Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Earl of Listowel

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I was not able to be present in Grand Committee last week, but I have read with interest the Committee report. Two things come to mind in relation to this debate. The first is that I am most grateful to the Minister for organising an extremely helpful meeting with head teachers and regional schools commissioners. At the meeting I raised a question about local accountability which followed from our debate at Second Reading. On the question of regional accountability, I put to a regional schools commissioner the case that while it is important to improve academic outcomes for young people, there may be a reason to override the local interest of parents in their schools. I hope that I am paraphrasing him correctly, but he said that it is really important to bring the local community with one, which seems to support the notion of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others that if one is to have a successful school, one needs to bring the local community on board as far as possible.

The second point I want to raise is that, having read the Hansard report of the previous sitting, I am concerned by the Government’s focus on a very narrow assessment of education; that is, on academic attainment. Of course it is extremely important that our children should do well academically so that they leave school being able to read and write and are ready in terms of employment, and that is important to their parents as well, but as was made clear in that debate, children need a rounded education. Some children in particular benefit from an education which perhaps does not emphasise academic attainment so much but allows them to excel in sport and vocational attainment in other areas. My sense is that we need to allow some young people to fail and fail and fail again. Young people in care in particular may do poorly in terms of their academic attainment while they are at school, but many of them will do well in their early 20s or even their late 20s. If one puts great pressure on schools to ensure that all children do well academically, the risk is that those children who do not have so much academic capacity may be excluded, be given less attention, or to some degree will be seen as an inconvenience.

Perhaps that is an argument for giving local authorities and local bodies more influence over and supervision of what goes on in academies and elsewhere. The people in Manchester may think, “Well, in this area we have a particular interest in vocational success and we would like to see our schools equipping our children to enter apprenticeships”. I am probably not expressing myself well. I think that my chief concern arose when I read about the new pressures being put on head teachers to ensure that children do well academically because of the emphasis that the Government are placing on this. I worry about those children who may not have so much academic potential but do have potential in other ways. Perhaps the amendment that has been put forward will allay some of those concerns.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being here in the Committee’s session last week. It was for medical reasons—and my experience has not filled me with either enthusiasm or confidence that importing wholesale from the health service will solve all our problems. However, there are some very good individual doctors in the system, which is why it works.

To go to the challenge put to the Minister about maintained schools from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I spent this morning with seven head teachers from maintained primary schools in the most difficult areas of inner London. I have no doubt that they are doing a terrific job. I agree that there are some excellent maintained schools doing an excellent job. Some of them even refer to the good partnerships with local academies which they hope will develop. That is the other side of the picture.

However, I would make two or three quick comments. When I hear the expression “democratic accountability”, the philosopher in me wants to write three articles to try to clarify what that means. The Committee should not worry, for I am not going to try to do that now, but it is a shibboleth at times. At other times it is an important use of language, just as talk of human rights is, but sometimes it covers a multitude of uncertainties and unclarities. I do not deny that it is important but here, for example, we have to distinguish between accountability for financial systems and governance—one kind of accountability that is not necessarily for a public committee; I would rather have a high-powered team from PricewaterhouseCoopers or some such going in to inspect them and report back—and the separate form of accountability which is necessary for educational practice. Parents and teachers no doubt have important things to say but it must never be forgotten that at least half of those, possibly both, are interested parties.

I come to the nub of what I want to say. The problem that the Bill is facing up to is essentially a question of dealing with what has arisen in schools that are currently maintained under the local authority system. If that is so, just recreating it without modification will not do the job. We need more subtlety and sophistication in trying to face that problem, when it is there that the difficulties have arisen. The Committee may have dealt, as I gather it did at some length last week, with the definition of coasting. But if there are coasting schools, a number of them have arisen within a local authority and within the maintained system. So there are good, bad and coasting schools, all of them within the maintained sector. That is why I find it difficult simply to pick up a proposal that all you have to do is to spread the responsibility by having ways of taking on board an additional set of views, without a means of sharpening them.

