Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for giving us this opportunity to talk about induction, which is an important part of ensuring we have good teachers in our schools. Induction is like a probationary period. It provides a statutory national framework for supporting new teachers to make the transition from initial teacher training to their career in teaching. It ensures that NQTs receive support, training and development. At the end of this time, new teachers have to pass an assessment and can then become full members of the teaching profession. Before I come on to the amendments in detail, let me set out briefly some of what the Government are doing to get excellent teachers into the profession, because induction is at the end of the process and needs to be viewed in that context.

Our initial teacher training strategy, which we recently launched, includes the following measures: we will attract the best graduates by offering one-off training bursaries of up to £20,000; we will double the size of Teach First, a scheme that has been highly successful in attracting graduates from some of our best universities into teaching; we will raise the bar for entry to teaching by funding training only for those with at least a second class degree, and by introducing literacy and numeracy entry tests; we will focus teacher training better on the skills that teachers need most, including managing behaviour and teaching early reading, items which we have already touched on in this Committee; and, we will give more schools a strong role in the recruitment and training of the trainees that they will go on to employ.

Alongside these reforms, we have been reviewing teacher standards, including those that trainee teachers must meet. We expect shortly to produce new, clear standards that raise the bar for newly qualified teachers who enter induction, so the Government are doing much—

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Given that the Minister raised the background to this debate, which I am grateful to her for doing, could she clarify one point for me? In terms of the bursaries being proposed in the paper, can the Minister give us her view of the impression given by awarding up to £20,000 per secondary school priority subject, yet so much less for primary school teaching? Is it not really important that we get things right in primaries so that people can become successful in secondaries, and should the bursaries not reflect that?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Some of this is to do with shortages of teachers. There are more shortages of secondary school teachers, which is why those priorities have been set. However, we would entirely agree with what the noble Lord has said about the real importance of primary school teaching and of introducing an ethos of learning, and of the fun of learning, at a very early stage. Primary school teachers are of the utmost importance in that. The Government are doing much to improve the quality of those who enter induction in the first place but, as my noble friend Lord Lexden has said, induction itself is of great importance. It helps NQTs to handle the fresh challenges they face in their first teaching post, to strengthen their skills and to improve their teaching.

On Amendment 69 it is the case, under current regulations, that NQTs may serve induction only once—a point that has been picked up by noble Lords. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, it is a fact that the previous Government’s regulations prescribed only one induction period. We have reviewed that position and decided to continue it. Of course, if things change we can always review the position but that is what we are holding to at the moment. Recent discussions with those who work with induction arrangements have supported the current position, reflecting the important points that my noble friend Lord Lexden has made today. We do not plan to allow NQTs to serve more than one induction period. It is of course a key element of ensuring that only those NQTs who meet the required standards are permitted to continue to teach in maintained schools, and we would wish to maintain that.

In answer to the point by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about academies, they are classified as independent schools and as such they may choose to offer statutory induction, although they are not required to do so. We will continue that position through regulations. My noble friend Lord Lexden raised an important issue—

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[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

That is terrible.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I do not want to delay the Committee, but this is really important. There is no requirement on academies. I can understand there being no requirement on academies if the number of academies is small, but if, as it would appear, we are starting to move towards a vision of every secondary school being an academy, how can we ever be sure that we have enough induction places for the workforce that we need to keep continuing to recruit?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

As I understand this—I may be wrong—teachers’ training is not fully validated until they have successfully completed an induction period. If the choice of whether there is an induction period rests with the school or academy and is not a right for the teacher, there may be a large number of people going into those situations whose training is never finally completed and validated if they have not done a satisfactory induction period.

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Amendment 75A calls for a report on the whole process two years down the line to see whether the process has worked, to collect data and, on the basis of that evidence, to consider extending the reporting restrictions to all staff in schools and FE colleges. Will the Minister consider this extension of the provisions in Clause 13 to include colleagues in FE colleges and review the process after two years to extend it further to other staff dealing with students in colleges and schools?

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I shall speak briefly to this amendment and to this clause. I am motivated in large part by the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood. I wrestled with this subject as a Minister and came under a lot of pressure to bring in a clause such as Clause 13. My judgment at the time was that it would be a slippery slope—the slippery slope that has been described by the noble Lord—and that it would start to include an awful lot of people. The NSPCC put the argument very strongly that we should not go down the road in Clause 13 and that it would be better for children if we put pressure on the enforcement authorities to get on with it and bring cases to justice where there was a case to be put. I was pleased that we managed to get some agreement from the Association of Chief Police Officers to accelerate things. It will be interesting if the Minister has any information about whether that genuinely accelerated things or whether the Minister was just told that it accelerated things.

Probably that is where my instincts lie. A better way of dealing with things is that the police should not feed information to the press and that they should get on with prosecution if that is what needs to be done. Then the blight that can affect professionals in schools as a result of false allegations can be lifted very quickly because there is no doubt of the seriousness of the problem for some individuals.

However, if we are going to have Clause 13, I support the amendments put by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. If you are going to give this protection to people who work in schools, you need to give this protection to all people who work in schools. These days, we see support staff, in particular, doing a range of work. In a lot of cases, it is support staff who are doing one-to-one work in schools, not the higher-qualified person, who is left to deal with the majority.

If there is a case to be made for teachers, there has to be a case made for support staff. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, made a very strong case in respect of FE colleges, which are starting to educate under-16s. I suppose I am trying to be slightly consensual in saying that I understand and, in the end, kind of agree that I am sceptical about Clause 13 but, if we are going to do it, let us do it properly.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I had hoped to support the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, but I am not sure whether he is going to speak now or later. I shall add to what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said because I, too, believe that this is a question of process rather than of principle. I have talked to the Minister about this before. If we could get the issues dealt with quickly, then we would be able to avoid having to have this kind of clause. I speak as someone who has not only dealt with many victims of abuse—I want to come on to that issue in a moment—but has also supported members of the social work profession who have been faced by unproven, unsubstantiated and quite serious allegations. Having been a director in a child abuse case, I understand all the shock and pain that brings when it happens. It is the same sort of emotion that you feel about not being responsible for what you are being accused of. It is a terrible time for the individual and their family, but if we can get this process speeded up, that pain will be lessened, and we can get on with it.

I agree with the noble Lord who pointed out that we should not deal with the principle in a different way because we have a process problem. The principle must surely be that when an allegation has been made, it must be transparently investigated. I say this because not only have I dealt with people who have been falsely accused, but I have dealt with more young people than most people in this room who have been abused and who have had to face the process themselves. It is a terrible time for the young people when there are delays because they are faced with having to keep their evidence in their mind, they are going to be cross-examined in disciplinary proceedings and if it goes further than that, they are going to find themselves in court. That is another reason for the process to be speeded up.

