Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part two
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate, with education being such a central and critical service to a well-functioning society. Before I continue with my remarks, perhaps I may say that I agree entirely—unusually for me—with the noble Lord, Lord Baker. Less unusually, I also agree with everything that my noble friend Lord Hunt said.

It is a reasonable hope and expectation that an education system will result in people who are critical thinkers and able to present arguments on a clear and reliable evidence base, yet for the third time since 6 April this year, I find myself having to challenge the so-called evidence-led case for a fully trust-led system. I do not in any way impugn the integrity of the Minister, but I hope that on this occasion she will recognise and acknowledge that the UK Statistics Authority and the Office for Statistics Regulation have agreed with the challenge to the government document made by the National Education Union. On transparency, they say:

“It is not always possible to identify the exact data that have been used to produce analysis in the document. Where data are referred to in the text, links to the sources of data should be clearly set out and enable users to easily find the specific data referenced. Our expectations are outlined in our transparency guidance.”


On quality, they say:

“Insufficient information has been included on the methodologies used to produce the novel statistics presented in the document. In addition, the limitations of these methodologies and the implications that these would have on the fairness of the comparisons being drawn have not been fully explained to users. The Department for Education should include clear information on the methodologies and associated caveats so that users can draw reliable conclusions.”


Finally, on replicability, they say:

“The limited transparency around the data sources and methods means that it is difficult for users to replicate the figures presented and to draw their own conclusions. The Department for Education should ensure that sufficient information is included in the document so that users are able to easily replicate the statistics.”


That is a damning position to have taken, and I hope that the Government will have learned from it.

Much has already been said about what is missing from the Bill, but even where there are specifics, as in relation to the expectation that all schools will be in MATs, the talk of the minimum of 7,500 pupils or of MATs running at least 10 schools is a significant problem. Given that only 20% of schools are currently in a MAT of that scale, it is clear that what is proposed would involve large-scale consolidation, mergers and expansion without sufficient evidence to support the value of such disruptive change.

There is, of course, the democratic deficit in the MAT system on both governance and admissions. On admissions, this Bill could be the opportunity to ensure that place planning and admissions are administered and delivered in a fairer and more inclusive manner. The local authority would be the appropriate body to deal with this.

On governance, while the Government have said that all trusts should have local governance arrangements, the fact sheet accompanying the Bill says that

“regulations may introduce some new standards for the benefit of schools and pupils for example, in relation to the handling of complaints and local governance arrangements.”

There is no mention of parents or of the wider school community. Clearly, the best and fairest way to ensure local governance and accountability in MATs is to reinstate local governing bodies for individual academies to include parents, staff and the community—and, I would say, students too—in order to ensure involvement in representation.

I will say just a brief word about funding, which remains a significant problem for the majority of schools. The Education Policy Institute said:

“Through the NFF and subsequent initiatives such as ‘levelling-up’ school funding, the government has weakened the link between funding and need.”


Surely that is a critical link. While there have been large differences in funding across schools and local authorities, recent policies have meant that pupils from more affluent areas are attracting larger increases in funding rates compared with those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Where is the social justice in that?

Finally, I shall say just a word about faith schools and grammar schools, which will have their characteristics protected, as I understand it, in this Bill. But what about stand-alone academies if they are forced to move from a secular ethos to a faith ethos in order to be involved in a MAT? That seems to me to be a completely unreasonable position.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, when my noble friend replies, could she explain to us how the matters that have been discussed proceed from the last Conservative Party manifesto and how they emanate from Conservatism, which abhors nationalisation and delights in diversity?

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I will add to the question of “academies or maintained schools”. During the coalition Government, when Secretaries of State, often from the party opposite, talked about visiting schools and praised schools, they were always academies. I would like to find an example where they praised a maintained school, but I cannot remember a Secretary of State praising a maintained school. That is a problem because, while we may all accept at this stage that there is a rather unfortunate arrangement of different types of governance, contracts, and so on, if all we ever hear is that academies have saved everything and are brilliant, then it does not do anything at all for schools which have been and are successful and which have chosen in good faith with their community, parents and student body, to remain with their local authority and with democratic oversight.

I am not engaging in this argument by saying “Everything on this side is good; everything on this side is bad”. But I do say that I never once, for example, heard Michael Gove when he was at the DfE, in public or private conversation, praise a maintained school. That is a problem because clearly lots of young people are being educated in academies now, but equally there are still a lot of young people being educated in maintained schools. In fact, all young people in Wales are being educated in maintained schools—obviously not the ones in the private sector; I mean those who are being educated by the state. My noble friend Lord Knight talked about having been in Orkney and reflecting on this legislation. In Scotland, there are no academies, so we are an outlier in England, and it is regrettable.

I want us to think about this and, when we come to this debate, try not to always bring a particular prejudice about a particular style of school. Of course, we all want every school to be successful for every single child, but we have always wanted that, whether they were academies or maintained schools. I hope that, as this debate progresses, we will not hear any more about “This is always good” and “That is always bad”. It does not do us any favours in this Committee, and it certainly does not do any favours for our colleagues who are teachers and other education professionals—or indeed for young people being educated.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I intervene in what has been a wide-ranging debate. I must admit that I have felt increasing sympathy for the Minister. I do not think I have seen anybody quite so surrounded in this Chamber, with the only possible line of vague hope coming from the Opposition Benches. This is an odd Bill that we have got ourselves into.

The discussion about the philosophy of schools and how they are organised is one that will colour this debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Baker, put his finger on the essential thing here: we have a Government who have given themselves the capacity to change how things operate at the drop of a hat. That is it—“We can tell you how it should be.” The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, started on that. It is worth remembering —I hope those on the Conservative Benches will remember—that nobody is guaranteed to be in power for ever. Some appalling person in the Labour Party or some evil Liberal Democrat may one day be making these regulations. It could happen. We can argue about when it will happen or whether it will happen, but the tide of history is that eventually everybody changes. Therefore, we should have some capacity here for checking what goes on.

