Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

I think I clearly said that she was the Cabinet Secretary for Education—perhaps I should have said under a Labour Government. She also introduced a presumption against closure for rural schools and, for the first time ever, a definition of a rural school. I am sure similar strategies are happening in England, but there is obviously scope for other schemes to be highlighted.

Impact assessments are an important part of our decision-making process. They set out the objectives of policy proposals and help us with facts and figures to evaluate them. The impact of the funding formula on the funding of rural schools needs such an evaluation so that we can understand whether the formula works for them and meets their needs. I hope the noble Baroness can tell me that there will be an impact assessment of the funding formula for future stages of this Bill.

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, I speak on behalf of my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham and declare his interest as chair of the National Society. I am grateful to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, as I will speak in favour of Amendment 85.

The amendment presents an important consideration in the context of Church schools, which are predominantly small and rural. More than 1,000 Church of England schools have fewer than 100 pupils. In my diocese, comprising most of the glorious county of Suffolk, 35 of our 87 Church schools have fewer than 100 pupils—crucially, each of them serves often quite isolated rural communities. A funding formula ensuring that those settings are viable is key to securing future provision for their communities.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened with great care to the amendments. There is a common note here which my noble friend might wish to take up. There are few happy points in the Government’s ill-fated food strategy, but one was the desire for better data. One thing that has come from this debate is that, if we are to have any means of assessing the success of this Bill, we need the data to do so.

Some amendments seem appropriate and others perhaps not; I will not discuss them one by one, but I suggest my noble friend gives some assurance to the Committee that the Government will look carefully at the data provided—how it is provided and how simple it can be made—so that there is some really appropriate way to have accountability. One of the issues in this Bill is accountability, and one of the main ways to have proper accountability is to have proper data. That is the common theme of everything that has so far been put forward.