However, I think the legislation as it stands at the moment is unworkable. I say this because, particularly if you have a situation where there is residential care alongside education—and I declare an interest as a patron of Livability which has a number of schools with both on the premises—what if you have two people accused at the same time? Will one of them find themselves free from publicity and the other one be thrown to the wolves and to the press? Unless the Government think that through, we will have a series of totally untenable situations. I think it is especially difficult in the present climate to talk about not having transparency in these situations when the Government are allowing the press into the family justice system. There are very strong feelings among families that find themselves and their situation in the press, albeit anonymously, when they find that the teacher who they think has harmed their child is protected. We have all sorts of muddled principles developing.

If this legislation is passed, it will weaken safeguarding. One of the things I know from many situations involving young people is that when one speaks out, it gives a voice to others. We know that an individual child’s voice in a court or in disciplinary proceedings is a very small voice. We know that when other young people come forward because one person has been brave enough to do so, you have much more hope of getting your case together. Even then, those of us who work with young people before the court as victims know that you are very unlikely to get a conviction without a great deal of effort and support. You have much more hope of doing so if you have a number of young people. To those people who say that groups of children come forward to make these allegations, research will tell you that there are very few situations where a group of children comes forward and they all tell exactly the same story that cannot be seen through. The lawyers among us will know that. If you talk to children and young people, as I have done, if they are making up a fairy story, you get it in one. If they tell you the story is the true story, then it follows through.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I am concerned because it is very difficult for people who are faced with these allegations, but the unforeseen consequences of not making them transparent are huge, and I think we should continue to make sure that our children’s needs are paramount, not the adult’s needs.

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[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Phillips and will speak also to Amendment 73M. Just for the sake of the record, I draw attention to the interests I declared earlier. I was very struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said earlier. She said that this clause as currently drafted is unworkable and that unworkable legislation simply brings the law into disrepute. My noble friend has just said that we are not in super-injunction territory, but I fear that, because of the impact of digital media, which I shall talk about in a moment or two, we will be in super-injunction territory at a sort of local level that will cast this legislation into that disrepute.

If we are to have legislation, at least let it be workable. I believe that the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, try to do that by importing into new Sections 141F and 141G the concept of the public domain and the public interest. The exclusion of any mention of the public interest in Clause 13, as it stands, is quite remarkable. I cannot think of any other legislation dealing with incursions into the freedom of the press and freedom of expression which do not have a public interest defence. That must be put right.

In my view, these amendments are crucial because the real problem with this clause—the unworkability factor—is that it takes no account of how allegations are spread and the damage that they can do to schools and to innocent teachers in the absence of responsible press reporting. As I said at Second Reading, my concern is that this legislation will simply drive innuendo and rumour underground and new Section 141F(12) will encourage that. Its definition of “publication” is designed to catch the media, which is not at the root of any mischief here, by tying it to material addressed to the public at large. That is the wrong target. The Minister in another place, Nick Gibb, made it clear that this legislation is not intended to capture private conversations, which include e-mail exchanges, texts, Facebook postings, Twitter and all sorts of other mechanisms. That is precisely where allegations and innuendo, which it seems to me that the Government want to be at the root of this legislation, will build up, now that Clause 13 makes it impossible for them to be dealt with in a responsible way in the press, which is constrained by the laws of libel and contempt. In a short space of time, the weight of individual private exchanges may mean that in a small school everyone knows when a teacher has been accused of something, but only the local newspaper will be unable to report it.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

The noble Lord makes a really powerful point. I am sure that this legislation was drafted before super-injunctions and before the Twitter activity around certain footballers whose names were disclosed and the mischievous and false rumours spread on Twitter about other celebrities and what they may or may not have been doing. Is that not all the more reason for the Government to look at this again?

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

I could not agree more with the noble Lord. It is a point that I would like to address. Who could imagine what would happen if rumour or innuendo, which turns out to be false, circulates at the school gate about a teacher. There may indeed have been an assault, but perhaps the wrong teacher has been accused in the diaspora of cyberspace, or perhaps, as the noble Baroness said earlier, two teachers have been named in allegations that have been pumping around parents. The only way for teachers to clear their names would be through responsible publication in a local newspaper. That would be in the public interest, and it would reflect the fact that the material is already, in effect, in the public domain because of digital media.

If this law is not to become the same sort of fiasco as the super-injunctions, those defences need to be put in here. I believe that the proposed amendments to this clause will act as a vital pressure gauge and allow accurate and fair reporting where the public interest demands. They will also help some of the massive legal uncertainty that flows from the definition of publication which, by experience, the courts, particularly the magistrates' courts, are not good at dealing with. Often these issues are beyond their competence.

These amendments also mirror exactly the terms of Section 12 of the Human Rights Act, which deals with interference in the European convention right to freedom of expression. That legislation directs a court to have particular regard to the extent to which,

“(i) the material has, or is about to, become available to the public; or

(ii) it is, or would be, in the public interest for the material to be published”.

This legislation, which is a substantial incursion into the convention right, should have exactly the same defences as the Human Rights Act, especially as it is certified to be in accordance with the terms of the Act, and these amendments seek to secure that.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That would be private.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

The issue of Facebook is challenging, because it is possible to establish closed groups within Facebook, which people can join only if they are invited. You would not regard those as public because you are there only by invitation. However, once you are in the group, things can be said. Where would that sit?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am not answering. I cannot respond to the speaker. We want to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has explored at some length, so I shall not repeat here, the views of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council. However, they have both concluded that these measures are contrary to the ECHR, as she said, and that the analysis underpinning the Government’s argument in relation to the noble Baroness’s point about contending that the majority of cases involve violence is fundamentally flawed. The AJTC said that the majority of appeals succeeded because the panel did not accept that the pupil had done what he or she was said to have done or the decision to exclude was not proportionate. Therefore, it is very clearly and firmly of the conclusion that taking away the power to reinstate is wrong and that it is not a fair process, even in the very tiny number of circumstances in which it is applied. Does the Minister accept those conclusions of the cross-party report and will he rethink the proposal to remove the possibility of reinstatement?

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My noble friend is making an important case, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Later, we will talk about behaviour and attendance partnerships. Does my noble friend think that the notions of fairness that have been discussed would shift if schools had to remain within behaviour and attendance partnerships and therefore had to make sure that excluded pupils were properly found a place within that community of schools?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My noble friend makes an extremely important point, which I was also going to try to make but he has made it very well. This is one of the problems with the way that the Bill has been constructed, tearing down, as it does—in my view, somewhat recklessly—a whole range of requirements and apparatus. When you look, as we will shortly, at the proposal to repeal the responsibility of schools to be in a behaviour and attendance partnership, and set that alongside the measures before us, you see that the situation is compounded. At least if schools were in such a partnership, they would have a responsibility to work with schools in their federation or partnership to find solutions for those difficult children whom some schools propose to exclude. Taking both away makes things very difficult. One cannot see what will happen to children when they are excluded through this process.