Taking out the first 18 clauses was the radical surgery proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Baker—cutting out the rotten bit. It looks increasingly attractive to me and, I suspect, to quite a lot of Members on his Benches. Two major reports from this House have come out and said that this is bad. They are Henry VIII clauses. Henry VIII may have inspired a very good musical recently but, in parliamentary terms, he is not seen as an example of good governance. He is stamped all over this from start to finish. If we are going to allow this to happen, a lot of us might as well pack up and go home. If any Secretary of State in any department—it starts with Education—gets away with it here, it will happen somewhere else. We might as well not be here. The amendment that I have put forward is one answer to this, but it would not be a complete answer; it is merely a way of saying that there are limits—that is, what is put down here must be what we are talking about. If it comes back to this, I would still, shall we say, judiciously prune that list, but that is what we are talking about in this Bill.

The educational merits of various types of school system are interesting and important, but let us concentrate on this bit first. A Secretary of State can wake up in the morning and change a system. I am not sure how we are going to get down to this—there is a lot of Clause 1 to go through—but this is the backdrop to it all. I hope that the Minister can say, as she has told me in meetings before, that the Government are in listening mode; I know she is trying to make things work. My challenge to the Minister on this occasion is: how good is her hearing? How much capacity does she have to tell people that they should change, should put some limitations on this and should allow discussion in Parliament and elsewhere to get at this. If we do not, I am afraid we are going to a very strange and unpleasant place.

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[Lord Nash (Con)]

Although I share some of the noble Lord’s concerns about simplifying the regulatory system, as a lawyer—and, I admit, an academy sponsor—I struggle with the concept of producing legislation that overrides contracts that have been negotiated between the Government, proprietors and trusts unless absolutely necessary. The officials might say that they do not understand them because there are so many of them. Frankly, I think that they should. They are not that different. The trusts certainly understand their own individual contracts.

Before the Government seek to overturn these agreements and add a vast array of powers to them, they need to explain precisely why that is necessary, as a number of noble Lords have said. I believe that the DfE already has sufficient and substantial intervention powers and that these clauses are therefore unnecessary. As we go through the Bill clause by clause, I will articulate why I think the Government already have the powers and they need just to use them where necessary.

The MAT sector is in good shape. As my noble friend Lord Baker said, the number of cases where the DfE feels it now needs to intervene is extremely small, and the kitchen sink approach in the Bill seems like a sledgehammer/nut situation. However, if we can be satisfied that any of these clauses or something like them are necessary—it is clear that there is consensus for this across the House—we are prepared to work with the Government to craft them appropriately, but we need time to do so.

The Minister mentioned that when I took the Children and Families Bill through your Lordships’ House in 2014, we added free school meals. We had to do that because they were not covered by funding agreements. Much of what is in the Bill is already covered by funding agreements, so the Government need to explain why they need to bring in a lot of these clauses.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I find myself following the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I wanted to say that it was a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, but it is equally a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I have very little to say on the report since it has been covered fully by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I say in passing that the wisdom and clarity of the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, was a very good contribution to the debate.

As we have heard from all sides of the Committee, the extremely long, but apparently inexhaustive, list in Clause 1 appears to be overreach at an extraordinary level. As was said at Second Reading and earlier today, it is really a power grab by the DfE without any real understanding of what the purpose of all these things then residing with the Secretary of State would be. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, they are things that have never been seen. It is remarkable. It would be remarkable for school governors and staff to think that head teachers were going to be appointed in Sanctuary Buildings. It seems so remarkable as to beggar belief. These are unacceptable propositions.

As I thought about speaking today, I reflected that when I started teaching in the early 1970s, we thought of and talked about education as a national service locally delivered. That is what I would like to continue to see it as. I think all noble Lords would agree that the aspiration of the education service in England should be a good local school for every child. That seems to chime both with the title of the White Paper, Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for your Child, and with the SEND Review: Right Support Right Place Right Time—it does not say local, but it has that sense of local.

Where is the local dimension in Clause 1? It is absent. It resides with the Secretary of State. Some matters are best dealt with at national level—my noble friend Lord Knight referred to one—such as remuneration, salaries, conditions of service, pensions and so on. That means that there would be coherence across teaching and education staff nationally, which has massive advantages because it means that teachers are free to move around the country and take their expertise from one place to another. In particular, when thinking about women teachers, it means that they do not have to worry when they move from one school to another about what their situation might be with, for example, access to maternity leave and maternity pay. However, if all these things are different, as they are at the moment, that is a significant problem. Clearly there are things which would be better done at national level, although it is my contention that salaries, pensions and conditions of service would be much better done through a framework of sectoral collective bargaining rather than by being imposed by the Secretary of State.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

No, my Lords, nor do I; I think it would work much better in that sort of way. The Government are good at making declaratory statements such as, “We’re going to do this: we’re going to abolish the sale of petrol engine cars in 2030”. We all know how effective that sort of statement can be. What is the difficulty if the Government were to say, “We are going for this sort of process; we’re going to have a period of consultation; it will end on this date; it’ll be in a Bill in Parliament in a year’s time, and that’s how it’s going to be worked out”? They would get exactly the same process as is envisaged by my noble friend Lady Penn—

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I intervene briefly to say that an enormous amount of work could and should be done on the curriculum. The fact is that we are into the 21st century, and fantastic work is being done by educators all over the place about how we best educate our young people for the best possible outcomes. Yet, we have this odd divide between the schools that have to do the national curriculum and those that do not.

As my noble friend Lady Morris said, we should look at what the entitlements and requirements of an educated society are in order to rise to the challenges we obviously face as we move forward. Those should be things that are available to all young people. There might well be an argument for saying that those schools that are currently maintained schools but are required to do every last detail of the national curriculum might flourish more if they had some of those curriculum freedoms. So there is a big advantage to being able to talk in the round about our vision for what educated young people would be when they leave our education system. After all, there is common agreement now that young people will stay in school until they are 18 or 19. Gone are the days when they would leave at 16. There is such a lot to gain from having a much broader discussion about what an entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum actually looks like, not just for the good of the individual but for the good of society at large.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Yes, my Lords, and I imagine that we will have it as a part of the process of deciding how to turn maintained schools into academies. There is a really important debate to be had on where we should be resting, and I look forward to it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, it is interesting to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, because I do not entirely agree with her characterisation of what is going on in schools. I believe that there is a level of mental distress among our children and young people. I am sure it was exacerbated by the pandemic but I think it has been there for a very long time.

