Education Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My view is that independent schools are independent, and I would not look to the taxpayer to pick up the tab. That is my reaction off the top of my head. It is probably the answer that the noble Baroness hoped for, even if I have disappointed my noble friend Lord Lexden. Some noble Lords will know that I am a great supporter of the independent sector, but the word “independent” is important in that regard.

I thank the noble Earl for giving us the chance to have this debate and ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very encouraged by what my noble friend said in response to the amendments. Perhaps I may pick him up on a couple of points. He said some good things about the integration of the independent and state school sectors. Will he confirm that there is no longer any consideration of the idea of excluding teachers in independent schools from the main state teachers’ pension fund, which would make migration between the two sectors extremely difficult?

Secondly, there has been a history of initiatives, of which teaching schools is the latest, intended to develop and spread good practice. In my view such initiatives have always foundered on the lack of information flow between good schools and schools that need good advice. I will not detain the Committee with ideas on how that might be improved, but when the Minister is no longer under so much pressure, perhaps I might try to persuade him that the Government have a role in helping to set up structures to enable information to flow better than it does.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, before my noble friend responds to that—

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I read the Bill to mean that academies are excluded, although in a letter the noble Lord states that Clause 8, “Functions of the Secretary of State in relation to teachers”, and Clause 9 on induction periods for teachers continue to apply to academies. But I would not read that from the legislation as set out here. I know that I am raising a bigger issue about what in the Bill relates to academies and what does not. Perhaps the Minister can clarify whether academies are covered by this when he responds.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s first amendment. Making sure that British education around the world is of high quality does Britain a great deal of good one way or another. There are many countries where our education system comes under far less criticism than it does here and where our qualifications are very highly regarded. All the work that we put in here to make sure that they are even better is important. Now that the system of inspection here, with which we are happy, reaches out to some of those schools, we should acknowledge that by extending to those schools the abilities in terms of raising young teachers that we would accord to them if they were in the UK. They are schools following the British system, using British qualifications and mostly British teachers. I see no reason why we should cut them out of that.

I disagree with my noble friend on his second amendment from two points of view. First, if only 15 or 16 people are failing, why are there so few? What kind of rigorous examination has so few people failing? It really cannot be a mark of quality that so few people fail their induction year. I cannot believe that, as set up now, the processes that allow someone to begin an induction year are so perfect that only that small proportion should fail.

Secondly, I want to argue against the premise that people who fail should not be allowed to retry. I know one of those 15 people and I have had a long conversation with him as to why he failed. In my view, the basic reason is that he wanted to make maths fun and would not put up with the Gradgrind methods that he was told to use. It was silly of him to argue. He should have just knuckled down and gone through it for a year. Then he would have been free to teach and to explore his own way. But he did not because he is a headstrong young man and full of what strikes me to be very good ideas as to how to enliven a subject that I have always enjoyed but many people have not. Where such people have come up against what in my mind is the wrong verdict or have tackled things in the wrong way, they should be given another chance. I look at this in both ways: a lot more people should be failing and they should be given a second chance.

[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—

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the schools will need to be judged outstanding by Ofsted, so there will be levels of academic attainment within that. However, we are in no way underrating the value of schools such as the one to which the noble Earl has referred. They may well be able, say, to work in partnership with a school that was rated outstanding, bringing the special skills they have developed in those very challenging schools to bear on the induction period.

Finally, let me turn to the issue of induction at British schools overseas, which was my noble friend’s other amendment. The British education sector overseas is growing rapidly. It appeals both to English-speaking expatriates and to local parents in many parts of the world, who want their children to have an education instilling British values and ethos. For those reasons, I agree with the noble Lord that British schools abroad should be able to offer induction.

In response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, there will be no impact at all on current arrangements between England and Wales and between England and Scotland—those will not change.

The good news is that primary legislation does in fact already allow this. These schools are legally independent schools, and independent schools are able to offer induction to their NQTs if they choose to do so, providing the teacher has QTS and the school can provide a suitable post. However, there is currently a legal barrier to this happening, in secondary legislation. Following our review of induction arrangements, I have therefore asked officials to ensure that proposed amendments to the induction regulations will include changes that allow certain British schools abroad—those that have been inspected under the British schools overseas arrangements and accredited by COBIS or other reputable British schools overseas organisations—to offer statutory induction to their NQTs.

I hope that my remarks have provided some reassurance to my noble friend Lord Lexden, and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, since the noble Baroness is in writing mood, will she enlarge slightly on the questions that I asked in regard to the second amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden? If we are focusing hard on trying to get high-quality teachers, we need to be careful to ensure that we have not built into the system disincentives to getting rid of teachers who are not up to the grade. It was always the problem with hanging someone for stealing a sheep that juries would never convict. It seems to me that we have a similar situation here, as the penalty for failing an induction year is so harsh—the person may never teach in a maintained school again. Most people strain to get these individuals through their induction year and to pass them just because the penalty is so harsh rather than because they have done well enough to be passed into the teaching profession with all flags flying. Therefore, I would like to understand the logic behind the Government’s decision to keep it as “once only” rather than allowing a second chance.

[Lord Elton]

Another class of people who deserve a second chance is those who fall over their shoelaces in the first term and lose the respect of children. They are never going to get that back in that school and will never get a fair trial. They need to go to another school and start again, where you may get a very good teacher out of the experience.

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[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, would he accept that there is a difference between a system in which, by and large, those who make the assessment—that is, the referees—are either coaches or mentors or colleagues and a system in which the independent referee is not also a coach? The difficulty in that relationship is, I think, the point of the amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

Yes, it would be rather like driving tests being administered by the driving instructor.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Can I trouble the Minister just a little further? I was grateful for his response about ensuring that there is a high-quality mentor for trainees. If he had a little bit of time to drop me a note on how the mentors will be selected—both for the teachers in initial teacher training and for those in the qualified teacher year—I would be grateful to him for that.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, the more I listen, the more I am sad that we did not have the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, because that would have put things into a much clearer perspective. I have the gravest doubt the more I listen, frankly, and I agree more and more with my noble friend Lady Howarth.

[Lord Lucas]

I always find it very hard to agree with the Telegraph, so I have been having a terribly tough time over the last 15 minutes or so. Although I would say to the Telegraph and others, as they said of us, that they have brought it on themselves and that I have every sympathy for wanting to look after teachers, we have to produce legislation that is practical and that works. I cannot see how what we have in front of us works with Twitter, Facebook and the inevitable communication that there will be between parents and, particularly, pupils. You really cannot have a teacher hoicked out of school with these sort of allegations and not have it flying around on the net. The wording in front of us seems to seek to tackle this by criminalising the children and the parents who will be doing this. That is most unwise. The damage really only occurs when some newspaper picks up a story and eviscerates a teacher to entertain its readers. That is the evil; I do not believe that we should be trying to curb more than that.

