Free Schools: Educational Standards

Lord Popat Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Nash for initiating this debate. I pay tribute to his tireless dedication to the free school project during his time as a Minister and beyond. I would also like to mention my noble friend Lady Evans, our Leader, who I had the great privilege of working with before she joined your Lordships’ House. She was instrumental in leading the New Schools Network to empower and support hundreds of free school applications to become reality. I have had the pleasure of hosting many events in Parliament on behalf of the New Schools Network, and I have great admiration for the efforts and dedication of everyone involved in bringing the free school policy to fruition, in particular, the founder of the New Schools Network, Rachel Wolf, and the honorary life president, Diana Berry, for their outstanding work and many years of exceptional commitment. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Hill for supporting the free school network when he was Education Minister.

I confess that I am not an expert on education. But I am a passionate believer in vision and aspiration. I know from my own experience that few things are as gratifying as watching the kernel of an idea grow and flourish. I also know that success is seldom instant. Hard work, commitment and careful cultivation are needed. Before you get things right, often you have to get things wrong. This is simple evolution.

Why am I saying this? Because I find it frustrating to see that free schools are so quickly dismissed or vilified by critics. We could start by remembering that the free school initiative is still very much in its infancy. In my area, Harrow, the free schools that have been set up are doing very well. Pinner High School already has a number of awards under its belt. Avanti House School was very well received by the local Hindu community, and even received a visit by Her Majesty the Queen during her Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Both schools are heavily oversubscribed and were driven by grass-roots voluntary community members. I pay particular tribute to Nitesh Gor, who founded the Avanti Schools Trust. I am delighted that his services to education were recognised when he was awarded an OBE last year.

Many free school projects are funded by philanthropists such as my noble friend Lord Harris, which helps reduce the burden on taxpayers. Nationally, the story has also been encouraging. It is not perfect, but it is going in the right direction.

I was looking at the data released by the Department for Education about the Progress 8 metric, which measures progress in relation to prior attainment. According to this, free school students scored a quarter of a grade higher than children with similar starting points across the country.

I say this to the critics of free schools: many free schools are already producing excellent exam results, as we heard earlier from my noble friend Lord Nash. Many are in areas that could hardly be described as affluent. Taken as a whole, secondary free schools cater to an above-average number of disadvantaged students, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, mentioned earlier. Many cater for ethnic minorities and even children of asylum seekers. All of this demonstrates that free schools are not the exclusive preserve of a privileged few but are inclusive of any community that wants to take them up. Any argument to the contrary is not only simplistic but insulting. It suggests that poverty and aspiration do not go together, that only the affluent can afford to be ambitious and that any attempts to challenge the status quo are futile. That flies in the face of everything we claim to stand for in this country, and we would do well to keep that in mind when we debate topics of this nature.

Of course, there is a flip side. A number of free schools have not taken off despite extensive planning and investment. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned 50 that were opened and subsequently failed. Taken in isolation, people may say this demonstrates that the free school project is flawed, that it does not work. But this brings me back to the point about allowing time, space and tolerance for a policy to find its way. We should see the bigger picture. For every free school that has been judged to have failed, more have succeeded. For every mistake we have made, lessons were learned. As a society we have become impatient. We expect every social ailment to be cured quickly and precisely, without fault or friction. But that is not life. That is not reality. Free schools are a creative response to systemic failure.

Successive Governments have tried and failed to solve the challenges facing our education system, for which there are many reasons. It is not the fault of one Government, political party or ideology. It is much deeper and more complex, and the changing world around us makes it even more so. We are at a dramatic crossroads for our country where the whole world is moving forward at a pace previously unimagined. The digital age is revolutionising economies, rewriting the job market and reshaping the skills we will need. No one can predict what the market will look like in 20 years. Education, like the future, needs to be fluid. From what I have seen, free schools are helping to bridge the gaps not only in skills but in the very essence of our thinking. It is not just about grades, it is about learning. It is not about following formulas but about finding fresh approaches. In the words of the head teacher of Pinner High School,

“we are not adapting to the future, we are creating it”.

Long may this continue.

