Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Spielman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to amendments 444A to C, 445 and 445ZA to ZD, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran, which seek to rein in the sweeping new powers currently set out in Clause 49 for the Secretary of State to intervene in academy operations. As my noble friend said, of course the Secretary of State should have the ability to ensure that academies comply with their statutory duties, but the powers currently included in Clause 49 are so broad that they will undermine trust in school leaders, significantly reduce academy autonomy and create a top-down bureaucracy with potentially over-restrictive government insight.

The clause as currently drafted, for instance, allows for the Secretary of State to give directions they consider appropriate to academies if they are deemed to have acted unreasonably or to be proposing to act unreasonably. To my mind, the effect appears to be that a trust could be punished for actions it has not yet taken, with a central direction initiated simply on the basis of speculation from a Secretary of State. I may have misunderstood but, if this is the case, it surely cannot be right.

In this context, the use of the word “unreasonably” is a further cause for concern. It is a vague and subjective standard, left undefined in Clause 49 as it stands, and it seems to open the door to overreach and potential political interference in individual schools and trusts from Whitehall. Without clear guardrails, it would enable Ministers to meddle in decisions that surely must properly belong to academy trustees and head teachers.

As my noble friend has just said in her opening remarks, the drafting of the clause runs the risk of creating a micromanager’s charter. And the problem does not end there. The powers granted under Clause 49 are not only overly broad; they are also unchecked and have no independent review or appeal mechanisms built in—something which Amendment 445A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, would specifically address.

The group of amendments tabled by my noble friend, along with the amendment in the name of he noble Lord, Lord Knight, would bring some much-needed balance into Clause 49 by restoring proportionality and fairness into the process while maintaining the Secretary of State’s powers to ensure that trusts do not breach their statutory duties, funding agreements or charity law. I hope the Minister will think again about the breadth of powers that the Government are proposing.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I too support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran. As she and my noble friend Lady Evans have pointed out, it is again not obvious why these powers are needed. The existing legislative framework and funding agreements provide ample levers to enforce and hold academy trusts accountable. If there is an implied shift, as there appears to be, away from accountability and towards direct control and management, it is important to remember what we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, this afternoon: he laid out very clearly those underlying principles about high autonomy, balanced with strong accountability, and referred to the problems and weaknesses of some local authorities, which made it necessary and desirable to move to the model that served us well for many years. It would be deeply unfortunate if we end up with a central government that is attempting to manage the entire school system, rather along the lines of one of the weaker local authorities of 40 years ago.

I am worried about the strain that this will place on the Civil Service. I have concerns about people trying to read tea leaves and decide whether a breach is likely. As others have said, it feels like a system that is almost certain to create more contention and disagreement, and more time wasted on legal disputes and challenges to action, than it is to help children by resolving problems early. I support the set of amendments proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Barran. I have not spoken in Committee and apologise for not being available to speak at Second Reading. Although I supported many of the arguments earlier today in respect of teachers’ qualifications, curriculums and so on, I chose to speak on this group of amendments because these clauses go to the essence of the academy and negate much of what an academy is about and what it wishes to do.

These amendments are particularly important. It is a bit disappointing that there are so few of us loyal troopers in the Chamber tonight to address this extremely important issue about the core of how academies are run.

I will disclose my interest in a second, but I was propelled to speak because I heard from one sponsor whom I know well that, if these clauses come through, he would want to hand “his academy”, as he calls it—the academy that he sponsors—back to the state. I cannot believe that this is what the Government want to achieve, but inclusion of Clause 49 may well lead to that. It would be a tragedy for our children’s education.

I am a huge admirer of academies. I was a trustee of the London Academy in Edgware and am currently a member of the Leigh Academies Trust in Kent. A member is a peculiar status within an academy, but that is what I am. I am not a governor or a trustee; along with the county council, I am a member.

The first, the London Academy in Edgware, was one of the original sponsored academies. It replaced a failing school in Edgware and was sponsored by the philanthropist Peter Shalson. In 2023, thanks in no small part to the excellent head, Paddy McGrath, it became one of the top 55 schools in the country. Importantly, over 50% of the students are eligible for the pupil premium and the admission policy prioritised students eligible for free school meals. This was a fantastic achievement. It has been obtained not least because of the flexibilities that it has been afforded and the freedoms which have been granted to it by its academy status.

As I mentioned, I am also a member, along with Kent County Council, of the Leigh Academies Trust. Under the leadership of Simon Beamish and Frank Green, it has grown from being one of the original CTCs, which some may remember—for full disclosure, it was originally sponsored in the 1980s by my uncle, Sir Geoffrey Leigh—to now being a MAT of over 30 schools. It is widely respected for its tremendous achievements.

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I would be the first to admit this is not a complete legal outline of the way forward, but it is a start. I would be delighted—I live in hope—to meet the Minister and discuss how this framework might be achieved. It would provide the possibility; it would not force anything to happen. The evidence is not just that many schools want an out from the disempowering tangles in which they have been enmeshed in the anti-democratic systems brought in over recent decades; more than that, not giving them this route means going against the evidence of what works for schools, communities and, of course, the pupils. I look forward to our further debate.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly on academy orders and to support Amendments 445B, 446 and 446A. My noble friend Lady Barran rightly said that I did not support the extension of academy orders to those schools that require improvement. I remember writing to the then Secretary of State to warn him that, among other things, it would place inspection under impossible pressure, and I think that my assessment was borne out.

This Government were quick to change their regulatory policies to remove their dependence on overall inspection judgments, so that those judgments could be removed. What we have seen over the past year is interesting, because it has shown that the sector also dislikes opaque and unpredictable processes, such as are now operating. With the loss of clarity, every intervention decision potentially becomes just the opening salvo in a long war of attrition.

I experienced quite a few of these sadly sometimes misguided parent campaigns to defend a school that was in fact in a desperate state and where the parents simply did not realise quite how bad it was. I know how debilitating some of these situations can be for all concerned and how drastically they can delay the kind of work and action that is needed to sort things out for children. Getting things sorted out for children typically also sorts things out for staff, making their jobs doable again.

We also now have years of experience of RISE teams and their predecessors. None has been found to be fully satisfactory. Each incarnation starts by recruiting school or MAT leaders but, over time, tends to morph into being a team of generalist officials who are not themselves equipped to provide support and, sometimes, struggle to identify the most appropriate alternative sources of help. I therefore support the proposals for improvement made by my noble friend and urge the Government to think hard about how to make sure that the consequences of failure—it is important that we can recognise failure—are clear, brisk and well implemented, with the maximum certainty and the minimum delay, limbo or uncertainty for all concerned.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

To get the current situation on the record, I looked around for evidence and found a quote that is helpful in our deliberations on this issue. The quote is:

“I have serious concerns about the proposal to change the pathway for turning around failing schools. I know from bitter personal experience that any change to the status of a school can become highly political. The current system, in which failing schools automatically become academies, provides clarity and de-politicisation, and ensures a rapid transition. I fear that making that process discretionary would result in a large increase in judicial reviews”—


as has been mentioned—

“pressure on councils and prolonged uncertainty, which is in nobody’s interests”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/25; col. 902.]

I think that encapsulates the situation quite neatly. It is from Siobhain McDonagh, speaking on 8 January 2025. It can be found in column 902 of the relevant Hansard; I am providing the reference since my earlier remarks were challenged. So I will put them on the record as well: they came from the Spectator on 5 February. I believe that Siobhain McDonagh summarised the situation very fairly.