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You may ask what mad teacher is going to put into the public domain an allegation against himself. It will not happen often, but it could happen. I am going back to my own experience. The teacher concerned was an extremely competent, aggressive, up-front person, and you will get the odd, strange person who will think that attack is the best means of defence and will get his or her blow in first, so to speak. Unless we have this amendment, it allows such a person to have their cake and eat it and to take advantage of publicity that is not allowed to anyone else. It is for those reasons that I commend the amendments in this group to the Committee.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I can remember an occasion that illustrates my noble friend’s last amendment. Some boys went to a headmaster and asked if they could have a videotape to use for a project they were doing. He picked one off a shelf and gave it to them, and it was the evidence. People do put these things in the public domain by mistake. I particularly welcome my noble friend’s Amendment 73HJ. There has to be the right for pupils and parents directly affected by this to discuss things. It is the obvious way in which things will come forward. Anyway, it is going to happen. You cannot criminalise that sort of conversation within a school community about something that is happening within the school, so it has to be possible. It will be done on Twitter and on Facebook. These things will not spread. No teacher is Ryan Giggs. There is no national interest in the person’s name. They will remain in a little corner of the social media, of interest to pupils in the school and to the parents of the children, and that is where it will remain. No great harm will be done because, frankly, the school community knows already. I do not see any objection in the wider media carrying just a basic statement that so-and-so has been accused and has taken leave of absence from the school as a result. That is scarcely something that in that form is going to hit the national media, but it at least means that the basic facts that that has happened are, as they should be, a matter of public property.

Surely the evil we are trying to prevent is a newspaper aggressively trying to dig up information about a particular individual in order to make a story, which you might call a human interest story, for people who have never heard of this person and have no interest in him otherwise. It is just a composed story that might be about anybody, but it is immensely harmful to the teacher concerned. That is the sort of thing that we are trying to prevent. The fact that an allegation is made is there and is fact. It should surely not be hidden. We are not in super-injunction territory. I find my noble friend’s amendments very persuasive.

[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.

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Those are my responses. I understand half of the spirit in which my noble friend tabled his amendments; I know that he is about to introduce a clause stand part debate, which suggests that there is another half of the spirit in which the amendments were tabled. I am grateful to him and would be glad to explore these matters further with him. In the mean time, I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, perhaps I may pick up on what my noble friend said about private conversations not being included. I entirely understand that, but I do not understand where the Government think the border is in modern social media between private and public. Does he agree that Twitter is at all times public but that Facebook is a pretty difficult area? Kids these days communicate over Facebook in the way that we use e-mail. Communication between children talking about a particular allegation and saying, “Has this happened to you?” or “Have you seen anything like that?” will take place in an environment that might be considered public even though the kids will see it in the same way that we see e-mail. Will the noble Lord say which bits of the social media are public and which are private for the purposes of the Bill?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will have a go, and if I need to follow up subsequently, I will. We have made it clear that an offence is committed not only when somebody publishes an article or broadcasts a programme in the traditional media, but when somebody posts an allegation on the internet, even anonymously. I recognise, as the noble Lord pointed out, some of the practical challenges posed by investigating the source of allegations on the internet, with which we are all familiar: but that is the intent. It will not affect private conversations, including via e-mail or text. However, where such communications constitute a publication—this is the definition in the clause, which I am sure we can have some fun with—by being addressed to the public at large, or to any section of the public, we propose that reporting restrictions will apply.

Education Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

It is right that we reach decisions based on responsibility and that the head teacher and the governing body should be able to decide what is right for their school. If they are clear, for very clear reasons that they believe in, about what they feel is the right future for that child, they should be able to decide that and put in place the necessary new arrangements for that child.

I concur with the remarks that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made about piloting the new arrangements. Schools being responsible for the education of children whom they have decided they can no longer take care of in their own school is an important new provision, and one that I would certainly support.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Morris, I, too, am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As has been said several times today, the committee reviewed this part of the Bill carefully and reported on it in detail. It is worth me highlighting the fact that the committee divided on this matter. At that time, I abstained—I did not vote with the committee, because at the time I was not persuaded by the legal arguments one way or the other. After the committee, I looked again at the Bill when preparing for Second Reading, and the conclusion that I came to was that the reason why I had not been persuaded by the legal arguments either way was because this is an issue of principle. It is right that people in charge of schools—head teachers and governing bodies—should be able to make decisions for themselves. Obviously, there needs to be a review process, which this proposal provides for, but I want to see us having a system that is based on responsibility rather than people simply being able to exercise rights. For that reason, I do not support the amendments and I support the Bill as it is drafted.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am hopeful that my noble friend will answer the question that I asked him at Second Reading on the statistics behind this. I think that he quoted a figure of 600 pupils a year being reinstated. For the average secondary school, that is one every 10 years. What proportion of them are children who, it is accepted by everybody, have actually committed the sort of crimes that must mean their exclusion from school, such as serious bullying or drugs or bringing knives in? I am aware that a case was mentioned in the Sun a few years ago, but are there more than that? Why are we unbalancing the scales of justice to deal with such a tiny and infrequent problem?

My noble friend has already outlined the right approach, which is to make schools responsible for the future of the kids they choose to exclude, because most exclusions are due to problems with the school, not the kids. The example that I would choose is St George’s in Maida Vale. When I first got interested in schooling it was unbelievably awful, with children running around corridors and abusing and hitting teachers. There was a total paucity of education going on. It was the school, as noble Lords will remember, where the headmaster was murdered at the gates. Last year, it received grade 1 from Ofsted, with the same intake and no exclusions. Nothing has changed with the kids, but everything has changed with the school. That is what we should bear in mind when we think of exclusion as a punishment following something done by the kid, rather than as something caused by other people that is being demonstrated in what the kid is doing.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I remember sitting in a school classroom in a secondary school that is five minutes’ walk from your Lordships' House and seeing one boy disrupt the whole class and the poor teacher clearly at the end of her tether at the end of the period. The boy moved to a different seat as soon as she turned her back, and it was a great joke, but it clearly caused her a lot of anxiety.

This is a very complex question, as this debate has shown. Further to what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, in my experience many looked-after children have families who are not working well before they are taken into care. However, after that, the key stepping stone into care is their exclusion from school, which puts all the additional pressure on the family that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, referred to. Excluding a child is a very grave step to take without the right means to ensure that the child goes somewhere appropriate, where they will get the support that they need.

Education Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, before I respond to the points raised in today’s debate, I should like to pick up briefly on the issue that we were discussing when we ended our session on Tuesday, including the points raised by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and other noble Lords about training in relation to searches. In the intervening day and a half, I have reflected on some of those points and I agree that some additional advice to schools would be useful. Therefore, I am happy to commit to recommending to head teachers in guidance that, when they designate a member of staff to undertake searches, they should actively consider whether that member of staff requires any additional training to enable them to carry out their responsibilities. This revised advice will be published in July before the start of the summer holidays.

