be threatened at the moment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I have not contributed so far to this debate, either at Second Reading or in any of the subsequent stages. I am no expert in the field of education, but I wanted to contribute today, just once, in support of Amendment 168 in the name of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for reasons I shall come to in a minute. As he pointed out, the amendment has had pretty strong cross-party support.

But before doing so, I want to take just a moment to reflect on earlier days in Committee, which I sat through, covering the opening clauses of the Bill. As I have just made clear, while I am not an expert and know very little about education policy, wearing my hat as chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, listening to those earlier debates—particularly the contribution from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is in his place—left me quite disturbed. Of course, we come to the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, that part of democracy includes,

“in a Parliamentary system, a Government that is accountable to Parliament”.

Many noble Lords will be aware of the recent reports by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and its sister committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, drawing attention to the Government’s increasing use of what we have come to call framework Bills. These are Bills in which only the broadest direction of policy travel is revealed in the primary legislation and is, therefore, subject to a proper level of scrutiny, or the detail—and it is the detail that really matters—is left to secondary legislation. The hard-hitting report by the DPRRC about this Bill in particular set out the case in detail.

We on the SLSC have a wonderful staff, but we are concerned that we are going to be asked to report to the House on regulations which are of sufficient importance to justify a much higher level of scrutiny and consultation. The SLSC’s report, Government by Diktat, has been commented on—less so our more recent report published about six weeks ago, What Next? The Growing Imbalance between Parliament and the Executive. To be honest, it is simply not good enough for the Government to say that all these regulations are approved by both Houses. While that may be true technically, it is none the less a sophistry; as the House knows, statutory instruments are not amendable—they are either passed or rejected. Therefore, it is not surprising that when faced with this nuclear option the House has, understandably, been reluctant to press the button marked “reject”.

I have some sympathy with the Government’s view that public policy is evolving too fast for the rather stately pace of primary legislation to keep up. But if this argument is to be accepted, then the Government, in turn, must accept there is a need to examine and redesign our secondary legislation scrutiny procedures to cover these framework clauses—not necessarily very many of them—that come in the Bills before your Lordships’ House. Yes, it will make the Government’s job more difficult—that is why they do not like it—but better consultation and wider debate will lead to better law; most importantly and most significantly, it preserves and strengthens the principle of informed consent which is a critical part of any properly functioning democratic system. So, I urge my noble friend the Minister to encourage some fresh thinking by the Government, who have had, after all, “taking back control” as a primary policy objective.

I turn now to the amendment from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. I had the pleasure—it was a privilege—to chair the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement on which he, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley—from whom we have just heard a very interesting and informed expert speech—all served. One key issue on which the committee focused was what held us all together—the glue that binds us. It must be true that if we are to adhere to that glue, to accept that glue, we need to establish some values that form an essential part of it. This is the essence of the argument of the noble and right reverend Lord.

I have to argue that there is an urgent need to debate, to agree, to teach and to then stand up for those values. Why is this important? I think there are three reasons. First, the impact on our society and on our social cohesion of social media. Social media is a shouty place, it is not a reflective one. It emphasises rights and can often forget responsibilities, and responsibilities inevitably run—and must run—parallel to our rights. If our society is to be successful, every one of us has to be prepared to put back in as well as just take out. Indeed, if I have a concern about the amendment from the noble and right reverend Lord, it is that the words “rights” and “responsibilities” do not appear in it.

The second reason for the glue weakening is the rapid changing of our society and the way it is made up. I touch here on the point made by my noble friend Lady Meyer. ONS statistics tell us that 28% of the children born in this country last year were born to mothers who themselves were not born in this country. That is not an anti-immigrant remark; it merely points out that if you were not born in the country, you will inevitably have a slightly more tangential knowledge of the values that are essential to the country in which you have arrived and are now living, as my noble friend pointed out.

Schools: Creative Subjects and the English Baccalaureate

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government work extremely closely with employers. Our T-level programme was developed with over 250 employers. I would ask the noble Lord why we are seeing such huge international investment in our film and creative industries if we are not providing the talented people they need.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend care to reflect on the importance of citizenship education in levelling up and creating a country at ease with itself? Will she join me in regretting that yesterday’s White Paper said nothing about citizenship education at all?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Citizenship education is absolutely a core part of what we deliver. In defence of the White Paper, we were setting out the major new elements of our plan for the next several years, but citizenship remains a core part of it.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on bringing forward this measure. It is a brave decision to stand up to the forces of social conservatism, which are still far too strong in our society. I also believe that this marks an important stepping stone in the progress that we have made as a society on these questions. At an abysmal time in our politics—the lowest moment in politics I have known—this is a great step forward.

We have heard a lot about the rights of parents. I believe the rights of parents have to be respected, and I took very much the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, that teaching in schools has to reflect the religious and philosophical convictions of parents, even though they could be very diverse convictions. Therefore the teaching has to be objective and non-propagandist and must certainly not be able to be described as indoctrination. I support him on that, but we have to recognise that as well as the problem of the few thousand parents who may have difficulties with certain aspects of relationships and sex education, the situation in our schools is a long way from the equality to which we want our society to aspire. We have only to look at LGBT kids, who disproportionately suffer stress and mental health problems and have a higher propensity for suicide. Those are facts. As the noble and learned Lord said, if one’s primary concern is the welfare of children, something has to be done to make them feel at home in that school environment.

