Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I shall briefly talk generally about all these amendments, which I and my party are not supporting. I ought to declare an interest as a governor of the King’s Academy, Liverpool. I was there at the beginning, when academies were started for a particular reason by the then Labour Government in very deprived communities and were then seized on by the coalition Government, including by David Laws from my party. We would sit through endless meetings, where there were always attacks on the maintained sector, about how wonderful the academies were. I never, during those early days—or even recently—heard the noble Lord, Lord Nash, who is not in his place, or the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, who is not in his place, say, “This academy is doing a really good job but, guess what? This maintained school is doing a really good job”. I never heard any criticism of any other academy. People can nod their heads, but if you look at the record, that was the case.

I remember us pushing, for example, that we should inspect multi-academies. Oh no, we could not do that. I remember trying to suggest that we have an external look at the finances of multi-academy trusts—“Oh no, you can’t do that”. Thank goodness, we have moved on considerably since those days, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, because, during her time as Education Minister, she went to visit maintained schools, and her language and the language of her party has changed considerably. I very much appreciate that. If there is a breach—I am not sure how serious or how weak the breaches are—the Secretary of State should be looking at it and making the final decision. It should not be just left to the academy or the multi-academy trusts themselves.

One recalls that “Panorama” documentary about how proprietors of academies—it was a limited number, thank goodness—were ensuring that some of the work for their academies was going to companies that they owned and that were their own companies. So a repair or construction company would get the work from that academy. It would not go out for tender. There was a big scandal on “Panorama” about it. If that is wrong, action needs to be taken. I do not know what these breaches are, or how serious or wide they are, but it should not be just left to the academy to sort out. It should be sorted out by the Secretary of State and by her Minister in the House of Lords.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I turn to the amendments in this group tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Before I get into the detail of the clause and the amendments, I say to her that we believe that she may have been reading from an old version of the policy notes, because they were updated when they came to the House of Lords, and the policy notes are therefore correct in relation to the items that she was talking about. If she wants to check whether that is the case and drop me a line, I would be more than happy to follow that up if it is not the case.

This group covers the clause relating to ensuring effective oversight and accountability of academy trusts. Clause 49 introduces a power for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to an academy trust where it is failing to comply with its legal duties or acting unreasonably when exercising these powers. Currently, when a trust is in breach of a legal duty, the Secretary of State can only issue a termination warning notice, which may be disproportionate for significant but isolated breaches. This measure will allow the Secretary of State to direct academy trusts to ensure that they meet their legal responsibilities and to address instances of unreasonable conduct where necessary.

It offers a clear and proportionate route to ensure compliance. If a trust does not respond to a direction, the Secretary of State may apply to the courts to ensure the matter is resolved, reflecting similar powers already in place for maintained schools. This will be used, where appropriate, to help implement key provisions in the Bill, such as those relating to curriculum, admissions and uniform, if necessary.

Most academy trusts perform well and meet their legal obligations. However, where they fall short, the Government must be able to act in a targeted and proportionate way. Clause 49 allows for early engagement, proportionate intervention and enforcement through the courts only when necessary.

Amendment 445ZB, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, proposes a statutory requirement for an annual statement to Parliament on the use of this power. The Government are of course fully in favour of transparency but already publish directions and other notices on GOV.UK in a timely and detailed manner. I put on record the Government’s commitment to maintaining this approach to transparency. An annual report would duplicate this process and add no further value, while adding an unnecessary administrative burden.

Amendments 444A, 445ZC and 445ZD, all in the name of the noble Baroness, propose replacing the Secretary of State’s direction-making power with a notice procedure. These amendments replace the Government’s clear and authoritative direction-making power with a more convoluted system of self-policing duties and a notice procedure. In practice, it risks delaying intervention.