So far as concerns today’s amendments to and discussion on Clause 2, the main purpose of the clause is to try to give schools as much freedom as possible to respond to their own circumstances and challenges. We know that under the existing legislation head teachers and authorised members of school staff can search for knives and weapons, alcohol, illegal drugs and stolen property. The current situation, as set out by my noble friend Lady Walmsley is that the person conducting the search must be the same sex as the pupil being searched and the search must be witnessed by a member of staff. Where practical, the witness should also be the same sex as the pupil. That is where we are now.

With regard to the provisions in Clause 2, we propose to extend these powers to allow schools to search for any article that they suspect has been or could be used to commit an offence, cause injury or damage property. It will also allow them to search for items banned by the school rules where they have been identified in the rules as an item which may be searched for.

In addition to adding to the range of items which may be searched for, the provisions will make changes to how searches can be conducted, as my noble friend said. They will allow searches to be carried out by a member of staff who is of the opposite sex to the pupil being searched and also searches without a witness. I emphasise that these changes are subject to what we believe to be strict safeguards. Searches can take place only where the searcher reasonably believes that there is a risk that serious harm will be caused to a person if they do not conduct the search immediately. Therefore, these powers could not be used to search for innocuous items banned under the school rules; there must be a risk of serious and imminent harm.

Amendments 25, 13 and 14 relate to searches being conducted under the school rules provisions. Perhaps I may briefly set out our intention behind this provision and the safeguards here that I think will help to guard against it being used inappropriately.

Our intentions in including a specific power which enables teachers to search for, and confiscate, any item identified in the school rules are to enable teachers to deal effectively with items which, although not harmful, can still cause problems in the school.

The current powers to search pupils without consent are already subject to a number of safeguards. Searches can be carried out only by the head teacher or someone authorised by them to search; they can take place on school premises or off the school premises only when the member of staff has lawful control or charge of the pupils; and they can be conducted only if the staff member has a reasonable suspicion that the pupil is in possession of a prohibited item. The pupil cannot be required to remove any clothing, other than outer clothing.

The school rules provisions introduced by this Bill will be subject to additional safeguards. First, an item can be searched for only if it is identified in the school rules as an item that can be searched for; and secondly, the school rules must be determined and publicised by the head teacher in accordance with Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 or, in the case of academies, in accordance with regulations that mirror Section 89. That point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. This means that the head teacher must publicise the school behaviour policy, in writing, to staff, parents and pupils at least once a year. Furthermore, the use of force is explicitly excluded from this provision. These specific requirements will help to ensure that teachers, pupils and parents will know which items are subject to searches. The power is, in the Government’s view and in that of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, compatible with convention rights.

I turn to the test of reasonableness and the points raised by my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lord Elton. I understand the thinking behind the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Walmsley; she is obviously concerned that schools could include frivolous or unreasonable items in the list of items that can be searched for. While I do not believe, and I do not think that she would believe that in practice governing bodies and heads would be likely to behave in a frivolous way, we think that there are existing safeguards in place which govern how schools set their school rules. That relates to the question posed by my noble friend Lord Elton. These are set out in Sections 88 and 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Section 88 requires that the governing body of a school must make a written statement of general principles from which the head teacher will draw up the school’s behaviour policy, which includes the school rules. The governing body is required under Section 88 to consult parents and pupils as part of this process. I hope that in some way that will reassure my noble friend. The governing body is also required, when making the written statement of general principles, to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. There is also a legal requirement on head teachers to have regard to this statement in determining the school rules and to bring the school’s behaviour policy to the attention of staff, pupils and parents at least once a year.

The Government intend to use that guidance, among other things, to explain the nature of the obligations of necessity and legitimate aim under Article 8.2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As with public authorities generally, the head teacher in drawing up the school rules would have to act reasonably. So I hope overall that my noble friend may accept that there are safeguards in place and that with those safeguards we should feel more reassured that we can trust schools to judge which items they need to search for in the context of their particular school.

I turn to the content of electronic devices and the examination and deletion of what might be on them. Clause 2 would permit the member of staff who seizes an electronic device to examine any data or files on the device, if they think there is good reason to do so. Following such an examination, the person may erase any data or files from the device if they think there is good reason to do so. I think that this point was accepted earlier in the week. There is agreement that the misuse of mobile phones and other electronic devices is a growing problem in our schools. According to Bullying UK, around one in seven young people have been threatened or harassed by mobile phone.

A study by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers published last year in March, suggested that one in seven teachers had been the victim of cyber-bullying by pupils and parents. I was struck that the Association of School and College Leaders welcomed this provision in its evidence to the public evidence session for this Bill in the other place as a way of schools dealing with cyber-bullying without involving the police, which is an important point. We do not want to get to the point where schools have to call the police to deal with matters when they could deal with them with some common sense and in a safe and orderly environment within the school.

I understand the concerns of my noble friend Lady Walmsley that the provisions in the Bill might give members of staff carte blanche to examine or delete the content of a pupil’s mobile phone. But we believe that by requiring the member of staff to have a good reason before doing so, and to have regard to guidance, the clause protects pupils from random searches of their property and provides a robust test which must be passed before a pupil’s personal information on his or her mobile phone can be deleted.

I did, however, listen to what my noble friend said and obviously like her read the comments from the JCHR. In order to address those points, I think we should make more explicit in our guidance that any examination or erasure of data or files must be justified. By this I mean that the guidance should make it clear that the staff member must reasonably suspect that the data or file on the device in question has been, or could be, used to cause harm, to disrupt teaching or break the school rules in some way. I can also commit to the guidance providing advice on the circumstances in which data can be erased and when that can be handed to the police. I hope that that provides my noble friend with some reassurance.

My noble friend also raised the point about the need to respect the private life of the pupil and the pupil’s family, and on the circumstances in which it is appropriate to involve the parents of the pupil. I understand her concern that pupils are protected from any unnecessary intrusion into their private lives. The Secretary of State’s guidance will make it clear that any examination or erasure of data or files must be justified. It will also explain to schools the nature of their obligations under the ECHR and emphasise the importance of respecting a pupil’s personal information and right to privacy.

As my noble friend Lady Walmsley suggested, I would be happy to share with her and other Members of the Committee who would be interested a draft of the Secretary of State’s guidance in advance of Report, so that she can be assured of its helpfulness and we can benefit from their expertise.

