Education Bill

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I want to make some progress, but maybe I will give way to the Chairman of the Education Committee again later.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware that the latest figures given to the Skills Commission only yesterday by a professor from Southampton university show that 6% of kids in this country leaving school between 16 and 18 get an apprenticeship, and 36% go into higher education. That leaves a darned large number of young people not going to either of those destinations. I am quite fond of the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, but sometimes he uses the apprenticeships commitment to hide a lack of activity in other areas.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on it. I said when I took on this job that I wanted more focus on the 50% or more of young people who are not planning to go to university. Every Member owes that to those young people. Apprenticeships are part of the answer, but as I said a moment ago, they are not all of the answer. Sometimes we hear the Government talk only of kids on free school meals getting to Oxbridge, as though that were the only measure of the education system in this country. I am afraid that in my view, that shows the elitist approach to education that is coming through more and more from the Government.

Our new clause and amendments are intended to put power back in the hands of parents and fairness at the heart of the system at local and national level. First, given that the Secretary of State is taking more than 50 powers in the Bill to run almost every aspect of the schools system, we propose, in new clause 10, duties for him to ensure fair access to education.

Secondly, amendments 10 and 11 would reinstate the requirement for all local authorities to establish a local admissions forum. Those forums are an important part of ensuring parents’ involvement and local accountability. Parents have a right to be represented on them, and parents’ groups can come to the meetings and make representations on particular issues of concern. Parents in all areas should have a guarantee that they will be able to call on a local forum in their hour of need.

On that point, I say to the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), that he missed the point in Committee. It is no help to parents if the forums are optional. If there is to be a postcode lottery, with some local authorities having forums and others not, not all parents will have the right to call on those local independent bodies if they need to. Moreover, voluntary forums would not have the same powers as the current ones, such as the power to object to the schools adjudicator. An independent monitoring body in each local authority to ensure fair admissions criteria and processes should be an entitlement for all parents.

It is also more efficient to deal locally with issues involving local stakeholders, rather than to refer every contentious issue to the adjudicator. Indeed, the chief adjudicator supports the retention of admissions forums, as he told the Education Committee. He said:

“I believe…that admissions forums are good things. It commits all admissions authorities in an area…to sit around a table and talk over their problems.”

That brings me to amendment 13, which would restore the crucial ability of the schools adjudicator to seek early rectification of non-compliance with the admissions code in admissions policies, working through local authorities. The adjudicator is an important guarantor of fairness for parents. As he told the Education Committee, 92% of the complaints that he received last year came from parents. The Government have failed to make any case to support their changes beyond saying, “Trust the schools.” Well, the Opposition trust schools, but we also know that the adjudicator must frequently step in to correct non-compliance with the code. Indeed, the very fact that the adjudicator has that power focuses the minds of schools and local authorities to ensure that policies are fair in the first place. The Government are therefore undermining the office of the schools adjudicator in terms of helping parents when they need it.

We believe that the Bill weakens the adjudicator’s power, but that problem is further compounded by the potential dilution of the admissions code. Yet again with this Secretary of State and his chaotic Department, the House finds itself in the unacceptable position of being asked to legislate on matters crucial to families in this country without all the relevant information before it. I have a simple question for the Minister of State: where is the draft admissions code? Where is it? It is disgraceful that the House does not have access to that code when it is being asked to vote on the Bill.

In Committee on 29 March, the Minister told the shadow schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), that the admissions code

“is certainly imminent and will certainly be available before many of the future stages of the passage of this Bill”––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 29 March 2011; c. 770.]

Mr Deputy Speaker, is it acceptable that the Minister has not delivered on that promise? I put it to you that it is an affront to the House and to Parliament that the Minister has failed to honour a commitment that he gave in Committee. The code is highly relevant to today’s debate, and it should be available to hon. Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stuart]

The hon. Lady makes some fair points. Certainly the right of the child is central, but I believe that the parent is the best protector of that child’s needs. Of course, the local authority has a role in intervening when there is problem. However, fewer than half the children in this country get five good GCSEs as a result of compulsory state schooling for 11 years, so the state is hardly in a position to lecture parents who make a massive sacrifice to find ways of educating their children themselves. Furthermore, according to all the evidence that I have seen, there is no suggestion that home-educating parents—although they might be rather radical and act in ways that would not fit with my idea of how to educate a child—do a worse job for their children educationally than the state; quite the opposite, in fact.