To go back to my speech at Second Reading, there is a danger that we will simply bring in delaying tactics, which are the curse of the current system. I am still worried about the Bill having delays built into it in a way that I find unacceptable. That is why I am not—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, as one who can speak but not sing, I shall speak very briefly. I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. It gives me the chance to clarify the position on the earliest entrants to school in their earliest days in school. How long does it take before support becomes available? It has been put to me that some children require this plan to be drawn up, which may take time, before the support, of whatever kind, is available. Anything that can be done to advance that will clearly be to the advantage of the child. The younger you start, the better.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, this amendment prompts a question in my mind, which the Minister might be able to write to me about. Some schools are better at catering for children with special educational needs, so they attract more of them; they get a reputation as being good at it. One would not wish those schools to be penalised because they happen to be good at working with children with special educational needs. In the metric that the Government are developing to judge progress and whether or not a school is coasting, I hope we can be assured that over the three-year period there is not a risk that we penalise a school because it is very good at working with children with special educational needs. The children may not make so much progress academically but they will have been given excellent support in other ways. I hope that makes sense.

I will say one other thing. I can see that the notion I expressed earlier about allowing children to fail, particularly children in care, is a difficult concept, which I should probably correct somewhat. What I was trying to say is: allow children to fail, fail and fail again until they are successful, and each time they fail allow them not to feel so badly about failing that they do not want to try again but allow them to keep on trying until they are successful. Obviously, ideally one wants to help them to be successful the first time round.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Earl of Listowel

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 29, and first declare my interest as a newly appointed vice-chair and parliamentary representative of the Local Government Association. I omitted to thank the Select Committee and the Opposition for their part in ensuring that we have this thinking space before Report on this very important Bill. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and I was pleased to hear the passion in what she has just said.

I do not think it a good thing if a newly elected Government with a manifesto commitment and with a majority feel timid about taking action. I very strongly opposed the Academies Bill, which was introduced under the coalition Government. I do not feel it is wholly redeemed, but I think a Government have to be fairly bold, and maybe do new and dangerous things. Sometimes those can have very good outcomes. In what became the Academies Act, I think the power given head teachers has been a very good thing.

I think it is a difficult balance for a new Government. They need to assert themselves, and they should not be too timid, but for something as important as this—and I totally agree with the noble Baroness—time, thought and consideration are vital. I am happy that we have had this opportunity for extra thinking time.

In my amendment, I call for a commission to be set up:

“Within two years of the coming into force of”,

the Act, which will look,

“with particular regard to value for money”,

in childcare provision. Under the amendment the commission would appoint,

“the Children’s Commissioner for England … a representative of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and … a representative of the Nuffield Foundation”,

to look at value for money in the childcare sector. I have done this because I have been rather shocked in the past to see from international comparisons of the cost of childcare how expensive it is in this country. I am concerned that the taxpayer is not getting value for money.

I must apologise to the Childcare Minister. In a recent meeting when he briefed us on the Bill, I am afraid that I put words into his mouth which he did not use. He did not refer to his concern that the cost of childcare in this country is higher than in other nations; that was a concern expressed by his predecessor in the other place, his colleague Elizabeth Truss. I apologised to him for that but he did point out that childcare provision in this country has been part of a piecemeal process. Over the years, it has been rather reactive and there has not been a strategic view of what we should be doing, so I hope that your Lordships might think this a worthy consideration.

One particular concern I have is that while parents are the drivers here—the money goes to where they choose to place their child—I know from research that they will often choose price over quality. That is absolutely understandable when you are desperate for childcare, but because we all know that quality is so important, we may need to think of other ways of funding the way the market works to ensure that there is more of an incentive to improve quality, rather than simply to have extra provision.

