Education and Adoption Bill

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to welcome to these Benches my noble friend Lord Blunkett. I await with great interest his maiden speech. It is also slightly unnerving to have behind me two former Secretaries of State for Education as well as a recent education Front-Bench spokesperson from my party, so, if nothing else, that will keep me on my toes.

It is widely acknowledged that today fundamental problems face our schools in particular and the education system in general. In making the Education and Adoption Bill one of the first to be introduced in this parliamentary Session, the Government had an opportunity to address these issues and begin to remove them as problems. It is a matter of huge regret that they have singularly failed to grasp that opportunity.

The issue that overarches everything else in education is the ongoing problem of recruitment and retention of teachers because, without teachers, what is education? Yet that issue is the dog that does not bark in this Bill because, incredibly, eight pages and 12 clauses relating to education contain just a single mention of the word “teacher”. Even that is merely a reference to a pay and conditions warning notice. Very nearly 50,000 teachers left the profession between November 2013 and November 2014, the highest number on record. In 2009-10, under Labour, recruitment into teacher training was about 3,000 above target. In 2013-14 it was 2,300 below target. Why has that not set alarm bells ringing at the DfE? Nor does the Bill acknowledge, far less address, the question of providing a place at school for every child who requires it, following the increase in birth rates, or how the DfE is going to find many more academy sponsors, or how more good head teachers are to be recruited to take on underperforming schools.

The Government have set their face against each and all of these urgent matters, preferring instead to use this Bill as a vehicle to pursue their apparent obsession with removing schools from the local democratic framework and handing them to sponsors. All too often their suggested friends are supporters of the Conservative Party—some, it appears, even go on to become Ministers. This is legislation driven not by education considerations but by ideology, and it is interesting that the Minister mentioned ideology in his opening remarks. Our children deserve better—much better.

The main thrust of the Bill as regards state schools is as mistaken as it is simplistic: maintained, bad; academy, good. Simply turning a school into a sponsored academy does not bring about change for the better. Where schools improve their performance it is almost always because of the hard work and commitment of the head teacher, the teaching and support staff and the pupils themselves, with the support of their families. There is now a strong evidence base to show that there is no academy effect—no silver bullet in terms of academy status and school improvement. On the contrary, although the Minister has referred to examples in statistics that he regards as favourable, I would be very interested to hear his response to the Ofsted inspection results up to June this year. Of all schools inspected, the percentage of academies classified as inadequate was 3.4%, covering 3.9% of all pupils. The percentage of maintained schools classified as inadequate was 1.6%, covering 2% of pupils. So there we have it—there are now more pupils in inadequate academies, some 102,847, than in inadequate maintained schools, where there are 98,185. Perhaps the Minister could say when he expects to halve the rate of inadequate academies?

Surely schools should be given the opportunity and time to improve with appropriate support. When a school is issued with a warning notice by a local authority, or is eligible for intervention, the local authority can deploy additional and targeted resources to support the school and improve the education that it provides to its pupils. I agree with the Minister that not enough local authorities have issued warnings; that much we agree on. However, Clause 7 provides no such opportunity before a school is forced into academy status. Under the new system of comparative results, schools can be left in a position whereby, no matter how hard they work and how high the standard of their teaching, their results can fall as grade boundaries change. Grade boundaries are constantly changing and this system can lead to an excellent school being labelled as “coasting”. Has the Minister considered the consequences of this? Will he clarify how the definition of “coasting”, which we now hear will go out to consultation, will work alongside this new system of comparative results?

In practice, the Bill will simply fast-track many more so-called underachieving schools into academy chains and create a new label to stigmatise them and their staff and pupils with the toxic notion of coasting schools. There is a grave danger that this Bill will create a situation in disadvantaged areas where schools are simply unable to attract head teachers and teachers, because the chances of these schools being found wanting and forced into an academy chain are so great, with the implicit stigmatisation of their staff. Why are this Government so ready to demonise teachers and teaching staff? Many work long hours with insufficient resources yet feel they receive scant recognition of this when they have to suffer attacks on their profession.

