Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this group of amendments so comprehensively. Amendment 42 is a probing amendment and the issues in it have been discussed before. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, has asked me to give her apologies for being absent. She emailed me about two hours ago to say that she was on the point of going to the operating theatre to have her appendix out. How she e-mailed at that time, I do not know, but I was asked to pass on the message and I have done so.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for such a clear and extensive explanation of this amendment. As she will know, it is a very important word when it comes to the home education community and I think that her explanation has provided all the comfort that they need as to what their situation will be in the future.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I shall speak also to Amendments 140 and 141 in this group. I was fascinated by the previous debate on admissions, when many wise and challenging things were said. My noble friend Lady Morris, I think, said that we have a system littered with schools trying to do their best but fighting a losing battle because of other local schools selecting pupils. We heard some comments about schools selecting parents, rather than the other way round. I know that the Church of England has recently been looking at this and I hope for some clarification on its thinking.

The Minister talked about autonomy and variety. Autonomy and variety will not solve all the issues in front of us concerning admissions. I want to talk about faith schools. My first amendment to the Academies Act 2010 would prevent academies and free schools with a religious character discriminating on admissions; my second would prevent voluntary-controlled faith schools which convert to academy status from increasing the priority of religious criteria in their admissions policies.

As my noble friend Lady Hughes said earlier, admission to school is extremely important. We know that many state-funded faith schools use their legal privileges to have highly selective admissions criteria, giving preference to the children of parents with particular beliefs. Academy schools which have converted from state-maintained faith schools are, of course, their own admissions authority, and they religiously discriminate up to 100 per cent in admissions. Free schools with a religious character may discriminate in up to 50 per cent of admissions. Will that remain the case? Will that be the case for looked-after children who do not have the same faith as the school they want to go to?

Discrimination by faith schools can cause segregation along both religious and socio-economic lines. Professor Ted Cantle, author of a report into community cohesion in Blackburn, describes religious schools as,

“automatically a source of division”,

in the town. In other areas, faith schools that are their own admission authorities are 10 times more likely to be highly unrepresentative of their surrounding area than faith schools where the local authority is the admission authority. Separating children by religion, class and ethnicity is totally opposed to the aim of social cohesion.

In addition, voluntary aided faith schools have, on average, 50 per cent fewer pupils requiring free school meals than community schools. Pupils starting at faith schools are also, on average, more academically able than pupils starting at inclusive schools. That is because faith schools’ selection criteria mean that they usually—not always, but usually—take fewer deprived children and more than their fair share of children of ambitious and wealthier parents.

I share an office with a colleague from Northern Ireland, who constantly asks me: “Have we not learnt the lessons from faith schools in Northern Ireland?”. All schools should include and educate pupils of all beliefs together so that they can learn about and from each other, instead of being segregated by their religion. Prejudice was mentioned last week in Committee. I heard that homophobic bullying is more likely to happen in faith schools. The amendment to the Equality Act 2010 will stop maintained schools—voluntary and foundation schools—with a religious character from discriminating in admissions by removing the opt-out from the Act.

Any religious discrimination in admissions is against the ideal of an open and inclusive school system. No state-funded faith school, including academies, should be permitted to discriminate in their admissions on religious grounds in any circumstances. My first amendment would rule out religious discrimination in admissions to all new academies. If the complete prohibition of religious discrimination in the new academy and free school system cannot be achieved, and my first amendment does not pass, my second amendment would ensure that voluntarily controlled schools which had not previously been permitted to discriminate could not begin to discriminate on conversion to academy status. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 138. I like faith schools and I want parents to be able to choose them, whether or not they are of that faith. I share the distress of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, at the idea that schools become ghettoes for their own religion. Wherever that is widely practised it has been disastrous. Northern Ireland in particular and also the west of Scotland are examples of where this has caused and causes continuing division and strife that we do not see in the rest of the UK.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Low, has set out the case for reconsidering special educational needs, as this is a very important and complex issue. I am also pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, mentioned governance, and that my noble friend Lady Morgan talked about standards, which are key. I understand that some academies have been allowed to opt out of publishing data on pupils’ achievement, which we will no doubt talk about later.