The original contribution I have to make to this debate is that I have several gay friends active in the Labour Party who are now in their late 20s and early 30s. For this debate, I asked them to tell me what it was like at school and their impressions of sex education at school. One lad said to me—well, he is now a very mature and successful person—“When I attended a state secondary school for boys in the 2000s, the sex education was mostly limited to slide shows of sexual diseases and a discussion about the consequences of getting a girl pregnant at a young age. We didn’t even learn how to put a condom on a banana. While this sex education was far too limited for heterosexual young adults, it was a dereliction of duty for gay and bisexual young adults who learned nothing about sexual intercourse. Had the young people I went to school with been taught at a younger age about the wide range of loving and valid relationships that exist in society, I imagine I would have felt much more comfortable coming out as gay at school. Instead, I spent many years hiding my sexuality for fear of being bullied or cast out by my friends and family, not gaining the confidence to come out until I made a new group of friends at university”.

Another man said, “I realised I was gay, or at least that I liked boys rather than girls, at primary school. However, I didn’t really understand what that meant. I felt ashamed and confused from an early age and had no understanding about how to cope with it. I definitely experienced feelings of disgust and, while I was not suicidal, I was deeply distressed about it and had no one to talk to. I had no idea about what being gay was, and no role models, reference points or education. Sex education focused solely on heterosexual sex and relationships, so I didn’t learn much from that”.

This is something we ought to be concerned about and do something about. We need a broad view that reflects modern Britain in relationships and sex education. I think these guidelines are progress in that direction, and that is why I support them.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I am a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham. The committee scrutinised these regulations, and I shall give the House a remark or two about our very lengthy discussions, which are reflected in the report to which several noble Lords have referred. In this very sensitive area, the Government have achieved a good balance, but it is a balance and there are contrary views that need to be heard.

When you serve on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, you struggle away in decent obscurity most of the time, but not when you deal with regulations such as these because we had a huge volume of inquiry. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, who is on the committee with me, will testify to that. Certainly in all the years I have served with the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, and before that with my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, there has never been the volume of outside representation that we received on this occasion. There was some from those who the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, would say are mad, bad and dangerous to know, and there were certainly some people who had a write-around—you could see that they were all part of a group writing around—but among the more than 400 contributors there were people who had serious concerns, and it would not be right for us to ride roughshod over them in the interests of not addressing their concerns fairly.

If we work on the basis that understanding conquers all, what I learned from our discussions and from reading those particular representations was the difficulty people have in distinguishing between relationships education and relationships and sex education. It is proposed that the first is taught throughout the time a child is at school. Children can be withdrawn from relationships and sex education at the parents’ behest at any time until the end of primary school, and then during secondary education parents have some rights until three terms before the child is 16, and then after that the school is much more pre-eminent in its ability to decide what is right for the child. Those who wrote in to the committee felt that it is not who is being taught but what is being taught that concerns them. This takes me back to the point about the difference between relationships education and relationships and sex education. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham pointed out, there is concern among those who feel this way—and their concerns need to be addressed—that the two will morph into each other, and that is why I hope that the Minister when he replies will take up the point made in our paragraph 28:

“The House may wish to ask the Minister for a fuller explanation of the interrelationship between these two subject areas”.


That is a fair point that was put to the committee by very many people.

The second point where the Government can reassure those who have concerns is about consultation with parents. We dealt with that quite extensively in paragraphs 19 and 20. As a subset of that, we need to learn from what has gone well and to obtain feedback so that those who are not immediately at one with the majority of the House this afternoon can see that their concerns are being addressed and thought about, without us losing the essential point that we now need to move forward on the basis that the Government propose.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I shall focus on one very important part of the relationships and sex education regulations we are debating today. Some speakers have already referred to it, but I think it merits further comment. It is the right of parents to withdraw their children from RSE. At the heart of this debate is a simple question: do we trust parents? Do we trust parents to decide what is best for their children? Do we trust parents to steward their authority over their children’s education? Do we trust parents to ensure that such education is in conformity with their religious and philosophical convictions? My view is that the Government should do all they can to empower parents, not to undermine them and reduce their authority and responsibility over their children.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House as I was not able to take part in the Second Reading debate, so I have listened to the debate this afternoon particularly carefully. I always listen carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, but also to the other expert Members of your Lordships’ House.

In so far as this amendment emphasises the importance of academic freedom and autonomy, I understand and support it, although whether it will achieve that is quite another matter. We have already heard several examples, from my noble friend Lord Willetts and others, of unintended consequences and how the amendment may have the opposite effect to the one that is intended. My concern is that noble Lords’ speeches, with the exception of that of the noble Lord, Lord Myners, have made only the briefest acknowledgement of the shortcomings in the way in which universities currently operate. The spirit behind the amendment, and of the speeches on it, seems too often to suggest that things should be left as they are, that things need to be done, but that universities can be left to get on and make the necessary reforms from within their own ranks. I have to say that I do not share that confidence.

Before I go any further, I declare an interest as an honorary fellow—I emphasise “honorary fellow”—at an Oxford college. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, said that he spoke from the experience of his time in Belgium. I speak from the experience of having four children who have recently gone through a UK university, and their friends, some of whom are still at university. From their point of view, the undergraduate experience is all too often unsatisfactory. It does not, in the phrase of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, represent value for money. This is not the place to go into all that, because we shall get into it in more detail later in the Bill. However, it is clear that from undergraduates’ point of view the over focus on research leads to them feeling they are being neglected. In science subjects, it is clear that large classes are too often taught by PhDs from overseas whose first language is not English and therefore cannot be understood; and that in the arts there is a lack of a proper framework, with students preparing two or three essays per term and otherwise being left to read around in the library. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, offered us a quotation. Somebody who wrote to me about this debate said: “I am effectively paying £9,000 per annum for the use of a good library”.