Effective oversight cannot rely on academy trusts policing themselves. The Secretary of State must retain the ability to act swiftly and decisively when serious concerns arise, particularly where trusts fail to meet their legal obligations or act unreasonably when exercising those duties. The notice procedure is very similar to the power as drafted, except it does not include the ability to issue a direction in cases of unreasonable exercise of a power. Therefore, the clause as drafted is more effective than the proposed notice procedure. When the Secretary of State writes to a trust before she decides to issue a direction, it will outline the breach, the rationale for intervention and the suggested actions to remedy the breach, and will seek representations.

Finally in this group, Amendments 445, 444B, 444C and 445ZA tabled by noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to limit the scope of Clause 49. These amendments propose to restrict the Secretary of State’s ability to issue directions to cases where a specific legal duty has been breached. In doing so, they would remove the ability to intervene where a trust acts, or proposes to act, unreasonably in the exercise of its powers, even if no explicit duty has been contravened. This would narrow the intended reach of the clause.

The Government’s intention is to ensure that a proportionate intervention is possible not only when there is a clear breach of duty but also when a trust’s conduct in the use of its powers is manifestly unreasonable. However, I have heard concerns raised by noble Lords about this clause—particularly the concerns that these amendments seek to address with regard to the broad scope of the clause. I am considering potential solutions that would preserve our ability to intervene effectively while respecting the autonomy of trusts, and I look forward to bringing a solution back on Report that addresses these concerns.

On that basis, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we have had two rays of sunshine in one day; we should celebrate, at this late hour. We now know how to wear the Minister down. We will be starting at 9 am next week. In all seriousness, as the Minister can hear, I am extremely grateful; it is not just tiredness. There are some issues with this clause, so I will not belabour those but will just welcome very much her closing remarks.

I thank my noble friends Lady Evans, Lady Spielman and Lord Leigh for their contributions. I offer, as my noble friend Lord Leigh did, my thanks to the Leigh Academies Trust for taking on part of what was a very troubled school on the Isle of Sheppey, which is a particularly challenging community. We wish the trust and the pupils every success.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, what draws me to say something here is Amendment 446. It is an interesting idea that is inspired by academies, if you like. When you have a successful maintained school and it is close, you take over and you have a nice successful model that is still in the maintained sector.

We have been saying, in effect, that we accept that academies are part of the landscape. The fact is that they are not the only successful part of the landscape, because a maintained school must have done reasonably well to remain a maintained school, so it has been successful. If we are interested in success—and not running up a political flag, whatever colour we choose—it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Let us also remember that some of the worst schools now will be academies because they have been failing and they come down, and some of the most successful ones are the ones that jumped ship because they had nice catchment areas and all was going well, so they became independent. That is one of the realities. So I hope that, when we look at how we improve schools that go wrong, we have other options because, if we dig into the academy system, we can find serial failure even there.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I turn now to the amendments in group 10, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Bennett, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett. Although my noble friend is not here, I will respond to that amendment, given that it was addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman.

We have heard much today about the positive impact that high-quality trusts have made on the educational outcomes of children. This Government acknowledge these achievements—in fact, I have done so on every occasion that I have had the opportunity to, as has my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, as quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh.

What we are concerned about is how we can ensure improvement. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was right when he said that what we need here is a range of appropriate methods in order to ensure the quickest possible improvement. That is what the Government are aiming to do here. While many academies and trusts have driven improvement throughout the system, academisation is not necessarily a panacea. In fact, even when sponsored academies are excluded, pupil attainment in multi-academy trusts and maintained schools is similar.

