Education and Adoption Bill

Lord O'Shaughnessy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

Having read over the amendments, I wonder about one small technical point in Amendment 24. Proposed new Section 2B says:

“An Academy agreement in respect of an Academy school … must include provision allowing the Secretary of State to terminate the agreement if … the Academy is coasting”.

Proposed new subsection (6) says the definition of coasting will be put forward in regulations, and I am just wondering about the date at which that applies. As I understand it, there is provision in the definition of coasting, and in the system to be used for setting it up, which allows the definition to be changed. If that is so, will it have an effect on the agreements retrospectively? How will it work? This is a very technical kind of point but quite an important one, because it is an essential of the agreement to have this definition of coasting in it.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this group of amendments. I apologise that I was not present and did not speak at Second Reading, but I had not yet been introduced to the House.

I warmly welcome the amendments that have been put forward by the Government. The fact that they have come forward in response to amendments from all over the House demonstrates what I believe to be a great truth of education reform, which is its bipartisan nature. It has been put forward by many Governments over many years, and accelerated by this one. We see that in action today.

In 2012, I wrote a paper for Policy Exchange which called for a level playing field and a single regulatory regime, and for coasting schools to be intervened on, so I am especially delighted to see that the Government have put forward the extension of this regime to academies. It is incredibly important for the reputation of academies that this is the case. I declare my interest as the managing director of an academy trust which will now be within the clutches of this—so my noble friend is making my life more difficult for me, which I am very grateful for. The idea in Amendment 24 of this detailed process for intervening in academies is incredibly important. It is important for academies to know that they are within the single regime and that the expectations that apply to all other schools also apply to them. I know the retrospective nature is uncomfortable for many but it is incredibly important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, asked in particular about what happens when an academy is intervened on. There have been plenty of examples already of academies that have had to be—in the horrible terminology—rebrokered, because they have not performed. Although they are a rare exception, there are instances already of this happening, so we are not entering into new territory here with coasting schools. It must be right that, as time goes on, we raise the bar of what we expect in terms of performance in all our schools—maintained, academy or other—so I welcome that. There are around 300 inadequate schools at the moment and there may be around 1,000 coasting schools, so we are continuing to raise the bar for all school providers, which must be the correct thing to do.

I will talk very briefly about Amendment 15, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about whether to include non-academic measures into the definition of coasting. Some other noble Lords mentioned this as well. The schools that I run have a very big focus on character education, so I absolutely believe that there is more to education than passing exams, but you get into some very difficult territory if you want to exclude schools that perhaps have good extra-curricular activity but poor standards. There is a problem of measurement. Any definition which is going to be workable and not challengeable has to be based on objective data. It is very difficult to get objective measurements of the quality of schools other than their academic standards.

I also happen to think that, in the end, schools are responsible for providing a great education. If they can do the other bits, fantastic, but if they are not providing a good academic education, they should be intervened in. What is more, any sensible or wise sponsor would want, as they always do, to keep what is excellent and change what is not good. Although I understand the impulse behind the amendment, in practice it is not workable. In any case, first and foremost, the department and anyone else who is intervening in a school should be worried about standards. I very much welcome my noble friend’s amendments and commend him on his determination and on listening to opinion from across the House.