I was originally going to stand up only to say that there are lots of things schools can do in response to this issue without pathologising it, which is of course not desirable; I absolutely would not want that to happen. I do not really see that characterisation of schools becoming full of therapists. Frankly, all of our teachers’ time is taken up with doing the stuff that Ofsted tells them they must do, without also being therapists.

However, it is really important that we have extremely well-staffed CAMHS available to all our schools because it is perfectly clear that teachers cannot diagnose actual mental illness. Nor should they—that is not their role at all—but nor can they necessarily decide what level of intervention needs to be made by either them or anybody else if they think that a child has some kind of mental health difficulty. I would be happy for CAMHS to be not just a place to which children go—incidentally, if they are late for their first meeting, they sometimes do not get a second one because CAMHS are so busy—but a facility available to teachers not to deal with their own mental health but to make a proper, professional decision about whether a child is in some kind of mental health distress. The fact is that teachers are not trained or equipped to deal with this, but we are seeing quite a lot of it.

So I do not disagree with everything the noble Baroness said, but I do think there is a pronounced role for CAMHS and that, in most of the areas with which I am familiar, they are not sufficiently well staffed and resourced to ensure that they can respond to teachers’ issues and directly, face to face, to young people’s issues.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 22 and 37 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Chapman.

This group of amendments covers the other side of the argument—the matters for which the Secretary of State should be compelled to set standards to ensure the highest possible educational experiences for our children and young people. We have heard admirable intent from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and others around mental health, SEND and extracurricular activities. Education should not and cannot be just about grades; the whole needs of the child must be considered.

I spent the vast majority of my teaching career working in areas that were not central to the dictates of the national curriculum: the performing arts and creative subjects that gave a wealth of support and experience to children’s learning. Above all, the pupils enjoyed what they were doing, which enhanced their learning and their overall mental and physical health. I have former pupils who have graced West End stages, both front and back of house, and I am very proud of them; but I have hundreds who are not in the entertainment business and who always remind me of their enjoyment of drama lessons and their roles in school productions when they see me in person or via social media.

At lunchtime today, I spent half an hour in our education centre with a group of year 12 pupils from a school in Edgeware. One of the many interesting and searching questions they asked me was, what drives me as a politician and what do I stand for? I was able to say to them, very honestly, that my public service has always been about them—children and young people—and ensuring that they get the best possible start in life with the highest-quality teaching and learning across the whole of the UK, in all our nations and regions.

It was good to be back in a room full of engaging and inquisitive minds on a Wednesday afternoon. I would not want to do it every Wednesday, but it was very good to be back with year 12 again. The teacher texted me afterwards to say how much they had enjoyed it and how much they had revised their view of what the Lords is—so I hope that I did some good for us all—and that they saw that politics can be a force for good, despite the current world view of us here in Westminster.

Our proposal of powers to set standards for work experience and mental health, at the same time as us tabling limits on the Secretary of State’s powers, speaks to the inherent contradiction in this Bill that we are working around. The Government have not put in the Bill the outcomes that they are looking for, whether benign or otherwise. If they settle on imposing standards on academies, that is one thing, but if so they should include these on work experience and health. The Government have given us a vague list of standards which the Secretary of State “may” regulate for. We are flying blind and attempting today to fill in the gaps as best we can. If the Government are intent on this sweeping approach, it is imperative that these issues are included, but we would prefer a strong list of standards that the Secretary of State must regulate around, and using a narrow list already identified in existing education legislation would be helpful to teachers and the Secretary of State alike.

To reiterate, we want the best for our children and young people. That is why we say in Labour’s Children’s Recovery Plan that we would deliver breakfast clubs and new activities for every child, quality mental health support in every school, small-group tutoring for all who need it—not just 1%—continued development for teachers, an education recovery premium and, as we have already done with a Labour Government in Wales, we would ensure that no child goes hungry, by extending free school meals over the holidays, including the summer break. That is a definite set of policies, not a vague list as identified in the Bill.

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[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to Amendments 23, 24, 25 and 27, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 26, which, alas, I overlooked but with which I absolutely agree. I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the APPG for Parental Participation in Education. The bulk of these amendments are obviously about the role that parents could and should have in their children’s schooling. It simply cannot be right that the voice of parents is absent from the fora in which important decisions are made. These amendments provide the opportunity to fill what I hope the Minister will acknowledge is a gap in the Bill.

Amendment 24 sets out the requirement for community engagement to make sure that it is not overlooked but is indeed strategic and effective, supported by the requirement in Amendment 26 for a parental council, for which I am sure all noble Lords would like to thank my noble friend Lord Knight.

Amendment 25 deals with local governance in the round to ensure that each constituent academy of a MAT has a local governing body, to which at least two parent governors should be elected. This seems to me an absolutely basic and essential requirement because if these things are done without parents, then when we want their help they will feel on the outside rather than being part of what is going on in those schools.

Amendment 27 is crucial to the local dimension of academies in a MAT. I am bound to say—I have some experience of this because it is going on at the moment—that it is all too easy when an individual school or academy is in the process, with a representative of a MAT, of their school possibly being absorbed into that MAT for it to be told in response to a variety of questions: “Yes, of course, that is an individual school decision.” That comes in response to a range of things that might be asked by parents or indeed staff. The fact is, however, that it is not clear that it necessarily will be an individual school decision, unless there is some requirement for it to be so.