The coalition Government opened the door to academies and free schools employing unqualified teaching staff. Yes, there are teacher shortages, but there are doctor shortages, too. Can we anticipate this Government introducing the concept of well-meaning amateurs being allowed to “give it a go” in our hospitals? Obviously not—but the analogy is not as facetious as it may appear. Doctors save lives, and while teachers do not give life, they provide the tools to young people to make the most of their own lives—a priceless gift that every single one has a right to expect. Any Government serious about school improvement would reverse the foolhardy decision to invite unqualified staff to teach, virtually without restriction. Every child and young person deserves, and every parent has the right to expect, nothing less than that teaching should be delivered by a qualified teacher at all times. The most successful countries, from the Far East to Scandinavia, are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession. These countries have demanding initial teacher education programmes which require successful completion in order to enter into the profession. They also generally have Governments who demonstrate that they value, rather than denigrate, the profession.

The Bill is a backward step for democracy in education and in society as a whole. Parents, governors and local authorities are all to be stripped of long-established roles and responsibilities. As things stand, the Academies Act 2010 requires the governing body of a school to consult parents before the school is converted into an academy. The Education and Adoption Bill would remove these requirements when a school is told that it must become an academy because it has been deemed failing or coasting. This denies parents and staff their only reasonable opportunity to be involved in what can be a fundamental change to the ethos of their school. That attack on basic parental rights has no place in a democracy, and these clauses should be removed.

Currently when a school is issued with a warning notice, the school’s governing body has an opportunity to respond. The Bill seeks to remove that right. Too often, schools struggle to attract sufficient governors. What sort of incentive is it to those considering serving their community to be told that, should a warning notice about their school’s performance be issued, the governors will be denied even the opportunity to respond by outlining their plans for improvement?

There is no signal from the Government that the Bill will include provision for academy chains to be inspected by Ofsted in the same way as local authorities are inspected, something that the Education Select Committee, many unions and Ofsted have called for. When Ofsted has inspected groups of schools in individual chains, it has made serious criticisms of a number of high-profile chains.

Clauses 8 and 9 must be struck from the Bill, so that parents, governors and school staff can remain included in the process of improving their school. But we have been here before. Consultation was missing from the original draft of the Academies Bill in 2010. The strength of feeling in both Houses and across the parties saw the Government bow to common sense and insert clauses on consultation. What has changed in five years? I hope the Minister is not going to seek refuge by telling us that that was during a coalition Government and the Liberal Democrats forced his party to concede the point. We shall see.

These clauses signify throwing into reverse previous statements made by major government players. In a debate on the Localism Bill in January 2011, Nicky Morgan, now Secretary of State for Education, said:

“I particularly welcome clause 102, which requires developers to consult local communities before submitting planning application for certain developments”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/1/11; col. 642.]

So in the eyes of the Secretary of State it is appropriate to consult communities on planning issues, but not on major changes to their schools.

Even more tellingly, in light of the centralisation inherent in this Bill, in an article on shifting power to local people and local institutions in February 2009 a leading Tory wrote this:

“When one-size-fits-all solutions are dispensed from the centre, it’s not surprising they so often fail local communities. When people experience a yawning gap between the changes they want to see and those they can directly affect, it is inevitable that demoralisation and democratic disengagement follow.

The Conservative party wants nothing less than radical decentralisation … There are plans to give people a much greater say over issues that affect their daily lives”.

Those were the words of the then leader of the Opposition, David Cameron.

Collective amnesia seems to have afflicted the current Cabinet, with state education and its stakeholders paying the price. The Bill’s major measures can lead only to the powers and voices of local communities—governing bodies, democratically accountable local authorities, parents or school staff—being diminished.

