Graham Stuart
Main Page: Graham Stuart (Conservative - Beverley and Holderness)Department Debates - View all Graham Stuart's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Gibb
Yes, of course, but we are talking about the effect on individuals, and if there is just one case of someone suffering such publicity about what turns out to be a false allegation, that is one case too many, as such allegations can have devastating consequences on teachers both socially and career-wise. The publicity that just one such case receives also reverberates throughout the teaching profession, undermining teachers’ morale and making them unduly cautious about maintaining discipline in our classrooms. If we are interested in the welfare of pupils in our schools, we have to make sure they are taught in ordered and safe environments, free from bullying and other disruptive activities.
I thought, however, that the hon. Gentleman was concerned in Committee less about the prevalence of such allegations and more about the question of whether these provisions should be extended to other sectors of the workforce. We have proceeded extremely cautiously, taking into account the fact that we must preserve press freedom as well as the integrity of teachers and their being innocent until proven otherwise.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
As my hon. Friend knows, I am sympathetic to the Government’s intentions in this regard as well, but I am concerned about press freedom and I would be grateful if he could set out the case for teachers alone being given this exemption from publicity. Such allegations could be equally devastating to members of a different profession. Might this provision prove to be the thin end of the wedge in that there could be a great deal more press censorship and the public will not be able to know about allegations made against people in their local community?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Education Committee, makes a good point, but teachers are very much on the front line of maintaining discipline in the classroom. We conducted a survey of 116 local authority designated officers—LADOs—and its findings support the view that teachers are particularly vulnerable to false allegations. Some 23% of allegations against staff in all sectors were made against teachers, and almost half of those were found to be unsubstantiated, malicious or unfounded. The proportion that related to other staff in schools was significantly low: from recollection I think that it was about 14%, compared with the 23% that applied to teachers.
Mr Gibb
I am happy to think further about those issues. However, the point of the proposal is that it is difficult for schools to achieve from Ofsted the accolade of outstanding. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) have visited schools that are categorised by Ofsted as outstanding. It is clear why those schools have been so categorised. I was at a school last week in Wiltshire that had been categorised by Ofsted as outstanding in all 27 categories. I believe that it was the first school to be given such a grading.
Mr Graham Stuart
The Minister is absolutely right to have proportionate inspection. We need to be careful to ensure that outstanding schools that may end up coasting or dropping their standards are picked up. If the shadow Minister is suggesting that it would be a better policy to inspect every school, however outstanding, all the time, he is completely wrong. A proportionate approach with the right safeguards and triggers in place and with constant review of those triggers is the right way to go. The Government are right on this issue.
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend is right that one has to be proportionate in these issues. Ultimately, this is a matter for the chief inspector of schools. If the results of an outstanding school start to decline, as was hinted at by the hon. Member for Cardiff West, it will be picked up in the risk assessment. He has made important points and we will, of course, reflect on them in the usual way.
Mr Graham Stuart
In the Lords, the Government accepted various amendments to limit the impact of such fines on global companies, which is welcome, but the measure was introduced with very little consultation. What is the evidence that we need fines to get awarding bodies to comply with Ofqual? What is the evidence that there is a problem to which fines provide an answer?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend will have seen over the summer some of the errors in the exams. They are unacceptable. We believe that the awarding organisations should not make the quantum and seriousness of those errors again. Other regulators have such powers, and if he bears with me, I will try to set out why we introduced those provisions.
The provisions in Lords amendments 16 and 17 are broadly consistent with the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008. As many hon. Members will know, including my hon. Friend, the Act provides many other regulators with a toolkit of sanctions that are risk based, consistent, proportionate and effective. Ofqual currently has only two types of sanction available to it: the power to direct an awarding organisation; and the dramatic, nuclear option of partial or full withdrawal of recognition. In addition, before Ofqual can use its current enforcement powers, it must be the case that an awarding organisation’s failure to comply with a condition has prejudiced, or is likely to prejudice, either the proper award of a qualification or students who might reasonably be expected to seek to obtain such a qualification awarded by that organisation.
The Government believe that those tests unnecessarily limit Ofqual’s powers and could reduce its capacity to take timely and proportionate enforcement action. Removing the tests and giving Ofqual a power to fine will help to prevent the kind of mistakes in exam papers that we saw last summer, which undermine the hard work of the pupils who sat them. That is the purpose of Lords amendment 16, and Lords amendment 17 confers similar powers on Welsh Ministers as the regulators of Welsh qualifications.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s thinking, but I am not entirely persuaded. The currency on which awarding bodies trade is their reputation. Notwithstanding the problems this summer, they needed no fine or massive regulatory hammer to bring them to book. All awarding bodies would immediately seek to improve their systems following such errors—I believe they did so. It feels as if we are introducing sanctions that are unnecessary for the workings of that market. The Government have pledged to eschew unnecessary regulations unless there is an overwhelming case, but I am not sure that the errors last summer make that overwhelming case.
Mr Gibb
I must disagree with my hon. Friend, because the seriousness of the errors was not just in their number—I believe there were 13 errors in exam papers this summer. What was particularly serious was the fact that when we asked awarding bodies to check that there were no further errors, they affirmed that they had done so or that they would do so, but then new errors appeared. That is why what happened this summer was so serious rather than the initial errors in the papers.
On reputation and the market, all the main awarding bodies had errors, so there is no market mechanism—no one of them could say, “We had no errors but the others did.” My third argument is that all regulators have such powers. We cannot rely on the nuclear option of ending accreditation.
Kevin Brennan
I was indeed going to be generous—about the powers of persuasion of our Front Benchers in the House of Lords. They persuaded the Government—more effectively than my hon. Friends and I in the Commons did—to change their mind on one or two issues, which I shall come to in a moment.
The Minister has taken the trouble to talk us through the Lords amendments, as he said he would, but some questions emerge from what he said that, if he has the leave of the House to speak later in the debate, I hope he will answer. Lords amendments 1 to 4 relate to clause 8 and the Secretary of State’s functions in relation to teachers. The Bill abolishes the General Teaching Council for England. I note that some criticisms have been made of its operations. One year after the publication of the White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”, in which the Secretary of State said—I agree with him about this—that there was
“no calling more noble, no profession more vital and no service more important than teaching,”
it is significant that he has taken the opportunity to abolish the professional body.
The Bill transfers some of the General Teaching Council’s functions to the Secretary of State, among which is the power to prohibit a teacher from teaching. In Committee in this House, we debated an Opposition amendment—which, surprisingly, was not successful—that would have required the Secretary of State to keep a list of persons prohibited from teaching. I note that Lord Hill confirmed in the other place that the Government believe that a database of teachers prohibited from teaching will be established. We tabled amendments here and in the other place to require the Secretary of State to keep a register of qualified teachers—again, to our surprise, without success—but Lord Hill indicated that he would consider the matter, saying,
“we have been persuaded by concerns raised in this House and elsewhere that there is a genuine need for the Government to help schools to know who has qualified teacher status and who has passed induction.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 October 2011; Vol. 731, c. 257.]
That is welcome. He went on to confirm that there would be an online database from 2012.
Another concern is the proposal to give employers discretion over which cases of misconduct—those that might lead to the prohibition of a teacher—to refer to the Secretary of State. Again, colleagues in both Houses raised concerns about transparency and consistency. I welcome Lord Hill’s notification to Baroness Jones that the Government are developing advice on the new system to help professional conduct hearing panels determine when a teacher should be prohibited from the profession and that such advice will be available publicly.