I will also speak briefly to my colleague and noble friend Lord Sutherland’s amendment, 38A. I do not have it in front of me right now but, having looked at it briefly, I felt that he had made a very helpful contribution in saying that there should be a longitudinal study of the impact of early years childcare. The development of children who experience early years provision is fundamental. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Northbourne will raise the question today of what happens in early childhood, and particularly how the relationship between mother and infant is mediated by early years care. That is fundamental to how we make mature relationships as adults. So much of the security and success of our relationship with our partners and children depends on what happens in early childhood. Perhaps we can get more information on this long distance between infancy and the ages of 25 or 30, when we start to make our own families, and even look at the next generation on. It would be really helpful to have a study to look at the impact of this, so I welcome my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I believe we are in a much better place now than we were during Second Reading and I thank the Minister for the part he has played in that. I also thank the usual channels, who I am sure were not silent when critical issues came up.

That being said, there are still some major issues and some of these amendments deal with them very well. Pro tem, until we see how much information we will have before Report, I would be inclined to give my support to Amendments 1 and 27—particularly Amendment 27, because we need to be clear that the regulations that do not come before this House deal only with practical constitutional matters. In principle, I give my support to both these amendments and we will see how things develop between now and Report. Effectively, the Government are under detailed scrutiny here and I encourage the Minister to do all he can to work with the good will around this place to bring about a successful conclusion.

That being said, I will refer briefly to my own Amendment 38A, which is quite different from the others. It recognises the fact that excellent work of a longitudinal nature has been done—for example, in the EPPE and EPPSE reports—with the encouragement and sponsorship of the Department for Education under two different Governments. That is something we welcome. We should look at the value of that work, which was evident to the Select Committee, with a view to continuing with a similar evaluation of what government policies bring about. The EPPE study takes children from the age of three. This legislation might alter that age and, if so, is an additional reason to look for the ways in which early education impacts on later educational opportunity.

I am looking for an indication from the Minister that the department still attaches great importance to building up this long-term database of how well or ill any particular policy might be working.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Earl of Listowel

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

I rise to speak to Amendment 78, which is in my name, and to support Amendment 76, to which I have attached my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, said, Amendment 78 would simply replace a board. Perhaps we can retain the current board as a special advisory group for the Department for Education.

The amendments are partly in response to a meeting recently of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Skills. The new chair of that group, in post for one year, concluded the meeting by saying two things. First, he said that when he visited Finland and had a meeting with politicians from across the political spectrum, he was very impressed by the strong consensus on education policy. Secondly, he said that the more he learnt about this issue the more it seemed to him that if politics could stay out of education, the better it would be for education. By tabling my amendment, I hope to probe the Government about how one might encourage that position of distancing politics from education.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the rather disappointing results in recruiting teachers. It seems to me that this is a golden opportunity to get hold of bright young graduates who might have gone into the City at other times, but who might now choose to go into social care and education. It is sad that we are not getting the cream of the crop. If the noble Lord’s concerns are correct, and this is to some degree to do with interference from the Government, perhaps this is a good illustration of how it is sometimes better for politicians to leave the professionals and experts to do the job. There is an important role for politicians in ensuring that the right experts are appointed and that the criticisms from people sitting in their armchairs are answered.

I refer to the Youth Justice Board, which was an arm’s-length organisation. When there was a spate of thefts of mobile phones and muggings because of that, the Government responded by strengthening the laws around mobile phone theft. Unfortunately, one young man, Joseph Scholes, who had just begun at a children’s home, was out for the day with a group of young people. I understand that he was involved in the periphery of a mobile phone theft. Because of the response to the understandable and popular concern about mobile phone theft, when he was found guilty of being involved in this activity, he was placed in the secure estate, in a young offender institution, even though he was a very vulnerable young man. Unfortunately he hanged himself. The judge recognised that it was not appropriate for him to be placed in the YOI but that he should have been in a more sensitive environment.

