Independent Schools: Variety and Diversity

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for having given us the chance to debate this very important topic this afternoon and for the impressive way he has laid out the case for independent schools. Before I go any further, I need to make the Committee aware that I have in the past acted as a governor of one of the seven great schools that was the subject of the Clarendon Commission in the 1860s. Incidentally, that commission was set up because of allegations of bullying among pupils—what we would now call child abuse; plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose—and which led to the Public Schools Act 1868.

Secondly, and more relevantly, I was the official reviewer appointed by the Government for the Charities Act 2006, which of course brought me into direct contact with the issue of public benefit. My work on that review showed me the very deep roots the education system has in the charity sector. The oldest charity is the King’s School, Canterbury, founded in 597. I do not think it has a continuous record, but it can trace a thread through from 597 to the present day.

Up until the Middle Ages, the church—through the monasteries—helped the sick, looked after the disabled and provided education. The dissolution of the monasteries—Wolf Hall and all that—meant that private endeavour had to step in. If you look at the foundation dates of a number of our great schools, you will see that several were founded between 1530 and 1580. That trend was accentuated because during the later Elizabethan era there was substantial social unrest caused by inflation and bad harvests, which resulted in groups of poor people roaming the country. Noble Lords may recall the nursery rhyme that begins,

“Hark, hark, the dogs do bark. The beggars are coming to town”.

That comes from Elizabethan times and led to the great Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 on which our charity law is based. It had three purposes which were presumed to be charitable—the promotion of religion, the relief of poverty and the advancement of education. That presumption remained in place for more than four centuries until it was abolished by the 2006 Act.

My noble friend has laid out an impressive case on behalf of the independent sector and I do not wish to repeat his arguments. However, I would argue that you are unlikely to strengthen the weak by weakening the strong; the independent sector has proved to be very strong and should therefore be encouraged. One of the greatest achievements of this Government has been to begin to raise standards in the state sector. That is the way we should be proceeding, so that the independent sector begins to feel the hot breath of competition. This will help all sectors and all our students from every background in every part of the country.

The independent sector is facing a couple of challenges. Independent schools are particularly concerned with the issues of variety and diversity which we are discussing. The first is what I call the facilities arms race, the wish for every independent school to have as far as possible the very best facilities, not just academic but sporting and artistic—music rooms, art schools and so on. This is a worthy aim, but it is an aim that comes at some cost and with implications for fees. Schools often say that the capital costs of such facilities are paid for by appeals to alumni and old members of the school, but this often overlooks the maintenance costs of the additional staff you have to hire to run the school and the inevitable need to maintain the buildings after they have been constructed. There is some concern that if this arms race continues, then gradually and imperceptibly fee levels will increase, which cannot be helpful or satisfactory to the sector. As my noble friend has said, we want to make sure that the sector remains open to as wide a proportion of our population as possible and we need to be mindful of the dangers and problems of what happens if we do not remember the squeezed middle.

There is a second aspect to this. The point was made in the briefing to us about the contribution made to the financial state of the country by individual schools from recruitment overseas. That is a fair point, but it is a point which can be taken too far. During my review, I met a very wise headmaster who said to me that, where you had 5% of students from overseas, that helped the school, but when it went above 10% it began to dissipate the school’s values and the school began to lose a sense of social cohesion. This challenge is particularly acute away from honeyed London and the south-east. During my review I travelled to schools in other parts of the country. The independent schools in London and the south-east have a wonderfully affluent and diverse pool of potential pupils to draw from. This is less the case when one moves west and particularly north where geographical distance begins to play a more important role and where schools are, in many cases, less well endowed or well supported than their south-eastern counterparts.

My final point concerns charitable status. In my review of the Charities Act it became very clear what huge advantages charitable status provided. Of course it concerns taxation and taxation privileges but, above all, it is reputational. The charity brand remains very strong in the public mind. One of the principal conclusions of my review was that charitable status is a privilege, not a right, and privilege carries with it responsibilities. Some of these were referred to by my noble friend—to reach out to the wider community, to help educational establishments which are less fortunate or less well equipped, and to be humble enough to learn lessons from schools outside the independent sector and from society as a whole. These will be the continuing challenges for the independent sector and there can be no room for self-congratulation. Independent schools have been clever and flexible in reinventing themselves many times over the centuries. I hope and trust that that flexibility remains part of their DNA.