Lords amendments 1 to 4 would enable the Secretary of State to issue interim prohibition orders—quickly imposed orders that prevent a teacher from undertaking work while the Secretary of State is considering their case—where he considers it in the public interest to do so, and they must be reviewed every six months. The amendments were tabled in Grand Committee in the House of Lords, but I do not think they were debated there. Their rationale was not given, so when the Minister replies he might like to emphasise what the rationale was, what the amendments will achieve, why they are so important and perhaps why they were not included in the first draft.
Lords amendments 5 to 15 relate to restrictions on the reporting of alleged offences by teachers, about which we had an exchange earlier. We have supported the Government’s intention to help protect teachers from malicious allegations, but we have also been keen to ensure that the provisions are properly scrutinised, as there is a possibility of unintended consequences.
The Lords amendments would extend the reach of clause 13 to cover tentative allegations against teachers. As the Minister rightly pointed out, following advice from the trade unions and others, we argued that the clause’s reach could be extended so that the restrictions apply not only to teachers in schools but to other school staff. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart)—I am sure it is only a matter of time before he becomes a right hon. Gentleman—mentioned this earlier. In our view, other school staff and staff in further education colleges should be included. The impact of a publicly reported unproven allegation, which the Minister eloquently described, applies to those people, too, and is potentially equally damaging. I understand the Government’s general desire to limit the number of people on whom the provisions will have an impact, but I do not understand why teachers in FE colleges should not be covered when teachers dealing with young people of the same age group in sixth forms—quite possibly teaching exactly the same subjects—are covered. This seems to be an inconsistency in the Bill.
I note what the Minister said about extending the provisions to cover tentative allegations. I make it clear that we do not object to that, but we ask him to be absolutely clear about his motives for including the amendments at this stage. Does he have any further thoughts on the desirability of extending the scope to include non-teaching staff and all staff in FE colleges? If he has any compelling reasons why those staff should be excluded, we would like to hear them. Having listened to him earlier, I am not sure what his evidence is for excluding these staff from the scope of the provisions. I understand why he might want to limit the number of people covered—perhaps that is why he has put a ring fence around teachers—but I do not understand the rationale for failing to include the other staff.
Mr Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman talks about extending the provision to other staff in schools. Do he and his party believe that it should be extended further to other workers? For example, a social worker dealing with children at risk could be equally devastated by publicity surrounding allegations against them—
Mr Speaker
Order. The disadvantage of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention was that, interesting though it was, it bore no relation to the amendment we are discussing.
Kevin Brennan
As always, the hon. Gentleman makes a thoughtful point but, as you have confirmed, Mr Speaker, it unfortunately falls outside the scope of the Bill.
Lords amendments 16 and 17 deal with Ofqual’s enforcement powers, which the Minister mentioned earlier. The Labour Government began the reform of the examination system in 2007 with the “Confidence in Standards” White Paper. It proposed the establishment of an independent regulator, Ofqual, which would be separate from the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and would be able to fine exam bodies. Currently, the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 allows Ofqual only to direct an examination board to change its practices and, as the Minister said, to withdraw recognition.
I agree that it would be helpful for Ofqual to have more sanctions at its disposal to ensure that examination boards minimise their errors, but to an extent I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness. This proposal has appeared at a late stage. I know that Christmas is approaching, but, as I am sure the Government Whips will confirm, using Bills as Christmas trees on which to hang whatever a Government wish to hang on them is not always a good way of legislating, and I had thought the Government had pledged not to do that.
Mr Stuart
As I debated the abolition of independent schools only a couple of weeks ago with the hon. Gentleman, who supported the motion, it is a pleasure to find something on which we can agree. He is right: we need to hear more from the Government to justify the measure. It is like the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Legislating instantly following an incident in the summer, rather than checking and thinking through the principles behind the proposed legislation, could be a mistake.
Kevin Brennan
Let us hope that this will not be another Dangerous Dogs Act.
I am not going to suggest that Labour has not been guilty in the past of hanging proposals on to Bills as they progress through Parliament, and, as a former Government Whip, I am not going to suggest that I have not occasionally tried to lecture Ministers about the practice, but it often causes problems further down the line. We can understand how it happens.
On 22 June 2011, a newspaper headline announced “Cameron promises ‘tough action’ over GCSE and A-level exam blunders”, and a sub-headline added “Prime minister says mistakes are unacceptable and assures Ofqual will rectify system to prevent further errors”. That was converted into a panic in Government, which rippled into the Department for Education, and the Secretary of State said that the Prime Minister was exercised about the issue. “What can we do? Oh, we have a Bill going through Parliament: perhaps we can dream up a few clauses to put into it. Wasn’t there a proposal at some stage to introduce fines? Let us use that: it is already half written.” However, the proposal was never properly scrutinised. It should have been subjected to proper pre-legislative scrutiny.
As I have said, we are not going to oppose the amendments, but I want to record our concern that something that the Government said they would not do is happening now, before our very eyes.
Mr Graham Stuart
It is a pleasure to participate in the debate and to see so many members of the Bill Committee present. I know that a lot of effort has gone into improving the Bill and I am delighted that their noble lordships have made many constructive contributions. I am also delighted that Ministers have been prepared to listen—as, to be fair, they have throughout the process—and have made amendments accordingly.
One issue that I raised in Committee concerned schools’ discretionary referral of teachers who have been sacked for misconduct. In the other place, Lord Hill said that we could be assured that all the most serious cases would be referred, and I would be grateful if the Minister could help me to understand how that will necessarily be the case if discretion lies with the school. I am happy to take an intervention now if he is able to give me that information, but if he is not I shall move on.
Interim immediate barring orders will be in the hands of the Secretary of State for cases in which the concern is sufficiently great, and where someone can be referred, we are talking about a great sanction. Such sanctions are probably appropriate for teachers who have been, or who are suspected of having been, guilty of gross misconduct, but how do we ensure consistency? One can imagine a case in which two teachers have behaved in exactly the same way but in which one of them is let go by the school and that is it—they go off and their CV is doubtless marked and harmed but fundamentally they can carry on with their career—whereas another is referred upwards into the national machinery, which Ministers themselves accept is cumbersome and comes with heavy sanction. I am not yet entirely satisfied that there will be justice and equality of treatment in such circumstances, and I ask the Minister to respond to that point later.
In respect of reporting restrictions, the shadow schools Minister is right to say that all of us who have focused on the provision have worried about its possible unintended consequences. We all recognise the vulnerability of teachers to malicious allegations, which can spread from chatter around the school yard to chatter around the community. If an allegation is formally made and appears in a newspaper, that can have a devastating effect on a teacher who might have dedicated their life to supporting and educating young people. All Committee members, and everyone to whom I have spoken on this issue, sympathise with the Government’s approach, but questions remain. The Newspaper Society submission may not have caused my views to undergo a complete U-turn, but it raised a lot of questions as to where this protection should stop. The Opposition suggested it should be extended to other teachers, and I have mentioned social workers. I have yet to grasp the point of principle that justifies limiting this provision to teachers alone, rather than its covering many other professions as well, which might result in the public losing their right to know what is going on.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that even if such allegations are not reported in the media, they may get out into the community and may influence head teachers when they make decisions about appointments? The operation of these provisions will therefore need to be examined after they are put in place.