I hope that that reassures noble Lords that checks are in place to ensure that these powers could not be used inappropriately. I have committed to include additional safeguards in guidance and to share that guidance as the Bill progresses through this House. On the basis of those reassurances, I hope that my noble friend Lady Walmsley will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I would be very grateful if my noble friend would include me in that correspondence. I do not yet understand why, under any circumstances, a teacher should be able to delete something from a mobile phone. Surely, the point of finding something is that it then becomes evidence that can be used. In fact, it may be important to show it to the child's parents so that the parents become aware of what is going on. I do not understand the need to delete.

I am also concerned that while one might want and need under some circumstances to explore what is happening on a child's mobile phone, any teacher doing so will discover a lot of stuff that is personal and irrelevant. There is a problem over how that is dealt with. Perhaps it should be done by somebody not involved in teaching the child who can therefore keep separate any knowledge gained from looking at the mobile phone. I agree that there has to be this power in the Bill, but it has to be carefully used.

[Lord Elton]

We need to consider not only the privacy of the child, but the privacy of the person at the other end of the call who may be a parent. The exposure of the inside workings of a family could be quite damaging to the family if it were discovered or discussed. You cannot have a Chinese wall inside a telephone so far as I know, so I agree with my noble friend and I should like to be included on the round-robin list.

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[Lord Storey]

I understand noble Lords’ concerns about crises, but I want to paint a different picture. In most situations, there will be teaching assistants in the classroom and learning mentors—a whole plethora of support staff who can support a particular situation. If there is a crisis, the best way to deal with it is not to provoke the situation further but to calm everything down. My concern is that if a teacher carries out this act by themselves and no one else is present, it could put them at risk. I can see all sorts of legal actions being taken whereby pupils, particularly at secondary school level, make allegations about what the teacher did to them. The police and law courts might become involved and it might become an absolute nightmare for schools and schooling, so I understand the concern about the crisis that might occur, but I am equally concerned about the well-being of the individual teacher and pupil. To put that teacher in that situation is potentially quite dangerous.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, when I think of my own childhood, members of the opposite sex were not the ones who caused the problems. Certainly these days when the staff of many schools are entirely female, you have to allow women to search men, and therefore men to search women, if those are the circumstances in which people find themselves. It must always be advisable to have a same-sex search, and it must almost always be advisable to have a witness, but imagine a situation in which a teacher is alone with a group of pupils and believes that one of the pupils has on them something that they could easily dispose of if they had the chance, whether it was drugs or a weapon. If they were out in the country, something could be dropped easily before they came back.

Searching consists of having the power to search, not actually saying, “Palmer, turn out your pockets”. The pupil would know that the member of staff had the power to search if they did not comply, and would therefore do as requested. This is a necessary part of the structure, but I am sure that no head teacher is going to advise any of their teachers to search when they do not have a witness, except in circumstances when nothing else is possible. I think that we can trust teachers and head teachers to use the clauses as they are in the Bill wisely.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, having spent practically my entire life in this country fighting against stop and search, and marching on the streets about it, I can tell you the effect that being stopped and searched has on any human being. Why try to impose this on a child? Teachers have adequate powers with which to take the child away or do all sorts of things, but one should not take away the dignity of the child. In any number of cases when the police could not find anything, they made something up and criminalised the child. Some policemen have been known to say, “I am not changing my mind”. At that time, people in uniform were respected and believed. We had to confront those cases. I urge noble Lords to think very carefully about providing that power in the classroom. Children are there to be nurtured, loved and taught what is right and wrong.

It is a difficult situation because we have taken away from parents powers to discipline their children. I was told that I was a Victorian when I said, “My child does not do this or will not be allowed to do the other”. That was the attitude of most Caribbean parents. Children were children. We are turning them into fodder for the criminal courts. I ask the Minister to look very hard at this measure and take it away if he can. I have seen no empirical data that suggests that searching a child in the classroom will in some way prevent damage to other children—although it may prevent criminal damage to the building. I ask you to think about the child.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me as I, too, forgot something. I forgot to say that the Minister sent me a three-page letter the last time I spoke in the debate. I thank him very much for that and I am sharing it with my colleagues.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend a couple of questions. First, I should be very interested in being included if he is telling people about the trials. The important thing is that they focus on the distillation—on the kids at the end who do not respond at the beginning to whatever is done. They are the ones who are abandoned at the end of the system. They are allotted four hours’ tuition at home but that does not happen and people forget about them. I very much hope that, as is the case with prisons, organisations are given money on the basis of the results that they achieve. We may try that at the back end of some of the trials so that innovative ideas are encouraged in rescuing these children who have proved difficult to educate.

Secondly, am I right in understanding that, when a school is concerned that a pupil may have special educational needs which may be causing problems, it has the absolute right to require and obtain the assessment when it is needed, rather than, as in the current system, waiting for the LEA to decide that it is prepared to do it?

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply to my amendment. I am pleased to hear that he is thinking of amending guidance in this way and I thank him.

Schools: Well-being Education

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As the noble Lord might expect, I share that view very strongly. He put it extremely well by saying that it is not an either/or. There are clearly important lessons that children can learn from PSHE but, as we know from all the evidence, if they do not have the basic skills of literacy and numeracy, they will have little chance of well-being. Failure to master those skills, sadly, leads disproportionately to economic failure, to prison and to a whole range of other forms of disengagement. I therefore agree very strongly with the noble Lord.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with me that well-being ought to be a matter for the schools curriculum, not the national curriculum? Does he also agree, in that case, that it is very important that Ofsted tells parents what is being taught, and how well?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with my noble friend’s underlying point that, in looking at all these issues, it is extremely important that we leave scope for individual schools to exercise their judgment on the best way of teaching the children in their care. There are elements of PSHE that are part of the national curriculum, but more generally I agree with my noble friend’s point that we do not want to prescribe everything from the centre and do want to leave as much discretion to individual schools as possible.

Education Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I support the Bill thoroughly. I am delighted that we are showing the wisdom to trust teachers, and to believe that they have wisdom and have things to teach us as legislators and not just their pupils. So I suspect that I shall not give my noble friend too much trouble in Committee, though I did find myself listening perhaps rather too closely for his taste to my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lord Lingfield. Are we really saying that removing people’s right to appeal is based on 6,000 cases a year, of which 600 are appealed and 60 are granted? Are we saying that this system is so perfect that a 1 per cent error rate is unlikely and that it is unlikely that 60 pupils deserve readmission to their school? I hope we will hear some serious evidence on that from the Front Bench if we are to proceed with the relevant clause.

Otherwise, this Bill having been likened to a Christmas tree, I intend to try to hang a few baubles on it. The Localism Bill is going through this House at the same time as this Bill; I certainly want some more localism when it comes to the selection of governors. I want us to revisit the question of how teachers who are not up to teaching get moved—we will clearly revisit that when it comes to bad nurses and bad doctors. I am not saying that I have any conclusions, but I certainly want us to discuss it.