If the Minister is not minded to reconsider, will he explain to the Committee what safeguards the Government would put in place to assure the groups whom we have been discussing who are already adversely affected by permanent exclusion and would be more so through these measures? What safeguards do they propose to put in place, not just to contain but to reverse that trend?

Many organisations in addition to those mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have expressed their concern about these proposals. The Children’s Society, the National Children’s Bureau and the Children’s Commissioner have asked the Government to think again. Some trade unions have raised a slightly different but equally important point, arguing that rather than reducing bureaucracy there is a danger that, unless either the amendment that I am speaking to or that proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is enacted, removing the panels and taking away the power to reinstate may lead parents to think about taking legal action against schools. That would involve a great deal more work and unnecessary bureaucracy for schools.

The amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, would mean that all parents of permanently excluded children would be able instead to appeal to the first-level tribunal. That has much to commend it. Those tribunals, unlike the review panels, would be led by somebody who was legally trained, which is a big advantage. One could ask, as did the noble Baroness, what the consequences would be in terms of time, delay and expense of all the cases going to such a tribunal. Might there not be an argument for a remedy at a more local level for at least some of those cases? I am open to debate on that point; the main thing, as we have both said, is that there should be somewhere in the system a right of appeal to a body that has the power to reinstate.

Sir Alan Steer recommended in his independent review, Learning Behaviour:

“Independent exclusion appeals panels should be retained, both in the interests of natural justice and to prevent schools becoming embroiled in time-consuming or costly alternative legal processes”.

I have mentioned the Runnymede Trust, which has provided a number of case studies, one of which is particularly salutary. It is the case of the Formula 1 champion, Lewis Hamilton, who when he was 16 was excluded from school in a case of mistaken identity after he witnessed an attack. In his autobiography, he writes:

“I knew I was innocent but”,

the head teacher,

“did not appear to be interested. Subsequent letters to the local education authority, our local MP, the education secretary and even the prime minister, were of no help. No one appeared to listen—no one either wanted to or had the time. We were on our own, and I was out of school”.

However, Hamilton’s school career was saved due a successful case made by his father to an independent appeal panel, which reinstated him at the school.

While there is a chance of even a small number of cases such as that occurring, and given the arguments that we have all made about natural justice and fair process, it would be wrong to remove the power to reinstate. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, asked at our previous sitting what would then happen if that decision was taken. Yes, we can have a conversation about where that child goes. However, to have won your appeal puts you in a very different position from being excluded and there being no power to reinstate.

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[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

The noble Lord is right. As a not so infallible Minister, I remember the legislation because there was a fear that local authorities would make life difficult for head teachers. If my memory serves me right—and I am absolutely sure that it does on this—there was a requirement in previous legislation to make sure that someone with educational experience was on the appeals panel. Previous legislation has done the mending that needed to be done in terms of the appeals panel. People who have served as Members of Parliament may also know that there has always been a feeling among parents and students that appeals panels lean over backwards to support the schools. If there is a feeling in society, it is not that the appeals panel leans over backwards to exclude the child; it is the other way about. As the noble Lord said, many people on the panels have educational experience and want to support heads. Therefore, the people on the appeals panel are not anti-heads, anti-discipline, anti-order, anti-fairness or anti-justice; they are people who know about education and they try to do a difficult job.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

When the noble Baroness talks about heads, I wonder what her thoughts are on the pupil premium that has been introduced by the Government. Interestingly, it motivates heads to admit pupils from poorer backgrounds; and we know that, because of the chaotic backgrounds that some children from poorer backgrounds might have, behaviour might then be an issue to some extent. Does she think that there might be a danger of selection by exclusion, whereby heads take in children to get more money and then, whether deliberately, up front or otherwise, exclude those who are more difficult and damage the education of others?

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My thoughts had not gone that far, but my noble friend puts forward a very interesting proposition. I think that perhaps why he thinks that—and why he is right—is because some heads have always sought to manage their admissions through some element of exclusion. There are times when that is right. Some heads, in their first year of taking over a school that has been in very challenging circumstances, have excluded to lay down rules and regulations and to make sure that they can set standards. I understand that, but what the noble Lord suggests would be a terrible thing—and I hope, having put that on record, the Minister will bear it in mind.

I will finish there, because I wanted only to make that brief point. Either assumption is wrong, whether it is about the infallibility of heads or whether it is that when they make a mistake we pretend they have not made a mistake. Worse than that, this is not only unjust and unfair but will do nothing to improve discipline, because the kids and the school community will know that a child was excluded, that the appeal found for them and that the child has not been reinstated. That will do nothing to encourage the school community to support the head. Kids are really good about fairness, and so are parents. The legislation as it has been put to us will not help in that regard.

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[Lord Lingfield]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will confirm that this did not rise just out of a vacuum and that a large number of teachers and teachers’ organisations have indeed been in contact to support this piece of legislation. It is hugely important that where punishment is going to happen in schools it happens quickly in order to be effective. This legislation will not actually place a duty on schools to do this but simply provide a power to do it. Some schools could decide in their wisdom that they want nothing to do with having detentions under these circumstances. Others could decide that only certain members of staff under considerably constrained conditions may do so. Therefore, we can expect a variety of responses among schools in order to do this. However, there is absolutely no doubt that this power is needed by schools—or at least by some schools. It is part of a series of new tools for the toolbox that I am sure the Minister will agree he is trying to provide, and sends a message to teachers, pupils and parents that a lot of the misbehaviour that we have heard so much about is being combated. It is not one thing—there are other things, all of which are hugely important. They send a clear message to those people that they are going to be supported by government under these circumstances, and that teachers will not have to put up with the kind of misbehaviour that we have heard quite a lot about.

According to the thrust of the Government’s position, these decisions should be left to individual schools. We trust individual schools to make these kinds of decisions. Frankly, it is good so to trust them. Given that kind of trust, the response is always more professionalism. We do not need any more safeguards built into this. Where things are, there they should stay.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I will briefly make three points, unless something else occurs to me as I am on my feet. First, will the Minister tell us how many schools have actually asked for this? I have listened carefully to what the last noble Lord said, but in my three years as Schools Minister no school ever asked me for this power. I would be really interested in what evidence there is for a demand for it.

Secondly, I listened to what the noble Lord said about the fact they we should trust schools and leave it to them to decide whether to use the flexibility that they are being given in this Bill. I refer back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said about schools not necessarily fully understanding the circumstances of some of their pupils’ families; her example was whether or not they have caring responsibilities. I was shocked to talk to some schools where they did not know that parents might be in prison. All sorts of things happen that families do not necessarily want to go around talking about but which affect the nature of the home environment, and would then affect whether it would be appropriate to give a detention without notice on the same day after school.