Mr Stuart
I agree that we will have to keep a close eye on the provision, but I hope it does the job it is intended to do in a fair and just way, and we can give Ministers a great deal of credit for having listened to the debate in the Lords and for having come forward with amendments to ensure that it does, indeed, work in the fairest possible way.
In respect of exemptions, there is an anomaly which I highlighted through an amendment in Committee. Further education lecturers and teachers in sixth-form colleges, who come under the same administrative banding of FE for these purposes, do not receive the same level of protection as schoolteachers. To reiterate the point made by the shadow Minister, a lecturer and a schoolteacher might be teaching the same people the same subject in the same kind of classroom, yet the lecturer will not have this protection while the schoolteacher will.
Kevin Brennan
Further, a school student might be attending an FE college as part of their school sixth-form studies, and the regulations would be different in those two institutions.
Mr Stuart
Yes, and Alison Wolf suggested in her report that more 14 to 16-year-olds should attend FE colleges, so this provision would affect them as well as 17 to 18-year-olds, for whom the provision might be less relevant. I hope Ministers will think about this anomaly and find a way of equalising the situation.
The Government make what seems like a very reasonable case on strengthening Ofqual’s enforcement powers. Ofqual does not have as wide-ranging powers as other regulators, and there is a very quick step from its making requirements on awarding bodies to the nuclear option of removing their ability to provide awards at all. It therefore seems reasonable to have more moderate powers in the middle, such as the power to make fines, but this Government are committed not to following such easy logic unless there is a very strong—nay, an overwhelming—case for giving new powers to some non-governmental, unelected quango, such as Ofqual, so in an intervention I asked the Minister to make the case. He made a brave effort, as he always does, being a highly esteemed colleague and an excellent schools Minister, but he really did not make the case.
We did not hear about the number of times that awarding bodies have deliberately flouted Ofqual’s requirements—that OCR, when required to do something by Ofqual, just ignored it, left it as long as possible and did it only if it felt like it; or that the lack of anything other than a nuclear button meant that OCR did not want to comply.
Following this summer’s examination paper errors fiasco, no one was more embarrassed and determined to put it right than the awarding bodies. They collectively and individually felt that it was embarrassing, and they wanted to put it right as quickly as they could. The numbers were somewhat higher than in previous years, but the attention paid to them this year was rather greater than the increase in problems, and I know at least one case in which there was only one error in 100,000 questions.
I want to see all such errors eliminated and to know that those bodies are straining every sinew to put the situation right, but I am not yet convinced that a fining regime, however conveniently it may fulfil the Prime Minister’s promise to do something about the situation, is the right approach.
Mr Gibb
The measure is about incentives. If a not-for-profit or commercial operation seeks to ensure that there are no errors, the exponential cost of ensuring that there are zero errors is a cost to that organisation, so the fining powers provide an equal and opposite cost to the organisations that do not incur those costs to do their best to eliminate errors. That is the purpose of the fining provisions.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful to the Minister for that comment. Perhaps he did mean what he just said, and it may be possible to create an examinations regime in which there are zero—no—mistakes, but the cost of examinations, which this Government inherited from the previous one, is already entirely outwith the value that those qualifications bring to this country. Our system is already over-reliant on examinations, and aspiring to zero errors—ever, in any examination question—will have a deleterious impact on their quality.
Awarding bodies may seek to change the questions that they ask to make it less likely that they ever include an error, and, if the measure suggests that it is unacceptable for them ever to include an error in any examination question, it will be extraordinarily expensive and impact in all sorts of unintended ways.
As Chairman of the Education Committee, I am not yet convinced that awarding bodies are so careless of quality, whatever the errors this summer, that we need such an incentive to make them improve. We need a balanced and proportionate approach, but I fear that the Minister’s words, suggesting that there should be zero errors ever, will lead to something quite different.
Damian Hinds
I wonder what level of error Japan, or the other strongest education systems in the world, are targeting. However, notwithstanding my hon. Friend’s point about the relatively small number of errors in this country, I wonder also whether he agrees that following those errors there is a problem with public confidence in examining bodies, and that, when it comes to qualifications, trust and confidence are absolutely all.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend makes my point for me: public confidence, particularly as far as a political party in power and a Prime Minister who wants to be seen to be doing something are concerned, is all, so they have come forward, as the previous Government did all too often, with a legislative response to something that needs no such response, and on the basis of no proper or considered analysis of the situation. We had 13 years of vast increase in legislative provision, but very little increase in public confidence, so I say, “Don’t stick it in a law because it looks good in this week’s papers; actually think for the long term.” If we had done so, we might not have introduced this provision.
Richard Fuller
Many of us have strained to have zero errors in exams. I note you achieved that on many occasions, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is a strain for the rest of us. We therefore understand the difficulties faced by the bodies that are setting exams in reaching that accomplishment. However, I am listening intently to my hon. Friend. Does he agree that the Lords amendments could have an inverse consequence? If we set a cost for the errors made, we will essentially replace a self-correcting mechanism whereby bodies seek to achieve the highest levels because of the risk to their reputation, with a mechanism whereby the errors made are considered to be a part of the cost of doing business. That stick will end up with someone saying, “Well, if we make three or four errors, we can afford it—we’ll get away with it.” However, nothing can reimburse an organisation that has lost its reputation.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making my point both more succinctly and fluently that I was.
The Government may not necessarily be wrong, but we have not heard the argument. There are many awarding bodies in this country, and perhaps some have flouted and ignored Ofqual’s requirements because they can afford to do so as a cost of doing business. If there is such a case, we need to introduce the sanctions to bring those bodies into line and ensure that public confidence and quality is delivered. However, I have not heard that argument; I have only heard arguments about public confidence. As I say, that does not seem a good reason to legislate.
The explanatory notes state:
“Subsection (5) of the new clause would insert into ASCLA 2009”—
the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act—
“new sections 152A to 152C which confer on Ofqual the power to require a recognised body on which a sanction has been imposed to pay the costs incurred by Ofqual in relation to imposing the sanction.”
So those bodies have to pay not only the sanction, but the costs related to the sanction. I may be a bit of a cynic about quangos, but if they see a way of buttressing their income, their number of employees and their powers, and they can get someone else to pay for it, I suggest that they will be more inclined to go down that road. I do not want such bodies doing overstretch.
The explanatory notes go on to state:
“The costs concerned would include the costs of carrying out an investigation”—
ooh! you can’t be too careful there—and doubtless those bodies would want to get quite a lot of people involved. The explanatory notes then refer to “relevant administration costs”—load on a bit more for that—
“and the costs of obtaining expert advice.”
This is an open, blank cheque to Ofqual to impose charges on awarding bodies if it sees fit to do so. Personally, I would like non-elected quangos kept on a fairly strict and short rein unless it is appropriate to do otherwise.
Richard Fuller
My hon. Friend has already alerted the House to the risk that the Lords amendments will result in the examination bodies treating accuracy as a cost of doing business. He is now alerting us to the risk that that may be an open-ended cost of doing business. Does he agree that the risk of the amendments is that we are replacing a self-correcting mechanism with a bureaucratic structure that has unlimited costs to the examination bodies?