Amendments 2 and 3, in the names of my noble friend Lady Morgan and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, respectively, deal with consulting governors. I am a governor of a primary school in Wandsworth, and I think that school governors are important people in all this. I know that some later amendments deal with consultation, but for now I want to talk about governing bodies.

I understand that academies are required to have only one elected parent member on their governing body, while the existing principle is that a third of governing bodies should be parents. Parent governors are crucial. I am a governor at a school in a deprived area of Wandsworth, which attracts parent governors who are very helpful and useful to the school. This is particularly important in early years institutions if they are to become academies. Parents on those bodies will be essential. If parents are not involved in the early years, the children and the school suffer. I should like to ask the Minister about consultation with governing bodies. How is the future governance of schools foreseen?

[Lord Lucas]

I apologise for the misprint in my Amendment 33. For the word “roles” noble Lords should read “rules” and they will get a greater, if not absolute, idea of the sense of it. I am concerned about how the governing bodies of these academies will be dealt with when they go wrong. They can get into a mess from time to time when they are captured by strong individuals with very particular ideas. They can become at odds with parents and heads, and can contribute to poor performance in the school. I understand what happens under current academies with sponsors. But in an academy without a sponsor, what process will be gone through to set the governing body back on the right path? Who complains to whom? Who reaches a judgment as to what is happening? Who takes action under what powers?

What general powers will parents have to set things right if they see things going wrong? I do not think that there are any contractual arrangements with parents. So, if a school is failing to provide education, what is the route for the parent to enforce the right to education for their child? Finally, at Second Reading, I asked whether we might be circulated with a model funding agreement. I have not seen that yet and I am keen to do so while we are discussing these matters.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, paid tribute to the right reverend Prelates, so I shall pay tribute to him. He was a most excellent Schools Minister and was largely responsible for the success of the academies programme. As the Minister said, the party opposite has every right to be proud of what it achieved. I also praise the noble Lord for starting off his life as a Back-Bencher exactly as I hope he will continue, feeling free to disagree with his Front Bench. As my noble friend Lord Hill will discover, feeling free to criticise one’s own side when one feels that it is getting it wrong is the mark of respect that every Back-Bencher seeks to attain.

I feel that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, although she was in turn an excellent Minister, is getting it wrong. It was always inevitable that the academies programme, once it had proved itself and gained momentum, would be open to existing schools. The idea that schools have to fail in order to become academies is not tenable. The substance of the amendment is political phooey and should be disregarded.

The noble Baroness raised a number of points that I suspect I will agree with later—or at least I will share her concerns. This is a new phase for the academy movement and it raises questions which were left in abeyance when the academies were few and had strong sponsors but which need examining now. However, a change of name, with further confusion for parents and everybody else, is not required.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, at Second Reading many noble Lords pointed out that most parents want a good local school, whatever it is called, and that good schools depend on good leadership, good teachers and good classroom practice, none of which I see mentioned in the Bill. My noble friend made some interesting points about academies, as did the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—I quite agree with him about the alphabet soup of schools. However, this is not just discussion about a name.

I have never particularly liked the name “academy” for a school, despite my respect and affection for my noble friend Lord Adonis. To me, the term has always meant a Scottish secondary school, the garden where Plato taught or, as in the Brixton Academy, a nightclub. As I understand it, we are talking about names that have legal and constitutional significance. No doubt we will tease out some of these legal and constitutional issues, such as buildings, charitable status, admissions, inspection, employment, VAT regulations, freedom of information and data protection, throughout the passage of the Bill. My noble friend is right. If these apply to what are called direct maintained schools—in other words, if they have to obey the rules I have just mentioned—the name should be looked at again. Could the noble Lord please spell out—I am sure he will—the differences between the name “academies”, as referred to in the Bill, and other kinds of school which now exist, and tell us why the name should not be changed?