Finally, on reinforcing the discipline from the school at home, when I was given detentions at the prep and independent private schools that I went to for things like forgetting my towel or—God forbid—being cheeky and a bit mouthy, which I know would shock noble Lords, there was always a letter home that went with the detention. That was always the worst part of the punishment: your parents knew that you had been given a detention. Giving 24 hours’ notice so that your parents are informed of the detention is a really important aspect of linking up the discipline of the school with home. We know that the single most important determinant of the success of a child’s education is the involvement of their parents in that education. I strongly believe that it is really important that we ensure that that linkage through the notice is there in every school.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I wish to follow the noble Lord, Lord Knight, because I found it extraordinarily surprising that this Government, who stand very much for working with and alongside parents and making sure that there is accountability and responsibility at home, can suggest that they would give a detention without informing parents. Having worked with the Minister, Tim Loughton, on other issues and knowing how important it is for the Government that children should be safeguarded, I find it astounding that they can suggest that children can be detained in the evening and be allowed to go home without their parents knowing and without safeguards. I expect better.

Detention is not always about discipline. I got my detention for leaving my French homework on the bus and not producing it.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, as we have all agreed, improving standards of behaviour in our schools is of great importance. We know that having a clear behaviour policy, which is consistently applied and includes positive incentives as well as sanctions, is essential to ensure good behaviour. This clause is one measure that the Government are taking to help schools to achieve this. Its intention is to allow teachers and head teachers to use detention in a way that is appropriate to the circumstances of their school and individual pupils to maintain a safe and orderly school environment.

My noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Benjamin and other noble Lords have raised concerns about the safeguards, but safeguards are already in place to make sure that parents know what to expect with regard to detention outside school hours. Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 requires that head teachers develop a behaviour policy in line with the principles drawn up by the governing body, and publicise it to parents annually. This policy must include all the penalties that the school uses to maintain discipline, including whether the school issues detention outside school hours.

The amendments in this group seek to place additional requirements on schools in relation to contacting parents when they wish to give a detention. I understand the intention behind the amendments. My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, rightly consider that courtesy to parents and issues of child safety are of the utmost importance. Of course, I agree with them about that. However, noble Lords asked where these requests had come from. They may have read the briefing by the Association of School and College Leaders, which read:

“We welcome removal of the requirement to give parents 24 hours notice of detentions. We note that at second reading there was concern that this power could be abused. School leaders are well aware of the position of child carers, as well as other concerns such as children walking home alone in the dark and in the vast majority of cases will continue to give 24 hours’ notice. We are confident that schools can and should be trusted with this additional discretion”.

We have had meetings with school heads who support that to the hilt.

I believe that teachers and head teachers will consider the circumstances of their schools and pupils in setting their policies on detention so that they can promote good discipline but also safeguard children’s welfare and support good relationships with parents. However, I shall also set out the existing legal safeguards that protect children’s welfare if they are given a detention. Section 91 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 requires that disciplinary penalties must be reasonable in all circumstances. When considering whether a disciplinary penalty is reasonable, teachers must take account of the special circumstances of the pupil, including—but not limited to—their age and special educational needs, or any disability they may have. That would include the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about autistic children and their very special needs.

The Section 91 requirement applies when issuing detention outside school hours. This means that a detention will be lawful only if a teacher acts reasonably given the circumstances, including in relation to giving notice to parents. My noble friend Lord Lingfield raised the fact that this is a power, not a duty, that schools will have.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Do those legal safeguards mean that the noble Baroness’s expectation is that parents’ recourse would be to the courts—and the expense of going to court—if, for whatever reason, they did not feel that they had been given notice that their child would not be at the school gates to be picked up and that had caused them to worry? Is there another third party to whom they could appeal?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord raises a valid point. There will be a school complaints procedure to which parents can normally turn in the first instance. Given the special circumstances in which this might arise, one would have thought that that would be the first line of action.

I also understand noble Lords’ concerns regarding the safety of children when travelling home from school, particularly in rural areas. I should reassure noble Lords that, in addition to the safeguards I have just described, Section 92(5) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 makes it clear that, when considering an out-of-hours detention, teachers must consider whether suitable travel arrangements can be made via pupils’ parents. For some rural schools, out-of-hours detentions may never be appropriate, whatever the notice period, as has already been raised in discussion. I believe that head teachers will make sensible decisions in their individual circumstances.

In our debate on Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, described some of the difficulties that schools can face in working with a minority of parents. There is a risk that requiring parents to give consent for a same-day detention or to confirm that they are aware of it could, in a small number of cases, allow parents to obstruct appropriate disciplinary penalties. I should reassure noble Lords that the department has released new concise guidance on teachers’ legal powers to discipline. This guidance makes it clear that the school must act reasonably when imposing a detention, as with any disciplinary penalty. In addition, when deciding the timing, the teacher should consider whether suitable travel arrangements can be made by the parent for the pupil. I believe we can trust teachers to consider this and act appropriately.

In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, a study carried out for the Department for Education found that teachers reported a lack of support from parents, describing a “them versus us” mentality. That same study found that teachers felt that the removal of the requirement for 24 hours’ notice of detention would empower them. I can send the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, a copy of that study. We stress that the vast majority of parents would be likely to be supportive if they could see that the detention was in the interests of their children. However, this measure is to take account of cases where that might not be seen as an appropriate action.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Is it not the case that the amendment asks for parents to be given notice? It does not require consent. I completely understand that there may be problems over consent if the relationship between home and school is not great. The important thing is that parents know that their child will not get off the bus.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Parents do not necessarily answer their phone. The fact that one has sent a letter home with the child does not necessarily mean that the child has passed it on—I can remember that being the case when I was a teacher. In some cases it was difficult to get hold of the parents to ensure that the message had been sent through. I come back to the point that, were there a difficulty at home, teachers and head teachers would be aware that it might not be an appropriate action to take. It would be taken only where it was deemed to be the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I am happy to support noble Lords’ Amendment 64 and the thrust of Amendment 64A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones. At Second Reading, I went on record to defend the GTC for England. On these Benches, we support the removal of quangos that are unnecessary or whose functions are retained elsewhere. However, that clearly will not happen in this case. We will be left with little more than a list of teachers who are no longer fit to practise. There will be no remnant of a professional registration body.

It is said that a society is measured by how it cares for the vulnerable—the elderly, the disabled, those who are ill and children. A teacher has the future of a child in his or her hands. Nurses, doctors, lawyers and social workers have registration bodies that act independently of the Government. Only last week, I heard of plans by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to include the registration of healthcare workers. What is therefore special about teachers in England that this is denied to them? The elegant Amendment 64 calls for the members of the profession to reject the Government’s proposals, should a majority of them so wish, thus maintaining the status quo. Amendment 64A outlines a professional registration body as it should be through proposed new paragraphs (a) to (e), and it is a proposal of which teachers could be proud.