Mr Stuart
The measures seem terribly redolent of provisions I saw in the House during the previous Parliament. I had hoped to see fewer such measures in this Parliament. My hon. Friend is right: we believe in creating the right framework and allowing the incentives within that to do their work. As far as awarding bodies are concerned, those incentives are correctly framed and their incentive to do the right thing is right. If Ofqual feels in the future that those bodies are paying insufficient attention to reducing errors in examinations, it will be able to say so. If awarding bodies then fail to comply with the direction suggested by Ofqual, that is the time to come here and discuss the matter. Ministers would be able to give instance after instance where awarding bodies had failed to act on the very clear and reasonable directions given to it by Ofqual.
Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)
I am fascinated by my hon. Friend’s speech. I understand that he feels zero errors is too high a threshold, but will he tell the House if he thinks there is an acceptable level of errors that Ofqual might be able to specify, or is he uncomfortable with labelling any level of errors as unacceptable?
Mr Stuart
Conservative Members have found that artificial targets led to precisely the kind of mechanistic, cost-of-business approach that my hon. Friend speaks about so well. That is why we set up a body of experts such as Ofqual to work within a framework, also established, of different awarding bodies wherein together they come up with the right approach. I am not sure that it is necessarily right to set a percentage. If there were a consistent period in which the awarding bodies showed themselves to be careless, or if we found on international comparison that ours were not up to scratch compared with those elsewhere—whatever the aspiration of the Japanese examination system, I doubt that it delivers 100% accuracy in all exams—it would be better if we trusted Ofqual to work with the bodies without necessarily bringing more bureaucratic sanctions into the process. Given the terms of subsection (5) of the new clause, there seems to be little incentive for Ofqual to control the costs of this, and it may simply add further to the expense of our qualifications system.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
These awarding bodies are very large businesses; I believe that the largest is worth about a quarter of a billion pounds. Does my hon. Friend agree that they no doubt have legal insurance that would meet the cost of these interventions?
Mr Stuart
That may well be the case, but if they do have such insurance, the premium will reflect the cost of doing businesses. In all contexts, whenever anyone suggests that having insurance somehow means that there is not a problem, it usually means that there is a broad raising of costs across the piece, which is something that we should minimise. One of the changes that was made in the Lords and has now come before us recognises that some education awarding bodies are part of educational companies globally, that there should be a cap on how much they can be fined, and that that cap should be relevant to the amount of business that that organisation does in this country rather than in global operations. That is welcome.
We now have a repeal of the repeal of the duty to co-operate. The shadow Minister was right to say that we are glad to hear confirmation that this partnership working can continue. I am also glad to hear from the Minister, citing his noble Friend Lord Hill, that the Government are committed to that form of partnership. In all the high-profile cases, and others, of children who are found to be neglected, it turns out that people at the agencies have not talked to each other, and we need to ensure that they do. It may be possible that a particular duty to co-operate in a certain way leads to a mechanistic response. If there is another way of framing the whole conversation that encourages it without there being a bureaucratic or legislative solution, that is something that I would be open to, but until we have a convincing argument as to how the overall picture will work, it is a good thing that schools co-operate with the other bodies.
On admissions, we have the change whereby anyone can refer a case to the regulator. I assume that the impact assessment has taken account of this, but I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that. If anyone can refer to the regulator on admissions, how many more referrals do we expect? If other hon. Members’ caseloads are anything like mine, they will know that an awful lot of parents are concerned about admission arrangements and many of them go through the appeals process. I wonder how many would seek to question and make complaints to the admissions regulator using the power in the Bill.
Again referring back to the remarks of the shadow Minister, can the Minister give the House a reassurance on the time frame for an admissions body to correct itself? Is it really possible that we could have a 10-month delay? One of the dangers in this place is that so many Members are so high-minded. The Minister is one of the most high-minded, and there is a tendency to assume that all others in the system share his ethics, commitment and fairness. Perhaps I have led the wrong life, but I have met many people who are capable of spite. It would seem to me a mistake to have a system that allowed somebody who had appealed and won to be thwarted in an act of spite by a school because it could use the rules to avoid acting in time to provide justice to the person who had brought the complaint.
On Ofsted inspections, as I said earlier, I welcome the Government’s proportionate approach. I would be grateful if the Minister talked us through the implications of the reduction in Ofsted’s budget. Perhaps surprisingly for some Government Members, the previous Government brought in pretty strong reductions in Ofsted’s budget. It is greatly to the credit of the then chief inspector that Ofsted coped with that without a discernible drop in quality. The budget is now going down even further—from well over £200 million, it is dropping to about £143 million, from memory. I am interested to know how that will impact on Ofsted’s ability to provide inspections.
The noble Lord Hill said in the other place that 72 outstanding schools had had inspections triggered by Ofsted’s risk assessment process. That meant that about 2% of outstanding schools had been inspected in the period. He said that it had been agreed with Ofsted that the aim should be to inspect at least 5% of outstanding schools. I wonder how able Ofsted will be to deliver that 250% increase in workload just in the area of outstanding schools.
In winding up, the Minister might also like to comment on primary schools, because all schools are not the same. It has always been of concern to me, when talking about greater autonomy and academies, that primary schools are fundamentally more fragile than secondaries. The departure of a head or a chair of governors, both of whom might contribute to a school being outstanding, can lead very quickly to a school’s standards falling. I would like a reassurance that there are different approaches for primaries and secondaries, for example in the speed of reaction and the attention given to certain factors, such as a change of head at a primary school being given greater weight and being seen as more of a trigger to get Ofsted to come in and check that all is well.
With those remarks, I will leave it there. I hope that the Minister will respond in due course.
Richard Fuller
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention, although with respect, I will stick tightly to the Lords amendments on this issue. She gives another example of how the duty on schools and local authorities to co-operate has evolved. Given that their noble Lords went so far in putting that duty back in the Bill, may I encourage the Minister and his ministerial colleagues to think further and more deeply about the evolving landscape and what that is likely to mean over the coming years?
I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for his comments about school admissions, which many of us share, and I thank the Minister for the changes that have been proposed or made. If we wish to see a substantial change and more liberalisation of schools in terms of where the authority lies, we should be aware that most families and parents want schools’ admissions policies to be clear and fair in their communities. That does not necessarily mean that they have to be uniform, although many of us would indeed hope to see uniform entrance policies, particularly with free schools, because that would reinforce the success of this new idea and new policy. I therefore very much welcome Lords amendments 20 and 21. I have listened to different points of view on free schools, and I know that support for this radical idea among Opposition Members has been “on again/off again”. Indeed, it would be interesting to know whether those on the Opposition Front Bench are “on” today or “off”.
Richard Fuller
Indeed. I will happily listen to the hon. Member for Cardiff West if he wishes to—[Interruption.] I can see that those on the Opposition Front Bench are not quite sure whether they are on or off, or on the fence.
Mr Graham Stuart
I am perhaps more optimistic than my hon. Friend. Historically, we have not had direct budgets in this area. As more people receive direct budgets, those who provide in response to them will grow in their sophistication and capability, so they will be able better to sell, communicate and market what they do for families, who will then see that they can take on a budget without having to try to commission those services from scratch themselves. My hon. Friend is right—although things might develop over time—that this might never be appropriate for some people and we must ensure that we look after their interests. However, for perhaps even more than 75%, direct budgets might prove to be the way forward.
Richard Fuller
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention. As Chairman of the Select Committee, he is very knowledgeable in this area, and I look forward to discussing the issue with him further. Let me add a couple of additional concerns. Although we agree on the overall direction of travel, we might also reach some concordance over concerns.