My final reason as to why universities will not be able to reform themselves is that when one of my children was at university there was the non-contentious issue of how the organisation could be made to operate more effectively. I went down, not in a litigious or combative frame of mind, to say, “This could be done”. If I had been stuck on the shoe of the person I spoke to, I could not have been treated worse. I was given five minutes. I was told that my child was over 18, that I had no reason to interfere or get involved, as it was up to them to make any complaints, and that I should please go away. That is why, living in this bubble, universities will need to understand that there is more to be done. Therefore, change is needed, and in so far as the amendment wishes to enhance the status quo with regard to undergraduates, I hope that my noble friend will not accept it.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is an experienced commentator on and watcher of the BBC, and she has made a distinguished speech, one of several we have heard on the topic today, including from my noble friend Lord Fowler. I am not an experienced BBC-watcher—they will have forgotten more about the BBC than I will ever know—so if they will forgive me, I do not propose to follow them. I reassure my noble friend on the Front Bench who will wind up, and the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, that neither will I talk about pubs. That is not for today but for another day, probably in the Moses Room. Today I will focus my remarks on the sentence in the gracious Speech:

“My Government will continue to work to bring communities together and strengthen society”.

I do so because I fear that our social cohesion—the glue that binds our society together—will face some special challenges over the next few years.

The first major challenge will be the further hollowing-out of our society as the result of the widening impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on top of the information revolution we have already experienced. That first wave primarily impacted blue-collar, less- skilled jobs. Outsourcing, first to eastern Europe and then to India and the Far East, has reduced inflation but has also reduced—some would say has stopped—the rate of the rise in blue-collar living standards. The frustration and anger that this has caused has fuelled the rise of political parties espousing more unconventional policies. These include, for example, Donald Trump’s US presidential election campaign.

However, a second and potentially far more serious wave is about to hit us. Over the next five to 10 years, wide swathes of jobs in offices and administrative functions will disappear. The Future of Jobs, published earlier this year by the World Economic Forum, the McKinsey report on disruptive technologies, and Martin Ford’s book Rise of the Robots all explain this event. However, this revolution will be different from previous revolutions in one crucial sense. In the earlier phases, revolutions created more jobs than they destroyed, but this time it will be different: they will destroy far more jobs than they create. Therefore members of middle or lower middle-income families, accustomed to a reasonably secure future for themselves and their children, will see those futures disappear. We, and the Government, need to think about ways to adapt our economy and our society to face such volatility if our social cohesion is not to be imperilled.

The second area of challenge is a declining public readiness to accept compromise and is a by-product of the social media revolution. Some noble Lords may be aware that I have just completed a year-long review for the Government of the legislation covering third-party campaigning—that is, campaigning by non-political parties. This gave me some very valuable insights into the way that campaigning methods are developing.

It is well known, even by an average technophobe like me, that increasingly people—especially younger people—get their information online. Less well appreciated is the extent to which that information is delivered in short bites: single articles, blogs or tweets. Even less well appreciated is the extent to which website operators, who have a keen interest in keeping individuals on their website since average usage numbers drive advertising spend, have become very sophisticated in analysing our individual likes and dislikes by trawling through our past data usage. We all like to be told that we are right. We are all flattered to be told that our view is the one that should prevail. So what better way can there be for a website operator to keep us on his particular website than to analyse our likes and dislikes and make sure that we are fed a diet of articles and blogs that is 100% supportive of our individual points of view? Therefore, I fear that an increasing proportion of our population may hear only one side of the arguments about the many complex problems that our society faces. However, in a liberal democracy, and a country of more than 60 million people, an absolutist point of view does not offer sufficient room for the compromise, pragmatism and indeed the disappointment necessary to enable our society to function. An absolutist point of view puts at risk the web of delicate balances that lies at the heart of our democracy, and so may threaten our social cohesion. Addressing this conundrum is going to require some far-sighted, innovative thinking.

Lastly, I turn to an issue about which some Members of your Lordships’ House may have heard me talk in the past: the present and projected rate of increase in the population of the country. As always when I speak about this, I make it clear that this is not a speech about immigration under another name, and it is not about race, colour or creed. When I refer to the settled population of the country, I mean just that. My concern is about the absolute numbers, and the numbers are stark. In the year to September 2014, the population of this country increased by an average of 1,436 people a day. Roughly half of that was from a natural increase, an excess of births over deaths, with the other half from immigration. That is equivalent to a large village or a small town being put on the map of Britain every week of the year. This rate of increase must be expected to cause stresses to our society.

Let me give the House just one example of those stresses: housing, an issue that has been much in your Lordships’ minds these past few weeks. We currently live 2.4 people per dwelling. If we want to house our new arrivals to the same standard, and I assume that we do, we need 598 new dwellings per day. That is 25 per hour, or one every two and a half minutes. That is before any attempt to try to improve our existing housing stock. This is in a country, England, that has already become the most densely populated in Europe, having recently overtaken the Netherlands. The outlook for the next 25 years is no less challenging. The mid-projection for 2039 by the Office for National Statistics is that our population will grow by 15%. That is an increase of 9.7 million people. On the same housing metric that I have just given the House, we will need to build four and a quarter million more dwellings by 2039 or one every three minutes for the next 25 years. To put it another way, Greater Manchester’s population currently is 2.7 million, so we are going to have to build the equivalent of more than three Greater Manchesters over the next 25 years.

I urge the Government, all political parties and every Member of your Lordships’ House to consider the implications for social cohesion of 9 million more people and four and a quarter million more dwellings in a country that is already three times more densely populated than France. Governments and all political parties have found this issue hedged about with landmines. Given the long-term nature and impact of demographic policies, they have taken refuge in Einstein’s famous dictum:

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough”.