A Manifesto to Strengthen Families

Lord Popat Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for bringing today’s important debate and spearheading this manifesto on families. We have already touched on a number of issues this manifesto recommends should be addressed, from promoting the role of fathers within families to tackling the mental health crisis among young people from broken homes to developing family hubs. The Government play an important role in supporting families, which is why this manifesto is key to achieving that objective.

Stronger families are in everyone’s interest. Families are much more than just a unit: strong families are a critical component for the Government to achieve their objectives to increase social mobility and deliver social justice. As my noble friend Lord Farmer says, strong families are also vital for economic growth. They are wealth creators, as opposed to broken families which, aside from causing emotional turmoil, increase dependency on the state. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, mentioned the cost of that to be approximately £48 billion.

I will take a brief moment to comment on the British Indian community, which I am a proud member of. As in many communities, the role of families is central to the British Indian community. I believe the notion by which the British Indian community promotes strong families is the secret of our community’s success. Last month, the Government released an audit on racial equality which proved this point. The report showed that British Indians had among the highest rates of hourly pay, and high levels of employment and education. They are the most likely to own their own home and among the least likely to live in social housing. All these elements link to the fact the British Indian community has the highest marriage rate and the lowest rate of divorce and family breakdown. It proves how strong, united families can create wealth and opportunities not just for themselves but also for Britain. They carry the hallmark values of hard work, education, enterprise and family—that word family is crucial.

However, there is still more to do. Regretfully, the audit also revealed deeply ingrained disparities across the country. It was disheartening to hear that the UK also has one of the highest levels of family breakdown in the world. It is for this reason that I welcome this manifesto to strengthen families and that I believe government intervention to support families is absolutely vital. Worse, family breakdowns disproportionally fall on poorer children in our society. Surely our Government cannot sit back and watch that happen. We cannot lead on social reform if we struggle to get the basics right.

I will conclude with a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said:

“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them”.


The manifesto presents viable options for how the Government can support families, not by dictating to them but by empowering them. I hope that it reflects the positive difference that the Government can make to thousands of families across Britain in building a country that truly works for all.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Lord Popat Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Mendelsohn]

This is a probing amendment, which seeks to ask the Government to set out more clearly how this clause will improve the current position and is intended to operate. This is indeed an amendment which covers the mystery shopper. In February 2011, the Cabinet Office supplier feedback service was extended to allow small businesses to ask about procurement processes when they were unsuccessful or felt that the procedures or systems, or how they were being treated, were unfair. This was later renamed the mystery shopper scheme, which I have enjoyed reading about.

Looking through the document headed Mystery Shopper Publication Table October to December 2014, I came across a fascinating story about the UK Shared Business Services. The description says that:

“A Mystery Shopper raised concerns about a procurement by UK Shared Business Services … for ‘the Small Business Campaign’. The supplier read in a media article that they had been unsuccessful prior to receiving any response from”,

those services. The response from the investigation by the mystery shopper service said:

“We investigated this case and UKSBS have confirmed that unfortunately information was made publically available prior to the official notification letters being sent”.

Its conclusion was that the United Kingdom’s Shared Business Services,

“are looking into their internal processes to ensure that this situation does not re occur (including ensuring training is put in place for users of the procurement process)”.

I have never seen a leak more extensively reported in a government document and I found it very amusing. However, we commend the mystery shopper, which performs an exceptionally valuable service and shows tremendous potential for development. One of the things which we commend is that it is evolving and not a static instrument. It has some direct attention and modifications come as a result of that.

I would like to probe what is in the Bill. Clause 39 provides the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Secretary of State with a power to investigate the exercise by a contracting authority of relevant functions relating to public procurement. This essentially puts the existing mystery shopper service on a statutory footing. On the face of it, it seems strange that the clause makes provision for the Minister to carry out the investigations and does not allocate any powers to the Minister to delegate. I am sure that there are some very interesting drafting answers in the Minister’s file. How is this intended to operate? I am sure that while a number of Ministers could fit in the time to spearhead public procurement investigations, some may have less time and, possibly, not even have the skills.

The main purpose is to move an informal process and the Explanatory Notes state that the Bill,

“will make contracting authorities legally obliged to provide information on request”.

I would be grateful if the Minister could provide us with further details on this problem. I think that I have read through all the published mystery shopper documents and none has stated this to be a problem, so I wonder why it has emerged as one of the foundations in the Explanatory Notes. I would guess there have been some difficulties and I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us what they have been and whether particular departments, agencies or authorities have been at fault.