Amendment 27 sets out the requirement that a multi-academy trust must devolve some responsibilities to the governing bodies of individual academies within the trust. That seems only sensible. We heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, that there was a trust with two schools in Norwich, one with presumably a relatively white demographic and one not too far away that was completely different. The noble Lord said that 25 languages were represented, which suggests a slightly different demographic. So of course, it has to be that some of those things are school-level decisions because the constituent schools are different institutions. It is central that local decision-making and engagement should be carried out by that local governing body.

The responsibilities suggested are all specific and ensure that each school within the MAT has the authority to determine, within its own local context, its strategic direction. The parties involved in a particular school would see these responsibilities as entirely appropriate and better held at the individual institution level. One example in particular is

“the professional autonomy of teachers over curriculum and content”.

This is not to say that each individual teacher goes in and does whatever they like; it is about developing curriculum content within the particular context of the school and with other teachers. In a primary school, it would be likely to be the whole school. In a secondary school, it might be at department level. It is logical to protect the professional autonomy of teachers so that they can make choices about curriculum content and, in particular, that they can make some decisions about pedagogy.

Most schools—obviously, I cannot speak for them all—would say that they are proud of their distinctive ethos. It is something all schools say. It is why it was quite appalling that someone once said “bog-standard comprehensive”. There is no such thing; there are schools that have differing ethoses. This amendment would ensure that the enhancement of that ethos would be with the local governing body and would be its responsibility—a local governing body, where all the voices of all the stakeholders would be able to be heard. Taken together, the amendments in this group could provide a significant improvement to what we have heard this evening is not, as it stands, a particularly good Bill.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I will comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the benefits for an outstanding school of moving into a multi-academy trust, given that it is already outstanding. One of the biggest benefits for schools in multi-academy trusts is the career development opportunities for teachers. Lots of multi-academy trusts are now run by people who used to run one school and now run a group of schools. They consistently tell me that, although it did not necessarily occur to them when they got involved in MATs, the best benefit was career development opportunities for teachers. They used to lose all their best staff when they ran one school because they had no career pathway for them. Now they can give them career pathways. They can identify their rising stars and move them around. That is a major benefit.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I had the experience of being a teacher from the early 1970s and what the noble Lord describes in a multi-academy trust is exactly what happened in many local authorities. There were many teachers—for example, primary teachers—who did not particularly want to go into management but had a particularly useful skill to spread around. They could be seconded from their school to the local authority to work in lots of different schools, enhance the skills base of their colleagues and perhaps enhance their own leadership skills. I recognise exactly what the noble Lord is saying, but that was entirely possible in local authorities prior to the MAT arrangements.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly. This amendment is in the spirit of many of the amendments that were moved before. Basically, we need it to see what is coming and get some opportunity for comment. Is the super-affirmative procedure here the same as that for the amendment I moved earlier? No, but it is another way of skinning this particular cat—if one is allowed to use that expression any more.

We must make sure that Parliament sees this and can interact with the process. That is what we are all arguing about here and what has dominated both Part 1 and Clause 1 of the Bill. If the Government accepted something like this amendment or some combination thereof, they would probably have a much easier time of it and rather less excitement in Committee.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, given the lateness of the hour, I will comment but briefly. Notwithstanding that some of us on these Benches have found this a difficult Bill to amend in the way we might have wanted, I hope the Minister can see that, by proposing the super-affirmative procedure, we are seeking a way through so that we can improve the Bill, at least from our perspective, although I hope that, on reflection, the Government might also consider that the Bill will have been improved.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to apply additional procedural requirements to the use of the powers in Clause 1. I have heard again your Lordships’ concerns about the centralisation of power over academies with the Secretary of State but, again, we want to do this so that we have a regulatory system which is more transparent and accountable to Parliament than the one which we currently have.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, invites me to consider carefully the super-affirmative procedure. The spirit of the regulations is that they will be subject to the affirmative procedure each time they are laid, allowing Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise, debate, and vote on them. We recognise the importance of consulting representatives from the sector on regulations and, as I have said before, the Government will always undertake a consultation on the regulations prior to them being laid.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to the report and impact assessment on the exercise of the powers. The Secretary of State will of course consider very carefully the likely and actual impact on academy trusts of any standards set out in the regulations.

Turning to Amendment 83, I say that Clause 1 is not designed to increase burdens on academy trusts, and that includes burdens associated with regulatory compliance. Clause 1(7) allows the conferral of the Secretary of State’s regulatory functions to another person. It is important that we ensure that the right accountability arrangements are in place. In some cases that will be ensured by Ofsted and Ofqual. It is already the case that the Secretary of State can delegate responsibility for some elements of regulatory compliance, such as in relation to the monitoring of exams and other assessments. The provisions in Clause 1(7) ensure that this can continue to happen under the academy standards framework. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I must explain to the Committee that I am not able to give a firm date on that today, but as soon as I am able to, I will update the House.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

In the debate last week, I was delighted to commend the wisdom and clarity of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. If it is impossible for the Minister to say anything more about how this process is going to proceed, she may find herself with requests for any number of meetings with the noble Viscount, but also with any number of people from these Benches, because how we are proceeding does not really seem to be comprehensible or explicable. If we are actually interested in improving things for children and young people through the education system, there is something different we should be doing.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Baroness. I do not think there is much I can add beyond what I have already said, which is to underline that as soon as I can clarify further, I will.

Turning to Amendment 33, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol for moving this amendment on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. As she knows, the Government are a strong supporter of schools provided by the Church of England and by other religious bodies. We believe strongly that they bring great richness and diversity to our school system. That is why we have included measures in the Bill to ensure that statutory protections are in place for academy schools with a religious character, to ensure that their unique powers and freedoms are appropriately safeguarded. The power to designate a school with a religious character is already enshrined in existing legislation. I give a clear commitment that the Government will not use the powers in Clause 3 to affect the designation of academy schools with a religious character.

I appreciate that the right revered Prelate’s concern extends beyond the intentions and commitments of this Government. However, we are committed to ensuring that schools with a religious character remain an important element of our school system in the future. I offer my reassurance that we will give further consideration to ensuring that the powers in Clause 3 could not be used to undermine this.