By 2039, at the end of the 25-year period, the best I can hope is that I will be dribbling into my cornflakes. However, our successors will be entitled to ask why, when the evidence of these growing challenges was so stark, we looked the other way.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 35X draws attention to the importance of the Localism Act and the Public Services (Social Value) Act by adding a new clause after Clause 39, in part in parallel to some of the remarks made by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Whitty. I find their arguments not entirely without foundation but I hope they will forgive me if I say that I do not find them especially nuanced to reflect the reality on the ground. I will take a few minutes to explain why I have reached that conclusion and then ask my noble friend to put some flesh on the bones of the philosophy behind what the Government seek to achieve.

My interest in this topic arose from my appointment by the Cabinet Office as the chairman of a task force to look at aspects of government regulation that affect the growth of smaller charities and voluntary groups. The report that we produced, entitled Unshackling Good Neighbours, focused on three things: what stopped people volunteering; what stopped people giving money at an individual level; and what stopped charities and voluntary groups growing. It identified a number of factors about why these groups were inhibited. High among them was the question of commissioning by the Government both at national and local level. I was very pleased to see that this issue had made it into the Bill following further work by my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham, and I referred to the topic in my speech at Second Reading. I was subsequently approached to have discussions with the LGA, which provided me with a draft of Amendment 35X, which I have tabled. I fear that the LGA will not entirely like what I have to say, so I need to put on record my thanks to it.

I understand the point of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that the drafting of Clauses 38 and 39 could give rise to concern that the underlying purpose may amount to a land grab by central government. However, I have to say to the Committee that, from my research and my report, all parties at every level have lessons to learn about commissioning, procurement and how to increase local involvement and participation in the communities that they serve. Very often, seemingly perverse decisions by local or national government are not the result of malice aforethought but overly heavy bureaucratic procedures.

Several hundred examples were sent in to us and I would like to touch on three to show the Committee the background to the points I am driving at. The first, from a national point of view, is from a local hospice in Worcestershire that had been providing end-of-life palliative care on a 25-page contract to the local primary care trust. It came to the end of its contract and asked to sign another 25-page contract. It was told that it could not do that any more. The new model contract ran to 130 pages with 111 pages of guidance. When I asked the Department of Health why that was, it was explained that this was a contract for all seasons. You were supposed to take blocks out of it to suit your particular purpose. Of course, the PCT had passed on the whole thing and said, “Sort it out yourself”. When this was explained to the Department of Health, one could persuade it to go back to the earlier, simpler model.

At the local level, a London borough sent us a letter saying:

“Voluntary organisations are told we need to move from grant funding to contracting, but too often tenders”,

from local authorities,

“are written with onerous conditions, both in applying and in reporting, for quite small contracts. (I have a 68-page tender we had to complete, together with supporting documents, to provide out-of-school-hours activities for disabled children in one London borough for £10,000)”.

So that amounts to 68 pages for a total contract value of £10,000.

Then again, Solihull SUSTAiN and Colebridge Trust secured a grant for the local authority to deliver a £200,000 project. They were clever enough to secure some pro bono support from a local hotel where they could hold their meetings, as a result of which they were able to make a £600 profit on a £200,000 contract. The local authority spent a great deal of time chasing them to return the £600, which they could have retained or used to build their operation a bit further. So I argue very strongly that there is work to be done in this area and that the challenge is to find the right balance between the one-size-fits-all approach, to which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, referred, which tends to result in overly prescriptive national standards, and local standard setting, which can be equally overprescriptive and in a way that does not necessarily best serve the local community. Behind it all in our research was the risk-averse approach often adopted by many commissioners at local and national level, which disadvantages smaller local charities and voluntary groups.

I recognise the work that the LGA has carried out in establishing a national procurement strategy, to which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, referred, but equally I recognise and support the Government’s commitment to localism. I conclude that the best way to find this elusive balance is for the Government to make it clear that these regulations are intended to set standards and yardsticks for good practice, on which local authorities have some flexibility in application. If I may use the “comply or explain” approach, those noble Lords who are familiar with corporate governance will know that those codes lay down standards with which you are expected to comply—and if you cannot comply with them, you have to explain why not. That approach would give the flexibility to avoid the straitjacket of one-size-fits-all and, at the same time, enable egregious behaviour by local authorities to be identified and prevented.

Such statements could be seen to be a little bland, so I should like to put a little flesh on these bones with some examples of the sorts of topics that I hope would be covered by the regulations—my shopping list, so to speak—which would give reassurance to local and national government and to those who will provide the services. The commissioners should work more closely to understand their motivation and the potential value that they can add in their contracts.

Secondly—I know that the LGA will hate this— the PQQs should be dispensed with. To be honest, the PQQs that I have seen could easily be filled in by the local authority using either Companies House returns, Charity Commission returns, or other local information.

Thirdly, tender documents should be proportionate to the value of the contract being awarded. Too often, as in the example that I have given, very small contracts have very large tender documents attached to them. Commissioners should also think carefully about the number of tenders that they seek, particularly for the small contracts below, say, £50,000 or £100,000. Of course, they have a duty to ensure value for public money, but there can be only one winner. If a commissioner decides that, to avoid controversy, he will accept a large number of tenders, he is inevitably inflicting a degree of economic efficiency and organisational friction on the losers.

The monitoring processes should be fixed for a contract. Too often they are moved in the middle of the contract, which changes the basis for measurement mid-contract and adds an unnecessary strain. The costs of monitoring should also be related to the size of the contract. Last but not least, there needs to be some mechanism for a proper sharing of risk and reward between prime contractors and their subcontractors. Too often the prime contractors take the easy ones and leave the more difficult cases to the sub-contractor.