We shall deal in detail in Committee with the question of so-called coasting schools. The Government did not even have a definition of coasting schools when the Bill was published. Now, as we heard, it is going out to consultation, but we know that it relies solely on performance data, taking no account of individual circumstances. Of course, no two schools are the same. Without doubt, this categorisation will impact disproportionately on schools with more socially disadvantaged pupils, perversely those in most need of assistance.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the coasting label would apply only to maintained schools, although many academies are likely to fulfil the criteria that have now been laid down. What plans do the Government have to deal with academies that are coasting? The term “coasting” cannot apply; academy chains cannot be inspected by Ofsted and successful local authorities are not allowed to oversee failing academies in their area. That raises the question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? If we are told that academy status is all that is required to turn around a coasting school, what if that does not succeed? Is a new sponsor sought? We look to the Minister to provide the answer to that conundrum.

Unfortunately, adoption is the poor relation in this Bill, but we welcome the measures to increase the supply of adoptive parents and prevent children remaining longer than necessary in the care system. We are, however, concerned that superregional consortiums may limit the role of small specialised voluntary adoption agencies, which often cater for mixed race and special needs groups.

We do not believe that adoption should be elevated above long-term fostering, special guardianship or other models of care. What matters most is what is in the best interests of the individual child. Adoption brings many positive outcomes to the lives of children, but it should be borne in mind that adoption is the right outcome for only a minority who end up in care. For many of those children, fostering or residential care may be more appropriate, and the full range of options should always be considered.

There are also concerns about the current state of the adoption system. There has been a substantial decline in the number of adoption decisions and placement orders, with a drop of more than 50% on both measures in the past year. That will take some time to have an impact on the number of children who actually end up being adopted, but that impact is clearly going to be considerable, and not in a positive way.

Voluntary adoption agencies play a key role, yet despite government support over the past few years they are struggling for survival. Many are reducing the size of their social work teams as the proportion of adoption work that was done by voluntary agencies decreases. In some areas, local authorities, despite clear direction from government, exclude them from discussions. It is not clear how voluntary adoption agencies will play a part in the proposed new regional structures while retaining their individual independence and how funding arrangements will support their activity.

I hope the Minister will find time in his closing remarks to demonstrate that some consideration will be given to those important issues, on which it is our intention to submit amendments in Committee; appropriately, it will commence during National Adoption Week.

Labour is opposed to this Bill because it takes school oversight, parental involvement and support for head teachers backwards. The Government are determined to restrict the measures in the Bill to local authority schools instead of addressing inadequacy wherever it is identified across the system. We will work with Peers on all sides of the House to amend and improve the Bill so that it focuses on the real challenges facing our education system, rather than fixating on a mistaken headlong rush to academisation as the only route to raising standards in our schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate this evening; it has been incredibly valuable. It is very clear that the House is immensely passionate and knowledgeable about education and adoption.

I have heard many helpful points this evening—so many that I have, in fact, entirely rewritten my closing speech in an attempt to answer all the points made. I am sure that I will not manage that—I apologise if I do not—and I hope people understand that, as a result of my rewriting, there may be a certain amount of paper shuffling during my closing remarks.

Most of the opening remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, were nothing to do with the Bill so I will not waste noble Lords’ time by rising to all his comments. However, I will refer to a few. He made a point about the Ofsted ratings for academies versus those for local authority schools, and a similar point was made by the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Touhig. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was very quick to point out that many academies were failing schools that were then taken off local authorities. Academies have a far higher proportion of children receiving free school meals than other schools and, of course, many of these schools are in those sad, sad areas—of which we have too many in this country—of intergenerational unemployment, such as some coastal towns. In such areas, the statistics cannot take account of the drip-drip of negativity that these pupils experience when going home to a household where nobody works and where they know very few people who are in work.

Another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was the question of teacher recruitment. The Labour Party does like to make a crisis out of the perennial challenge of recruiting teachers. The reality is that the teacher vacancy rate has remained stable at about 1% or below for the past 15 years and, on several occasions during the last Labour Government, was higher than it is now. However, I will write to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about our teacher recruitment strategy.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, had certain concerns about voluntary adoption agencies. Personally, I think the fact that 140 of 152 local authorities have bid for the regional support fund shows the enthusiasm with which local authorities are embracing this approach.