The proposal in Lords amendment 37 is to deal with this issue through setting up pilot schemes in some areas. I am in favour of that. What will be the benefit for children with special educational needs? Their parents already put an enormous amount of effort into supporting their children. We call on them not only to go out and work hard, but to provide that support at home and that takes up an enormous amount of time. To place on top of that the burden of an individual budget—however it is implemented—places significant additional burdens. Let me explain a couple of them.
I have spoken to parents of children with special educational needs in my constituency. Overall, they are enthusiastic about some of the proposals in the Government’s Green Paper, but they strongly voiced their concern about the complexity of placing additional burdens on parents. They want these responsibilities, but the complexity involved is significant.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I want to talk about five aspects of the amendments. The first is the question of Ofqual. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chairman of the Education Committee, about the fines. [Hon. Members: “Surely not!”] He is fairly used to disagreements, and always accepts them cheerfully, as he has just demonstrated.
The Government are right to think in terms of fines. My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) put his finger on it when he noted that it was difficult to change examination boards in a timely manner if there were mistakes. There must be no mistakes in the preparation of exams.
The real problem, it seems to me, is that we have far too many examination boards, and I believe that the Education Committee will consider that in due course. We need accurate examinations so that students can feel confident that they are taking tests that are fair, proper and competent, and fines should be applied when those priorities are not honoured.
There is the important question of whether Ofsted should inspect outstanding schools. We must ensure that it concentrates on schools that are failing or coasting: as the Prime Minister rightly says, we must never fail to recognise that some schools are not doing a good enough job at present, and that they require our full attention. An Ofsted report is, of course, a snapshot of the situation that the Ofsted inspectors found during their visit, and is likely to convey contradictory messages. What I frequently find in my constituency, and certainly found when I was involved in education as a governor, is that such reports may not tell the story that other statistical evidence might tell.
I raised the problem when the Education Committee was considering Ofsted and its future. I asked witnesses what should be done when a school that is able to brandish very good exam results—five passes graded between A-star and C—receives an Ofsted report that tells a different tale. I know of two schools in my constituency that have been able to counter one bit of evidence with another, and both cases involved Ofsted reports. I therefore think that the Government are right to use the tool of Ofsted to focus more on the schools that are failing or coasting.
There are many different ways of measuring performance. We must enable parents to see, from year to year, that things are moving in the right direction in the schools that they choose—or may choose in the future—for their children. An annual assessment will be helped by effective league tables and the right kind of evidence presented in the right way.
Mr Graham Stuart
Is my hon. Friend comfortable with the idea that some schools might not be inspected for 10 or 12 years?
Neil Carmichael
I would certainly be willing to see schools go without an Ofsted inspection for some time if they are consistently performing effectively and efficiently. Several years might elapse before an inspection, but I do not believe that we are talking of decades.
We must bear it in mind that there are other accountability mechanisms: the choice that parents make; the measurements that league tables offer; and the role of governors. I know that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) is not going to press the issue to a Division, but I consider it very important, and I think that the Government are right to be less prescriptive than they have been in the past. It is critical that we focus on what governing bodies should be, and on the role that they should have.
I have been involved in the establishment of an all-party parliamentary group on school governors, because I think that the issue has been overlooked for far too long. One of the key themes that the APPG is developing is the need to focus on skills rather than representatives of governing bodies, and it is reflected in both the Bill and the amendment. It is obvious to me, and, I believe, to most people—it was certainly obvious to all who were involved in the formation of the APPG—that a great many skills are required. It is a good idea to ensure that a local authority appoints a governor in consultation with the governing body, so that together they can come up with the right person to fill the skills gap. The school will then have a governing body that reflects its priorities and has the appropriate skills. I am glad that the Bill mentions the crucial role of governors, on whom I think we should turn the spotlight when we think about accountability.
That brings me to the question of reporting restrictions. Over 20 years, I have been involved in situations in which members of the teaching profession have had to undergo disciplinary procedures. Ironically, none has been connected with pupils, and I am pleased about that, but I could have done with a few reporting restrictions in one instance in particular. It is very difficult to manage such situations when they are being second-guessed by the press, which may investigate or discuss them in ways that are not helpful to the requirement that evidence is presented fairly and honourably so that people who are not involved in a case can make proper judgments and reach an unbiased conclusion. I discovered that if someone wants to get something published, they should simply mark it “private and confidential” and away it will go. It is right that the Bill examines this issue, because we have to ensure that our processes can be properly managed and controlled so that investigations can be undertaken and judgments made consistent with justice and good practice.
Mr Graham Stuart
I am glad to say that Lord Hill said that he and Sir Michael Wilshaw—I think he specifically named him—believed that changing a head would not automatically trigger an inspection but would trigger consideration. The Government and Ofsted are aligned with my hon. Friend on this requirement.
Damian Hinds
That highlights the point about having people running organisations whom we trust and who can make professional judgments, and about their weighing all the evidence and not being hidebound by particular formulae.
In an earlier intervention, I mentioned that we will have much richer data than ever before in the schools system. That is not unique to this country, because a revolution is going on in the education world, as was reported a few weeks ago in a good article in The Economist. We know much more about schools and can therefore do much more predictive modelling than was possible before.
In an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) argued in favour of contextual value added. The Government will not use CVA—and thank God for that; I have yet to meet anyone who understands it. I have served on the Education Committee for 18 months and we are still waiting for our first teacher, head teacher, pupil, local authority officer or anyone else from the education establishment to talk voluntarily about CVA as a measure of school performance. Instead, we have what most people would understand as a value-added measure—progress from key stage 2 to key stage 4—which will do most of that job without the extra complexity and formulaic high jinks that the contextual bit introduces. Of course, it is only one of a large basket of measures and indicators that can be used.
I am sure that it is not in the minds of Ministers or the leadership of Ofsted that any school should go a long time without inspection. I would be amazed if any head teacher wanted to go long without his school being inspected. Many of the indicators are what we might call “digital indicators”, but Ofsted produces an analogue report with much richer evaluation and comment than some of those measures. I am sure that many parents will want to know that there is a relatively recent report informing them about some of the things that they cannot necessarily read in league tables, but I do not think that any of that calls necessarily for the formulaic approach of automatic triggers that Labour Members suggest.
The next area I want to touch on is the anonymity of teachers. Reasonable questions have been asked about why schoolteachers should enjoy special treatment, and why those who work in further education colleges are treated differently. I accept that that is an anomaly, although it is hardly the first anomaly to arise between secondary schools and sixth-form colleges.
Mr Stuart
The Government listened and used the Bill to correct an anomaly and allow FE teachers to teach in schools. I led a debate in January and am delighted that Ministers listened to that appeal and are seeking other ways of levelling the playing field for FE and sixth-form colleges and schools.
Damian Hinds
Indeed. As ever, my hon. Friend makes a pertinent point.
Teachers are unique—there is something special about them, as opposed even to other people working with children, although I accept the arguments about them—as they have to stand before a class, in a position of authority, and keep discipline. Most of us will have been struck by the number of teachers whom we know who strongly approve of the change introducing anonymity. For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that those teachers would never in a million years get up to the sort of no good that we want to avoid. There is something symbolic in saying that we understand their difficult position in keeping order in their little community and that they deserve our support and this type of anonymity.