It is interesting that, although Badman selectively quoted evidence from New Zealand, he failed to mention that, just before he produced his report, New Zealand scrapped the registration guidelines that formed a central part of the report.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Stuart]

Before I give way to the former Chair of the Select Committee, I must deal with the point on which I disagree most with the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). She has done what Badman did, and what the former Secretary of State did under the previous Government, which is to conflate child abuse with home education. Education and welfare are two separate things. Contrary to what Graham Badman stated in his report, and failed to substantiate in the Select Committee, there is no evidence that home-educated children are more subject to abuse than children in general. When there is a risk, local authorities have all due powers to intervene, and so they should. When such evidence arises, the authorities can and should go in to ensure the protection of the child. However, we cannot have the suggestion that home-educating families are linked to a problem of abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is important to nail that fact. We must not do as the previous Home Secretary did, which was to smear the reputation of home-educating families by suggesting that there is a problem, because there is no evidence for that.

[Mr Sheerman]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman means to do so, but he is being a little misleading about what happened in the Select Committee inquiry, in which he failed to persuade the majority of the Committee of his views on this subject. Many of us on the Committee took a rather different view and wrote the majority report along those lines. What he gets wrong is the balance. This is not about a balance between abusive parents doing dreadful things to children, on the one hand, and the local authority letting them down, on the other. Rather, we found a lot of evidence to show that what was supposed to be home education actually did not amount to very much at all.

[Mr Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect on the central point. Although the report did not take the same form as it would have done if I had written it alone, the central point about the need for registration and licensing of families that want to educate their own children was rejected by the Select Committee—it was Labour-dominated and chaired so ably by him. That point was rejected, and the report said no to the central recommendation of Badman. The previous Government still pursued that recommendation, but it was—eventually and rightly—thrown out by Parliament before the last election.

[Mr Sheerman]

Of course we rejected that element of policy, and quite rightly, but that is not the case that the hon. Gentleman is making. It is a serious concern if we do not know what kind of syllabus or stimulus children will get in the home education environment. Children’s education, and not just their welfare, is their right. The hon. Gentleman is trying to turn the issue into one of welfare against education, but that was not the line that we took.

[Mr Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his views on how current regulation should be changed. That, after all, was what the Badman report and our Select Committee report were all about.

What I am discussing today—I do not want to take up much more time—is the current law, which is clear, although it is not properly represented by many local authorities. I will not go through all the legal aspects, but I will mention the 2007 guidelines on elective home education for local authorities, which were produced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2007. It is still available on the departmental website, subject only to the need for an update to take into account changes in the rules governing children missing from education. The report stated:

“Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis.”

If there is no evidence that education by home educators is inferior to that provided by the state, what is the role of the state? Apparently it is to stick its nose into families that have often been let down by the same instruments of the state and impertinently to try to impose exactly the same kind of regimented approach to education that failed for those children. That is why the parents made the massive sacrifice of taking their children out of school in the first place.

We must defend freedom and a principle that is perhaps even more important than that, which is that the law, as it stands, must be enforced. If the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) wishes to campaign to get it changed and is successful in convincing this place, what he wants will then become the law. Local authorities must honour and observe the law as it stands and not overstate it because they happen to agree with the hon. Gentleman. They cannot make the law up as they go along because they do not like the current settlement. The current settlement is clear: local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education.

I have already dealt with Tameside, so let me touch quickly on Barnsley. Its elective home education information leaflet says that

“the law allows parents to educate their children at home instead of sending them to school, if they fulfil certain conditions.”

That is subtly done. I am not sure whether it is strictly inaccurate, but it is suggestive enough to make it sound as though the council decides whether those conditions are fulfilled. It goes on to make it clear that that is precisely its conclusion:

“Barnsley MBC will need to be satisfied”—

in other words, the council will need to be satisfied—

“that a child is receiving suitable education at home, and the Assessor”—

these people are even called assessors; who do they think they are?—

“will ask to meet with the family in order to talk to the parents and to look at examples of work and learning.”

That is beyond the law. I want the Minister to confirm that he will make sure that local authorities no longer produce misinformation like that and use it in order to abuse their power over families.

Sheffield provides another example. Parents there are told:

“You must show that the opportunities being provided are helping your child to learn and that development is taking place appropriate to their age, ability and aptitude.”

