Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the graveyard slot on the Back Benches inevitably leaves next to nothing new to say, and I do not think I am going to break that mould this evening. As almost every noble Lord has said, the overriding theme of the Bill is to further centralise control over the school system and give the DfE greater powers in relation to academies, school funding allocations, home education and attendance and illegal schools. I have few concerns about the latter two subjects, but on the first two I have many.

Part 1 of the Bill highlights the Government’s enduring obsession with academies and the aim of making all schools academies by 2030, despite the absence of independent evidence to support such an aim. There are many good academy schools and I am not anti-academy, although I do not believe they should have the right to set their own curriculum; I have always believed that a national curriculum should be just that. However, Ofsted ratings of local authority maintained schools and those in MATs show that schools that join MATs are less likely to improve their next Ofsted rating, and in fact are more likely to see a regression in that rating.

That is supported by research published by the Local Government Association as recently as this month, which showed that as of January 92% of maintained schools were regarded as outstanding by Ofsted, compared to 85% of academies graded since they converted. That research, which looked at school ratings between 2018 and this year, found that only 45% of academies were able to improve from inadequate or “requires improvement” to good or outstanding during that period, compared to 56% of maintained schools. What does that prove? You may say that statistics can prove anything, but it shows that there is no reason to think that whatever the problem is, academies are the answer; they simply are not. If the Minister has not already done so, she would do well to study that Local Government Association report closely because it will challenge the department’s mistaken view that one size fits all. Evidence rather than ideology should surely underpin legislation.

As my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lady Morris said, the Bill’s proposals on academies represent a dramatic shift from the current arrangements and are a far cry from the days when academies were introduced with the promise of less regulation and more freedom to innovate. I listened closely, as I always do, to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and although he was a bit more sanguine than I had expected regarding the proposals in Part 1, we could tell that he is certainly not happy with them.

On that point, my noble friend Lady Chapman mentioned that the Bill gives local authorities the power to request an academy order for any or all of their maintained schools. Although it is not entirely clear, it seems that they can do so even if a school objects. Can the Minister provide clarity on this important matter? The Bill also gives regional schools commissioners the task of allocating to MATs schools converted in this way via local authorities, and it appears that this could lead to schools being allocated to a MAT outwith their local authority. I hope the Minister will confirm that this will not be allowed to happen.

Part 2, on national funding allocations, represents another power grab by the Secretary of State. The national funding formula, which I believe was introduced in 2018, sees local authorities receive a total entitlement for their schools but they can allocate money in line with the local formula, with strict limits and the agreement of the local schools forum. According to the Bill, the local authority stage is to be scrapped and the DfE will determine the funding allocation for every one of the—according to the DfE website—24,413 state schools in England. What could possibly go wrong?

In her opening remarks, the Minister stated that these changes are being proposed specifically because local authorities were deciding on their own funding priorities. Well, quite. That is quite appropriate because allocating funding requires sensitivity to the circumstances of individual schools. Local factors matter. When problems arise, as they surely will, schools will not have local officers to help to resolve them and every appeal will have to go to the DfE, which will be judge and jury. That is a seriously retrograde proposal and, I hope, one that will not survive the consultation that we have been told will take place, as I have read, before summer 2022—which according to my calendar leaves about eight days.

Part 3, on school attendance, is overdue and to be welcomed. I join many noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Soley and the noble Lord, Lord Storey. My noble friend’s 2017 Private Member’s Bill called for the establishment of a register of children not in school, and I am pleased to say his tireless efforts now have their reward in Clause 48 of the Bill.

As the noble Lord, Lord Nash, said, elective home education is a right established by the Education Act 1996. For two years, he and I faced each other at the Dispatch Box on education matters and rarely agreed—I hope we disagreed in relatively good terms—but I absolutely agreed with what he said on this important matter. When supported by parents who have an understanding of the educational needs of their children and the ability to ensure that these needs are met, home schooling is appropriate and usually beneficial. Such out-of-school settings do not present a problem, as he said; it is the others which are a problem. The problem which has to be addressed is that children either never presented to school or subsequently withdrawn do not enjoy such a benign experience.