On Amendment 34A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, I am willing to make a commitment on the Floor of the House to your Lordships that the Government will always undertake a full consultation with representatives from the sector prior to any regulations being laid which exercise the power in Clause 3. Those regulations will also be subject to the affirmative procedure.

On Amendment 35, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman and Lady Wilcox, by removing further education institutions from the scope of this power, we would lose the ability to make these adjustments in relation to 16 to 19 academies, with the possibility that we could introduce complexity to the regulatory framework rather than streamlining it. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment and other noble Lords not to press theirs.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify how special educational needs fits into this picture? I know the Government are currently looking at this area, but it is one that has led to the growth of legal firms to fight a way through the system. It is a failing system. I remind the Committee of my interests in special educational needs, and dyslexia in particular. With dyslexics, for instance, we are discovering that something like 80% of those on that spectrum are not identified within the school system. There is capacity here for a group that exists but we know is not even being spotted. Should we not have some capacity for dealing with the people with these sorts of problems, because we know they are going to come across? This also applies to all the spectrum of non-obvious conditions and hidden difficulties.

If the Minister cannot reply now, when we are looking at this, could she write to us about what the Government’s thinking on this sector is at the moment? It is yet another element when it comes to choosing a school or a school’s willingness to take on a pupil. We know there are people fighting this. As I said, if ever there was a definition of failure, it is that you need lawyers to get your rights. That has to be the classic case. Can the Minister give us an idea of the Government’s thinking about admissions? If you cannot get into a school because it has set criteria, regardless of any formal test or examination, it will change how things work. It will be very interesting to hear what the Minister says about government thinking on this, because it is another factor that will affect this whole process.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly enter this debate on Amendment 35A and the question of whether Clause 28 should stand part. There is a so-called route to school improvement that my noble friend Lady Morris mentioned: you change your intake. It is relatively quick and it is not painless at all for the school, but because of the way our systems work it can be done. But it is immoral and socially unjust. It is not the right way to do things.

The fact that, in a debate, we can even talk about “children whom no one else wants”—which I put in inverted commas, as my noble friend Lady Morris did—is frankly quite appalling, and that is why I am enthusiastic about this Clause 28 stand part debate. My noble friends Lords Hunt and Lord Grocott made excellent speeches, which I hope they will redeploy if we ever get a Second Reading of the Private Member’s Bill I introduced this morning, because they made all the relevant points. I will not repeat them, except to say that the comprehensive principle is essentially about levelling up, because if you have schools choosing parents and children, you have selection for some and rejection for others. Frankly, no education system ought to reject significant numbers of children; they should just not do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

I find myself leading on a whole series of groups: it is slightly challenging, jumping around. This one is about teachers, qualified teacher status and teachers’ pay. It amends Schedule 1, which is about the use of other education legislation, as set out in Clause 3. This would require academies to employ qualified teachers and be subject to Secretary of State guidance on teachers’ pay and conditions as they apply to maintained schools currently. Again, this goes very much to the question: if every school is going to be an academy, what is our vision for teachers, for teaching and for teachers’ pay and conditions?

We know from the evidence—it is really well documented—that good schools are good because they have high teacher quality, and teaching and learning are well led. In a way, it is like Governments—great Ministers well led by the Prime Minister; that is what a good Government might look like one day. If we agree with that evidence around teacher quality, and if we believe in the Government’s reforms of initial teacher training, the early careers framework and national professional qualifications, then we must think that the Government’s emphasis on all that is important and will raise quality. I have some arguments about the reforms of initial teacher training, but the Government are consistent in saying that the reason they want to reform initial teacher training, the reason they want to introduce the early careers framework and have done so, and the reason they have the series of professional qualifications is to raise teacher quality. They must believe in the qualification of teachers to have all that.

In the context of all schools becoming academies, I think parents would be really surprised if they found that this then meant that all schools were no longer subject to having to employ qualified teachers. It would be quite a surprise if that was in the newspapers or wherever it is they get their news. Parents expect their children to be taught by qualified teachers, and mostly that is the case. The vast majority of academies want to employ qualified teachers and do so, so I do not really understand why we would not translate, as we move maintained schools into becoming academies, the requirement that they should employ qualified teachers as well. Of course it is also true that maintained schools can employ unqualified teachers as instructors, so they still have that get-out if they really need it. Indeed, a very long time ago, I worked as an instructor at a sixth-form college in Basingstoke. For me, it is tricky, and I would be interested in any argument that came from others as to why we would not want qualified teachers in our schools.

Then I would argue, as I have sought to do with this amendment by replacing the get-out—on employing qualified teachers—with saying that academies should abide by national pay and conditions, that we should have a coherent labour market for all our teachers, the largest single profession in the world. A coherent labour market for them, working in publicly funded schools, would mean a consistent arrangement for pay and conditions so that they can plan their own careers and are not trapped in a single MAT employer that would have its own career structure and pay structure for them. They would be able to move about and develop their career and professional expertise on the basis of something that is predictable around the country.

For me, this is a no-brainer. I devote a huge amount of my time, pro-bono, to the academies movement, but this is something we need to get right. We should have a very clear policy of having qualified teachers, based on national pay and conditions. I beg to move.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I imagine it will come as no surprise that I support my noble friend Lord Knight. It seems to me that high teacher quality is obviously a critical issue in making sure that we have a well-functioning and successful education system. One of the problems by which we have been beset is that there is no coherence at the moment to the way pay and conditions work across the country—that is, across England.

At Second Reading I probably mentioned that if you are a female teacher, one of the difficulties you have in seeking to move is that you will have no idea what the arrangements are for maternity leave and maternity pay from one employer to another. While I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Nash—who is not in his place at the moment—that multi-academy trusts do seek to have a career structure within themselves, there are many reasons why individual teachers might choose to move, not just within the MAT but to a completely different part of the country. Of course, that might still be part of the same MAT, but that they might choose to move out of the MAT. Being able to have a predictable set of conditions and a predictable pay arrangement is critical.