Perhaps it is not a particularly good example, but it seems to me that the Youth Justice Board has a similar history to that described by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, which was that the Government despaired of being able to do the right thing in youth justice in 1998 or so. They were disappointed in the outcomes. We have had the highest level of children in custody in western Europe. The Youth Justice Board was set up with good positive outcomes. In the past three years the number of children in custody has reduced by 30 per cent. One sees positive outcomes. I am sorry to go on for so long and shall try to wind up as soon as possible. However, in Hackney, for example, politicians decided to give great authority to two very senior social workers. They challenged a culture in Hackney that had let down a lot of young people and children. After three years, they reduced by 30 per cent the number of children coming into care and saved the council a huge sum in doing so. They did this by putting in charge people who had a lifetime’s experience working in this area and by backing their work.

I think we will see best outcomes for our children if we give as much responsibility to people who have actually done the work, who are experienced professionals, and if we can keep politicians—who nevertheless have an important role—as far away as possible from such decisions. The TDA is a good example of a body which worked as a buffer between politicians and education and had good outcomes. I am looking for reassurance from the Minister that this will not have the adverse consequences that I fear.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I will be brief and, I hope, to the point; I want to record my support for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Knight. The TTA, followed by the TDA, were like a breath of fresh air in teacher recruitment. We have had a problem for many years and what they did—the figures bear this out—suggest that this amendment probes well and accurately.

A number of years ago, I took a group of Malaysian senior politicians and administrators to visit these organisations. It was embarrassing to see how much they appreciated what was being achieved in the agency—they were facing some of the same problems.

I have one question for the Minister. If this goes, would the Government be prepared to put down measures against which we can assess the impact of this policy? In other words, if the numbers of teachers drop, or the quality, will Ministers put their hands up and say, “We got this wrong”? But if there is a rise, fine—perhaps we will put our hands up and say, “Yes, we got it wrong”.

This will be a constant refrain from me, I am afraid. We need targets from the Government that change policies.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Earl of Listowel

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, the question of evidence is close to my heart, having chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee. I absolutely agree that we should achieve an evidence-based policy. Seldom do we do so, but we ought to.

My question is simply this. If there is no evidence that this is needed, is there evidence that training is needed, in the many other provisions of the Bill? We are all very strong on the importance of training. I am just concerned about having blanket legislation that could rule out the unforeseeable—and I think we have accepted that just occasionally some teachers have experienced that.

[The Earl of Listowel]

In response to the noble Baroness’s remarks, I gave the example of a head teacher of an EBD school, who described a school trip to the seaside when the boy picked up a piece of glass. The teacher thought, “This boy is rather dangerous and it is dangerous for him to have that glass in his pocket—the best thing to do is to quickly check his pocket and get rid of it”. That may be an exceptional circumstance, but I can imagine that in working with those particular groups that might be when those exceptional circumstances came into play.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Earl of Listowel

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I wish particularly to support Amendment 20 in this group, the direction of which seems to be just and fair for future academies and for schools choosing to remain under the direction of local authorities. Any clarification that the Minister can give us would be very helpful.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the thrust of these amendments, which are about the concern that, under the new pattern of arrangements, funding for essential services to schools will be depleted. This morning, at a meeting on child protection, the head teacher of a large secondary school in north London said that he would like to have a social work team attached to his school because it would make the world of difference. But he cannot get access to that resource. I have heard of other schools with similar resources, which they find extremely beneficial. It would simply take the strain off teachers who could pass that responsibility to social workers who have the relevant expertise and know-how to connect with the necessary services for the child. I hope that in this process we do not lose the push towards proper partnership with all the services which are working to improve the protection and safeguarding of children.

At the same meeting, the director for quality management of Ofsted said that his research at Ofsted indicated that a very important factor in improving the protection of children is seeing that there is a close partnership between schools, social care and all the services, including health, in the area. It is not just about tackling the problem when children are clearly in need. It is about ensuring that the mainstream services are thoroughly connected together and are all working in partnership to promote the welfare of children.