Education and Adoption Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

8A: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “school” insert “or an Academy”

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the fairly large group that we start with today covers a variety of different matters. The amendments in my name fall into three groups. I shall continue to explain this when the noise level is slightly lower. I do not know what the parliamentary equivalent of “Rhubarb, rhubarb” is, but hope that we can take that as read for a few moments.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I hope that that is reported in Hansard.

[Lord Addington]

Yes, I hope that it will be reported in Hansard.

Amendments 8A, 8C, 8D, 9, 9A and 10A concern the new definition of a school in trouble—that it is “coasting”. If coasting is a bad thing, I suggest that all types of school should have it available to them. I also note that the Minister has tabled amendments in this group, so I will resist any further comment until after I have heard what he has to say, as I believe that he has made certain steps towards us.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

Before the noble Lord moves on to his other amendments, I would like to elaborate on the point that he just referred to. As he said, I have tabled an amendment on it, and I take this opportunity to assure him that we take academies’ performance very seriously. We fully intend to hold academies to account in the same way as we do maintained schools. My Amendment 24 will ensure that the “coasting” definition always applies to academies and that we will always have power to take action when academies fail or coast. I will talk about that in more detail, but I hope that the noble Lord is reassured that we have addressed the concerns about tackling underperforming academies raised by him and a number of other noble Lords, and will not press his amendments in relation to that.

[Lord Addington]

I thank the Minister. I was going to thank him in my summing-up speech, but I do it now.

There are two clarification amendments in this group. Amendment 9 relates to the definition of a coasting school as having three consecutive years of failure. That has been suggested and referred to in regulation, but the amendment seeks to have that included in the Bill, or at least get confirmation that that is what must happen before this type of intervention takes place. Further reassurance would help on that.

Amendment 15A states that certain types of schools will never be affected by the definition of coasting. Once again, this is seeking clarification and reassurance. My attention is drawn particularly to special schools in this regard. The integration of special schools into the education system as a support structure is very important. Some local base will always be important. Who knows what will happen in the future, but under the current structure, it would be appropriate to spell that out more clearly.

The more substantive amendment as far as I am concerned is Amendment 15. When drawing up the definition of a coasting school, a school that is in the throes of failing or at least stagnating, what does one look at? It is quite clear that academic results will be a factor and I have included that in a small list. Lists are of course imperfect, but they are a starting point for discussions. But other school activities are also important and I offer three further examples. One would be arts and sports. If there is exceptional activity in that area, but the academic side is not great, are you in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? If schools are doing something that is good, do we endanger it with a change of school status, organisation and ethos? Any time we do that we will presumably throw everything into the melting pot and changes will have to be made to address something. By changing that structure we may get rid of something good.

The same argument could be made about placement in further education and/or school activity after that. If we have established a good pathway, are we in danger, if we change that, of damaging this process? I still regard apprenticeships as something of a work in progress, but they are lauded by all. If a particular school is doing very well at getting people into apprenticeships, surely that deserves to have some special attention paid to it.

I do not think this is a particularly radical thought, but I have not heard conclusively what we will do if we get these very great gains and positives; will we throw them away? I remind all noble Lords that we have heard much about how schools should not just be chasing grades. If the target is getting definite C grades at GCSE, which is one that is often referred to, just chasing B grades at GCSE is not that much better. It is for the person getting the grades, but outside that, are we actually getting rid of something else?

I beg to move Amendment 8A and I look forward to all the Minister’s replies on this group.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I advise the House that, if Amendment 8B is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 8C to 9A inclusive, due to pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

For a failing academy we would proceed as quickly as we could identify an alternative sponsor. There would be no question of the school closing, unless there was no demand for the school. In all the cases that we have brokeraged, to which my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy referred, we have waited until we identified another sponsor and moved on as quickly as possible. Generally, we are talking about a few months.

There was a question about whether different sets of regulations would apply to maintained schools and academies. There will be just one set of regulations. This is made clear by subsection (6) of new Clause 2B.

In conclusion, I note that noble Lords support our ambition to ensure that all pupils, whatever their background, receive an education that enables them to flourish. I hope that this debate and the amendments that I have laid will reassure the House that our approach will help us to achieve this ambition. I therefore urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments and to support the government amendment that I have laid.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, it has been an interesting and very wide-ranging debate. I do not envy the Minister his challenge of bringing all these amendments together in one group. However, I will try to finish where I began. I thank the Minister for Amendment 24 but have one word of caution, although I am probably teaching granny to suck eggs here. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, think that this should be looked at again for technical reasons, I hope that the Minister will encourage his officials to do that. He is nodding his head, and that is very much appreciated. That is what Third Reading is for; if there is a technical problem with this amendment, which is generally welcomed, let us get it right.

Amendment 15 was not a “may” or “shall” but a “must” and “may”—the updated version of that hardy perennial of Parliament. I take some reassurance from what the Minister said. The amendment was based on the exact regulations he looked at. I have had excellent help of late. I am more comfortable about the idea that the whole school be taken more into account. However, I think that we should keep an eye on this because it would be very easy to slip back to asking what the exam results are and saying, “That is it—final”. The whole House agrees that that is not a great model. There must be some flexibility. Once again the Minister nods his head, and so I am reassured.

I thank the Minister for correcting what was basically a flaw in the Bill and for doing that very promptly. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8A withdrawn.