One thing that has been noticeable over the years is that pay has become much less predictable because MATs have different arrangements. It is not so possible for teachers to be on permanent contracts and to know, for example, that they are in a position to get a mortgage. I imagine most noble Lords would believe that home ownership is something to which a teacher should reasonably be able to aspire, but in many cases it absolutely is not. A national, coherent set of pay and conditions therefore seems perfectly reasonable. I would add that that should be done on the basis of sectoral collective bargaining, but that is not in the amendment. I just like saying “sectoral collective bargaining” because it is the right way for us to run the system. I note, for example, that in Iceland there is no minimum wage because all wages in all sectors are based on sectoral collective bargaining—and that is not uncommon in other countries, too.

Finally, on the question of QTS, before I came into this House one of the things that I did was to work with colleagues in the European region of Education International, the global union federation for all education unions. The European region does not just cover the EU countries; it takes in a significant geographical area beyond that. When the arrangements came in that meant people could teach in England without QTS, it was a single thing that my colleagues in many other countries—including Scotland—were absolutely astounded should be happening in this country.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 41 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey, I will speak also to Amendments 77, 79A and 95. Amendment 41 is aimed at ensuring that schools within a multi-academy trust must be within a similar geographical area rather than spread across the country.

It is important for the close working of schools across neighbourhoods. I recall the noble Lord, Lord Nash, saying on the first day of Committee that one of the advantages of multi-academy trusts as opposed to maintained schools was that they enabled the speedy movement of teaching staff from one academy to another. But, of course, if the academies are located right across the country, it makes it very difficult indeed for that kind of movement of staff actually to happen. The issue is one of accountability and transparency. It is much easier for parents and local communities if multi-academy trusts are located reasonably close to each other, as occurs now, for example, with co-operative trusts.

The amendment talks in terms of the Secretary of State having to be certain

“that the geographical spread of the Academy schools that would be in the care of that proprietor is appropriate”.

It is things such as the number of schools in the care of that proprietor and whether the number of pupils registered at each school is such that the total number is felt to be appropriate. Then, of course, there is whether a majority of the schools would be primary schools or secondary schools. Clearly, there has been a tendency for academies to be concentrated in the secondary sector. My question to the Minister is: what is the overall structure planned in terms of the geographical spread of multi-academy trusts and what limitations might be placed on that?

Amendment 77 requires the Secretary of State to report on the powers of autonomy available to academies and to assess whether such autonomy should be available to maintained schools. The issue is one of a level playing field. Why can academies have much greater powers than maintained schools may be able to have; for example, on issues such as the ability to set term dates, admissions criteria, the ability to depart from the national curriculum and staffing arrangements? The question that we are posing to the Minister is why similar powers of autonomy do not lie with the maintained schools sector. Of course, the date by which the Government would like all maintained schools to have transferred to academy status is still eight years from now, so I think the point is relevant.

Amendment 79A relates to the problem that college groups that sponsor multi-academy trusts have. They face technical barriers that impede them from operating an optimal service. This amendment is intended to enable colleges, academies and multi-academy trusts to work together in a more coherent, efficient and effective manner. I suspect that the Minister may well be aware of the problem but the barriers that exist can include DfE rules that make it harder for an academy and a college to jointly appoint senior staff or rules requiring the academy to put every contract out to tender, even those involving joint services with their partner college. As an example, it can make it harder for colleges and academies jointly to secure IT services. Technical solutions should be possible to solve these problems and enable colleges to offer much more joined-up local processes.

That takes me to Amendment 95, which relates to the need to increase transparency regarding multi-academy trust funding arrangements and expenditure. An example was quoted to me last week of a worry that rural schools have about their budgets being cut when they are part of multi-academy trust and money that was available in the local area being reduced without explanation because the multi-academy trust operates as a single financial unit. The amendment says:

“The proprietor of a Multi Academy Trust must annually publish information setting out the quantum of funding they have reallocated from schools’ budgets within their Trust and for what purpose.”


In other words, there is an annual agreed budget. It is about what changes were made, who lost money and, perhaps, who gained money—and, of course, if the multi-academy trust is operating right across the country as a whole, those geographical differences become very important.

The amendment aims to increase the transparency of multi-academy trust funding arrangements and expenditure. At present, a multi-academy trust can reallocate an uncapped proportion of funding from schools’ budgets within the multi-academy trust, with no requirement at all for transparency. That appears to undermine the national formula objective to achieve greater transparency. It is one thing to support multi-academy trusts having a degree of flexibility over budgets, but the lack of public transparency over their expenditure should be addressed. I beg to move.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 50 and 55. Amendment 50 seeks to protect the interests and encourage the involvement of all parties in a school community. It clearly makes sense that the Bill should provide for a procedure for the circumstances in which an individual academy seeks to withdraw from a MAT. The local governing body of such an academy may have very good reason, as outlined in the amendment, why such a step might be considered. Further, consistent with other amendments to this Bill, the amendment specifies that consultation on a proposed change must take place with the parties, including “parents and staff”. Two further elements to this are that the reason for seeking to withdraw, including the benefits that might accrue to children’s education should such withdrawal occur, and a timetable and financial framework for the activity, must be in evidence during the consultation. This is a coherent proposal that provides for the establishment of a clear procedure that is not burdensome or over-elaborate, in order to address a set of circumstances that may well occur.

On Amendment 55, clearly, there are many parents who choose schools with a religious character, whatever that may be. However, equally, there are parents and carers who would seek to avoid institutions of a religious character, believing that for them education should be in institutions with a secular ethos. Nothing in this amendment is designed to undermine, or otherwise interfere with, existing arrangements. However, given the intention that all schools should be part of a MAT by 2030, there should be a requirement that schools that have hitherto enjoyed a secular ethos should be required to consult widely before considering an application to a MAT with a religious character. Such consultation should be carried out in a timely fashion and deal with how joining a religious-character MAT would affect the existing school’s ethos.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, this group of amendments was powerfully and effectively introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. I just note that I have attached my name to Amendments 41, 50, 55 and 95. I shall briefly make some comments on a couple of them.