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that the interests of all children will be critical to what lies behind the regional adoption agencies. Concerning her more general remarks about children in care, I reply that under the last Parliament we took many steps to improve the support for looked-after children. This included £99 million in funding through the Pupil Premium Plus grant, a new duty on local authorities to appoint a virtual school head, strengthening quality standards for residential settings and launching a cross-government strategy for care leavers. At the moment, we are looking at how we might build on this and do more to support care leavers, particularly those not in education.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, spoke about the democratic deficit caused by removing consultation when a school becomes an academy. What we on this side of the House are concerned about is the education deficit that takes place in failing schools by the frequent exploitation of the democratic process and the fact that it takes, on average, a year for a failing school to become a sponsored academy. This is often because of roadblocks put in the way by dogmatic influences and people putting the interests of adults ahead of those of children.

We heard from my noble friend Lord Harris, whose academy group is one of our top-performing sponsors. I pay tribute to the remarkable achievements of his group and the thousands of children’s lives that he has improved as a result. When the Harris Federation took over the failing school Downhills, opponents tried to block the change through judicial reviews and various other tactics—they even made a film about their opposition. However, their attempts failed. Members of the Harris Federation did not let this deter them. This was not a popularity contest but something that was absolutely needed to help the children of Downhills.

In my experience, it took almost two years for the Pimlico Academy to open as a sponsored academy from the point at which it was judged to have special measures. The transformation was delayed by various objectors. People resorted to tactics that included consistently lying about us in the press, lying to pupils about our plans, breaking into my office, finding someone who had no real interest in the project but who qualified for legal aid to front up a judicial review application all the way to the Court of Appeal—all the applications along the way were thrown out fairly quickly by judges at huge cost to the public purse—and even resorting to having Pimlico pupils lying in coffins on the pavement so that my wife and I had to step over them on the way to a meeting. This was all done to further the interests of adults and for petty dogmatic principles rather than worrying about the education of pupils. These delays cost hundreds of children lost educational opportunities, yet when after just two years, which was a record time, the school was transformed from special measures to outstanding, many of the same people asked to become the friends of Pimlico Academy. Also, while many of the original teachers had left, many others stayed. Others who had objected to the original proposals were lifted by the oxygen of success and have now transformed their own performance.

I am big enough and ugly enough to put up with the kind of nonsense we experienced at Pimlico, but I do not see why other sponsors should. More importantly, as the Secretary of State for Education has said on a number of occasions, a day spent in a special measures school is a day too long for the pupils in that school. Parents do not want their children in a failing school, and that is why we are bringing in proposals to speed up the process by which failing schools become sponsored academies.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, it is all very well for the Minister to blow his own trumpet, and I am glad that he has had success in Pimlico. But he is using that and other arguments to say that, if democracy is too much of an inconvenience, we can just set it aside. Is that what this country is really about?

[Lord Nash]

Consistent with our manifesto pledge and the Queen’s Speech, we are bringing forward proposals in this Bill, if it is passed, whereby in certain circumstances a school will become an academy, and we feel that there should be no delays in that. All too frequently there are delays.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

Yes—

[Lord Nash]

Yes to what?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

So democracy can be suspended when it is an inconvenience.

[Lord Nash]

No, democracy can be suspended where it is in the interests of the children. Rather than us proposing a democratic deficit, we are seeking to stop the abuse of the democratic process that takes place by vested interests. In addition to Downhills and Pimlico causing vast loss of educational opportunities, delays happened in the cases of The Warren, Camden Juniors, Twydall Primary, Roke, Bydales, Eton Porny, Manor Primary and many, many others.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, expressed their views about the inspection of academy chains. I agree that it is critical that multi-academy trusts are held to account for their performance. At his most recent appearance before the Education Select Committee, the Chief Inspector of Education, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was clear that the current arrangements, whereby Ofsted can inspect batches of schools within an academy trust at the same time, are appropriate. The Government do not consider that Ofsted should have an additional role in judging a trust’s central functions or operating model. As part of its assurance role, the Education Funding Agency already assesses the financial and governance arrangements of academy trusts to ensure that they are operating in line with the Academies Financial Handbook and the terms of their funding agreement. A point was made about parents. Through our free schools programme, parents are driving this and free schools are more accountable to parents than any other kind of school. Parents have often fought for the development of a school of a certain type or with a certain ethos.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who cut swiftly to the chase in his speech. I was impressed with his concept of pace and impatience because it is the feeling of pace and impatience which characterises our most successful sponsors. Regional schools commissioners will identify as soon as possible those schools which are coasting, seeking to bring about change for the better as quickly as possible. The five years he referred to of course include two years of history which have already passed, and sadly we cannot put the clock back. As far as his comments about IT are concerned, I wholly agree with the importance of this area in helping to assess the progress and attainment of pupils, and in identifying those pupils who are not being properly served.

