Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Morgan of Cotes Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want to talk briefly about this group of amendments. While I recognise the passion with which the previous three speakers have spoken on CEO remuneration, I do not think that is the main problem in the education system. If we want really good people to head up multi-academy trusts and to do one of the most important jobs in this country, which is to educate the next generation, we should pay them. If that means that the Prime Minister is underpaid, we should be having a separate debate to recognise his leadership and that of anyone else who holds that position.

I want to go back to Amendment 193 and echo the thanks from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. I am not sure that it wins the prize for the longest set of amendments, but it is perhaps the speediest set of government amendments. We had this debate in Committee, and voices from all sides of the House recognised that putting in place an inspection regime for the proprietors of multi-academy trusts was overdue. It makes me suspect that the department had these amendments somewhere ready to go when an opportunity presented itself, because we all spend a lot of our time asking the Government to make amendments and are told, “Not now, not this Bill, not quite yet”. Indeed, I had a conversation with the Minister like that just yesterday morning—though it feels like longer ago. We will return to that next week, but I am impressed with how fast these amendments have been proposed. That, of course, means that, as we have heard, because of the hour we are debating this, they will not get all the scrutiny we would like. That is why I think that Amendment 193D from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about further consultation or work before these provisions come into effect, would be extremely worth while.

I also want to echo one of the other questions. The question that has been put to me by those from multi-academy trusts is: what is the relationship between this inspection regime and the inspection of individual schools? While there are obviously some large academy trust chains, there are also some much smaller ones, and if they are trying to deal, rightly, with the inspection, particularly the first inspection, of a multi-academy trust proprietorship, what is the relationship between schools and how do we make sure that schools and multi-academy trusts do not feel they are being endlessly inspected and never allowed to get on with the job that we all want them to do, which is educating well the next generation?

I want to speak in support of Amendment 194 as well, because I was not able to speak on Clause 51 in the Committee. This is about academy sponsorship. I know from what we have just heard that not everybody is a fan of academies; I am—I am relentless in my support for them. I think we have finally seen the self-reinforcing, self-improving school system we want in this country. In many places, academy sponsorship is the only option; I am not sure what the other option is. Amendment 194 has nobly attempted to put in place an answer if academy sponsorship is not available. I would like to hear the Minister’s reasons for persisting with the view that good academy sponsors should not be the default, because that is what the academy chains I speak to feel most passionately about. Those that are successful want to make sure that other schools can share in that success.

Finally, it will come as no surprise that I will oppose Amendment 197. As I say, there are issues we should be debating in education other than recognising the enormous contribution made by senior leaders in education—in this case, it is perhaps the heads of multi-academy trust chains—but I would much rather we talk about the quality of the education that our young people are getting than anything else which is a distraction, as Amendment 197 is.