Furthermore, the process of converting these schools can in itself be slow. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right to say that that is because, in many cases, it is very complex. Nevertheless, that may well be a period in which the improvement that we would all want to see has not been able to be pushed. Around 40% of maintained schools identified for conversion take over a year to become academies—time during which pupils continue to experience underperformance. It is for those reasons that Clause 50 has been included in the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister spoke about 40% of schools identified for “conversion”. I just wonder, for the sake of Hansard, whether she meant “sponsorship”. Conversion is a choice to become an academy, and if there is a delay, my experience is that that might be situated somewhere in Sanctuary Buildings’ capacity, whereas sponsorship is when a school has failed. Maybe she would like to clarify that in writing.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I will clarify that in writing. I maintain the point, which the noble Baroness herself conceded, that often the conversion process, whatever prompted it in the first place, is not as speedy as we would want in order to drive improvement. Clause 50 has been included in the Bill so that the swiftest action can be taken to improve schools causing concerns.

For maintained schools that lack the capacity to improve—currently two-thirds of the total of schools that fail their Ofsted inspections—we intend, as has been highlighted during the debate today, to continue to issue academy orders, because they need a fresh start. Where Ofsted has determined that a school has the capacity to improve, from September 2026 we will rapidly deploy RISE teams—our school improvement support—as the first intervention rather than defaulting to structural change.

I will address the opposition from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to Clause 50 standing part of the Bill. Clause 50 replaces the current duty on the Secretary of State to issue an academy order for any maintained school judged to be in a statutory category of concern by Ofsted with a discretionary power. This represents, as I have suggested, a deliberate and considered shift in our approach. It reflects the Government’s commitment to a more flexible and swift approach to school improvement. As Rebecca Boomer-Clark of Lift Schools recently put it, structures do not raise standards, people do. Strong schools working together in strong partnerships will continue to make the difference. Clause 50 gives effect to this shift. It enables a more responsive approach, one that prioritises timely support through RISE, while retaining the option of structural change if a school does not show significant improvement after 18 months of targeted support.

Amendment 446, in the name of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, seeks to introduce a statutory presumption of structural intervention, through either structural change or merger when a school is in special measures, but would give the Secretary of State discretion to act differently if that is their judgement. As I am sure my noble friend would recognise, Clause 50 already provides the Secretary of State with the wide-ranging flexibility to intervene as they think best, specifically on merging schools. The Secretary of State already has the power to require a maintained school to take steps to join a federation, which is similar in effect to a merger. We do not believe that my noble friend’s amendment is required.

Amendments 445B, 446A and 446B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to retain or reintroduce a statutory duty to issue academy orders, albeit with varying conditions or constraints. Each of these amendments would, in different ways, undermine the core purpose of Clause 50, which is to provide the Secretary of State with the flexibility to determine the most appropriate intervention for each school based on its unique circumstances.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am taking some encouragement from the Minister’s remarks. I wrote down and underlined that the Government have no immediate plans. That is interesting, because it is a statement of a possibility for the future. We all know how hard it is to get parliamentary time to get Bills through Parliament—the Government will certainly attest to that. I ask the Minister to consider future-proofing. Would it not be a good idea to provide the potential here, without the necessity to activate it, and set up some mechanism for the possibility of getting the kind of diversity that she says she is looking for?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I also said that the proposals run contrary to our policy. I would not want the noble Baroness to run away with anything that is unlikely to happen—so no.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very reassured by the Minister’s final remarks. I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was in the Chamber when I tried to respond to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted. It is important to set aside one’s ideology and look at the results, and at the people who are leading those results, in our schools all around the country and celebrate them

I thank my noble friends Lady Spielman and Lord Leigh for their reinforcement and support for my amendments. I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lady Spielman that we need a system with clarity which, in her words, is brisk, well-implemented and with minimum delay. That is important and, I think, what the Minister hopes will happen.

I appreciate the clarity that the Minister brought in relation to Ofsted judgments which say that the school in question lacks the capacity to improve. It will be interesting to hear my noble friend Lady Spielman’s reflections on that and whether that puts great pressure on Ofsted inspectors to avoid that judgment. But that is for another day and another time.