I pay particular tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his work in the Diocese of Ely Multi-Academy Trust; he knows that I share his interest in the importance of character development. I also share his concerns about consistency of practice, and I hope that the Schools Causing Concern guidance will provide considerable clarity on this. I also look forward to working with him on refreshing the memorandum of understanding that we have with church schools. We had a helpful meeting this morning and I will work with him to ensure that we achieve the consistency that he desires. The right reverend Prelate succinctly summarised the importance of school-to-school support, as did the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made an extremely eloquent maiden speech and I welcome him to your Lordships’ House. I had the very great pleasure of meeting him for the first time this morning and sharing some thoughts. I am delighted that he has become the chair of the David Ross Education Trust, which sponsors more than 30 academies. I am sure that the trust will benefit greatly from his involvement.

During the last Parliament we created hundreds of local multi-academy trusts based around one local outstanding school and we focused national chains on local hubs. It is acknowledged that the best way to improve failing schools is through local school-to-school support. The Government believe that the evidence is clear that the best way to provide such support—the most rigorous, the most permanent, the most efficient and the most accountable support—is through a multi-academy trust. People who run multi-academy trusts, some of whom were very against academies in the first place, talk glowingly about their advantages: a sense of being in control of their own destiny; the ability to retain staff they know they would have lost if they were running only one school; the career development opportunities through the ability to move staff around schools; the enhanced CPD opportunities; the ability to finance far higher-quality people; the economies of scale achieved through purchasing efficiencies, standardisation of assessment, and many more.

We now have enough multi-academy trusts performing really well to know that there is a gold standard out there to which all can aspire. This has been recognised by many commentators, including the Sutton Trust. People such as Outwood Grange, REAch2, Harris, the Inspiration Trust and smaller groups such as WISE and Tudhoe are setting the bar really high. With strong oversight from the RSCs, we will ensure that poor performing groups up their game, and the RSCs are holding many events where strongly performing groups such as Outwood Grange share their experiences and methodology. Outwood Grange’s record is superb. It has been holding a series of roadshows around the country and it has put its entire school improvement methodology on to a memory stick. We want to do far more of this kind of development. The Sutton Trust has said that the best academy chains are outperforming and some are substantially outperforming. The job of the regional schools commissioners and my job is to spread good practice and intervene in failure so that all groups raise their game towards the standards of the very good, and this Bill is about helping them to do that.

I was very interested to hear that my noble friend Lady Eaton is a trustee of the Sir Simon Milton Foundation because Sir Simon was a truly great man whose ambitions for the academy programme and for the children of Westminster were enormous. He was also extremely courageous. I am grateful for her words of support in relation to our adoption proposals because I know that she is extremely experienced in that field.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, spoke eloquently on a number of points. I am always very interested to hear her remarks because she is always worth listening to. We had many constructive discussions during the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, and this is our first discussion since then. I have to say that I have missed her. I agree entirely that structure is not the be-all and end-all. What really matters is what is taught in the classroom and how. She also talked about the advantages of collaboration. We believe that the freedoms provided by academy status in a MAT structure as I have just outlined are the best way to ensure such collaboration. Why do we need a power to issue our own warning notices when we can direct local authorities to do so? Unless a school is in category 4, it is because the regime that follows the warning notice is entirely at the discretion of the local authority. As Ofsted has reported, there are many examples where local authorities’ use of warning notices has been found wanting.