We should look at cyberschools. Thirty-eight states in America now have state cyberschools where pupils can study all or some of the time somewhere other than the school. We should make sure that the legislation allows us to consider such developments.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, in her saying that Ofsted did not inspect good schools. An Ofsted report is an essential part of a parent knowing what a school is like. You cannot judge a school on what it says about itself and on a few independent statistics. How will all that bit of what a school does that is not measured by statistics be reported to parents? How will we know whether a once-good school is starting to go off the boil? It happens all the time. Little schools can go off the boil in a matter of a term. I can think of schools that I once thought were great that took only a year or two to die. That is an area where I might give my noble friend some serious trouble in Committee.

Turning to the less serious side of things, I shall try to persuade the Minister that we should exempt schools from the requirements on music licensing and trust them to put on live music without having to refer to local authorities. I shall try to persuade him that we should encourage Ofqual to assign point scores to qualifications commonly used by UK schools, particularly independent schools, so that they can be properly included in the performance tables without any assumption that the qualifications then go on to be available to state schools. I shall try to persuade him that we should disclose to pupils and more generally actual marks in public examinations. My noble friend was complaining about grade boundaries. These are totally artificial creations. In Switzerland, there are no grade boundaries; people get marks out of 100, or whatever it is there. One thing just grades seamlessly into another. Forty-nine is not different from 50 because there is a grade boundary in between; it is just a point’s difference. That would have great advantages in what the Minister is trying to achieve.

We will revisit admissions to faith schools. I was much inspired by what my noble friend Lord Edmiston said in his superb maiden speech on what he has done with his academies. The point of having faith schools in the state system is to let people go to them; it is so that our parents and people like me—I am not a believer myself—can say, “I want a Christian education, or indeed a Muslim education, for my child because I like what is going on in a certain school”. It is not to create little ghettos for people who happen to share the same faith. If they want to do that, they can be independent schools.

I want to make it easier for schools to allow their teachers to hug children, to put plasters on them, to teach them in physical ways when that is required, such as in learning the violin or how to use a saw properly on a piece of wood, and to make sure that those cases do not end up in teachers being suspended while they are investigated.

Much to the pleasure of very few people, I turn to private universities. My right honourable friend David Willetts got into considerable trouble over them. I think I am less vulnerable than him to the tabloids and to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, so we shall visit that subject. We are getting private universities. It is clear that Anthony Grayling will not be the first since others are seeking to do the same thing, albeit in different ways. Why are we going to such lengths to ensure that we disadvantage our own people while we advantage pupils from overseas?

Last of all, perhaps I should confess that a hashtag—#educationbill—is available on this debate, and there certainly will be for Committee. Noble Lords who are equipped with iPads or similar will find, I hope, that people outside this Chamber are interested in and willing to comment on our deliberations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That seems a sensible suggestion. My noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, assiduous as he is, has already written to me, having failed to intervene on me earlier. I shall see what I can do about that. Like all noble Lords, I find that the way that the Bill is drafted makes it difficult to navigate one’s way through it.

At the heart of the Government’s coalition programme are the principles of greater freedom and fairness. These principles underpin the Bill. In many areas it takes forward the reforms of the previous Government in early years, greater school autonomy and powers to improve behaviour and discipline. In others, it strips away top-down legislative controls, which can stifle the professionalism of those working in schools, colleges and local areas. It tries, as my noble friend Lord Eccles argued, to put decisions more in the hands of teachers, parents and pupils, and moves us towards an education system that the international evidence shows characterises the highest-performing education systems in the world.

I welcome the opportunity that the Committee stage will offer us to refine the legislation. In that spirit, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I very much regret the decision of the usual channels that this Bill should be committed to a Grand Committee. It is an important Bill with many crucial aspects. It has clearly commanded wide support in the House. Fitting 50 people into the Moses Room will be a considerable struggle. As I understand it, that arises from the failure of the Government to give us any major Bills to start with in the Lords so, as usual, they are all piling up at the end. We are therefore expected to leave the Chamber clear for whatever other business the Government have by making this a Grand Committee Bill, for which, to my mind, it is not suitable. I very much hope that this is a matter that we shall return to when we debate the procedures of this House.

Can my noble friend at least give me the assurance that we will not have Committee on this Bill on any day when, in this Chamber, there is Committee on the Localism Bill? Many of us take an interest in both matters, and it would seem to me quite unreasonable to try to run the two in parallel.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that the business planning of the House will try to take into account, as far as we possibly can, that there are no major clashes between Bills and discussions in that way.

Education: Pupils and Young People

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Perry for initiating this debate. I agree with everything she said, so I shall not repeat it. I declare an interest as the editor of the Good Schools Guide and I declare my sympathy for the Minister. As the Daily Mail will not say: “How many more Ministers have to be mugged before we give them their cars back?”.

I am delighted by the way that our Government are tackling education. I am very much looking forward to hearing the details as they come before us in legislation. Today, I want to concentrate on just two aspects. First, we are quite right to recognise that control, either by the centre or by local education authorities, is not the route to excellence in education; we must concentrate on what is happening at the school level. However, if we are going to do that, and benefit from all the innovation and excellence which is down there, we have to have mechanisms of accountability and means of spreading good practice.

I am very much with my noble friend Lady Perry in saying that we need to go back to an inspectorate that is intelligent, communicative and supportive—something which is of real benefit to schools. We have the model there: it is the way that it used to be. The best model was the Further Education Funding Council’s inspectorate, when it briefly existed. We need to get away from the horrible mechanistic, antagonistic system that we have at the moment.

To pick up on something that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said, we need a mechanism for improvement. We need a proper evidence base. How can education never have had a proper evidence base, never have really done its research properly, although it spends a lot of its time doing research? We need mechanisms for spreading good practice. I share the noble Baroness’s worry that those that are around are being abolished, but perhaps the Government have a better idea. They must have a better idea, because otherwise we merely get pockets of excellence that never spread.

Secondly, it is important that education should suit the child. I am delighted that the previous Government abolished the QCA. I very much hope that this Government will go on to demolish most of Ofqual. They have been suppressive, not supportive organisations. They have curtailed innovation. They have imposed their views of what should be happening and not listened to what is happening below them. Whatever replaces them ought to be an organisation that is there to encourage innovation—yes, to control quality but, above all, to get what is good beneath to come through and to encourage the examination boards to innovate as they want. The examination boards are full of experts who want to do new things and who understand, because they are talking to schools all the time, how they could do things better, but who have never been allowed to by the structures imposed on top of them.

There are now ways of teaching mathematics which are absolutely enthralling, which I would have loved to have experienced. I enjoyed mathematics, but what is available now with the help of computers would take an able student far beyond the limitations of the current curriculum. So much can now be based on a real understanding of mathematics rather than on the mechanistic completion of calculations. That our IT exams do not enable people to interact with modern devices and that our business studies do not provide our students with anything which is valued by business is a disgrace and needs to be set right.