The Minister makes a fair point about the 2RI+ power and the fact that those decisions—which I have to say I feel quite proud of—were not judicially reviewed. The context is perhaps a little different, but the Minister has brought helpful clarity to the Government’s intention. Until we see the proof of the pudding, we will remain concerned. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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We looked at non-teaching senior leaders and in some single academy trusts—as I said, I do not want to exaggerate it—they were taking well over 10% of GAG pooling, so it was less about a big number and more about effective use of resources. It is a genuine governance issue and I hope the Minister agrees with me, particularly, as she rightly said, when it is combined with educational underperformance. I would defend those CEOs who are achieving extraordinary educational outcomes, because on a per pupil basis we are talking about just a few pounds per pupil and I would not want to try to save money there and see those outcomes deteriorate. So I commend my Amendment 448.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, we turn now to the amendments in the final group, group 11, which relate to teacher pay and conditions. Clause 51 supports our commitment towards creating a statutory pay floor, guaranteeing that all teachers in scope will not be offered pay below a minimum level, giving all schools the flexibility to attract and retain the teachers they need.

I turn to Amendment 447A in the name of my noble friend Lady Bousted; I am very glad that we got to this group, so that my noble friend was able to propose her amendment. She has been a stolid supporter of this debate, not only today but during Committee, and I recognise that and thank her. Her amendment proposes extending the remit of the School Teachers’ Review Body to include academy trust chief executive officers. We very much recognise and welcome my noble friend’s expertise in education and note that she raises an extremely important point: we must ensure that public money drives the best outcomes for children. We set very clear expectations for robust processes and justifiable salaries when recruiting executives. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and in fact from my noble friend, about the actions of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew; I suspect that maintaining that focus on value for money is an important part of this debate for all noble Lords.

Furthermore, for transparency and accountability, the department also engages with trusts where executive pay is deemed an outlier, publishing the names on GOV.UK. I have not, due to my policy responsibilities, signed any letters or had any meetings without coffee, as it appears have rightly happened, but, as the noble Baroness rightly argues for, I have no doubt that the department is maintaining the pressure to ensure that public money is effectively spent and reflects improvements and standards for children rather than the interests of the leadership of trusts.

I recognise that drive for action. I reassure my noble friend that the department works with trusts that do not demonstrate value for money or improved pupil outcomes. We will monitor our approach, ensuring proportionality and impact when keeping that under review.

Amendment 448, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would remove the statutory ceiling on teacher pay and allow maintained schools to depart from the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment, which is in the spirit of what our clauses attempt to achieve, but there is a significant difference between our clause and what the noble Baroness is proposing.

We both agree on the importance of removing the pay ceiling, but it does not need to be in the Bill to achieve that. There is a well-respected process through the Education Act 2002 which already provides for the Secretary of State to determine pay levels through secondary legislation. That is precisely what we intend to do following Royal Assent and a statutory consultation process, through the usual schoolteachers’ review body process. The Bill and our subsequent reforms to the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document will achieve the aim of creating a pay floor with no ceiling and increasing innovation for all schools.

Amendment 448A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, would expand teachers’ rights to be accompanied at disciplinary or grievance meetings by representatives of professional bodies which are not trade unions. I appreciate the concern of the noble Lord and others in raising this matter. As we have heard, noble Lords are aware that the Department for Business and Trade is responsible for the policy in this area.

Section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 already provides adequate protections in respect of the right to accompaniment for all workers, including teachers. I am aware of the outcome of the vote on Report of the Employment Rights Bill on a similar amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and that the Department for Business and Trade will set out its latest position on that issue in due course.

With regard to teachers specifically, we believe that creating a statutory right for teachers separate to the process that I have just outlined covering all workers could raise concerns under the European Convention on Human Rights, as it would treat them more favourably than other workers without clear justification. We therefore have no plans to amend the position for teachers.

These clauses are about ensuring that the Secretary of State has the right tools to uphold standards and protect pupils, while also supporting the teaching profession through fair and consistent pay arrangements. I hope that given the assurances and additional information that I have provided, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.