Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Fink Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fink (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests, especially as a director of Ark and Ark Schools.

I find this Bill a bit like the curate’s egg, as it has been described already—very good only in parts, sadly. The clue to my views on the Bill is in its name: the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Wherever it genuinely deals with the short-term and long-term well-being of children, I support it. I regret to say, though, that in several areas it seems to try to reduce the freedoms offered to academies and free schools, which today make up over 80% of secondary schools as well as a large number of primary schools. Truthfully, I believe that some of these curtailments are absolutely not in the best interests of children, hence I will support amendments in these areas.

As my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford said, a number of provisions in the Bill destructively strike at the absolute heart of the wonderful academy movement, which throughout the last 20 years has, in general, delivered improved outcomes and innovation and raised aspiration across communities that had long been underserved by our education system. Indeed, 20 years ago, when I began my journey into schools, I discovered that a disadvantaged young person in a poor inner-city school had a greater chance of ending up in a young offender institution than going to university. That is shocking.

I praise the academy movement’s origins, begun by Tony Blair and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and accelerated by Michael Gove and David Cameron in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. I believe it actually had cross-party support. It was the freedoms offered to academies, together with the passion and dedication of philanthropic sponsors—several of whom are here in this Chamber—many inspirational head teachers, committed governors and, we should remember, hard-working professional teachers, that led to this improvement.

To be clear, I do not support freedoms if they allow students to be let down, and I do support transparency and accountability. But this Bill as it stands does not strengthen our system, as the Minister espouses; it centralises it, homogenises it and risks extinguishing the very freedoms that made academies and vast parts of our school system so successful over the last 20 years. The Minister supports innovation. When did centralisation ever lead to innovation?

I could refer to many clauses, such as Clause 56, which gives local authorities the power to challenge the reduction of pupil numbers at successful schools. Why would you want to stop successful schools growing, or even shrink them? I could also reference Clause 41, for example, which will require all academies to follow the national curriculum. Some of my noble friends have dealt with specific reasons why that is not always a good idea. I would also reference the many excellent academies, especially the early ones focused on the failing schools, where most of the disadvantaged students now have a decent chance of getting to a good university. We are really starting to see the educational gap closing for the most disadvantaged students in many areas.

In my view, academies have probably done more for social mobility than any other single government policy over the last 25 years, and it was initiated by new Labour for the sake of our children. Why would the Minister want to challenge good schools accepting as many children as possible? Why would the Government want to undo the amazing investment made by so many philanthropic founders and delivered by the incredible hard work of school principals, governors, teachers, students, support staff and parents? We must not let political short-term theatre dismantle the long-term cross-party progress that has been made in education policy over the last 20 years.

Children only get one chance in education, as has been said before. The price of getting it wrong or delaying the change by two years really harms a cohort of children. So the Government should think again about many of these restrictive ideological measures. I will be following them closely.