I have only a couple of other points to make. First, I say to my noble friends Lady Perry and Lord Blackwell that, if we go by the experience of Singapore and other such countries, they have found that fully half of their key entrepreneurs of the future are in the bottom 10 per cent at school. That is the key part on which to focus when talking about education. You must make sure that those people do not leave school demotivated and without the basic abilities that they need to make progress in the world. These people are fundamentally not fitted to academic education, but they are immensely important to the country.

My noble friend Lord Blackwell is looking at the past. I do not think that selection by examination is the way to go. It has been captured by the middle classes. If the number of grammar schools was to be doubled, it would still be captured by the middle classes. The way to go is selection by choice, which is the way in which my noble friend Lord Baker is going. He is creating schools to which people will go because they want to. People will choose his schools because that is the education they want. They will choose academic schools because they offer the education that they want. An example of that is sixth-form education in Cambridge where there are three excellent institutions—Hills Road Sixth Form College, Long Road Sixth Form College and Cambridge Regional College. People choose the one that suits their particular bent. If we get there, it works very well.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I agree that this is a problem which needs to be sorted out as we move to a world where there are many more academies and they play a greater role in the local provision of schooling. As my noble friend Lady Sharp says, there is this budget for SEN support services. I think private providers, in particular not-for-profits, will come into this area, given the chance. I do not see why the RNIB should not play a role in the provision of services for blind people. It would mean that good practice spread pretty rapidly round the country rather than being isolated in little pockets, so I can see a lot of advantages in moving away from pure local education authority provision. None the less, the mathematics of dealing with low incidence means that if you distribute the funding, all you can be certain of is that the funding is not where you want it when you need it, and we have to solve that problem.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I also support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. I am sorry I was unable to speak at Report. Unfortunately my health stopped me participating. However, this is an extremely important amendment. I met with two young disabled people with support needs last week who both told me that if the funding gets changed in the way they think is going to happen, then the academies cannot deal with their extremely heavy and expensive accessories so they will be compromised. We really have to think again on this one. I, too, am looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say because thus far we do not feel secure in this Bill’s current form.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, in Committee I said that I agreed with my noble friend Lord Lucas that academies should be included within the coverage of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I said that I would consider this issue further and come back to it on Report. Having thought about it, I can see no reason why academy proprietors should not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act in the same way as all maintained schools are subject to that Act. Amendment 47 would simply insert a new clause into the Bill that would amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to add academy proprietors to the list of public bodies covered by that Act.

The new clause brings academy proprietors within the coverage of the Act in respect of information that they hold for the purposes of their functions under academy arrangements. This will cover functions relating to establishing and maintaining an academy and the carrying on of the academy once it has been established. If enacted, it is our intention to commence this duty in sufficient time to ensure that any schools which become academies in September will continue to be subject to the Act after they cease to be maintained schools. In relation to existing academies which have up until now not been subject to the Act, we intend to commence this duty for them early in the new year in order to give them time to prepare.

We believe that extending the Freedom of Information Act to academies is right in itself, but it also has another advantage linked to our broader discussions in Committee and today about consultation and transparency. I believe that having information about academies in the public domain will help dispel suspicion and make people appreciate the positive contribution that they are making to raising educational standards. I know that noble Lords on all sides of the Committee will welcome this amendment and I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for flagging the issue up with his original amendment.

Amendment 55 is a technical amendment required to ensure that Amendment 47, the main amendment to the Freedom of Information Act, will technically extend throughout the United Kingdom, even though it will apply only in England. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

Thank you.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords would thank the Minister for this. I wish to ask him a question. Yesterday we debated the small primary school that would have been able to become a foundation trust. Today, we have the announcement of the review of the UEA e-mail issue in relation to climate change scientific research, which in itself raises FOI issues. All of us who have been involved in public authorities know that establishing the apparatus and support mechanisms to deal with FOI requests can be considerable. I can envisage a school, perhaps not so much a primary but a secondary, dealing with admission issues and being subject to FOI requests, which is quite likely. My question for the Minister is: what support mechanism will be put in place to help schools deal with the FOI system, because they will need something.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have Amendments 32 and 32B in this very mixed group of amendments about selection, religion and admissions. The Minister has been very clear about the duty of academies to comply with the admissions code so, as with the previous group of amendments, I accept that it does not need to be in the Bill. I presume that it will be in the funding agreement.

Amendment 32 was laid after our discussion in Committee about selection. While I accept in general my noble friend’s assurance that,

“The Bill does not allow for any increase in selection by ability in the state-funded sector”—[Official Report, 28/6/10; col. 1563],

it occurred to me that if a selective school became an academy and then expanded the number on its roll, that would mean more actual children in the area being selected by ability. So I laid this amendment to say that such expansion should not increase the number of children in the relevant area who are selected by ability. However, I accept that this duty would be difficult for an individual school to achieve, especially when I went back and read what the Minister reminded us about the ability of selective maintained schools that are not academies to expand by 25 per cent within the normal admissions consultation. In the light of that, I think that what I am asking for in my amendment would be pretty well impossible. Therefore, I am using the amendment to ask my noble friend who would have the responsibility of watching out for a large expansion of selection by ability among schools both inside and outside the control of a local authority when a lot of new academies are created, given that some of them will be former selective schools that are opting out.

Amendment 32B was originally laid in Committee as Amendment 135. I do not believe that the Minister addressed the matter in his reply, but I forgive him because, as he does today, he had several topics to deal with in the grouping. I believe that these ridiculous groupings have arisen because of the minimal time that we have had between Committee and Report; noble Lords have not had enough time to scrutinise the draft groupings and to make some sense out of them. Amendment 32B would require the governing body of a school with a religious character, if it converts to an academy, to use the fresh start as an opportunity to look at its religious character and to decide whether it wishes to change it. Since the school was first set up, there may have been a big change in the demographics and cultural mix of the catchment area. That may lead a governing body to consider whether it wishes to join together with another faith, or more than one, or to make a larger percentage of its intake inclusive of people of other faiths or none. It would not prevent those governors from making no change at all, but it would give them an opportunity specifically to consider their duty to promote community cohesion and to make a change. It would not interfere with their discretion to make their own decision in any way; it is not prescriptive at all. I commend it to the Minister.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, in this group I have Amendment 10A, which follows on from the discussion in Committee about the effects of Clause 1(6)(d). My noble friend Lord Hill said that paragraph (d) would not prevent an academy from reaching out to areas that were not in its immediate vicinity in order to broaden its intake. It would not prevent a grammar school that became an academy from maintaining its current and typically wide catchment area. Also, to take it even further, it would not prevent an academy from being or becoming a boarding school. I asked my noble friend what, under those circumstances, the paragraph would prevent that the Government wish to prevent. He has not replied, so I presume that there is nothing and that therefore the paragraph has no function. That is my reason for returning to the matter on Report.

