Oak National Academy

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not have any personal interests to declare in this discussion, as other noble Lords have—not that I use that to blame them for speaking about this, in any way. However, I happen to be a close personal friend of one of the people who was principally involved in establishing the Oak National Academy, who is probably the person my noble friend just referred to.

I learned about this during lockdown or, at least, in the periods during Covid when we could meet and talk about this. I was very impressed by what was being done to help education continue in this crisis. It was a noble endeavour and the academy should be fully congratulated on it. The tone of this debate does not recognise the contribution it made to keep education going when, I have to say, some—the education unions, for instance—were not very keen on going into classes. That point should be made.

Secondly, again for family reasons, I know all about the BBC thing and recognise that there are problems, but for goodness’ sake, this is a very small-scale public intervention. It is not the BBC. The tender is £8 million. Also, I have been told regarding Oak’s activities that there are two important differences from what the private sector offers. First, it is trying to have universal cover of all the subjects in the curriculum rather than just the ones out of which a lot of money can be made. That is an important difference that we should recognise. Secondly, use of its materials is heavily concentrated among schools that are teaching deprived kids. That does not surprise me, given the financial pressures on those schools and on their teachers, who deserve every possible help.

Therefore, I do not think that there is a problem with this. I do not understand why the publishers are trying to take Oak to court. I do not understand the point about this being an instrument of central government control, of a Tory Government who want to strangle the independence of the curriculum. This is an arm’s-length body. The definition of an arm’s-length body is one that is independent of ministerial control.

I recognise that these are industries of the future in which Britain has an important role to play, these being some of our competitive strengths in the world. However, what the education publishers are saying is like saying that you cannot have the NHS because it would stop all the investment in innovative medical activity. Let us be sensible about this. It needs a sensible conversation between the publishers and Oak National Academy.