Education Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

Subsection (2)(a) of the new clause proposed by Amendment 69 broadens the range of persons who can object to a school’s admission arrangements. That seems to leave the door open to people who have no direct interest in a school’s admissions policy to be able to object. What will the Government do to prevent these vexatious objections?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I support the point that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, has made. I know that great concern has been expressed outside your Lordships' House that the provision could give rise to vexatious complaints being made by groups who have no interest whatever in the school concerned. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that that will not be the case.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, it remains our intention to bring the new codes into force from February 2012. While there is no legal requirement for us to publish a further draft of the code, we intend to do so as quickly as possible, with a planned date of 31 October. Alongside those draft codes, we expect to publish draft regulations and to consult on them for four weeks ahead of laying the codes formally before Parliament on 1 December. I would be very happy to share a set of the draft regulations with the noble Baroness so that she can see them in good time.

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[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 71, 72 and 73. First, I thank the Minister for his conscientious response to the last stage of this Bill. He has sent out a number of letters explaining the policy, which I found very useful. Indeed, the letter he sent to me referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, gave some reassurances on the amendments I am going to speak to.

My main concern is that some measures proposed by the Bill may further fragment education on the basis of religion or belief. I have serious concerns about how the Bill makes voluntary-aided faith schools the easiest type of school to set up. I am also concerned about voluntary-controlled schools converting to academies, then being able to choose to increase their religious discrimination in admissions.

Currently, when a proposer wishes, for whatever reason, to establish a new foundation, voluntary-controlled or aided, or foundation special school outside of a competition, they need the consent of the Secretary of State. Following consent, the local authority runs a consultation on the proposals. The Bill, if passed in its current form, will change this, as I understand it, so that consent from the Secretary of State would no longer be needed for voluntary-aided schools, but it would still be needed for foundation, voluntary-controlled and foundation special schools.

I see some problems here. Almost all voluntary-aided schools—99 per cent of them—are faith schools. Admissions are determined by the school, which can discriminate against all pupils on religious grounds. In voluntary-controlled schools, local authorities set admissions and only about a quarter of local authorities have chosen to allow some or all of their voluntary-controlled schools to discriminate religiously, either in whole or in part.

Mr Gove has made it clear that he wishes to make it easier to set up voluntary-aided schools, which can discriminate. Such a school can use a religious test in appointing, remunerating or promoting all teachers, and even some non-teaching staff. In voluntary-controlled and foundation schools, this is only one-fifth of the teachers. The religious organisation sets the religious education curriculum in accordance with the tenets of the faith of such a school. In voluntary-controlled and foundation schools, the locally agreed syllabus is usually taught, which is not confessional to a particular faith. The religious organisation appoints more than half the governors there. In voluntary-controlled and many foundation schools, it is a quarter. While I thank the Minister again for his letter, my concerns are still not diminished and I shall watch developments on this issue very carefully.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, will think carefully before agreeing with the premises which have been laid before your Lordships' House this afternoon. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I always feel some trepidation in opposing anything that he says, because he has been a noble friend in many respects for a long time. He knows that at 17 years of age I said—and I would never resile on it—that if ever I found myself elected to the other place, I hoped that I would be a Member of Parliament like him. I have always admired the positions that the noble Lord takes on many issues, and continue to do so.

Yet the noble Lord knows that a debate has also been under way in his party for a long time about faith schools per se. Indeed, it was the then Education spokesman in another place, Mr Don Foster MP, who said—I believe these were his exact words—that in an ideal world there would be no schools of a religious character. I know that the noble Lord agrees with that proposition, but it is one I fundamentally disagree with. I suppose I should declare an interest as someone who has been educated in faith schools and whose own children have gone through faith schools. I am also the governor of a faith school and I passionately believe that those who wish to opt for that kind of education for themselves or for their children should be free to do so.

There is not the problem, as the noble Lord suggested, of such schools being undersubscribed; they are of course oversubscribed. That is the problem in many parts of the country. I would say this to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on the possibility of creating new faith schools. In parts of London there are large faith communities—for instance, of Polish people or people from the African and Asian communities—and in the Borough of Richmond, for instance, a petition has been laid before the council urging the creation of a new faith school. To restrict the opportunity to do that would be to deprive us of something special.

This is an issue that was addressed in 1944, when perhaps the greatest of all social legislation in the last century went through Parliament. I think it would probably have united most of us. The then Catholic Archbishop of Westminster was in the Strangers’ Gallery for the Third Reading proceedings on that Bill, when RA Butler brought before the House the provisions that allowed for the state to contribute towards the creation of Catholic schools. The Catholic community of that time, as Members of your Lordships' House will be well aware, was mainly an immigrant community —many were from the west of Ireland, as my late mother was. Those were schools for impoverished communities. Indeed, Archbishop Griffin sent RA Butler a copy of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, so pleased was he with the resolution of the House in regard to that legislation.