On the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the crucial bit of the model academy funding agreement appears to me to be clause 12(c). Reading that, I do not see what in the agreement—although, like my noble friend Lady Walmsley, I have not parsed it as carefully as I might—updates the requirement as the general admissions requirements change. It seems to me that an academy that was created tomorrow would be for ever stuck with today’s admissions arrangements, even if we improved them in a year’s time. I do not see what in the model funding agreement rolls the requirements forward. That would also apply to SEN requirements and other matters that are dealt with in clause 12. I would be grateful if my noble friend could give me some comfort about what keeps academies current.

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I imagine that your Lordships would expect me to intervene to speak in particular about the clause on religious character, but I have a couple of other comments to make on this group of amendments. By virtue of the scars that I bear from the age of 11, I am not particularly a fan of selective education. My primary school appealed against my having passed the 11-plus, which these days would probably be actionable under human rights legislation. I am Bishop of a diocese where the county still operates a selective system, but I am still not a great fan of it. My instinct is to support any amendment that is likely to result in the Academies Bill not giving selective education a fairer wind than it already has in some parts of the country.

I do not particularly want to go there. However, I will speak to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I take his point and I tabled an amendment to that subsection in Committee. You might think that we would be all in favour of any proposals that freed up the potential for church schools to recruit their faith members from as wide a field as possible. However, I can only reiterate what I have said at various stages of the Bill: we are in the business of providing schools not to accommodate those who are paid-up members of the Church of England but, rather, to be instrumental in providing first-class education in some of the most deprived areas of the country. We can say only that if there are no limits on the ability of a school to admit pupils geographically, our ability to deliver on our title deeds in education—which are now nearly 200 years old—would be seriously attenuated. So I am very anxious that there should remain in the Bill a clear understanding that there should not be any attempt to liberate the admissions policy to accommodate just any pupils from anywhere.

More important is Amendment 32B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. My comments on this are threefold. First, some of us have been urging on the Government, in respect of several clauses in the Bill, that the avoidance of doubt might be a good idea, and so to include something even if it is implicit elsewhere. Let us make it explicit in the Bill. I have a great deal of sympathy for any amendment which seems to be about the avoidance of doubt. Let us give the governing body the chance to make a clear statement as to whether it wishes to continue as a school of religious character. Secondly, however, this could become very difficult. In Clause 3(2), (3) and (4) on foundation schools, there is a requirement to consult the foundation before an application for academy status is made. I am getting rather confused about this. If we pass this amendment, at which stage does the governing body say that it does not want to be a school of religious character any more? If it then consults the foundation, which is by definition committed to the religious character of the school, I can see only confusion here.

My most important point is the third one. I have tried, as have other noble Lords, to avoid using the Bill as a vehicle either to expand or dilute the particular existing character of a school. There may well be a case for doing either or both of those things, but this is not the way to do it. The Bill is about something quite different in terms of the overall structural arrangements made for our schools in the future. I therefore urge the Minister to resist Amendment 32B, if for no other reason than that he would thereby be resisting a Trojan horse approach to the Bill. Although a Trojan horse proved successful on one occasion, as those who know their ancient history will realise, nobody came out of it with much credit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

Before my noble friend sits down, can he give me some comfort on clause 12(c) of the model funding agreement? What is it about clause 12(c) or other aspects of the funding agreement which mean that, when the admissions requirements for maintained schools are updated, they are updated also for academies? The default position in contract law would be that they were not updated.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

If I may, I shall need to write to my noble friend to make that specific point clear, and I shall circulate it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, when it comes to this amendment, I stand four-square beside my noble friend Lady Walmsley. I congratulate the noble Baronesses opposite on all the effort that they have put into this subject. One of the most important things about schools is that we should try to produce young people who are well informed and resilient and go out into life able to deal with it, which was certainly not the case in my education. Indeed, a recent survey from the University of Oxford showed that 85 per cent of its graduates were frightened of getting a job. There is a good deal to do in schools in one way or another.

However, I entirely agree with my noble friend that this is the wrong amendment in the wrong place. It is too restrictive and too simple and applies only to academies. We need this to be part of the curriculum review that my noble friend has promised. That is the pressure point to which we ought to be applying ourselves.

I am also concerned because the phrase PSHE associates itself in my mind—and perhaps my noble friend will educate me—with a rather clunky, didactic, old-fashioned way in which to approach these things. That is at a time when, if one goes around schools, which I do a good deal for the Good Schools Guide, one sees a lot of new, interesting and innovative approaches to this aspect of schooling, which I would not want to close out by including it in a process-based curriculum rather than requirements for what the children should be like when they leave school. It is one of the faults of the curriculum that we have at the moment that things such as citizenship have to be added as extra subjects when really they should be there as outcomes and it is up to the school to decide how they are delivered. I cite in particular the work on positive psychology and well-being that started with Wellington College and has spread widely from there. Also, I attended a presentation for schools, part of which was a presentation by a primary school in the East End on its use of psychology lessons. It taught psychology as a separate subject and with immense good effects. As the noble Baroness said, once you get it right, it spreads though the school, from attitude to education generally and to behaviour. I do not want to see this subject fossilised in a set of requirements, as the curriculum is set out at the moment, certainly not without the sort of discussion and understanding of the subtleties that would occur through a proper participation in the curriculum review.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I start by saying that I was nothing like so fortunate behind the bicycle sheds as the noble Baroness, Lady Gould.

I have been waiting to hear what the House thinks the reaction of the teachers would be to making this a statutory requirement at this particular moment. There was a report done by the Merits Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, gave the committee his evidence on two occasions, written and spoken. The memorandum submitted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said:

“In the recent past, too many professional judgements about curriculum, assessment and pedagogy have been removed from teachers and placed in the hands of ministers, government departments and agencies”.

It went on to say that this,

“shows a lack of trust in the profession and a denial of complexity”.

The whole House is agreed with the objectives of the noble Baronesses opposite and the objectives of my noble friend Lady Walmsley. The teaching profession is in agreement with those objectives as well. The question is how you best get those objectives achieved; in my submission, that will not happen by including a statutory requirement in this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Low, echoed the point that I made on Amendment 8 about how we keep academy agreements up to date. If I remember rightly, he said that for existing academies the only way to do this is to terminate the agreement and renegotiate it. Will my noble friend undertake to give notice of termination to all existing academies so that the arrangement that he has arrived at for special educational needs can be incorporated into their agreements? I imagine that most of them will choose to renegotiate ahead of time and not go through the catharsis of termination. That would seem to be the procedure that we ought to go through in order to bring all academies into line with what the Government now believe should be the line.

