Education Bill

Debate between Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Lucas

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I was waiting to see if my noble friend wanted to take advantage of a chance to reply. He has not yet convinced me with his arguments. We have had an experiment running, and if we are to terminate it we ought at least to be allowed to see the results so far. It really ought to be up to the Government to provide them to us, and I very much hope that between now and Report we will have the chance to see a narrative, if not an evaluation, of what has been achieved so far.

These are long-standing problems, particularly when it comes to bullying, SEN and children getting into home education when they do not really want to be there. I am conscious that this has happened over a long period and in quite a high volume without any indication that the current methods, which we are to go back to, have provided an adequate answer. What was proposed by the previous Government and is now being trialled is a transfer from one set of officials who are not specialised and have limited powers to another set of officials who are specialised and have better powers. That seems to be worth trying. That is not to say that this is something that should not be done by Government; rather, it is to say that if we do it in a slightly different way, it could be done better.

I am conscious of the suffering that is caused by the current system and its inadequacies, and I do not want to go back to it. I do not mind going back to it if the system being trialled turns out to be no better and more expensive, but we ought to know what the evaluation is.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, the Minister has asked me to withdraw my amendment and my opposition to Clause 44 stand part. I will do that for the moment but a number of points have been made around the Committee to which we may want to return on Report, if it has not been possible for the Minister to give us greater satisfaction on them. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on all sides of the Committee.

I shall clarify a couple of points. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, for making the point that we are talking here about unresolved complaints—complaints that have not been able to be resolved at local level. We all agree that complaints should be resolved at the lowest level possible, and it is only the unresolved ones that we are talking about referring to either the ombudsman or the Secretary of State.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked me to say a bit more about the Local Government Ombudsman. I cannot say an awful lot, but I imagine that his office is staffed by people who are versed in the law, administration and local government. That is what I would expect.

Like others, I am bound to say that I have not been completely persuaded by the Minister’s arguments. As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, pointed out, the desire to bring everything back to the Secretary of State comes rather oddly from a Government who preach so much localism but practise so much centralism. That we are merely returning to the situation as it was before 2010 may very well be true, but it was the pre-2010 situation which was found to be unsatisfactory. That is why the move to the Local Government Ombudsman was made.

It may be that, because the pilots have operated only in 14 areas, the great majority of people have not seen the benefits of the ombudsman’s style of hearing complaints, but those who have not known anything better and are still mired in the pre-2010 situation might be pleased to experience the service that is offered under the 14 pilots.

Ministers have told us that bringing the investigation of complaints back to the Secretary of State would enable a quick resolution, but, as I said when opposing the clause, it has not been everybody’s experience that the procedure of the Secretary of State’s office has been all that expeditious in the past. It is clear that a lot of work still needs to be done before that route is fit for purpose.

It would be best if the Government were to put this on hold. If they can satisfy us by giving us the results of the evaluation before Report, that would be very helpful. If that is not possible, I would ask that the matter be taken back until there can be a proper evaluation. We might then be able to consider it again in future when another education Bill comes before the House.

The Minister kindly invited me to discuss the matter further with him, which I am happy to do. I would be very happy to join the discussions that he is having with the Special Educational Consortium and the National Deaf Children’s Society if that would help to see whether we can clarify the procedures at least in relation to children with special educational needs in the context of the implementation of the Green Paper.

Although, as I have indicated, there are a number of unresolved issues here to which we may wish to return on Report, I no longer wish for now to oppose that the clause stand part of the Bill. I do so in the hope that the matter can be progressed on the basis of further discussions between now and Report or, if not then, when the Bill comes back before us on Report.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Lucas

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I should like to speak to Amendments 84 and 85. Noble Lords will be glad to hear that I do not intend to speak to them at anything like the length that I spoke to Amendment 83. Many of the same arguments might be deployed and they both deal with the question of parity between academies and maintained schools.

Amendment 84 seeks the application of the admissions legal framework to academies as though they were maintained schools, and Amendment 85 is the same form of amendment, except that it relates to the exclusions legal framework. They are both essentially probing amendments designed to find out how far the Government see the two frameworks applying to academies as if they were maintained schools—in other words, whether the intention is to achieve parity in respect of these two frameworks as much as it is the intention to achieve parity in relation to special educational needs.

[Lord Lucas]

Amendment 36, which is in my name, expresses an ambition which I understand, having listened to the Minister, is clearly beyond the scope of anything that will be put into the Bill. I none the less hope that he will agree with me that it should be our ambition that outstanding schools which become academies, as they have the opportunity to expand, will look to bring in children from way beyond their geographical catchment area—to extend that excellence to those parts of their surroundings that are not blessed with outstanding schools but are blessed with children who require additional attention and the best possible environment. That should be part of our ambition, as it has been part of the history of the academies programme to look first at those who are disadvantaged.