I appreciate that these are pretty detailed requests, but this is an area where detail matters. The LGA has properly raised concerns about upsetting the balance between local and national government, so an explanation of the philosophical and practical purposes behind these clauses would do much to reassure us. I hope that my noble friend can help on this score.

[Lord Young of Graffham (Con)]

My Lords, I carry the heavy burden of having your Lordships in this Room this afternoon, but I thought it might be worth spending a moment or two on putting the whole picture and where it fits together; otherwise we are in danger of examining the twig and not even the forest.

My responsibility for the past few years has been to encourage small firms—start-up small firms and growth in small firms. Some 18 months ago, I was going round the country inquiring why very few small firms dealt with the public sector. When I was introduced to the dreaded PQQs, I saw that some were 30 or 40 pages long, which small business owners were expected to fill in. I do not exaggerate; they covered areas such as sexism, racism and a whole lot of areas that had very little to do with the work itself. Time after time, I was told by small business people that they would get their tender in, see these documents, put them aside and go on to do something else.

Other problems are dealt with later, such as the fact that the public sector is not the greatest payer in the world and small firms are much more dependent on prompt payment, and the difficulty of finding the opportunities. The invidious part of PQQs is simply that large companies can take them in their stride; they have PQQ departments and people whose job is to fill them in all day long. I have no doubt that they have boilerplate answers to all these things. It was about not having a level playing field.

Therefore, what we have done is simple. We abolish PQQs under €200,000 and above that we have a standard PQQ, which will be online, which every firm can fill in. It will resemble a tax return because there will be different sections, depending on the business, so the small firm registers once and the public sector reads it many times. Around the county, I have heard very few complaints, other than from the LGA, about the abolition of PQQs. The measure is designed to give localism its head; it is designed to help local firms get contracts with their local authorities, whereas time after time I have seen them excluded by large companies by the nature of the bureaucracy. We are also mandating payment within 30 days and requiring public authorities to publish the fact that they are doing so.

The essence of all these regulations is about simplifying procurement and getting better value for procurement. From the description I have heard this afternoon, I fail to recognise my own regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cotter]

I do not wish to waste any time in the Committee, but I very much support what my colleague, my noble friend Lord Stoneham, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, just said about encouraging apprenticeships. I know that the Government are doing an awful lot to encourage apprenticeships, particularly in the small business sector, financially and otherwise. I ran a small business for a number of years before coming here and I would have needed a lot of encouragement to take on apprentices. In those days it was not so common.

This does not appertain to this Bill in particular, but there is a great concern about the attitude that colleges and schools have towards careers advice. There are well proven figures to show that people are often not given any option other than university. We need to help small businesses to take on apprentices and engage the colleges. My area has a very good local college that is doing an awful lot in that direction, and I would happily let the Minister know what we are doing in Weston-super-Mare, where I come from. I support what my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Young, said about the importance of helping small businesses to take on apprentices.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I share the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to encourage vocational education. It is exceptionally important as a means of improving youth employment. However, I am slightly concerned about the route for apprenticeships, He knows far more about this than I do, but when I take part in the Lord Speaker’s outreach programmes and we talk about apprenticeships to sixth formers, too often they feel—and I think they are probably right—that the apprenticeship is a time-based qualification, not a performance-based qualification. That is to say that you have to spend a certain amount of time doing a job before you can get a qualification.

That puts off sixth-formers, who think that even if they are good they cannot move through the apprenticeship scheme at the speed at which they acquire the skills. That is something I have often referred to. I would be nervous about trying to put too much weight on apprenticeships. I am keen on youth employment, but apprenticeships are potentially too narrow, particularly given the comments made to me by sixth-formers, which may or may not be entirely accurate.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendments. I am delighted to see him joining us in the Committee and giving us this opportunity to debate apprenticeships, about which both he and I feel a great passion. I will try not to let that get in the way of objectivity. Apprenticeships are also at the heart of the Government’s drive to equip people with the skills that employers need to grow and compete. It is great to have so much support for apprenticeships in the Committee today. It was interesting to hear about the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Cotter. We need as big a body of support for apprenticeships as we can get, and one needs to encourage people one knows in business and where there are public procurement opportunities to think about apprentices more.

We have already delivered 2 million apprenticeship starts in this Parliament, and there are 20,000 apprentice vacancies around England at any one time. However, I share the noble Lord’s concern about getting enough young apprenticeships. That is one of the reasons why the Government are trialling a new approach to apprenticeships in 2014-15 and 2015-16. He and I have talked about that, and I am involved in work with the electronics industry and the professional services to try to bring forward new thoughts and new numbers. The Government have made the apprenticeship grant available for employers—£1,500 targeted on smaller businesses taking on young apprentices. That ticks two boxes at once.

I also agree with the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Young, made on Crossrail. The work that it has done on apprenticeships has been a model. Like him, I have been under Fenchurch Street station and have seen what it is doing there. It has also been very good about trying to employ smaller suppliers both directly and through subcontractors—and small suppliers outside London.

We want it to become the norm for young people to choose between an apprenticeship and university as alternative routes to a career—an experience that I am familiar with in Germany—and this Government’s reforms lay the groundwork for that. I pay tribute to all that my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham has done.

On Amendment 35L, I have sympathy for the noble Lord’s intentions that a contracting authority should require an appropriate number of apprenticeship opportunities. However, as I am sure he is aware, not every procurement will be an opportunity. Contracting authorities are entitled to deliver legitimate policies through their high-value procurements but, under EU law, these must be linked to the subject matter of the contract and the procurement must meet principles such as equal treatment, fairness and transparency. It would, therefore, not be possible to require that every procurement delivered an apprenticeship.