Consequently, on these Benches we support the intention of Amendments 64 and 64A. The noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, made the point that the GTCE had not worked so far. That is absolutely no reason to dismantle completely something that should exist. It is incumbent on us to leave it there and try again.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I shall be relatively brief; I suspect we shall want to adjourn fairly soon. I was pleased to put my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Puttnam, not just because there is a reasonable presumption that you should always agree with one of the people who proposed you at your introduction but because he is, as ever, right. As we have heard, the amendment suggests that teachers themselves should vote on whether the GTCE should continue. I looked up what the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, said on 2 June last year, when he announced the scrapping of the GTCE. Incidentally, I understand that the people working there, including the chief executive, were at the time as surprised about it as everybody else. Michael Gove said that the Government trust the professionals. This amendment trusts teachers to decide whether they want their professional body to continue.

The other half of the amendment uses the proper threshold. This should appeal to the Government, given that on 26 June, on the “Andrew Marr Show”, the Secretary of State Mr Gove confirmed that Ministers are looking at minimum thresholds in the context of strike ballots. In respect of such a ballot, which I am assuming that the Minister will say he supports, because it is so much in the spirit of where this Government are going, I would argue for the retention of the GTC, but with reform as necessary. Why the GTC? Because, in the end, professionalism is important. Again, I looked up the words of the Secretary of State in November last year in his forward to the White Paper. He said:

“At the heart of our plan is a vision of the teacher as our society’s most valuable asset”.

He went on to say:

“There is no calling more noble, no profession more vital and no service more important than teaching”.

Who could disagree with his words?

The Secretary of State’s actions cause me a little more concern. Given his commitment, if he so believes in them and their professionalism, it is a surprise that teachers have voted overwhelmingly that they have no confidence in this Secretary of State. Perhaps that is because of the reality of his attacks on that professionalism. Look at what he is doing to the pension scheme. When the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was in his place, he renegotiated the teachers’ pension scheme and made it effective and funded. They see that attack. They see anyone being allowed to teach in free schools, and they see a mum’s army being asked to come in and teach during the strike. If he was Health Secretary, would he have had said the same about nurses, and that mums should go and replace nurses in hospital if there was a nurses’ strike? If he was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, would he ask them to do the same if there was a firefighters’ strike? I suspect not. I suspect that he would respect their professionalism more than he respects teachers.

Then he wants them arbitrarily to close their professional body. As others have said, would he have closed the General Medical Council if he was Health Secretary? No he would not. He would respect their professionalism and their professional body. The other shocking consequence of the abolition of the General Teaching Council is that the teaching agency will take on only the disciplinary functions of the GTC, as we heard in a speech of my noble friend Lady Jones. Can he confirm this? Does this seriously mean that there will no longer be a register of teachers? If so, this is an extraordinarily reckless move by the Government. I assume that the logic is that it is now up to schools to decide whether anyone can teach and what they are paid, and it is all part of this wonderful freedom that we are now going to give head teachers. Hence the assumption is that everyone is eligible to teach unless they fail a CRB check. I find it incomprehensible as to how that will work—and not just in relation to the relationship with Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland and making sure that people can move freely, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I just do not understand how the teaching agency will exercise its disciplinary functions without a register or how this move will improve teaching standards. I see it only lowering teaching standards. There are opportunities to use a register to raise standards. You could introduce a right to continuous professional development to teachers and, in return, they would have to re-register, so that we could ensure that they continued to receive training and raise their professional standards.

Finally, I repeat the point that this is part of the power grab by the Secretary of State. He will be directly responsible for recruiting, training and disciplining teachers as a result of this Bill. That is a massive change. It makes him very vulnerable to problems, when problems occur, as they inevitably will. But that is his problem.

These are just some of the arguments and reasons why I would reform the GTC to distil its statutory functions down to those coincidentally in Amendment 64A, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. We could also think about the composition of the council and how it can be reformed better to represent the customer rather than the producer of education. With reform, I think the GTC can be an effective organisation, but I am happy to be hands-off about this and to leave it to teachers—hence my support for the amendment. If teachers do not want their professional body, they should be trusted to get rid of it.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I rise partly to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, for calling him Lord Lucas earlier. I am sorry for that. I blame my Front Bench for giving me the wrong information. I do not want like the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, to go back to the Middle Ages and end up at 1858 with the General Medical Council or indeed to revisit Nicholas Nickleby and the Dickens novels. I would like to start in 1963 when I became a teacher. It was the proudest day of my life when I got my first teaching post and went into a secondary modern school, Middleton County Secondary Modern boys school in Leeds. I spent 34 years in the teaching profession and I regarded it not only as a profession but as the most noble and decent thing that I have done in my life. If I had my life to run over again, I would do exactly the same thing.

One thing was always missing, however. Those of my friends who, unlike me, did not leave school early to try to play football and fail before going into teaching but who became doctors, lawyers or dentists all had a professional body which not only were they proud of but which decided the standards by which they ran their profession and which they met.

It was interesting that last Thursday we had two of your Lordships, the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Hill, proudly talk about having to visit the dentist. I do not know whether it was an enjoyable experience for the Minister but it certainly was for the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who was speaking perfectly well today. I suspect that when they went to the dentist they wanted to know that the dentist was registered as a dentist with the General Dental Council, which was set up by the Dentists Act 1956. If they had any doubt, they could have gone on the internet, looked at the register and confirmed that the dentist was qualified, registered and hopefully competent. They would not have liked to go on to the web and seen a phrase saying, “It might be a dentist. The only information we have is that he has not been barred for misconduct and that at some time in the past he did some training”.

That is what we are talking about. Let us remember that this Bill comes from the White Paper, The Importance of Teaching. If the importance of teaching is to say that we are not even prepared to let you as a profession have your own register to decide the standards by which you operate, the standards by which parents have confidence in you and the standards by which society has confidence in you, then God help us.

I can say to the Minister that the dentist that he visited last week was taught by teachers. They got the training necessary to go off to university and to train as a dentist from the teaching profession as it stood. I say to my noble friend that the GTC was set up by the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 and that I sat on that Bill. To be fair to the Minister, the Labour Party at the time was not desperately keen on it either. I can remember proposing an amendment to that Bill which set up the register, because the original proposal—the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, will agree—was to have a GTC but with the Secretary of State having the register. It was through good argument during the passage of that Bill that we persuaded the then Government that essential to a GTC must be a register of teachers who were not only trained and competent. That was the very basis of it.

I support much of what the Minister wants to do in saying to schools that they are going to have greater autonomy, that head teachers will have greater autonomy and that the Government are going to set up all sorts of different organisations, although we may or may not agree with some of them. But to say that the one group of people who cannot have autonomy are the teachers themselves as part of the teaching profession is sad indeed.