The Explanatory Notes state:

“Ministers and Government departments will continue to comply with the current Mystery Shopper scheme as a matter of interdepartmental co-operation”.

Does this mean that there will be an exclusion when they look into each other’s departments and, therefore, this will be done without the statutory obligation to provide information in a timely fashion?

As this seems to relate to matters about how the investigations are conducted, our amendment seems eminently sensible. It simply asks for more transparency around the investigation process and asks for details to be published including the focus, findings and evidence of the investigation. Naturally, an exception is made for commercially confidential information and is a means to probe the entire clause and some of the details that we think are missing about how these investigations will be carried out in an effective and timely manner.

Finally, in Amendment 35V, we consider the exercise of Ministers’ time to be so valuable and their insights to be so useful that we suggest that details of the investigation should be published including the focus, findings and evidence considered. Commercially confidential evidence is, naturally, excluded from this. I beg to move.

[Lord Popat (Con)]

I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, welcomes the mystery shopper service. It plays a very important role, and I am glad for his support for publishing the results of investigations in the interests of transparency. I am sure that noble Lords will be reassured to know that the Crown Commercial Service already regularly publishes results of these investigations. Our published results normally cover the focus of the investigations, the findings and, critically, the action agreed by the contracting authority to rectify the issues found. We also highlight where a contracting authority has refused to accept our recommendations.

Publication of results is an important feature of the service, as it enables the Government to highlight poor practice and the advice given to rectify it, from which other authorities can learn. It also provides a way of naming and shaming public bodies which do not accept recommendations. When appropriate, it can also be used to name large suppliers who do not pay their small business subcontractors promptly in public sector supply chains. In addition, annual reports are published which highlight key themes and advice, including the results of proactive public procurement spot checks. These findings have concluded that there remain issues relating to excessive qualification requirements being demanded by authorities in assessing financial strength, poor use of pre-qualification questionnaires and poor payment practices. These publications are broadcast by Twitter and potentially reach up to 4 million people.

Publishing more information does not fit with our aim of publishing brief, user-friendly reports, appropriate to the issue being investigated. Also, very often the documents we look at, such as tender documents and pre-qualification questionnaires, are already publicly available on authorities’ websites. Increasingly, this type of information will be available through links from Contracts Finder. Additionally, a key element of mystery shopper is its agility. The team can act speedily to raise concerns and resolve issues. It would be wasteful to bog them down by obliging them to publish the evidence considered and to discuss with authorities whether certain documents or information are commercially sensitive.

The proposed amendment would restrict the Minister to publishing specific details of each case. As the clause stands, the Minister can continue to publish reports of investigations in a flexible and user-friendly way, while respecting commercial confidentiality.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, also asked how often authorities failed to comply with a mystery shopper investigation. In the last six months alone there have been 15 instances during investigations of referrals and spot checks where we have been unable to obtain any responses or get hold of documents. These new powers would have helped us get answers in all of these cases. Co-operation between departments is no reassurance to the public. Ministers are not to be legally bound by mystery shopper powers, just like other authorities.

The point of the clause is to enable the Minister for the Cabinet Office operating through the mystery shopper service to enforce demands for information and assistance for the courts. It would not be feasible or realistic for the Minister to bring legal proceedings against another Minister or government department. I hope that I have explained to my noble friend—the noble Lord—why we feel this amendment is not feasible. I will be happy to write to him. I hope that he will withdraw the amendment if he has found my explanation reasonably acceptable.

[Lord Mendelsohn]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for describing me as his friend—perhaps mistakenly. I hope that my charm offensive has at least achieved some results in this Grand Committee.

I am also grateful for his explanation and for the clarification. I wish to stress that we believe that the scheme—the initiative—is good and we are pleased to see added strength given to it. I am also very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, nodding vociferously in the background as this is something on his radar and I am sure will continue to be a lever that he will pull and push with great force to try to ensure that it is delivering for small business.

I have one observation on the mystery shopper issue. I noted that the Crown Commercial Service always responds quickly to these measures on the outcome of a case and recommendations. I hope that that sense of speed will be carried across government to make sure of that. In light of the Minister giving more detail in writing so that our support can be further enhanced, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.