On Amendment 41, the geographical spread is absolutely crucial. It ties in with a point that I made on our first day in Committee—the idea of a school being a part of a community, a civic institution. It might be that we have a chain of coffee shops scattered around the nation, and people may like to go into a coffee shop that they are familiar with and are used to going into on their local round, so when they go somewhere else, they go to that coffee shop. But a school is not like that; it is not, or should not be, a commercial operation; it is not something that you skip around to, around the country—it is at the heart of a community. That geographical spread issue really needs addressing.

On Amendment 50, the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, set out what is clearly an unarguable argument. The world is not set in stone: communities change and groups of students change. A new industry may open up in a particular community, and that community may become very interested in a whole different area of study and focus—but then it is still signed up with an academy that has an entirely different focus, ethos and approach. The idea that all this could be set in aspic, permanently, really does not make any sense.

I shall pick up on a point that the Minister made on one of the earlier groups, when talking about how the Secretary of State needed the powers to intervene against a failing MAT. A MAT might work really well for some of its members but utterly fail to meet the needs of others; the idea that they are all going to work perfectly in perpetuity does not add up.

On Amendment 55, since this the first time I have spoken in a relevant debate I feel I should probably make a declaration of interest, if you like, of Green Party policy: we do not believe that any religious institution should be running state-funded schools. That statement of principle is where I am coming from. The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, made the very important point that people, communities and families have to be consulted before they find themselves forced into something that may very much not be what they want for themselves and their children.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am unable to give any more clarification on that point at this stage. I am sorry that I cannot say anymore to your Lordships.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

I realise that the Minister is not able to say anything further about the timing with regard to Committee and Report, but could she say anything further in response to my noble friend Lord Knight about regulatory review, leaving aside the question of Report?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have already said at the Dispatch Box that the regulatory review will begin within weeks. I am unable to say anything further about the other stages of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Blower]

60: Clause 29, page 23, line 24, at end insert “only with the consent of the governing body that is the subject of the application”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that a local authority cannot apply for an Academy order to be made unless it has the consent of the governing body.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 60, perhaps I might be of assistance to the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. This amendment specifically says that nothing will be applied for without the consent of a governing body. It seems to me that that this would add to the points made by the noble Duke and to his position.

All the amendments in this group—I have added my name to Amendments 60, 61, 62, 69, 70 and 75—are about consultation. I would have made this point in the earlier debate but, knowing that I would come to it with this amendment, it seemed appropriate to wait. I think that there is a way round this. We could have something in the Bill to preclude the possibility of a school being forced to change its status if the consent of the governing body could not be achieved. It may be that this is a helpful amendment.

I am very grateful to the National Governance Association for all the work that it has done on this. I have been a governor at various schools and have had the pleasure of being a local authority-appointed governor, a staff governor, and a parent governor. These roles are all very important and I continue to believe that membership of the local governing body is an important role which is of value to the institution and the individual. As we have seen, it may be even more important if it is able to protect certain kinds of establishment.

The governing body should both provide the link to the community and be the voice of the community. For that reason, Amendment 60 is important. It is a way of saying that without that voice the status should not be changed. Hitherto, this central role of working with the school but also connecting with the local authority or with other relevant parties is really about how good decision-making should continue.

It appears that the Government’s intention is for all schools to be in a MAT. We are not quite sure whether that is genuinely their intention, so let us say that it is not the Government’s intention to force anyone, but that it is their intention that all schools should seek to be in a MAT, and that any movement out of the MAT into which a school or a stand-alone academy has been put or finds itself would be only in exceptional circumstances.

The National Governance Association has described that relationship as the possibility of

“marriage with no prospect of divorce.”

This may warm the hearts of those who think that divorce should never happen, but divorce does happen. On this basis, it is important that governing bodies should engage with schools and local authorities to make the possibility of an unhappy marriage a distinctly avoidable one. Therefore, the notion that there should be proper consultation with all relevant and interested parties before decisions are made is really important.

The NGA says that governors should consult widely with stakeholders, including staff, parents, pupils—we should note that—and the wider community, on all possible options. That is significant. The NGA is suggesting that the stakeholders should think about what the possibilities are for the institution with which they have been associated. If, ultimately, joining a MAT is required or desirable, it should certainly be one that the school feels is appropriate to its current ethos. That point is made several times by the National Governance Association.

I turn to Amendments 61, 62 and 75. The NGA has some clear and particularly helpful advice on consultation. It says:

“Formal consultation will need to be carried out as part of the official process”


and that:

“Stakeholder engagement is a core governance function and buy-in from the school community will be essential in making a success of any decision to form or join a MAT.”


It talks about ensuring therefore that all stakeholders are able to engage properly in that. It makes some suggestions as to how that consultation can be done: staff meetings, engagement with the relevant trade unions, a letter to parents, information on the school website, a question and answer session. Here, the National Governance Association is really talking about the widest possible and, from its point of view, the most effective consultation, to ensure that whatever path is chosen has the biggest possible buy-in, because it must be clear that if that is the case, the way forward for the school is likely to be the most successful.

It also says that a school

“may also wish to set out what it regards as the advantages of joining or forming a MAT”.

That is critical. In making this decision, it should be clear why it is being taken. Accepting that particularly the noble Baronesses opposite are enthusiastic to make sure we have a successful system, an individual institution must also explain why it is to its advantage to join a MAT or, as the noble Duke has said, not to join a MAT. There is a lot to be considered here and significant amounts of work for governing bodies to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am glad that I have been promoted to be the noble Lord’s “noble friend”; things are looking up. I am very happy to take this offline with the noble Lord. It is just not case that the decision is made at that point, but I would be happy to meet with him and we can go through this in more detail, if that would be helpful.

Amendment 75 is concerned with existing stand-alone academies joining multi-academy trusts, which we discussed at length in the earlier group. The process by which an academy joins another trust is not set out in legislation; it is a matter for agreement between the two trusts and is subject to the approval of the regional director. I hope that noble Lords can forgive me for repeating myself. When considering any application for a stand-alone academy to join a MAT, the regional director will consider what stakeholder engagement has taken place, and the views expressed by stakeholders.