As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned, for the Secretary of State to say in his White Paper that there is,

“no calling more noble, no profession more vital and no service more important”,

than teaching and then, at one stroke of the pen, say, “Ah, but you are not even worthy of having your own teaching council”—my goodness, Minister, you really do need to think again.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, always talks a great deal of sense, and I absolutely agree with her about the can of worms. The whole issue is a can of worms, not just what the amendments address.

It would be wonderful if we could assure ourselves that every school in the country had such excellent discipline that rules about what can and cannot be brought into the school would be instantly obeyed, that children who have been told that they had to put things in lockers would do so, and so on. Unfortunately, in many schools, that is not the reality. There are crisis incidents where a teacher will suddenly become aware that not a child but a large, hulking teenage boy is carrying a knife and bringing it into the classroom at the end of a fight or row outside and there is every chance that he may intend to use it. At that point, a teacher has to take action. Whatever legislation and whatever framework the House or Parliament can produce has to allow for such a crisis for teachers.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Does not that particular scenario—which is obviously a real and concerning one for teachers in some schools—of a large physical presence with a knife underline the need for proper training? Without proper training, the danger into which the teacher might be putting himself or herself by using force, however reasonable, to try to confiscate the knife could be profound, however great the crisis may be there and then.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

I was about to move on to training. With great respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, I do not think it could be only one person who is trained because the scenario I was describing could happen to any teacher. It could happen to a very small female teacher like me—I have taught in some tough schools in my time, with some very tough, studded-black-leather-jacket chaps in my classes—and so every teacher needs to be trained. They need to understand how to deal with someone who is carrying a knife in his back pocket, his sock or wherever it is. I would certainly argue for minimal training for all teachers in how to deal with such issues.

However, that is not to make them think that they should therefore be doing searches all the time. Rather than training in how to do a search—although that must be an element—there should be much better training for teachers in when a search is or is not appropriate. I would keep it very much to the crisis situation and to previously known offenders who have tried before to smuggle things into the school and classroom. That is where a teacher’s judgment is the most important thing of all. We are imagining helpless, innocent pupils with aggressive teachers; however, as I have said, it can be exactly the opposite way round. The training needs to give teachers the ability to make the judgment as to when a search is or is not appropriate.

I heartily support the need for training but ask that we reverse some of our mistrust of teachers and our assumption of innocence among pupils and allow for the other way round.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lingfield]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for disappearing for a bit during her contribution. I had to move my car before it was searched.

I do not want to stray too far into anecdote, but I visited a school perhaps two years ago where a woman teacher told me that the previous day she had been in a classroom when a boy had stabbed another pupil with a small penknife, luckily not doing much harm, and had then put it back in his pocket. There was no one else around, so she searched him and took the penknife away from him. She did absolutely the right thing for that particular occurrence.

This brings to mind something terribly important: there were no male teachers in that school at all. We have to remind ourselves that recent statistics suggest that the percentage of male teachers in primary schools has now reached something like 15 per cent, and in secondary schools the figure is around 20 per cent. A large number of primary schools have no male teachers at all. That teacher would therefore have fallen outside the current legislation. As I understand it, the Bill is meant to repair that. Of course training is hugely important, and in that school the teachers had received training—although it was of what you might call the informal kind, as so much training in schools is.

I would not support putting into the Bill a training programme or qualification for searching, but I would support the Government giving high priority to ensuring that guidance for schools suggested that training was hugely important in this area. It is vital that we send out a message to teachers that they are going to be backed when faced with serious discipline problems of this kind. We know that many of the children involved have special needs and are particularly vulnerable but we nevertheless have to send out that message to teachers, and my view is that the Bill will help that enormously.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Massey and others who have described this as a bit of a can of worms. With all respect to the Minister and his colleagues, I know how this comes about: you hear of difficult incidents in individual schools, you want to satisfy the perception in certain parts of the media that behaviour in schools is dreadful and you want to be seen to be doing something about it, so you move to legislation. As we have discussed, though, once we start to explore the issue we then see that there is a need for training, be it enforced through guidance or through legislation, and we soon arrive at the notion that there needs to be whole-school training. Once you get into training the whole school workforce, if they are going to use these powers, I imagine that many head teachers looking at their budgets would say, “Well, I probably won’t use these powers because I can’t afford the training of the whole school”, and then the legislation would become largely redundant. There are many other cans of worms that could wriggle out, which we could explore if we had time.

What will the powers do that the current powers do not? Paragraph 61 of the Explanatory Notes explains that the current powers under Section 550ZA of the Education Act 1996 allow other prohibited items to be searched for as specified in regulations. I would be interested to hear what Clause 2 does to extend the list of prohibited items from what would have been prohibited previously under regulations that the Government could have deployed using current powers.

I say in passing that it is easy in this debate to write off mobile phones as things that should be confiscated. However, mobile phones in classrooms can be used as very powerful computing devices. I would not want this debate to pass without standing up for the use of mobile phones as handheld computing devices that need to be managed. When I was at school, the pen was abused by many pupils who wrote nasty things about teachers and other pupils, yet nobody suggested that we ban the pen, because it was an important learning tool. Some electronic devices are also useful learning tools in the current century.

My final question to the Minister is: how will an appeals process work if the powers are used by a school? Will the process be governed by the school rules, with pupils and parents being able to go to the head teacher and then, as a final recourse, to the governing body? Many schools will be academies, so there will be no referral to a local authority if parents are dissatisfied with what the governors say. Will there be an appeal to the Secretary of State, or will the parents have to go to court, if they have the resources to do so? It would be helpful to understand how the appeals process will work.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I have listened very carefully and tried to think, if I was the head teacher of a school, how I would approach the problem and what I would say to my governors and to the political system. Clearly it is a deeply cultural issue which carries an enormous content of expectations. The idea of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, needs to be followed up.

I would try to turn this into a routine exercise—something that is as emotionally and culturally unloaded as it can be. We all go through a form of search whenever we go to an airport. I do not think that we like it. In fact, I remember one or two famous occasions when people did not behave very well when they were crossing borders or going through airports. I have knocked about a lot in the third world, where things can feel very undignified. I remember trying to get into Brazil from Paraguay. The queue was held up for a very long time while all sorts of unpleasant things were suggested by the people at the border. I think they were looking for money, which of course was a different circumstance.

Perhaps we should turn our minds away from bad expectations. Do we not talk too much about disadvantage and vulnerability? Are we really sure that many of the circumstances in which people bring the wrong thing to school are the result of disadvantage or vulnerability? It could be the result of many other things. I urge the Committee to urge the Minister to think hard about the best advice that could be given to head teachers and governors about how to cope with the particular circumstances in which they find their school, and how they could turn the question of controlling the arrival of unsuitable things in their school into a routine matter, so that the measure referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, which is terribly important, can be confined to emergencies. I suppose that as a head teacher, one would hope to find no emergencies and no searches resulting from emergencies.