I also ask for his assurance that with this Bill it is the Government's intention that the model agreement should allow for the obligations on academies to update in line with those placed on maintained schools generally, and that we will not have to go through this procedure of issuing a notice of termination every time we change the SEN rules, the admissions rules or anything else that academies are supposed to follow.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support Amendment 11 in the name of the Minister and also flag up that we have complementary amendments coming up in the same group as Amendment 22. We have had a query from TreeHouse, which deals with autistic children, asking for assurances on the funding for non-maintained special schools. Under these arrangements, the funding will go directly to academies and not via local councils. Currently, local councils top-slice 7 to 10 per cent from the dedicated schools budget, which includes placements for children at non-maintained schools. Will the Minister reassure us about these arrangements?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation in case the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, intervenes to say that we are replicating what we discussed in Committee. However, I think it is fair to make the point that, first, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said in moving the amendment, we did not feel that the Minister responded strongly enough. Secondly, we had a good debate yesterday on Report on the subject of primary schools and academies, and I refer to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on the role of governing bodies. Thinking back over the past 20 or 30 years to what governors used to do in schools compared with what they do now, there is no doubt that their workload and responsibilities have grown considerably, and I suggest that with academy status more corporate responsibilities will fall on the governing body. This is an important matter. It is also very important to have strong parental involvement, including on the governing body. However, the Bill does not provide for the right signals to be given.

I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, blames the previous Government for the existence of that responsibility, and it is well stated that this legislation on governing bodies follows the previous Government’s legislation on academies. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, pointed out in Committee, there are reasons for that. We were talking then about developing academies essentially to deal with some of the most challenging situations and communities, and there was genuine concern that some schools would not be able to attract enough parent governors. We are talking now about the extension of academies to schools in general. I should think that it is right to give some kind of signal that we expect strong parental involvement. I therefore ask the Minister whether he will give further attention to this matter between now and Third Reading.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, this question was asked in Committee but was not answered. Is there an obligation on academies to have elected parent governors, or can they appoint them?

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, not for the first time I speak in support of my noble friend Lady Howe. I did not speak on this subject in Committee, but on Second Reading I did make the point that the Government’s handling of governors and governance issues had been “clumsy”. I had hoped that in the intervening weeks I would be able to withdraw that, but, unfortunately, according to the DfE website,

“no decisions have yet been taken on the composition of future academy governing bodies”.

That is a foolish way of putting it for all sorts of reasons.

I have spent the past 12 years visiting almost 400 schools. What have I learnt from that? I have learnt that successful schools are typified by engaged staff with good leadership from heads, engaged parents, and engaged governing bodies. In almost 400 schools I have never come across a school in which the relationship between a successful head and the chair of the governing body has been anything other than excellent. I am sure that it is possible to find one, but I never have. It is a pivotal relationship and I cannot imagine that a successful academy will manage matters differently.

I have a real concern. I think that in years to come, largely as a result of the work of the national college, and possibly the recession, we will have a generation of first-class head teachers. They will tend to be quite young and very professional. They will probably have led three, four or possibly five schools at different times in their careers. As they move on, the only continuity left to the community will be the governing body. If you begin to minimise the role of the governing body in some way and solely optimise the role of the heads—or, as we shall increasingly come to think of them, the CEOs—we could reap a whirlwind. The Government will make a massive mistake if they do not addressing the legitimate expectations of governing bodies.

I would go further. I think that there should be mandatory training for the chairs of governing bodies. I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. My own Government, in a dozen years, did nothing like enough in this area. To repeat that mistake in an educational environment in which this relationship will become ever more important as schools need to connect and remain connected to their local communities, will be a grievous error. I fear that academies which believe themselves able to get up and running while ignoring the role of the governing body will fail. There is a danger that they may simply minimise it, or go through something perfunctory such as having one or two people just because they feel they must. Governors are crucial to successful schools, and anyone who thinks otherwise has not visited enough of them.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I do not want to disagree with the noble Baroness, as I agree with the substantive points that she makes in relation to her amendment, but I want to respond to her comments. First, we will wait for Report to hear the Government’s response to the point about consultation, but the fact is that it is not in the Bill. I want assurances that it will not be some fly-by-night consultation but will allow ample time for people concerned to have their say and for that to be considered. On the way in which parent governors are treated under this Bill and under the previous Government’s approach to academies, I, too, drew the distinction that there were specific reasons relating to the situation in which the first academies were created that will not apply where hundreds of academies are being created. However, on the substantive point, I very much share her concerns.

[Lord Lucas]

Before my noble friend replies, perhaps I may ask my noble friend on the Front Bench a question. He cited a piece about parent governors being elected. Can he give me the reference to that, because I shared the belief held by my noble friend Lady Walmsley that that was not the case? I would very much like to correct that misapprehension.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and very much back the issues that they have been pressing. It will not surprise the Minister to hear that, alas, I am far from happy with his response. His admission that “at least one” tends to drift towards “one” in people’s minds confirms the fairly obvious route.

I hope that the Minister will be able to work this whole situation through. If, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has said, we are going to be looking at vast numbers of academies, although I feel that that is somewhat on the horizon, it really will be the case that local people—the big society, which is back to the Government’s definition—will have to be properly represented and able to do the job that they will need to do to get the best education for all our children, which all of us want.

I have no option at this stage but to withdraw my amendment. However, I certainly cannot guarantee that I will not be back on Report unless I have something rather more palatable to chew on. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

168: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Academy proprietors: freedom of information
In Schedule 1 (public authorities) to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, after Part IV insert—
“Part IVAAcademies56A A qualifying Academy proprietor, within the meaning of section 8(2) of the Academies Act 2010, when exercising functions under that Act.””

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the coalition agreement pledges to review the Freedom of Information Act with a view to increasing its scope. This, the first legislative act of the coalition, seeks to reduce its scope. It should not.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, in Amendment 168 my noble friend proposes inserting a new clause that would amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to add academy proprietors to the list of public bodies covered by that Act. Having thought about this, and having come newly into the department, I think that he makes a very good point in his new clause. I can see no reason in principle why academy proprietors, in relation to their function of running academies under academy arrangements, should not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act in the same way as all other state-funded schools are.

I am also happy to confirm that this Government, like the last one, accept that academies are public authorities for the purposes of the Act. In principle, then, I am completely with my noble friend on the merits of his amendment. It also helps us to address some of the broader debate that we have had about consultation, where I accept the points that have been made from around the Committee. Making sure that information is available and that there is as much transparency as possible is part of the process of helping to overcome suspicion, so it will help in that respect as well. I undertake to consider the issue further. If my noble friend would be happy enough to withdraw his amendment, I will come back to the issue on Report.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, that is very cheering news at this time of night, I shall go straight off and have a whisky to celebrate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 168 withdrawn.