Education Bill

Lord True Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, this is an excellent Bill. I declare an interest as a trustee of a grant-giving charity that supports catholic education, although unlike my noble friend Lord Edmiston, I have to regret that I did not make the money that we so enthusiastically give away. I am also leader of a London borough that welcomes academies and free schools. Indeed, I believe that the freedoms that come with academy status would be best for all our local schools, but local partnership and involvement remain important. A successful school must carry the confidence of local people. It should be at a community's heart, so I ask my noble friend to guard against the emergence of large chains of schools that are remote-managed to standard formulae. I would like to see local boards to guide, or even, eventually, to manage academies, particularly if school chains reach a certain size; otherwise, we may have in time to return to break up the largest of those chains.

I also support the reduction in the number of quangos. Indeed, if there were a True's law of education, it would probably be that general quality declines in inverse proportion to the growth in the size of education bureaucracy, but I dare not add in inverse proportion to the size of my noble friend’s department as well. In my No. 10 days, if I was not a creator of Ofsted, I was certainly a rather fumbling assistant midwife. At that time, we envisaged, naively, that Ofsted would shrink itself: after a Domesday Book survey, it would focus on the weakest, rather than remorselessly grinding down every staff room across the land. It did not turn out to be quite like that, so I welcome the direction of travel in this Bill and the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton.

The point I want to make is about Part 1, not for what is in it—an extension of nursery provision to disadvantaged two year-olds is hugely welcome—but for what is not in it. Here I declare another interest as my wife is a qualified Montessori teacher, a nursery school principal and a tireless advocate of Montessori education. Through her, I have come to know many people in private and voluntary nursery schools, notably in the Montessori sector. It is sad how disillusioned many of these outstanding, dedicated women—and they are mostly women—have become at growing state interference and what they perceive as lack of sympathy.

Many problems flow from the good intentions of Section 7 of the Childcare Act 2006, which is amended, providentially, but not enough, by Part 1 of this Bill. The issue revolves around the tension between a well intended, populist political slogan—free nursery education for all—and the realities of economic life. If I have learnt anything from a life in the wings of the political theatre, it is that usually a populist slogan will eventually jump up and bite someone. Sadly, it is now biting many early years providers. It is therefore biting parents who want to exercise diverse choices and, worst of all, it is biting children who are disadvantaged by the closure of private and voluntary settings.

In the 1990s, I worked on John Major’s original vision to bring nursery education to all. That was intended to be done bottom-up by empowering parents to choose the best support for their children, but local councils and others cavilled about loss of control. Under the previous Government, it was changed to a grant paid out by government via local councils to schools and then indirectly to parents to offset costs, with hosts of people along the way to administer this top-down system.

Under the slogan, “free education for all”, that state transfer system evolved into what are, under all the euphemisms, old-fashioned price controls on private and voluntary nursery schools. Nursery schools in receipt of nursery education grant are not allowed to charge above arbitrary price caps for the 15 so-called free hours a week, even if the costs of providing quality education exceed the price limit. There is too little income and too much cost—Mr Micawber knew the effect of that. Private and voluntary settings therefore close or go entirely private, thus closing their doors to parents needing financial help to access them, and so creating a two-tier structure in nursery education that no one wants. The paradox is that in the name of equality and wider access the reverse is happening. Something really is going wrong.

A third way is offered around closure or going private to those schools but this third way is rather an illusion as well. To sustain the claim of free education in the 15 hours, there has emerged a climate of deliberate deceit where a blind eye is turned to settings charging disproportionate amounts for services or time outside the theoretically free 15 hours a week to cover their costs and simply survive. I consider that to be dishonest. I consider dishonesty not to be a sound basis in policy or ethics for educating the young, particularly the youngest of all. I question for how long it can evade the attention of the courts. My hope is that, as we can consider Part 1 in the coming stages and amend Section 7 of the 2006 Act, the Government will seriously reconsider the imposition of price controls as a condition of parents at a school having access to nursery grant and bring realism to a worthy policy ideal which we all share; namely, access to nursery education for all.

To conclude, I also think that justice is needed on qualifications, on which the Children’s Workforce Development Council, another very costly quango, has standardising aims that threaten Montessori education. In Committee, I should like to return to that issue and Part 3. Like my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton, I hope that my noble friend will show an open mind to ideas to address these problems. Part 1 is an opportunity to do so. If we do not use it wisely, I must tell the noble Lord that people will notice, and life and diversity may continue to drain from a private and voluntary nursery sector that young children perhaps need more now than ever before.