There would also be a danger that requiring the provision of apprenticeships by contracting authorities could pass on costs to bidders and actually deter smaller businesses. If so, this would undermine the purpose of Clause 38, which is to open up procurement opportunities to smaller businesses and remove barriers to their participation. If contacting authorities must require an appropriate number of apprenticeships, assuming that that could be determined—it sounds quite difficult—would that stop smaller suppliers bidding, as they might not have resources available to allow them to meet the expectations and duties of the contracting authority in this regard? I know that that is not a perverse effect that anyone wants but it is one reason why the Government are concerned about that amendment.

On Amendment 35M, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, that there is a huge scope for local enterprise partnerships and schools to work with SMEs to deliver more training and apprenticeships when these organisations bid for public contracts. The new Contracts Finder—to look at this amendment in the light of the previous one—will be helpful in spreading knowledge of opportunities, with details of contracts on the website. However, as with Amendment 35L, we must be careful that any provision for delivering apprenticeships through procurement does not have the unintended consequence of adding to the cost of public procurement for contracting authorities and bidders. We encourage schools, LEPs and other public bodies to work with SMEs on apprenticeships, but we are not convinced that they should be under a legal duty to do so.

Finally, Amendments 35N and 35W relate to assessing and reporting on the extent to which apprenticeships form part of public procurement. Again, I have sympathy with the noble Lord’s intention, but I fear that these amendments could again risk passing a burden down the supply chain to smaller businesses. Only by asking them to report on this could we determine the number of apprenticeships and recruitment practices involved. It is precisely that sort of red tape that we seek to cut in this Bill. While I agree that transparency, reporting and reviews are helpful in this sphere of apprenticeships, we need to be careful to balance that with the reporting burdens that it would place on small businesses. Again, I am sure that that is not the noble Lord’s intention, but it could be a perverse effect of legislating in the way proposed.

I hope that the noble Lord feels reassured, understands that we share a similar objective on apprenticeships, and will understand why we feel that we cannot accept the amendments. I ask him to withdraw Amendment 35L.

Children: Sexual Exploitation

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this debate on this important topic and at the same time congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, on making her debut as opposition spokesman today.

Like other noble Lords, I have received the briefings from the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s on what they rightly describe as a horrendous crime. The reference in the Barnardo’s report to the special challenges posed by out-of-area residential care strikes a particular chord with me, yet I find myself impelled to sound a note of caution, lest in our efforts to reduce child exploitation we have the unintended consequence of discouraging individuals from working with children and so impoverish the physical and intellectual lives of the very children whom we are seeking to protect.

I am chairing a task force looking into the regulatory and other burdens that impede the growth of small charities and other groups. We have had a good deal of evidence that well meaning efforts are discouraging people from volunteering to work with children. In my three minutes, I cannot develop my argument at length, so I shall read four paragraphs of a letter that I received from a lady in Manchester. She said:

“About 8 years ago, I decided to get involved in a local Manchester Drama group … whose members range from seven years to 80 years old. A number of us assumed responsibility for teaching the children and preparing them for the annual pantomime and other productions. Naturally we were CRB checked—a process I had no issue with and wholeheartedly support ... However—having been CRB approved, we were invited to a session of the local Child Protection Officer. I came away from that meeting with a number of very serious questions as to whether I should in fact get involved with this sort of group. The talk left me feeling I would potentially be placing myself in situations of real risk ... The Child Protection Officer focused the session on ensuring no adult put themselves into a vulnerable position i.e. if a child requests to go to the toilet—in no circumstance should an adult accompany them. If a child (with particular reference to girls) falls and cuts her knee, whilst wearing tights—under no circumstances should any adult remove the girl’s tights and help stem the bleed ... No adult, whatever sex, should ever be alone with either one or more children … I came away from the session questioning the sense in many of the messages conveyed. As a caring, responsible adult (who as an adoptive mum … has the highest level of CRB clearance) I did not feel at all comfortable with the prospect of not being able to help an injured child”.

I would like to tell the Committee that this was an isolated example, but we have had many letters along these lines. Of course, child protection is an important issue, but thousands of our fellow citizens find it enjoyable and rewarding to work with children. We have to avoid a situation in which, if someone says that they enjoy working with children, they are immediately treated with grave suspicion.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

40: Clause 8, page 6, line 14, leave out “is a charity” and insert “may be deemed to be an exempt charity if and in so far as it is a charity”

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, this is a technical but important amendment that is causing some interest and concern in the charitable sector because of the implications for the authority of the Charity Commission. We had a very interesting debate on this matter in Committee on 28 June, when my noble friend the Minister was kind enough to suggest that I should withdraw the amendment so that some conversations could take place behind the green baize door. I am pleased to be able to say that we have had those conversations. Some interesting points were made by his officials, to which I shall respond in a minute. No definite conclusions were reached, however, so I have re-tabled Amendment 40 in the hope that the Minister will be able tonight to accept its purpose.

Just to set the issue in context, I remind the House that my original argument was as follows. The Charities Act 2006 created a delicate balance, reconciling the many and diverse views about charitable activities. It did so by removing the presumption under the 1601 Act that the advance of religion, relief of poverty and advance of education were automatically charitable. It was agreed that this was no longer appropriate. Instead of this, we were to have a single public benefit test, to be applied to all charities at inception and thereafter. It put the creation, administration and enforcement of the public benefit test in the hands of a single independent regulator, insulated from any political pressure: the Charity Commission. Thus, a level playing field was established across all charities.

Nowhere was this more important than in the field of education, because education has fee-paying schools and there are strong views about whether they can or should be able to have charitable status. I argued that the Bill as presently drafted upsets that balance, undermines the independence of the Charity Commission and, most importantly, creates a dangerous precedent of government and ministerial interference in the charitable sector. That was the argument.