Ofqual has already stimulated some fascinating exchanges. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness, who chairs the Committee on which I serve, I wondered what level of defect the Japanese would look for. I specifically picked Japan, rather than Shanghai, Finland or any of the popular examples because of my experience of joining the Manchester and Merseyside branch of IBM as a tender 17-year-old. The story new starters were told might have been apocryphal, but it was that that IBM specified a 99.99% success rate in the contract with its Japanese microchip supplier. The Japanese were a bit confused, but dutifully smashed one in every 10,000 chips to ensure that they complied with the rate. The point is that other systems do things better than ours does and that people with other systems accept nothing but the best. Following that experience, IBM adopted the principle that is known in business as zero defects.
Mr Stuart
Double Dutch perhaps, but not Japanese.
My hon. Friend asserts that other areas do better than we do—in the accuracy of their examination questions, I assume —but does he have any evidence to back that up? The paucity of such evidence from Ministers makes me question whether we have made the case to introduce such measures.
Damian Hinds
I suspect that my hon. Friend knows that my point was a more general one about other people doing better than we do and about their tolerance of failure and imperfection. I recognise that humanity is ultimately susceptible to failure, but I worry about what we should accept.
Mr Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is right to quote the Prime Minister, who in turn is right to identify this issue. What practical steps can be taken under the current regime to target those schools that are above the floor targets for five good GCSEs and that have limited resources for Ofsted? How will it be possible to ensure that they get the focus that the Prime Minister, the Minister and I would like to see?
Mr Graham Stuart
Can my hon. Friend give examples of instances in which such a measure might have been triggered in the past?
Mr Gibb
The incidents I would cite are those from this summer when there were persistent errors. The persistence came, in particular, after we had asked the awarding organisations to check that there were no further errors. They did those checks and confirmed that there were none, but then further errors were discovered and damage was caused. That is an example of persistence in the errors we are trying to eliminate from the system.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West asked for an explanation regarding Lords amendments 89 to 91 about land. The Bill introduces new powers to transfer the publicly funded land of foundation and voluntary schools and academies to free schools and academies when those schools close or the land is to be otherwise disposed of. Lords amendments 89 to 91 reduce the reach of those new powers so that they do not apply to land that is leased to a new academy by a private landlord. Where we are engaging in commercial negotiations with private landlords for the lease of land to new free schools, we think it is more appropriate to protect any public investment in that land by contractual means rather than in statute.
The hon. Gentleman also raised the PFI issue and I am happy to restate the purpose of amendment 34. Under section 6(2) of the Academies Act 2010, a local authority “must cease to maintain” a school once it converts to academy status. Some banks and local authorities have asked whether that prohibition on maintenance might prevent a local authority from making a payment under PFI or other contracts. Our view is that local authorities have always been able to use their own resources to provide assistance, including financial assistance, to academies and to enter into contractual commitments and incur liabilities on their behalf. We are clear that section 6(2) of the Academies Act does not prevent the continuation of those activities. All academies are and will continue to be maintained by the Secretary of State under funding arrangements entered into under section 1 of the Academies Act, and any assistance provided by local authorities to academies, whether financial or otherwise, will only ever be a proportion of the total expense. Amendment 34 therefore confirms that local authorities can continue to make payments for academies under PFI and other contracts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford and the hon. Member for Cardiff West raised the issue of direct payment pilots. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who has responsibility for children and families, wrote to peers in the other place explaining the importance of introducing this new clause and consulted on the text of the draft clause, including in relation to special educational needs and disability organisations as well as local government interests. The principles behind the clause—greater choice and control for the families of children with SEN—are shared across the House. Indeed, the clause is modelled on legislation on the direct payment health pilots that were introduced by the previous Government. Let me reassure hon. Members that the orders needed to give practical effect to the clauses are subject to the affirmative procedure. These are, after all, powers concerning pilots rather than a national scheme and the clause has a sunset provision of four years.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness asked about anyone being able to refer complaints to the adjudicator. We do not believe this change will lead to many more complaints. The regulations on which we are currently consulting will ensure that repetitive, vexatious or anonymous complaints cannot be made. I hope that will provide him with some reassurance. On the issue of spite, which he also raised, “anyone” does mean anyone, so it could be a school or a charity. The only proviso is that they must be willing to put their name to objections and to refer matters that are new or substantially new to the adjudicator.
My hon. Friend asked about consistency in the referral of misconduct cases by schools to the regulator. Evidence suggests that there is already variation in referrals despite the blanket duty on employers to refer all cases, and this duty has not been affected. Employers will know when a case of misconduct is serious enough potentially to require a referral from the profession, and they can use the draft prohibition guidance, which I can send to my hon. Friend, to help them make this decision. If a member of the public is not happy with the decision, they can refer a complaint to the Secretary of State.
My hon. Friend also asked about Ofsted’s capacity to deliver more rigorous assessments. We have discussed and agreed the more rigorous risk assessment, and Ofsted has the resources necessary within its budget to achieve this. Every organisation has to prioritise its resources in the current economic climate and Ofsted is no different.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford for his continued and vocal support for academies and free schools. I assure him that it is right that admissions at academies and free schools must comply with the admissions code as set out in their funding agreements. As with all other state-funded schools, complaints about admissions will now go to the adjudicator.
My hon. Friend also raised concerns about particular families who do not adopt personal budgets—one third is the figure he cited—and the support they require. He argues for having pilots, and that is what the new clause does. I share his concerns about the possible burdens on families. That is why the pilots will look at the support available to families and how the system can be as straightforward as possible to use, as well as at which families take up those payments and which do not. On the point that the hon. Member for Cardiff West made, cost-cutting is not a driver for this policy—it is about having greater choice and control.
On the issue of Ofqual and how the Conservatives could support a regime of fining by a regulator, my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire set out the reasons why the qualifications market needs to be regulated. I should like to make it clear that turnover will be determined in accordance with an order made by the Secretary of State and that Ofqual will consult on how the fining regime is to operate.
I listened carefully to the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford and for Stevenage about primary schools. Primary national offer day will be 16 April. The idea is to co-ordinate the date rather than to put any new pressure on parents to get their children into certain primary schools. It merely makes things easier and less stressful for parents rather than more stressful.
Let me deal briefly with some of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cardiff West. He will know that we have listened carefully to the concerns expressed in this House and in the other place in response to our original intention to withdraw schools and colleges from the duty to co-operate. The evidence of that engagement is clear in these Lords amendments. We have removed the “duty to co-operate” clause as well as the clause that the hon. Gentleman seeks to amend regarding the children and young people’s plan.
The hon. Gentleman’s amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23 relates to our plans to allow anyone to refer an objection to the schools adjudicator about the admissions arrangements at any state-funded school in the country. The amendment would require admissions authorities and others to comply with the adjudicator’s decision within 14 days of receiving written notice of that decision. Current legislation in this area, which was introduced by the Labour party, requires compliance to be forthwith. Let me assure the House once more that our changes to admissions do not affect the adjudicator’s power to consider and decide on the matter put to him and other matters as he sees fit, or to make binding decisions as a consequence. The amendment would impose a stringent national timetable for the implementation of such decisions. It is based on two false assumptions—first that schools do not wish to put things right, which they do, and secondly that all situations are the same, which they are not. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press his amendment to a Division.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend could see one of the reasons for the need for flexibility if he came to visit Beverley, as I have frequently invited him to do, where our excitement grows with each delay until he does so. He would see the area where the new East Riding college was to have been built but, because of the mess that was made of FE capital funding under the previous Administration, it looks like a bomb site in the middle of Beverley. As we move forward with these freedoms and with the excellent leadership that we have at East Riding college, I hope that we will see the college on that site in the near future.
