Independent Schools: VAT Exemption

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, the register carries my declarations that I am chair of governors at Brighton College, a large and successful independent school—which is obviously in Brighton. I was previously chair of governors at my old school, Abingdon, which when I and my brother were there was a direct grant school, a status that was abolished by the Labour Government in the 1970s. It occurs to me to wonder why successive Labour Governments have been more associated with destroying categories of schools—first the grammar schools and direct grant schools and now, in all likelihood, some proportion of the independent sector—rather than creating schools, which would be more natural for a party which, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth suggested, claimed to be for “Education, education, education”.

Of course, this was a manifesto commitment, and the Government will rely on that. I remember being told when I was in government that relying on the manifesto commitment is the last refuge of the scoundrel; it is there but it did not have to be done this way. The precipitate haste with which this has been pursued and the lack of any kind of impact assessment when the effects are manifestly clear just from the speeches being made in this Chamber today—I particularly pick out the powerful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, based on deep knowledge and deep passion on the effects of it—mean that it is important that the effects should be understood. It is assumed that there will be a cash dividend from this but that is by no means clear. You would think that a Government who claim to be committed to the writ of the Office of Budget Responsibility might want to hear what it has to say about this before progressing at this kind of speed.

I want to say a word about some of the other things that the independent sector contributes to the benefit of society. Brighton College was responsible for establishing the London Academy of Excellence in Stratford in Newham, providing an excellent sixth-form education for some of the most disadvantaged children in that very disadvantaged borough. It now ranks among the top 10 schools of all kinds for A-level outcomes this year. The percentage of LAE students eligible for free school meals is more than five times higher than any other school in that top 10.

The LAE was founded by the Brighton College headmaster, Richard Cairns, who has led it from being a middle-ranking school to absolutely top of the tree in just 18 years, and a Brighton College governor. It receives a cash donation from the Brighton College community, and five Brighton College governors serve on various committees there. It would not have happened without Brighton College, and large numbers of bright, gifted children from disadvantaged backgrounds have benefited from it.

Brighton College has offered 24 refugees from Ukraine places with 120% scholarships. It also offers Opening Doors scholarships to disadvantaged children from local families—I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord Soames here as we both had children going through Brighton College and he now serves as president of the college—and many of those children have secured places at top universities.

Finally, I want to say a quick word about the value of education as an export. The Government do not quite understand the prestige and the cachet that attach to British education around the world, both in attracting students from overseas to schools here and in the growing number of UK schools that operate around the world, particularly in Asia. There is a hard-currency benefit to that in terms of cash coming into the country, and there are softer benefits of great value from the lifelong networks that these young people develop and the bonds of affection that flow from them.

I can see that this must have felt like a free hit at the time, but it is not turning out that way. I advise the Government to think again.

Teachers: Academies and Free Schools

Lord Maude of Horsham Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on securing this important debate.

I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Finn on a most accomplished and assured maiden speech. My noble friend was my special adviser in government for some five or six years. Too often, special advisers are dismissed as bag carriers who have little experience of the world outside politics. Leaving aside the fact that for us it was generally me carrying the bags, my noble friend has been far too modest to refer to her own professional qualifications as a practising chartered accountant, and her time as a regulator of the insurance industry and indeed as a negotiator for the UK in the European Union.

My noble friend’s financial experience and expertise—she was described by some newspaper as being brilliant with numbers—was very important in the work we did in the Cabinet Office, where over a period of five years we achieved savings in excess of £50 billion towards the reduction of the deficit. At that stage Whitehall was not replete with skills in financial management. My noble friend’s presence there certainly added a considerable amount to the total quantum of financial expertise, as indeed did her ability to develop important relationships of trust with senior trade union leaders as we reformed public sector pensions.

She referred to my encouragement to her to be more assertive. There is a serious point here: when people return to the workplace after a period out, and this is particularly true of mothers who take time out to look after children, their self-confidence can be seriously diminished. With hindsight, though, even I think my noble friend may have overcorrected. However, I hope that in this House she will continue to be assertive and that we will hear much more from her in the years ahead.

I attended a direct grant school. These were strange, hybrid creatures. They were independent schools but for most pupils, as for my brother and I, the fees were paid by the state. I have not yet heard any suggestion from the Government that direct grant schools are to be revived. Perhaps my noble friend will make an exciting announcement from the Dispatch Box later to complete a full hand for the day.

These schools were generally academically rigorous, and I was extremely lucky to benefit from that education. I suspect that no teachers when I was at school, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, had formal teaching qualifications. Frankly, the quality of the teaching was variable. The brilliant teachers were brilliant. They tended to be a bit quirky and eccentric but deeply passionate about their subject.

With all due deference to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, I doubt whether it is clear that there is a correlation between holding formal teaching qualifications and the quality of teaching. In my experience, the people who unerringly distinguish between good and bad teachers are the pupils—the students—who always know which teachers are doing well and which are useless. One of the great developments in the decades since I was at school has been the growth of continuous professional development. In the days when I and others of your Lordships were at school, bad teachers were allowed to carry on for far too long. There was far too little readiness to take them out of the classroom for them to refresh their skills or get skills that they did not have.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Some years ago, I realised that when I was at school I suffered from a rather odd form of learning difficulty. I realised that only when one of my sons was diagnosed with the same phenomenon. In those days, it was not diagnosed or recognised; we were just regarded as disruptive and lazy—probably true in my case, anyway. I absolutely take the noble Lord’s point that, whether a teacher is formally qualified or not, it is vital that they know how to discern the telltale signs of a particular learning difficulty. As we know, highly intelligent, able children can be impeded by a learning difficulty.

I declare in passing a modest interest as a governor of Brighton College. I noticed the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, who is chairman of the governors, in the Chamber earlier. Brighton College was the sponsor of the London Academy of Excellence, which has in the space of just two or three years succeeded in getting unprecedented numbers of talented students from Newham—which is, as we know, one of the most disadvantaged areas in the country—into universities that are not only the best in Britain but among the very best in the world. It has been central to the success of the London Academy of Excellence that the independent schools that have sponsored it have been able to second brilliant teachers who may have no qualifications to teach at the LAE.

I urge on your Lordships and my noble friend that if we want to continue to break down the barriers between state education and independent schools, it is essential that teachers should be able to move freely between the sectors. I earnestly urge my noble friend to resist the blandishments to reverse the policy, which I believe has been beneficial.