Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had some excellent speeches from the former Education Ministers present in the House, as well as from the Front-Bench spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and my noble friend Lady Chapman. They focused on tissues around governance and some of the practical issues in Part 1, which are significant. I hope the Government are willing to engage in discussion on these matters.

Like many others, I am concerned at the overwhelming lack of evidence that the Government are a better allocator, that MATs are inherently good or are governed in the right way, or that contractual arrangements will be highly beneficial. Like many in this House, I have been a governor and trustee of schools, and I find it hard to believe that the recruitment of even more trustees will be hugely beneficial, when the real challenge has been finding quality head teachers. I am also concerned by the idea that the enforcing of a contract by the Secretary of State is an attractive recruiting sergeant for those in governance for MATs. There are a lot of practical issues that we need to address in this Bill, and I hope the Government will be open to looking at these as we go through Committee.

I will now address Part 3 and Part 4. I was pleased to see the provisions to establish a register of children not in school and on new regulations for unregulated settings or unregistered independent educational establishments. I congratulate the Government on addressing this long-overlooked area, and I offer them my strong support. I admire those who home-educate, and I know that they will be able to continue to do so even if the provisions in this Bill become law; many of their concerns are simply unfounded. These provisions are utterly necessary, and they need to be fit for purpose at the beginning. We have to deal with one of the realities: the organised denial of the rights of children by groups and intuitions, whether from closed or other communities, is the challenge the Government have to meet here.

The powers needed to remedy these measures need to be extensive and Ofsted needs to be supported, as the perpetrators have become very used to using the existing legal framework—and lawyers—to protect themselves from scrutiny and any remedial action to protect children who, for example, may not even be taught English. We should have no truck with the notion that human rights are being infringed when parents decide not to equip their children to have opportunity in the society in which they live. My concern is whether the definitions and provisions in the legislation are fully effective against a deliberate and determined attempt to evade them, and whether sufficient thought has been given to enforcement measures that can be effective in discouraging disobedience and ensuring appropriate sanctions.

I hope also that the Government will look at where other decisions that they have made may impact on these; for example, they have recently changed the planning arrangements so that now, under the class F classification, a community-use classification can be used for a church as well as a school, which means that any religious establishment, for example, can transfer to a school immediately. This opens up a huge lacuna in the law and the implementation of it to address the issues with which we are concerned.

I am particularly pleased that the balance has been struck by focusing on the role of education providers, not just on fining the parents—many of whom will never have declarable or visible means to pay. However, we should be live to wilful attempts to evade these measures, including organised efforts such as those undertaken by a few communities and groups during the periods of high restrictions during Covid. I hope that the Minister will consider helpful amendments that could assist in this effort, such as a more general anti-avoidance provision, or even, for example, a specific provision that allows for Ofsted to make a determination as to whether an attempt was made by organisers to increase or create a tapestry of providers to make it appear that the amount of hours taught would not require any of the institutions to qualify as the providers of the majority of time of educational provision.

Consideration should also be given to whether measures to deal with inappropriate classifications of institutions as informal educational settings can be used, which may include after-school clubs. Will the Government also consider more stringent measures to enforce fit and proper tests for trustees and institutions, which could include that those who are found to be organising should by default be no longer able to serve as directors or trustees in companies or charities? Further, organisations involved in this process should face swift action from the Charity Commission, by appointing managers, the revocation of charity status and significant investigations to ensure that charity status is not accorded to those involved in helping, assisting or facilitating disobedience.

I am very happy to support the Government on these measures and I hope that they are sufficiently robust to deal with any and all attempts to deny children the education that they deserve.