On the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Morris, about the only route out of failure being academies, I must respond by saying no. As I said in my opening remarks, we may well encourage many schools to stop coasting by using NLEs and seeking support from other schools which may not be academies, and as far as devolution is concerned, we see the regional schools commissioners and their elected head teacher boards as giving control over the school system to school leaders. On co-operating with other areas of the school system, we have a very good model in Birmingham through the Birmingham Education Partnership under Sir Mike Tomlinson, which is across all sectors.

The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, talked about the capacity of regional schools commissioners. I can assure her that we will be very focused on the capacity that they have and on the capacity of sponsors. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Northbourne, talked about the coasting definition. On 30 June, the Government published illustrative regulations setting out how we propose to define coasting. This sets out the database definition which will be used to identify coasting schools. As I have said previously, this is focused particularly on secondaries and will be increasingly focused on Progress 8. I was very pleased to hear the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about that, as we move away from what Tristram Hunt called the “great crime” of the C/D borderline. Shortly, we will launch a consultation on this definition and the Schools Causing Concern guidance, setting out how we propose that RSCs will tackle failing coasting schools. I reassure the House that this document and the consultation will be available for Peers to scrutinise during Committee stage.

This Bill is about schools causing concern but a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Morris, raised points about the performance of converter academies; that is, schools which are approved to become academies without a sponsor. The latest data from Ofsted show that almost 90% of converter academies are good or outstanding, which is a greater percentage than local authority maintained schools. The latest primary and secondary school results also show that the performance of converter academies is continuing to rise. In particular, secondary converter academies have improved their performance by double the rate seen in maintained schools.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about teacher retention. Almost 90% of teachers continue in the profession following their first year of teaching. This rate has remained stable since 2006. Recent reports suggesting a 40% leave ratio are completely inaccurate. Almost 75% of new teachers are still in the profession after five years. More than half of teachers who qualified in 1996 were still teaching 18 years later. The proportion of the teacher workforce that leaves each year has remained low over recent years. Just 10% of those teaching in 2013 were no longer in the workforce in 2014. Teacher retention has remained stable over time with very little variation over 10 years. I am delighted to arrange for the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to visit a sponsored academy soon.

As regards governing bodies and parents, all academies and multi-academy trust boards must have two parents on them. My noble friend Lady Perry talked about leadership, which is incredibly important. We have developed the future leaders MAT CEO course, which the department sponsored across 24 CEOs. This is being rolled out with 30 more going on the course this month and 30 next month. I am delighted that the Church of England is developing its own leadership development programme, which is so important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, talked about mental health support for children in care. All children and young people deserve to grow up feeling safe and supported, and the Government are committed to improving the mental health of the most vulnerable. I assure noble Lords that the Government are determined to deliver the transformation we need to see if we are genuinely to improve children’s mental health. We are working across government departments to respond to the challenges set out in the Future in Mind report. The Department of Health has identified £1.25 billion to improve mental health services for children, young people and new mothers over the next five years.

It is vital that we provide the best possible start in life for every child. That is why we are here today and why we need these reforms. The measures in this Bill are essential to ensuring high standards of education across the country and permanent loving homes for some of our most vulnerable children. I know that Members of this House have considerable expertise and have passionate views on how we should tackle these issues, which has been shown by tonight’s debate. I also know we agree on the objective that lies at the heart of the Bill and that every Member of this House has high expectations for our children.

The Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to real social justice and making a real difference to giving children the chance to aim for a brighter future. We have heard so many noble Lords speaking passionately about their own journey. This is an ambition which I am sure is shared by all who are here tonight. I look forward to debating this Bill further and I hope that all noble Lords who are interested will accept my invitation, which I will issue shortly, to attend a meeting on 2 November at 3 pm to meet with some regional schools commissioners and chief executives of academy trusts. Some noble Lords in particular might find that helpful.

I commend this Bill and I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.