Schools: Local Oversight Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Department for Education

Schools: Local Oversight

Baroness Sharples Excerpts
Monday 28th July 2014

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The Secretary of State, to put it simply, has always been responsible for schools in this country. I cannot put it better than this:

“If a school is not delivering sound education for its pupils, and a different way of running the school would yield a different and better result, it is our duty to institute the change”.

I could not have put it as well—and not surprisingly, as that was a former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, speaking last week. We believe that the regional schools commissioners are the right structure. As for cost, this Government inherited a department from the previous Government that had no concept of value for money. We have halved the cost of running it in real terms. I will write to the noble Lord if he would like the figures. However, the actual cost of running the regional schools commissioners will be something like £5 million, compared with the huge expense of the bureaucratic system that the party opposite proposed to put in place.

Baroness Sharples Portrait Baroness Sharples (Con)
- Hansard - -

Can my noble friend say how many of these schools have children arriving at them for whom English is their second language?

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The proportion of pupils in schools with English as a second language has risen substantially. I will write to the noble Baroness with details on the different types of schools.