The arguments of the Minister’s officials can be summarised as follows. First, the wording of the type used in Clause 8(1) has been used before and therefore changing it is not only unnecessary but creates a dangerous precedent. As a matter of principle, I find that an unsatisfactory response. Carried to its extreme, it is an argument for never changing anything and for complete bureaucratic inertia. If the drafting of a statute is defective, we should put it right and not argue that it is too difficult to change it subsequently. But I have a number of substantive arguments as opposed to that one of principle and issues about the way the Minister’s officials have sought to reinforce their position.

The first is that any precedents that are drafted before 2006 are irrelevant because they predate the ending of presumption: they assume presumption and therefore are irrelevant. Only those statutes that have come into effect post-2006 are relevant. There is only one such that the Bill team was able to produce and that was in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, so I went searching. In Schedule 8 (33M), I found:

““A sixth form college corporation is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1993”.

That is quite different wording from what we have here. The Bill states:

“A qualifying Academy proprietor is a charity”,

not,

“a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1993”.

I am not enough of a lawyer to be able to weigh the significance of the additional words, but it indicates that sixth form colleges are much more closely tied to the remit of the Charity Commission and therefore reduced the risk of undermining the authority of that commission. Certainly, nothing in the 2009 Act envisaged the creation of a whole new class of exempt charities with their own regulator as Clause 8 does in subsection(4).

Further, the nature of the arrangements in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act are quite different from those envisaged in this Academies Bill. Inter alia, the former Act did not envisage the degree of independence for sixth form colleges as for schools under this Academies Bill. If noble Lords look at the Model Funding Agreement which the Minister has been kind enough to circulate, in many cases they will see a degree of independence that means that the charitable status of the academy is much more important. The Minister himself in his letter of 1 July that he kindly circulated to us says that:

“These different processes are necessary because of the contractual nature of our relationship with the Academies”.

Therefore, the Bill team is wrong to try to argue that there are a series of precedents out there that make this amendment unnecessary.

The second argument that the Bill team brought forward was to quote from my speech in Committee on 28 June when I said I was sure that academies would be able to pass the public benefit test. Why, then, they argued should I be concerned about the wording? I absolutely agree that it is likely that the academies will pass the charitable test, but that is not the same as believing that they should not be able to fail. I can envisage circumstances in which academies could fail a public benefit test. Indeed, the many debates that we have had tonight and in Committee have raised pinch points where that could happen. I hope that it does not, but it could. That is why we need to be very clear about charitable status.

To conclude, my amendment is designed to bring absolute clarity to the charitable status of academies by preserving beyond peradventure the delicate balance achieved in the Charities Act 2006—no ifs, no buts, no maybes and, above all, no requirement to pay expensive lawyers for interpretation of clauses the meaning of which is not absolutely clear. Along the way, this amendment has two further side benefits: we buttress the independence and authority of the Charity Commission as the regulator of the sector and, last but not least, we avoid creating a precedent of governmental interference in a sector that is heartily to be avoided. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

If the YPLA is the exempt regulator, does my noble friend expect it to have a public benefit test which it will apply to the schools, and will that be the same public benefit test as the Charity Commission applies to other schools?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

We think that a state-funded school which becomes an academy would be deemed to have passed the public benefit test. However, if I am wrong about that, I will write to my noble friend and put myself straight.

I know that my answer will not have provided satisfaction to my noble friend Lord Hodgson, and that I have only part met some of the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Phillips. However, given the answers that I have provided, I hope that they will feel able at this hour not to press their amendments.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his lengthy research and work and for the answers that he has given me, though I have to say they are slightly uncompromising in tone. However, it is obviously far too late to explore this matter further tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 40 withdrawn.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I have two amendments that address many of the points made by my noble friend Lord Phillips, although they approach them from a different angle. Given the lateness of the hour, it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to them now so that the Minister can deal with the various arguments. I apologise for not having participated in the debates before, although I have read in particular the Second Reading debate carefully. As we are discussing charitable matters, I should declare my interests as president of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations and chairman of the Armed Forces Charities Advisory Company, inelegantly known as AFCAC.

The most important of my amendments is Amendment 164. It would remove the words “is a charity” and replace them with the phrase,

“may be deemed to be an exempt charity if and in so far as it is a charity”.

I am not quite as concerned as my noble friend Lord Phillips about the use of exempt status, but I am concerned about the way in which the charitable status and arrangements are being drawn in this Bill. I do not oppose the principles of the Bill; indeed, I support them, because I am for aspiration in our education system and it seems to me that this Bill will lead to higher aspirations. However, Clause 8 causes me some concern. This is a probing amendment, about which I am much looking forward to hearing from my noble friend on the Front Bench.

I shall take a moment to say a word about the background. The Charities Act 2006, which was a Lords starter like the Academies Bill, went through a high degree of scrutiny, not only pre-legislative scrutiny but also because the parliamentary examination took place twice over. We had reached the end of the process when we came to the wash-up before the 2005 election, when our progress resembled the childhood game of snakes and ladders—we had reached square 99 but then stepped on a very long snake and went all the way back down to square two, from where we had to start again. I had the privilege of serving my party on the Front Bench and, as my noble friend Lord Phillips said, we spent many happy hours with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, and others dealing with the issues in that Bill. The result of what some might say was an inordinately long gestation was that we had a huge amount of input from the sector and the wider public. I must say that the then Labour Government were prepared to listen and I think that we made some sensible changes. I think that the sector believes that a delicate balance that reconciles the many strongly held views about the charitable sector and its position in our society was achieved. This Bill, if unamended, will damage that delicate balance.