Mr Hayes
Every day a new invitation for me to visit a different part of the country arrives, each one more seductive than the last, but none more attractive than the overtures of my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee. Tonight I will do what I rarely do in the House: I commit, from the Dispatch Box, to visit his college, because he has made this case so frequently and persuasively that I feel that I have been less than generous in my response thus far. I will certainly come to look at the specific circumstances that he described in his—as usual—pithy and well-informed intervention.
Mr Graham Stuart
I would like to take the Minister back to the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight). In East Yorkshire, the Harrier was developed with a lot of taxpayers’ money and then shipped abroad to become an American aeroplane. We rather fear that the Hawk will follow. Will the Minister reassure us, in more specific terms than he used in response to my right hon. Friend, that a college will not be so free that it can leave the country with its assets, if it suits the organisation rather than the needs of the taxpayers?
Mr Hayes
As I have said, where public interest is in jeopardy, the Secretary of State will retain powers under the Bill to intervene as necessary. I paid tribute to my hon. Friend a few moments ago for his patient endurance in respect of my forthcoming visit to Beverley. It was Ruskin who said,
“Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”
We can therefore take it that my hon. Friend is a patient endurer, more noble than strength and beauty. It is likely that the circumstance he describes would happen only rarely, but it is important that when a college wishes to transfer its property, rights and liabilities to another provider, the Secretary of State retains the kind of powers that he requested.
Lords amendments 53, 56 and 62 reinstate statutory safeguards relating to the specific governance and constitutional arrangements of voluntary sixth-form colleges that were inadvertently removed by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act. It was the previous Government’s view that legislation should reflect the distinct constitutional position of voluntary sixth-form colleges, and they confirmed that they would look to reinstate those protections through legislation. We agree with that view, and it is what the amendments do. The new provisions cover what was afforded by previous legislation or Secretary of State directions.
As Members know, I am a keen advocate of freeing colleges from central prescription, direction and control. Such things inhibit a college’s ability to become the master of its own destiny and stifle innovation and growth in our further education sector. The changes in the Bill will enable the Government to present the best case possible to encourage the Office for National Statistics to review its decision to reclassify colleges into the public sector. However, we are not merely responding to the ONS; we began this programme of reform long before we knew about the ONS reclassification. Indeed, it was one of the first things that I set out when I became a Minister. The changes that we have made in the Bill, including the ones that we have introduced at a later stage, are entirely in the spirit of the policy direction set out in the skills strategy which I published, following extensive consultation, last autumn. Indeed, they are in the spirit of the further consultation in which we were involved over the summer, which will lead to the publication of “New Challenges, New Chances”.
The truth is that the ONS reclassification has been a further spur to us, but has not caused us to change direction. If anything, it has cemented our determination to consider every aspect of college management and every means by which we could free colleges from bureaucracy and direction. That fresh thinking has inspired the changes that have been made to the Bill.
As I have said, the changes, and our efforts to secure the private sector reclassification of colleges, have been welcomed, not least by the Association of Colleges. It considers that they will provide colleges with additional flexibility, allowing them to respond effectively to their local community and economy. I should like to place on record my gratitude to the Association of Colleges for its guidance and support, and indeed for how it has challenged us, in helping the Government develop this impressive legislation.
Lords amendments 28, 29 and 39 concern the business of colleges and inspection. You will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, the report that the previous Government commissioned from Sir Andrew Foster. I have a copy of the summary here. They asked him to examine the potential of further education, and he concluded that the landscape that it faced was
“crowded with organisations charged with inspection, improvement or regulatory functions. There is unnecessary complexity and duplication of effort and further rationalisation is required.”
He also recognised, I think, that we needed to rethink how colleges were gauged, inspected and monitored. Knowing that we had some outstanding further education colleges in this country, we decided that the time was right to look afresh at inspection and regulation.
In that context, some of the comments that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), made about schools pertain to colleges too. He dealt with the issue of the inspection of schools earlier this evening, and some of the same principles apply to colleges. In my visits to colleges across the country, I have continually been impressed by the quality of teaching, the standard of learning and the innovative systems that colleges put in place to maximise learners’ potential.
Lords amendments 28 to 30 provide for greater parliamentary scrutiny of regulations exempting further education colleges from inspections, by requiring that all regulations except the first set be subject to the affirmative procedure, so that both Houses can be assured that a full debate will happen before further colleges are exempted. We decided very early on that we wanted to limit the inspection of further education colleges, as we did in the case of schools. However, it is important that that exemption is qualified in the way that I have described. The Prime Minister spoke today of coasting schools, and nor do we want to see any coasting colleges. Although there is little evidence of them, it is important that the House can debate the matter as further exemptions take root.
I turn to Lords amendments 36, 43 and 100, which put the legal framework for apprenticeships on a more sustainable and realistic footing. I need not regale the House at length with how passionately I support apprenticeships—at least, not for more than a few minutes. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have championed apprenticeships both in opposition and in government, and the Government have turned our rhetoric into action by delivering the biggest growth in apprenticeships in modern times. I have said before, and I am happy to say now, that there is more work to be done. As we make that growth sustainable, we will need to consider bureaucracy and the quality and age spread of apprenticeships. It is absolutely right that we should do that, but let us not understate the growth that we have seen—29% growth in under-19 apprenticeships and 64% growth in 19-to-24 apprenticeships over two years, and a big jump in post-25 apprenticeships.
It is important to say that the previous Government had the same aims. Many times, previous Ministers, including the previous Prime Minister, estimated the likely jump in the number of apprenticeships and the number that would be necessary to fill skills gaps. However, this Government are actually delivering. We are making more opportunities available to more people to add to their skills, which will increase their chances of getting, keeping and progressing in jobs. We know from independent research that someone who has a level 2 apprenticeship is likely to earn £70,000 more over their earning lifetime than somebody who has not, and that somebody with a level 3 apprenticeship is likely to earn more than £100,000 more. That is roughly equivalent to a degree.
Mr Stuart
I am always focused on happiness. I thought I could increase the Minister’s sense of contentment if I attempted to correct him. Under the previous situation, there was an obligation not to fund an apprenticeship for anyone who wanted it but to provide one, outwith any ability necessarily to ensure that an employer came forward. That is why the Minister and the Government were right to make that alteration, not withstanding the complaints of Opposition Members.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman got his point on the record, but we are not debating the previous Government’s record or apprenticeships generally; we are debating amendments on quite narrow points in the Bill. I know the Minister is really eager to come back to that.
Stephen Twigg
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour in congratulating Liverpool city council, which, despite one of the worst funding settlements from central Government, has been able to create a new programme. I thank him for that opportunity, although I am in grave danger of moving beyond the scope of this debate, so I shall return to my speech.
Our amendment would change the term “reasonable” in Lords amendment 36 to “best”. In contract law, making a “best effort” requires a higher level of commitment than making a “reasonable effort”. Our amendment would place a greater duty on the chief executive to secure employer participation in apprenticeships for the specified groups and would reintroduce, in part, the previous Government’s commitment, which placed a duty on the chief executive to find an apprenticeship for all who wanted one.
This is a major challenge for us all. In a recent speech, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition set out a new policy on apprenticeships, giving a commitment that in future all major Government contracts should
“go to firms who commit to training the next generation with decent apprenticeships,”
and that none should
“go to those who don’t.”