Education: Academies Funding

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

There are a number of complexities in the system. One that is not widely recognised is that, because of the way in which the LACSEG system operates, local authorities continue to receive funding for some services that academies are being funded for. So there is some double funding. It is not that an academy is getting more than it should; it is that, traditionally, the local authority has carried on receiving that funding. We need to look at that and to address all these issues to make sure that the principle of equity is maintained.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I agree that the current funding system is too complex, which is why I announced a review when I was Minister in 2008. The consultation was ongoing when the noble Lord became a Minister—perhaps he could have encouraged his colleagues to deal with it quicker by picking up that consultation. Will he answer the specific point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, about making sure that no maintained schools have lost out? I have looked at comparisons across local authorities, including in Hampshire, where maintained schools are getting considerably less than they were in contrast to schools in other authorities. Given that the academies in Hampshire have done so well, can he give us an assurance that maintained schools will not lose out as a result of this problem?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as a former Academies Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, will be one of the few people on the face of the earth who may have some glimmer of knowledge of how the LACSEG operates. I had not realised that he had initiated a review. I would be happy to discuss where he got to with it, because we are obviously grappling with the same issues. He will know that, because of the complexity and because the approach taken varies from year to year and from local authority to local authority, it is hard to be definitive about how the system operates. I give the noble Lord an absolute undertaking that our aim throughout is to make sure that the funding that an academy gets is the same as it would have got as a maintained school, and that a maintained school will not be disadvantaged by the development of the academies programme.

Education Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Edmiston, on his fine maiden speech. He should be as proud of it as he is of the Grace academies. When I was schools Minister, I was very pleased to visit the Grace academy in Coventry, which I remember well as a very fine school. I also refer noble Lords to my entry in the register, in particular in respect of the work that I do for TSL Education and Apple Europe, and my roles as a trustee of the e-Learning Foundation, with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and as chair of the Institute for Education Business Excellence.

The Bill has some measures that are old, that turn back the clock and that go against the grain of educational change around the world. Other aspects are borrowed from the vision that we had in government of school autonomy and parental choice; and there are elements that are clearly blue, such as the biggest centralisation of power in the hands of central government anywhere in the western world, a watering down of fair admissions and a reckless dismantling of what works in teacher recruitment and retention.

A core feature of the Bill is the centralisation that goes with the abolition of half a dozen arm’s-length bodies. The Minister told us that this increases ministerial accountability, and of course it does. That is all very well if it is accompanied by ministerial responsibility; but when will this Secretary of State take responsibility for his mistakes? As the Chancellor has done on the economy, Mr Gove is going too far, too fast in his cuts, and has had to U-turn, often after legal action or the threat of it. We saw this over BSF, over school sport, over Book Start and now over schools funding. Like the Health Secretary, the Education Secretary makes a decision, announces it, then thinks about it, listens and has to back-track. It is no wonder that he has lost the confidence and support of the teaching profession—and yet he wants to grab all the power in the Bill. That might be fine if he were willing to take full responsibility for his mistakes. Perhaps the noble Minister can tell us if increased accountability means that the whole ministerial team knows that when serious mistakes are made—and I know that they are—they will be the ones who will take responsibility?

There is much in the Bill that I want to talk about. Most issues will have to wait until Committee, such as the abolition of the GTC and of the school support staff negotiating body, 14 to 19 education, free schools, apprenticeships, the role of technology and the future of careers education and work-related learning. There is much to talk about and much that needs amending. However, I will focus now on two issues: admissions and the teaching workforce. The abolition of the TDA and the GTC are stunningly retrograde steps. It has taken more than a decade to drive up improvements in teacher training and recruitment, so that our systems have become the envy of the world. McKinsey's studies, plagiarised in the White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, rightly pay fulsome tribute to them: but the world is now staring in disbelief as the coalition dismantles them. I say with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, that the number one destination for Oxbridge graduates at the moment is teaching, thanks to the work of Teach First.

Until the last election, teacher training in England was rising in status. Recruitment was buoyant even in the enduringly difficult subjects such as maths and science. The quality was at its highest ever in terms of both entry and product, and rising every year. The standards of the providers themselves had never been higher. Even Mr Gove, the Secretary of State, said on the radio—I almost choked on my muesli—that the new teachers being produced were the “best ever”. The recruitment crisis that had been inherited in the late 1990s was a distant memory.

Is the coalition's response to build on success? No, it is to use the Bill to sweep away the carefully constructed and proven systems that other advanced countries so admired and to replace them with centralising control, taking us back to the bad old days when the Whitehall machine tried to manage teacher recruitment and professional development from the centre, and did it so badly that the TDA had to be set up. If this Government have their way and the provisions of the Bill reach the statute book unamended, the TDA and the national college will become executive agencies. They will be creatures of the Government and constrained by an Administration who have proved themselves at least questionable in aspects of competent delivery.

How long will it be before they have to admit their mistake and recreate the freedoms needed to attract the very best into teaching? How many great teachers will be lost to the profession because the Government will not admit that successful recruitment requires a professional marketing approach, which the TDA has managed with distinction for the past decade? How many children will suffer in the mean time because there will not be enough good, well trained teachers in front of classes?

Then there are fair admissions. As a Minister, I significantly tightened up the admissions code, and now this Bill loosens it. Ed Balls and I decided to do this because it is an essential safeguard, alongside school autonomy, choice and accountability. We should be clear that if you ramp up competition, and funding follows the pupil, you have to ensure fair admissions. If, as this Government say, they are serious about tackling social mobility, they must give all children, regardless of background, an equal chance to get into the best schools. While the Government propose keeping some of the important requirements that we inserted, they have removed the most important element: the teeth to allow enforcement of the rules by the regulator, the schools adjudicator. I acted on this when in office following a survey that revealed that a significant number of schools were inadvertently or otherwise breaking the law on admissions. The repeal in the Bill of Section 88P of the 1998 Act removes the requirement for local authorities to report to the adjudicator on admissions to schools in their area, and the repeal of Section 88J removes the power of the adjudicator to then act to change the admission arrangements of schools. At a stroke, the Bill therefore means that if that illegality creeps back, if schools once again choose parents rather than parents choosing schools, we will not know and no one will have the power to do anything about it. No wonder the schools adjudicator left his post early; he probably could not see the point of staying.

I look forward to Committee. This is, I am afraid, a flawed Bill. We need to draw on all of the talents of your Lordships' House to scrutinise it, and I hope our noble Minister does a better job of listening than his colleagues did in another place.

Education: Vocational Subjects

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am grateful to my noble friend for her welcome for the Wolf review and her recognition of the importance of vocational education. One of the performance measures that we are keen to try to develop is a destination measure for schools and colleges so that we can see where children and young people go on to when they leave, and so that parents can see how a school or college is doing, whether it is vocational or academic.