It is fair enough for parents to have a duty to provide suitable education and meet those requirements, but local authorities have no right to interpose themselves and decide that that is not happening. If they have reason to believe that suitable education is not being provided, they have a duty to challenge, but only in that event. They do not have the right routinely to monitor and interfere.

Sheffield city council continues:

“The Children Service Authority (CSA) is responsible for ensuring that the arrangements provide a suitable education for your child.”

That is not true.

“When you have given the CSA a plan stating your ideas an appropriately qualified”—

unlike you—

“Senior Inclusion Officer (SIO) will arrange an initial home visit and make a preliminary assessment”—

in your home—

“of the education provision the child is receiving.”

It is disgraceful.

South Gloucestershire council is advertising for someone who will provide

“information, support and challenge to parents…The service is responsible for assessing the suitability of the education provided to children educated at home”.

The Lancashire local authority, in one of the most egregious examples, states:

“Lancashire Officers will take the lead on this because they have the responsibility to ensure the safety of all children as well as to monitor the quality of education received by children educated at home.”

That is a nice one, neatly conflating the issues of safety and home education. No one has yet arrived at my house during the summer holidays just to check up on the safety of my children, who are, after all, spending months at home with me. Who knows what my wife and I might get up to, or what the younger or older sister might do? Who knows what visiting relatives might do? What we need are visitors from the local authority, just to make sure. I do not want people such as the director of children’s services in my local authority to lose a moment’s sleep because they feel that they are not pursuing every possibility of intervention to cover their own backsides and telling me how I should run things in my own home. That is precisely what the local authority suggests should be done in the case of home-educating parents, who deserve its intervention no more than the rest of us. The document continues:

“Thus, when a practitioner or professional becomes aware that a child is being educated at home, they should use local information sharing arrangements to help the Lancashire Authority to fulfil both its duty to be confident”—

so it has a duty to be confident now—

“of the well-being of the child and its duty to assure the quality of the education provided.”

That, too, is not true.

As far as I can tell from one evening spent looking at their websites, council after council is entirely misrepresenting the legal position, and I hope that the Minister will put that right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stuart]

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman, who is a distinguished member of the Select Committee and who brings years of experience of education to it, so I hesitate to say what I am about to say. However, he is suggesting, as a Labour Member of Parliament, that working-class families involved in home education should be treated with more suspicion than those in better-off areas, that they are not to be trusted with the education of their children, and that inspectors and assessors and all those other people with acronyms should be wandering into their homes, because of—my God—what they might do to their children.

I have given a great deal of thought to these issues. There are many armchair theorists—I met many of them when we were debating the Badman review—who have not looked at the data and the research, who have not tried to meet home-educating families to discuss their problems and who have not met local authority officers, who deal with difficult cases such as home-educating households where children are abused and are not given an education. There are real difficulties and challenges, but we cannot deal with them from an armchair. If the hon. Gentleman follows that advice, I hope that he will come round to my point of view that the current law is appropriate but should be enforced, and that we cannot allow local authorities to continue to abuse their position and bully parents.

I congratulate the Minister on having listened. He listened carefully to families and to representations from Members both during the passage of the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 and since then. He listened to representations on the 20-day rule, of which I myself was in favour until I listened to the arguments and was able to follow the evidence and look at the links to the consultation and the response, which I either did not know about or had forgotten.

There is a strong message here. We must listen to these families, and we must support and respect them. We must have challenge that is appropriate, but we must not allow those in power to abuse that power and overstep the mark.

[Mr Sheerman]

I do not quite know how to follow that speech. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) was a very good member of the former Select Committee, which I chaired. He was always an excellent contributor, but he always got the issue under discussion out of proportion. There has been a full Select Committee report, and I hope that people will read that as well as pay attention to the hon. Gentleman’s speech today, at one stage of which I thought the men in white coats might be coming.

When the Committee was looking into this matter, I got the feeling that the hon. Gentleman was rather taken over by the home educators. Home educators are very good when they are good, but there is evidence, in the Badman inquiry and elsewhere, that there are all sorts of people who use home education because they do not want to send their children to school yet do not want to be prosecuted. Home education is a right, but if people take up that right they must also accept that they have a responsibility to offer the children in question a coherent and stimulating educational programme, and I believe that local authorities have the right to check on that, in the most sensitive way possible. I therefore hope people make a balanced judgment of his new clause 22.