I invite the Minister today to consider making a similar commitment on behalf of the Government. I seek assurances from him about how the new clause proposed by Lords amendment 36 will be implemented in the context of the Government’s broader approach to apprenticeships. For example, concerns have been raised about Train to Gain places being replaced or rebadged as apprenticeships. Today we have seen early coverage in the media of a report—to which I understand the Minister has contributed—by the Institute for Public Policy Research, due to be published later this week, setting out concerns that younger people are not getting a fair share of the increase in apprenticeships. I appreciate that there is a balance to be struck, and we very much welcome older workers having the opportunity to take up apprenticeships, but with youth unemployment almost certainly set to hit 1 million this week, we need to maintain the important focus on young people and the opportunity that is provided by having an apprenticeship place.
Mr Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is giving a thoughtful speech. In light of his amendment (a) to Lords amendment 36, which seeks to ensure that the chief executive should try to make reasonable efforts to secure employers’ participation, does he agree that we would not wish this or any other Government to get on the hook over the numbers? We must maximise the numbers, but also ensure that we have quality. If we have apprenticeships that do not lead to a major improvement in the earning potential of the young people in question, we will have betrayed them. If courses do not last long enough to give them the skills to raise their value in the market place, we will have betrayed them. It is important not only to provide opportunities, but to ensure that they are valuable opportunities that deliver lifelong benefits.
Stephen Twigg
I found myself in agreement with much of what the hon. Gentleman had to say in the earlier debate on schools, as I do with what he has just said. He makes a critical point, which enables me to bring my remarks to a close. Clearly, with 1 million young people unemployed, having high-quality apprenticeships is going to be a vital part of a strategy to address that problem, but it must not become simply a numbers game. I would like apprenticeships to become the gold standard of vocational education. I attended an Edge Foundation event a few weeks ago and made the point that it would be wonderful if the parents of a 17 or 18-year-old who gets an apprenticeship were as proud of their daughter or son getting that apprenticeship as they would have been of them getting into higher education. That should be what we aspire towards, and at the heart of that is quality, as the hon. Gentleman said.
Mr Stuart
In the light of the requirement to try to secure places, does the hon. Gentleman agree that apprenticeships need to be for a decent period and that an important part of making them work for employers—thus being provided and sustained in the long term—is that the rate of pay should not be too high? The aim should be to make the ticket at the end the valuable part; that is when the benefit comes. Keeping the rate of pay relatively low and ensuring that it lasts for a decent long time will mean that the apprenticeship will work for the company and that at the other end the young person will earn considerably more money.
Stephen Twigg
I might be told off by Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me say that the quality of the education and training elements of the apprenticeship are vital. What we must not do, however, is allow apprenticeships to become a form of exploitation. A balance has to be struck. Clearly, an apprenticeship should be first and foremost about quality education and training, but with a decent amount of pay, too, for those who are apprentices.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. These are very important issues. I do not believe that any Opposition Member doubts the personal commitment of the Minister, particularly on apprenticeships. We have concerns that we have expressed previously about the impact of other changes—the abolition of the education maintenance allowance and the trebling of tuition fees—and we would be very concerned if there was any weakening of the apprenticeship brand. Let us perhaps forge a cross-party national consensus to the effect that we want apprenticeships to increase in number, but more importantly we want to see them as a high-quality gold standard for those young people who follow a vocational route of education.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) raised a number of points, which I shall try to address in my closing remarks. I would like to speak first to amendment (a) to Lords Amendment 29, under which the first as well as any subsequent regulations exempting certain providers from Ofsted inspection in particular circumstances would be subject to the affirmative procedure. The hon. Gentleman asked me particularly to address those matters.
My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), has already spoken about a related amendment to the schools inspection exemption. The same intentions lay behind the exemption for further education providers and our plan, in essence, is to exempt outstanding colleges. I will listen, however, to the points raised. I do not have a dogmatic view on this matter, and as we move to a lighter-touch inspection regime, it is important to do so with appropriate caution.
I would like to deal with one particular concern. Where students feel that an outstanding institution is not maintaining high standards, Ofsted will take very seriously any comments students might make as part of the risk assessment, which could trigger an inspection. My hon. Friend the Minister spoke about the risk assessment process, and it is important that it is tied closely to the view of students about the quality of teaching and learning in an institution.
I spoke to the National Union of Students today about representation on college governing bodies, which we discussed when we dealt with the amendments to which the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby also referred. As I described earlier, we view such representation as a baseline. Representation on governing bodies does not provide the whole answer for learner or staff engagement. Learners and staff should be engaged at a policy level in plotting the strategic direction of a college. As we move to a more freed-up system, so learner choice and learner judgment will play an increasingly critical role in how colleges evolve. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the process. We are moving ahead boldly, but cautiously. At this juncture, it is probably best for me to leave that there.
Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 36 would require the chief executive of skills funding to make “best” efforts rather than “reasonable” efforts in respect of apprenticeships. Of course I understand the intention to strengthen the focus on the delivery of this important objective. It is crucial to maintain and, indeed, improve the quality of apprenticeships while we grow their number. When something grows rapidly, it obviously creates a pressure on quality. Inevitably, the momentum will lead to more employers and more providers becoming involved and more individuals becoming apprentices—including people who might not have done so if the system was smaller. I believe that places an extra responsibility on us to ensure that the integrity of the brand is retained by an appropriate emphasis on quality, and as I said on the Floor of the House a few days ago in a different debate on a different subject, we will do that. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby is right to say that this amendment, and his argument about it, draws attention to the issue of quality. The debate in the other place and the discussions to which he referred—I pay tribute once again to Lord Layard and others—helped us to concentrate our thinking on maintaining and improving the quality of the apprenticeships offered.
Mr Graham Stuart
Does my hon. Friend agree that the number of apprenticeships going on to level 3 is a big indicator of quality and that we want more apprentices getting to level 2 to go on to level 3? Has he given any more thought to providing a more flexible level 3 offer for 16 and 17-year-olds who often find that, if they want to go on to level 3 after completing level 2, the funding gets cut in the current system?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby spoke a little about the age spread of apprenticeships in arguing for his amendment. Although he did not deal particularly with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) just raised, this is not the first time that my hon. Friend has mentioned it. It is important to devise a system that maximises the prospect of progression, in the way that he describes.
The good news is that the biggest proportion of growth in the numbers that were drawn to the House’s attention a week or so ago was in level 3 apprenticeships. I think that that rather frustrated the critics who had assumed that the biggest proportionate growth would be at level 2. In proportional terms, the number of level 3 apprenticeships has grown at the fastest rate over the last year. I can also inform my hon. Friend of a fact that has not been in the public domain until now: indications suggest that the length of apprenticeships among those aged over 25 is increasing. That is also rather counter-intuitive for those who listen to the critics from the bourgeois left, the glitterati and chatterati who look down their noses at practical learning in a way in which you and I do not, Mr Deputy Speaker.
My hon. Friend was, however, right to draw our attention to other measures that we might take in respect of progression. I know that one of his suggestions is that we should look at ways of helping people to undertake parts of a level in which they were otherwise already competent. There may be ways in which we can adopt a more modular approach to progression. I do not intend to discuss that at length now, because it is not entirely pertinent to the amendment, but it is relevant to what has been said by my hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, who also made a point about the age spread of apprenticeships.