We are keen to have more information generally. As that spreads and people are able to look at data and find their own ways of using them, the measure that my noble friend mentioned of seeing how schools and colleges might be doing, particularly as regards vocational or technical subjects, will develop of its own accord. The point of the EBacc is to try to have a small, narrow basis on which to shine a spotlight, particularly on academic subjects. It is not meant to betoken any kind of judgment and is obviously not compulsory. It is not a qualification in its own right. We want schools to decide for themselves whether it is something that they want to pursue. As my noble friend flagged, there is no statutory requirement on timetabling around the EBacc. There is, indeed, no statutory requirement that anyone should offer the EBacc at all.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I, too, found much of the Wolf report interesting and valuable. The beginning part of the Statement had a slight annual report feel to it with its list of achievements. It may be slightly cheap to say that I noted there was no list of the number of U-turns that the Secretary of State has performed, but it is time that there was a U-turn on the English baccalaureate. The commitment to end the pervasive two-tier system in education, which many of us have worked hard to try to get rid of, would be more credible if the English baccalaureate included practical learning for everyone, so that the Secretary of State’s commitment to ensure that academic subjects are available to everyone extended also to vocational subjects. Then we might be able to make some progress. The 80 per cent of curriculum time devoted to the English baccalaureate subjects leaves 20 per cent not just for vocational subjects but also for statutory religious education, sport—to which I am sure the Minister is committed—and a number of other things that we all want to see delivered in our schools. How can he show that the Government’s commitment to end the two-tier system as between vocational and academic subjects is credible while the English baccalaureate continues?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I know that the noble Lord has worked for a long time to try to overcome the problem that we all see regarding the perception of a two-tier system. I certainly share that objective. Many have strong feelings about the English bacc. I come back to the point that its purpose is not to be discriminatory in the way that the noble Lord suggests—although I know that he did not use that word. The motivation behind it was to tackle the fact that children from poor backgrounds have not had the chance to study certain subjects—such as modern foreign languages, which have declined in number, history or other subjects—as much as one would like. Only 4 per cent of children on free school meals achieve the EBacc. That has a very narrowing and limiting effect on their possible progression to higher education. The measure we are discussing is intended to tackle that situation.

I entirely take the noble Lord’s point that one does not want to entrench a sense of difference in this regard. As he knows very well, alongside things such as the EBacc, which I hope we do not take in isolation, we are committed to university technical colleges and studio schools, which I am very keen to encourage the spread of so that children who are in danger of becoming disengaged get the change to re-engage, learn practical skills and, in the process, pick up some academic ones as well. I understand the noble Lord’s point, but I hope that he and other noble Lords may see the EBacc in the broader context of what we are trying to do across the piece to raise the prestige of academic study, alongside raising the prestige of technical and vocational subjects.

I hope that Professor Wolf’s report, in giving us pointers to how we can give everyone confidence in the quality of vocational qualifications—and I very much welcome the support for that across the House—will be another leg in tackling the problems that the noble Lord identifies.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, one problem has been that children have been limited in their choices and some of that limitation has applied to some of the key academic subjects. That is what we are keen to open up. We are trying to open up more choices.

I agree with my noble friend that the Government cannot monitor every school and should not seek to micromanage those schools. The English bac is part of what we are trying to do more broadly to encourage more information about school performance. I hope over time that with the provision of more information, whether it is on the vocational or academic qualifications being offered, schools and parents will work out for themselves what is the most appropriate mix of subjects for the children in those particular schools to study.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I know that the Minister is concerned to ensure that those currently disengaged from schooling become re-engaged. Many of those young people are more engaged by learning by doing—by creative and vocational learning—than by the narrower academic styles of learning incentivised by the English baccalaureate. What advice would he give to head teachers? Should they focus on doing well in the English bac or in engaging the disengaged?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As is often the case, the issue is not either/or but both/and. I agree strongly with the noble Lord that one wants all schools to do what is right for their children. I take the point about engagement; that is why I am supportive of studio schools. Alongside things like the English bac, which is to try to get more of a focus on academic subjects, I want to encourage and promote things like the studio school movement precisely to give some of those disengaged children the chance to learn practical skills and then re-engage with school. There are also UTCs, as well as the review of the vocational qualifications. I hope that that is all part of the picture. I do not see this as a black-and-white choice or as saying that all children should go down one route rather than another.

Building Schools for the Future

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I can certainly confirm that the department accepts the judge’s ruling. On the second point, I will have to check whether that was at issue.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, the judge found that there was an abuse of power by the Secretary of State. Given the unrepentant tone of the Statement and the unrepentant nature of the Secretary of State in the other place in answering this Question earlier today, is it not important that the public believe that a fresh, objective look is taken at the circumstances of the six authorities? Is it not therefore right that the decision should be taken away from the Secretary of State—just as the decisions about Sky were taken from Vince Cable and given to Jeremy Hunt—and given to a Minister whom we all trust, such as the noble Lord?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his attempted hospital pass, which I decline to accept. The reason that I decline to accept it is that although, as I said, I have spoken to a large number of local authorities concerned over many months and will be happy to do so again, the judge makes clear in his ruling that in his view the decision as to what to do subsequent to the representations made by the six local authorities rightly rests with the Secretary of State.

Apprenticeships

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am glad to tell the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that as well as increasing the number of apprenticeships available for 16 to 18 year-olds, we are increasing the number available to people older than 19.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, the Minister is right to pay tribute to the excellent work of my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green, who, when he was a Minister, legislated in this House to bring forward a guarantee of an apprenticeship place for every suitably qualified 16 and 17 year-old. Why, then, will the Minister’s own Education Bill get rid of that apprenticeship guarantee?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The difference between us is in essence a philosophical one. As I hope I have demonstrated, both sides of the House are committed to the idea of increasing the number of apprenticeships, their status and the esteem in which they are held. The difficulty with the previous approach of offering a guarantee is that, given that apprenticeships are employer-based, they are dependent on employers providing the place in work, which is not in the gift of government to control. Giving a guarantee on which one cannot deliver does not seem to me to be a guarantee.

Schools: Pupil Premium

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As my noble friend will know, because she and others in her party have campaigned for this so hard, the Deputy Prime Minister announced fairly recently that there will be a sum, building up to £300 million over the spending review period, for extending help for the most disadvantaged two year-olds in early education.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, will the eligibility for the pupil premium be broadly similar to that for the current education maintenance allowance? If the Government are serious about increasing educational opportunities, should not eligibility for the pupil premium passport entitlement to the EMA at 16 and bursaries for tuition at university thereafter?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, the pupil premium, as the noble Lord knows, is intended for pupils from the age of reception up to year 11. I am aware of the issues around the education maintenance allowance and the point that underlies the noble Lord’s question. The enhanced discretionary fund, which will be targeted on those who most need the help, will, I hope, deal with some of that. For 16 to 18 year-olds, deprivation factors are already in the funding formula which will help to address some of the same issues.