The previous Select Committee spent a lot of time on these matters. One of the great victories for those of us who work on Committee reports is someone taking notice of what they say. That is wonderful, although normally there is about a two-year time lag before notice is taken. I think our report on admissions policy was one of our best, with recommendations such as giving teeth to the schools adjudicator post and making sure that the code of admissions is obligatory and schools do not merely have to take note of it.

When we conducted our inquiry, I was amazed to discover that really nice people—really nice heads and educators—would bend every rule to get the selection process that suited their school. That was the case even for head teachers who looked as though they came from central casting and seemed to conform to the stereotype of the good, confident head teacher. I remember asking one particular lady, “How many looked-after children do you have at your school?” “None”, she replied. I then asked, “How many children with special needs?” She said: “Very few.” My next question was: “How many children on free school meals?” We found that the school did not have any children in that category. I therefore asked whether or not the school had taken notice of the code, to which she said, “Yes, we took note of it.” That is all anyone had to do; that is why the code was not working. Our Committee recommended that if we were to have a code, people should have to take notice of it, and if they did not, the schools adjudicator could say, “Come on! There is a code and you should obey it.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

The point that the right hon. Member for Leigh raised is that we do not have the code in front of us, and so the hon. Lady is raising the issues that she fears may result. We will have to wait and see the code and examine it then.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) was actually making the point that she thought she heard the hon. Gentleman say that this was theoretical. May I disclose a secret to him? I was the parliamentary church warden here for seven years and I am a lay canon at Wakefield and what amazed me in the evidence was that Church schools—schools that I thought would have been bending over backwards to look after the poorest children and those from deprived backgrounds—were the best at excluding those children. I am saying that as someone who is relatively active in the Church.

[Dan Rogerson]

I welcome that contribution and the hon. Gentleman has been very forthright in raising the issues that he has mentioned. I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) has had some misfortune in hurting her arm and I am pleased, of course, that it has not restricted her ability to be present and to put forward her views, which she does forthrightly and in a well-informed way on all education issues. What I was trying to say in response to her is that the key to what the Government are trying to do, not just with the admissions code but with some of the bodies and partnerships in which schools have hitherto been forced to participate, which we have discussed before, will be to trust schools to take decisions. We will still have a schools adjudicator and we will still have a code that will cover such matters. The question is where we should strike the balance. The Opposition clearly feel that the Government are getting it wrong, but I want to see the code. It is unfortunate that we did not have it before this debate, but we will be able to examine it when it comes. I shall give the Government the benefit of the doubt that we are striking the right balance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

Thank you.

Finally, let me turn to new clause 22, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. I fully understand his concerns about the proposed change to the pupil registration regulations that apply when parents choose to remove their children from school to home educate them. My hon. Friend now knows that we shall not proceed with the change in its present form, and I hope that I can further reassure him by explaining the thinking that led us to propose the regulation change in the first place, and what we intend to do now. As he said, the change would have required schools to retain pupils on the roll for 20 school days following a parent’s decision to remove their child from school for home education. If the parents change their minds, the child could be re-admitted to the school. I was attracted by that proposition, as was my hon. Friend.

The Government’s policy remains that parents are responsible for their children’s education. They have the right to choose to fulfil that responsibility by educating their children themselves, rather than by sending them to school, and we have no desire to interfere with that right. The proposed change in the regulations was intended to protect any children whose parents had reluctantly decided to home educate against their own better judgment—for example, those who would rather their child went to school, but who have concerns about the school that they feel it has not addressed. That group is not typical of the majority of home educators, who in my experience are determined, committed and passionate people. Having considered the issue further and taken into account the views of home educators and those of my hon. Friend, I am not yet convinced that the proposed change is the best way to address the concern. Therefore, we are considering other policy options. However, I am grateful to the Chairman of the Education Committee for tabling new clause 22, which has enabled me to put that on the record.

[Mr Sheerman]

I think the Minister was here listening to the debate earlier, but the Select Committee’s report on the matter ranged pretty broadly and made some reasonably positive suggestions for change. When home educators were good they were very good indeed, but the Committee received evidence that some people who did not want to send their children to school could legally refrain from sending them—they would not be prosecuted—by saying that they were home educating them, when there was very little evidence that those children were being educated at all.

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Those are concerns to which we are giving careful consideration, but there are strong opinions on all sides of the debate. We want to ensure that we consider the issues carefully and take all those strong opinions into account.