I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate to provide for very specific consultation requirements in legislation. Stakeholder engagement is already embedded in the decision-making process. However, I agree that the process by which academies join trusts should be transparent—here, I am a little more optimistic about reassuring the noble Baroness, the noble Lord and other noble Lords opposite. As part of the regulatory review, which I have mentioned previously, we will consider the scope to clarify the arrangements for engaging with stakeholders when a stand-alone academy joins a multi-academy trust.

In the light of Amendment 68 in my name, and given these assurances, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, to withdraw her Amendment 60, and that other noble Lords do not move their amendments. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport, that I did not echo the birthday wishes, but I wish her a very happy birthday.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

Before I begin my remarks, I wish many happy returns to my noble friend on the Front Bench.

Never in my wildest dreams would I think of the Minister as Machiavellian—absolutely not. However, the lived experience of many people is that discussions over issues to do with academisation, moving into MATs or other such things have not always been open and the system has not always been transparent. I am personally aware of representatives of particular unions who, after being called in to see head teachers, have been briefed and then been told that the matter is absolutely confidential, and that they must say nothing to any member outside that room. I am not saying that this is the position the Minister would take, but it is the lived experience of a lot of people who genuinely believe that there should be proper and open consultation. We can say that those head teachers were doing it completely wrongly, but the fact is that it would have impacted those union members, and there is the impact of someone in the school now knowing something which the parents and students do not know.

There is clearly something here about the need constantly to reinforce the fact that consultation should be open, appropriate and transparent. This is probably why, although the Minister said these things in very reassuring tones, I cannot see why we would not specify the need to consult with particular groups of people, including parents, staff and so on. This remains an issue. I am delighted that the Minister thinks that it is inevitable, but my experience is that consultation has not always been inevitable. However, I would like to believe that it was.

I will comment on the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about neatness, which I thought was very entertaining. To him, I would add: I do not think that all local authority schools are like cookie cutters and exactly the same; they pride themselves on the fact that they have a particular ethos. That comes from the student intake, the particular group of staff they have, the governors and the head’s style of leadership, so I do not think that they are all the same.

I am sure that those who have visited very many maintained schools will agree with me that they are quite different, whether they have a uniform or not—all sorts of things do make them different. But I was entertained by the noble Lord’s remarks about neatness. Again repeating that nothing in my remarks suggests anything Machiavellian, although I am not completely reassured by everything, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has made a very interesting speech and said some extremely sensible and some provocative things. However, sitting through this debate, and when I first saw the Bill, the one word that kept coming to my mind was “superficial”. We are in danger of pandering to a superficial society and being involved in the evolution of a superficial society.

When I was a young schoolmaster, over 60 years ago, a very well-respected headmaster said to me, “Whatever you do, be thorough.” I was appointed the careers master, and he told me to remember that what was important in the boys that I taught—in that case it was boys—was that they recognised that the job which they have when they leave school, whatever it is, is only part of them and that, in whatever they do, they must seek be a part of the community in which they live. I paraphrase, but that is the essence of what he said.

I often think of that when I go across to Lincoln Cathedral, as I do every day when I am in my hometown. I sit above the choir-stalls before evensong, while the choir is training and rehearsing. These young people are being given a thorough grounding. They can sing often the most complicated music with great beauty and accomplishment because if they get a note wrong, kindly but firmly and—to use the word again—thoroughly, the master of the music or his deputy points it out and they do it again, and, if necessary, again. In what they are doing to create great music in one of our greatest cathedrals, they are, in a sense, emulating the people who built that great cathedral and who, through the ages, had long, complicated, detailed apprenticeships.

I know, as the founder of the William Morris Craft Fellowship, in which I declare an interest, that today many young men and women—we have awarded fellowships to many young women—are able, through mastering their craft, to become much more important members of the society in which they live. They have mastered something and done it thoroughly. A great many of those young people play a role in their local communities—some even as councillors—or in the voluntary sector.

The Bill must be put into some sort of order; I pick up on the substance of the amendments spoken to so splendidly by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and others, and in the fine speech made by my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. We are saying, in effect, “Do not be superficial; remember that aspiration is important.” I remember a Minister in the other place saying in a Queen’s Speech debate many years ago that the real poor of the 20th century, as it then was, “are those without hope.”

Hope and aspiration are terribly important; they have to be encouraged, through partnership between parents, teachers and students. The Bill comes nowhere near that. We need to inject the spirit of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts if at the end of the day we are to get a Schools Bill that is worthy of its name. At the moment it is not. This is no personal criticism of my noble friend the Minister, for whom I have real regard. Nobody would call her superficial but she is in charge of a Bill that is. That needs to be put right; I hope that it will be.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the speech made by my noble friend Lady Morris—and in no way to demur from anything she said about appropriate access to curriculum materials for parents—but also to reinforce the point made by my noble friend Lord Hunt that we are not talking about a veto. We have strayed into some extremely difficult areas. It is important, therefore, to stress that we are talking about partnership between schools, parents and students, and looking at curriculum content in a collaborative way. This is not saying that a group of parents, or indeed one parent, should be able to turn up and say, “I would like to look at this and, by the way, my child is not having it”—and expect that somehow the writ of that will run throughout the school. That was clearly not the intention of anyone who has spoken in the debate.



For example, in previous debates we have talked about parent councils, originally introduced by my noble friend Lord Knight under a different kind of Government. We have to be in that place throughout this; it is not just about access to curriculum materials. We need to be saying that the work of a school is a partnership between the parent body, the students, the wider community and the teaching and other staff. This is not in any sense to demur from the notion of access, but it is perhaps to draw the balance. This should not be about a veto but about developing a relationship so that parents understand what is going on in schools. They may feel that they can and should influence that in some small way, and that may be welcomed by the school. However, there is a very big difference between that and vetoing. That is all I wanted to say.