What is the balance? First, the Bill reintroduces presumption by the back door. The Charitable Uses Act 1601 stated that there was a presumption of charitable status for three purposes: the relief of poverty, the advancement of religion and, of relevance to us tonight, the advancement of education. Therefore, if you checked into the Charity Commission with the Hodgson educational trust, it would be bound to give you charitable status. However, it became perfectly clear in recent years that that no longer held water in our society and that we therefore needed to find a way in which all applicants for charitable status, with the benefits described by my noble friend Lord Phillips, had to show that they afforded an appropriate level of benefit to the public to offset the tax and other benefits that they received. So we achieved a level playing field.

This public benefit test was to be achieved by the Charity Commission and we wanted to make sure that the commission was insulated from political pressure from all sides of the House. Therefore, written into Clause 6 of the Charities Bill were words to the effect that the Charity Commission should not be subject to the direction of any government agency or any Minister of the Crown. We had a level playing field with an independent regulator.

The Bill as drafted blows a hole in this because Clause 8(1) states:

“A qualifying Academy proprietor is a charity”.

That restores presumption. There is no mention of a public benefit test; it just states that it is a charity. Therefore, we no longer have a level playing field. Above all, we are introducing an unlevel playing field in an area of great controversy. It was on education that some of the most difficult discussions and debates in this House took place because of the existence of fee-paying schools that are charities. Indeed, several schools have had their charitable status called into question or, in certain instances, revoked.

The second worry is that this undermines the authority of the Charity Commission and damages its independence. We went to great lengths to make sure that it was above suspicion; if it could be bypassed at any time, that would be a great mistake. I have absolutely no doubt that these academies will be able to show that they can pass the benefit test, so why damage the balance that we created in the 2006 Act?

Most important, we are creating a dangerous precedent. A future Government—not this Government or any Government that I am thinking of—could use this ability to say that something is going to be pushed through on the ministerial fiat. It would be a great mistake to allow that kind of precedent to be created in the Bill.

On the implications of exempt charity status, I entirely share the views of my noble friend Lord Phillips. We need to know what the regulatory body will be. The sly, shy hint in paragraph 29 of the Explanatory Notes does not go far enough. We need to know whether the regulator will have a public benefit test and, if so, whether it will be the same as that of the Charity Commission. It is essential that it should be so.

When my noble friend replies, will he say whether he thinks that he has the power to enforce this? Section 13(2) of the 2006 Act states:

“The body or Minister must do all that it or he reasonably can to meet the compliance objective in relation to the charity”.

However, as far as the Charity Commission is concerned, that is only one of five objectives. It has a public confidence objective, a public benefit objective, the compliance objective to which I have just referred, a charitable sources objective and an accountability objective. We need to know whether those other objectives will be met in this case. As my noble friend has said, we need to know what will happen to existing charities and whether we will have a further unevenness in the playing field.

I do not expect to reach finalisation on this tonight but I seek from my noble friend reassurances on two or three central points: first, that the Government will not reintroduce presumption by the back door; secondly, that they respect the independence of the Charity Commission and its expertise; and, thirdly, that they see the great dangers of the precedent that we will be creating.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I will not make any long arguments. My noble friend Lord Phillips has referred to museums and to Kew, but I think that, although the secondary legislation to appoint a charitable regulator other than the Charity Commission is in draft, it has not yet been triggered. I think that the matter is still in limbo.

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Moved by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

165: Clause 8, page 6, line 14, at end insert “, or
“(b) may apply to be a community interest company (CIC)”

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I shall be very brief on Amendment 165, because it is an alternative route to heaven for academies. It would permit them, instead of becoming charities, to become community interest companies. It is a probing amendment which may repay some study, and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say about it.

The Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004—inelegantly entitled, I agree—has in it a bit on community enterprise. Part 2 of the Act, which comprises Sections 26 to 63, establishes the concept of community interest companies. If the Minister’s officials care to look through those clauses, they may be able to or wish to advise him that it could be a useful structure for the new academies to adopt. I shall not weary the Committee tonight with a recitation of how they would all fit together, except to say that Section 35 sets up a community interest test, rather like the public benefit test, while Section 27 establishes a regulator of CICs, as they are known, with extensive powers, and Section 30 caps dividends and distributions, so they are not profit-making in the normal sense of the word. There are a number of less important aspects, which might have value in this approach.

CICs cannot be charities, so they would be travelling a totally separate road. They come under Companies Act regulations. However, this could be a useful alternative—not compulsory, but a possible alternative—to becoming an exempt charity with some of the issues that we have just been debating in the previous group of amendments. This amendment seeks to explore the possibility. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will probably have something to say on this. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and I had several happy hours in the Chamber discussing community interest companies and how they should be formed. The noble Lord is correct—it was a matter of some significant discussion at the time that a community interest company could not be a charity. However, a main feature of a community interest company is the asset lock. That is why it is such a valuable company form for social enterprises. I am not sure how that could be applied as an alternative form to a charity. This is a complex issue, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, is about to make it even more complicated, because I know that he has very firm views on this, but I cannot see how the asset lock would work here.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, may I make a point to the Minister? I am concerned about the timing of this Bill because the issues raised tonight are extremely complex. We are due to have Report stage within a week and, knowing that the machinery for getting approval for amendments in government does not move as speedily as one would wish, I am concerned that there will not be enough time to give full consideration to these matters. I hope that he will give some consideration to ways in which this House can really have enough time to deal with these matters appropriately.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I have been invited to withdraw my amendment, which I am happy to do. I think that there are ways around the asset lock, which I will not bore the House with at 11.40 pm. To my noble friend Lord Phillips, I had thought about putting down an amendment about a CIO—a charitable incorporated organisation—but since the regulations were not yet drafted, that would be otiose to our discussions on this point. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 165 withdrawn.