Around 2,500 schools have been created in the years that have passed, mainly though the efforts of those local communities, and they have enriched our education system. I urge your Lordships not to tamper with the settlements that have been there ever since 1944: that these schools are normally over rather than undersubscribed and that there are already sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that denomination provision is not increased or decreased where it is inappropriate. It is also worth saying, before I conclude, that figures issued recently show that, certainly in the Catholic sector, around one-third of the children in those schools do not come from Catholic backgrounds and there are waiting lists for many of these schools up and down the country. This demonstrates that the ethos of those schools is something that many parents are opting for. That is something that we should celebrate, not in any way try to undermine.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his kind remarks about his aspiration when he came into the other place, but does he realise that my amendment was not concerned with the creation of new faith schools, but was entirely a matter of the closure of existing schools? I am not attempting to prejudice the decisions that are made by the adjudicator, but simply to create a level playing field when it is a choice between closing a faith school or a non-faith school. Such a decision should not be determined by a requirement that the number of places of a denominational character should be preserved.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I was responding to the two speeches that went before and, of course, the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, try to limit the creation of new voluntary-aided schools. I accept what the noble Lord says about his own amendment and I simply say that there are no widespread complaints about the present arrangements. These things are usually best worked out on the ground. In the city of Liverpool, which I know well, one thing I have been very impressed by, and others in your Lordships’ House will be able to confirm this, is that in areas where once there was a sectarian and very hostile relationship between different Christian denominations, they have, through local collaboration, come forward with proposals and set up joint schools across the denominations. These things are best left to local determination, a point made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. This is something that is best left well alone because there is no widespread complaint about the present arrangements.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I want to follow the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the advantage of leaving such arrangements to the local authority and the faith bodies in the localities. I could quote a recent example in north Yorkshire of the closure of a faith school and the way in which the children from there went to local community schools. It was the right thing to do in that example. The whole arrangement of voluntary-controlled schools is within the maintained system, whereby the faith authorities and the local authorities can work together for the benefit of the children of the area. So I, too, hope, along with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that we can leave well alone in this area.

We need to stress that VA and VC schools are part of the maintained system. They are opportunities—and Schedule 11 seems to continue to encourage this—for there to be alternatives to moving towards an academy system. These schools remain part of the maintained system and are, therefore, places where the local authority and the faith authorities, usually the churches, can work together. I hope that both the parts which refer to the VA system and those which refer to VC schools can be maintained.

I am particularly concerned about Amendment 73, the third amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on voluntary-controlled schools. It seems to me that this is a very effective way, especially in remote rural areas, for authorities to work together to preserve a balance within the system which maintains, but does not increase, the percentage of church school places within a particular area. There are many examples of the ways in which collaboration can take place.

That is not to say that I am in any way in favour of the closure of small rural schools. Where it is possible, small rural schools, whether faith or community schools, can provide immense social and community cohesion within the comparatively small area that they serve, or for a small number of pupils over a sometimes fairly large geographical area. Small rural schools have much to contribute. We need to be able to continue the work between local authorities and faith bodies—particularly, in this instance, the Church of England—to preserve the balance within the system that we have at the moment.

One additional point that I should make about VC schools is that they enable voluntary sites to continue to be put to good use in school provision. If we abandon those sites, one of the problems is that they will either have to be bought from the trustees or, if they are closed altogether, they may revert to the original donor from some years—or, on occasions, a century or so—ago. That would represent a considerable capital loss to the school system. Voluntary-controlled schools are an important part of the way in which we work together for the benefit of the children of our communities and the cohesion of the villages and areas that they serve. I hope that we shall be able to maintain that effective provision through the voluntary control system.

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[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, I strongly endorse these thoughts. We should not set the inspectorate the task of doing the grand and unachievable rather than the humble and achievable. Language delay is a catastrophe for a child. It is all too common. I am not talking about specific language impairments: they are very serious matters, but that is quite a separate issue. Profound language delay is disabling not just at the early pre-school or reception stage, when it can be picked up, but right through a child’s education. Although it is important for children to have moral, spiritual, cultural and social development, without what my noble friend Lord Hennessy has called the chit-chat amendment it is going to be difficult to achieve development in those other areas.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I intend to support my noble friend Lady Flather, but before so doing I would like to support the remarks made my noble friends Lord Quirk and Lord Northbourne. My wife is a speech and language therapist who works with autistic children. Although they fall into the special category that my noble friend Lady O’Neill has just referred to, my wife would emphasise—and I would too, from my own background working in education—that the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, is right: it is a catastrophe if a child does not have language in place. Earlier today, there was a Question during Question Time about restorative justice. Anyone who goes into any prison and meets some of those who are now in prison because of their participation in the riots earlier this year will know that there is a link with language deficiency and with literacy as well. If we are ever going to get these things right, we will have to spend a lot more time and energy on language, literacy and the early years development that my noble friend Lord Northbourne has made a personal crusade for so long.

I particularly want to speak in favour of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather. My reason for doing so is that I drafted the original amendment on community cohesion which was incorporated in the previous education Bill. My noble friend Lord Sutherland and my noble friend the late Lord Dearing were other signatories. We took the amendment to the Government. I personally went to see the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and I was very pleased when he accepted the amendment, which included that this matter should be inspected by Ofsted. That was put forward 24 hours later, in place of the amendment which we had drafted, as a government amendment, and was accepted in the legislation. I think that the House took the right decision, because it was not singling out one category of schools and saying that they may be a problem with community cohesion; it was saying that all schools have to promote community cohesion. However, that has to be measured, and it is right that it should be measured by Ofsted.

I find it extraordinary that this is being removed at this stage from the legislation. I therefore hope that the Minister can give an undertaking that it will be reviewed. This is too important a question just to leave to one side. That amendment was passed because of concerns that people raised about specific schools where there might be ideological or narrow agendas, and it was to ensure that such things did not happen that this was included in the legislation.