Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, this debate is not really about education; it is about the governance of schools. I think many of us in this House would prefer to be debating education, how to improve curriculum assessment and how to introduce technology and data skills into our schools—for schools of this century, not two centuries ago—but we cannot do that.

This is a cross-roads Bill, in that it increases the powers of the Secretary of State and the Department for Education in a way unprecedented since 1870. It gives them powers that I, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and Michael Gove never had. They are sweeping powers, including the power to make every academy sign an agreement with the Secretary of State, basically saying that it will do what they say—it will no longer be guidance, it will be direction. It is amazing that this power is being taken.

After that, if the Secretary of State gives an instruction for the school to improve and it does not, they will then issue a warning of termination. If it does not get better, they will terminate the school. This gives Secretaries of State a power to close schools—a power that they have never really had since 1870. The only schools that have been closed by a Secretary of State since 1870 are schools about which Ofsted has said there is huge financial fraud or abuse of children. I did not close any, and about only two every decade have been closed, but the Bill gives them the power to intervene in a very complete way. Every academy has to sign an agreement with the Secretary of State saying that it must accept whatever advice is given—in fact, it is no longer advice or guidance; it is direction.

The Secretary of State will actually be able to change the governors of schools. Suppose that—I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman—a school in Darlington gets into trouble and the Secretary of State says, “I’m going to cancel your governing board.” How can they know the people in Darlington to appoint as governors? They cannot. The same civil servants will be dealing the next day with a school in Weymouth, the following day with one in Plymouth and the day after that with one in Dartford.

We have to be very aware that this is an important Bill. It is a real grab for power by the Department for Education. We must remember that, since 1870, the Department for Education has never run a school. It does not know how to appoint heads or how to determine any of the aspects of running a school because it has never had to do that, but now it is going to take complete control over the education system. It should be watched—not least by members of the Church of England, because I know how delicate the relationship is between Secretaries of State and the Church.

One of the reasons why I am alerting the House to this is a situation that arose with the schools that I have been promoting: university technical colleges. About two and a half years ago, three of the colleges were having a bit of difficulty with recruiting, so my trust provided improvement programmes for them with local employers and the local university. We gave them more resources and they were all on the road to recovery. However, the department involved would not accept that and issued a termination notice to close all three. I said to the Secretary of State, “If you do this, we will challenge each one through judicial review”, and the department immediately withdrew its opposition and its attempt to do that because it knew it would lose. That was a direct abuse of power, and it was only because my charity could afford a judicial review that the schools were saved.

However, if they decide to close a school in future, they do not really need to take any notice of what the community says, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said. He waxed eloquent about the role of the community—the school in the community. They listen to the local parents and to the councillors and balance up whether the school should be closed. There is nothing in the Bill about this at all. So I am just alerting the House to the fact that this is a game-changing Bill of a very significant nature, and it is totally unproven that the Department for Education knows very much about the improvement of schools—and I say that as a former Education Secretary.

I like one bit of the Bill very much indeed—the Government will be quite surprised to hear that. I warmly recommend the bit on the registration of home educators. We should pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, who has conducted a campaign over the years to do this. Several Secretaries of State promised to do something about it. I see that my noble friend Lord Nash is in his place; he must have promised to do something. I am very grateful that something is being done about it. However, it goes a bit further. It is not just registration; local authorities will have the power to intervene, visit schools and determine what the nature of home education is. Some of it is excellent, but some of it is very questionable indeed, and it is not clear whether the students can cope with difficult subjects such as quadratic equations, trigonometry, the difficulties of physics and chemistry and things of that sort, and whether they have sufficient time for relaxation and sport. So that is a step forward. I strongly support that bit of the Bill.

I think the Government will take the Bill forward because it characterises their whole attitude. The Prime Minister today is going to create a department for the Prime Minister. He has already appointed a Cabinet Minister to report just to him. He will increase his staff dramatically so that he can challenge every department and every Secretary of State on any issue of policy so that he secures his will, his whims or his prejudices. That is a fundamental constitutional change in our country and I am simply amazed that Cabinet Ministers today are not prepared to object to it. The Prime Ministership has been described in our history as the “first among equals”. In the future it will just be the first—there will be no equals. That is again a grab for power at the centre.