Some parents are ideologically opposed to formal education and to providing the authorities information about their children—some of them were in the Public Gallery today. I acknowledge their right to hold those views, but it is not realistic to expect that the wishes of a minority of parents should be permitted to override issues of child safety and protection. The issue of most concern is that nobody—certainly not the DfE—knows how many children in England are being home educated, because no records are kept. Thus, children not in school can be entirely invisible to the authorities. That must end; the rights of the child are more important than the rights of the parent.

In conclusion, I shall say something on the gaps in the Bill, some of which my noble friend Lord Triesman has just forcefully outlined; I am thoroughly in agreement with him. There is nothing on careers or skills. How will the Bill link with the Skills and Post-16 Education Act? There is nothing on a number of issues included in the White Paper, such as organising and closing schools, schools changing MATs, admissions, exclusions, and responses to well-being and mental health issues regarding pupils. How will the Bill link with what emerges from the SEND Green Paper or the proposals set out today in the independent review of children’s social care? As with most legislation drafted by this Government, the Bill contains many more questions than answers. Noble Lords made significant improvements to the then skills Bill; it will be necessary to repeat that with the Schools Bill.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

171J: After Clause 65, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to report on spoken language and communicationThe Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament each year during the period of five years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, setting out—(a) the overall level of school pupils’ spoken language and communication ability in academies, independent educational institutions and maintained schools;(b) the provision available to develop pupils’ spoken language and communication skills in academies, independent educational institutions and maintained schools;(c) the provision available to support pupils with speech, language and communication needs in academies, independent educational institutions and maintained schools.”

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 171J and 171 K in my name, and I should declare an interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Oracy. I want to acknowledge the support I have received from I CAN, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and Voice 21, just three of the 39 organisations which have circulated a comprehensive briefing on these amendments to noble Lords.

These are probing amendments to clarify how the Government intend to ensure that children are adequately supported in schools to develop proficiency in spoken language, or “oracy”. In framing these amendments, the aim was to ask questions of the Minister, specifically on how the Government will raise the status of spoken language in the education system to reflect its importance to children and young people’s outcomes in education, as per evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation, how they will support schools to address the ongoing impact of school closures on children’s spoken language across all ages, and how they will ensure that every teacher is equipped to understand how to develop children’s spoken language skills and ability and are trained to identify those who struggle with their speech, language and communication and are thus in need of further support.

--- Later in debate ---

With that, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will withdraw his amendment and that other noble Lords will not move theirs.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this group. Before I come specifically to the two amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Blower I would just like to say, on the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lady Whitaker and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that bullying is one of those issues that if you do not measure it, you cannot improve it. The Minister has just said that Ofsted has issued guidance on schools recording bullying. That is all right for those schools which are doing that, but the point is that it is guidance. What about those instances where it is not recorded, for whatever reason—the school may wish to protect its reputation or whatever?

The noble Baroness talked about local authorities having a register. I think it is important to go beyond the individual school. We are moving away from a situation in this Bill where we thought academies were a law unto themselves; we are now finding that perhaps that is not the case after all. I think it is important to broaden that.

I will give some examples of bullying. Noble Lords have highlighted issues, and I would like to mention some more. One is that it is not just those you might think are obvious targets for bullying. Children who are adopted often suffer very badly from being bullied, if the fact that they are adopted becomes known. Noble Lords may remember that, following the MacAlister report on the children’s social care review, a day of action was organised here on Wednesday last week by a number of children’s charities. They brought along a lot of children in care and, in speaking to them, I was very disappointed to hear some of them say that they are stigmatised in school because they are in care. They said that some teachers will ask, “What do your mum and dad think of this?” Of course, a child in care can find that most distressing. That is not bullying—I am not suggesting that teachers bully—but it allows it to emerge, and children can then be subject to bullying by their peers. It takes so many forms and it has to be more carefully recorded, and schools held to account if they are not acting appropriately.

On Amendments 171J and 171K, I acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about young people with dyslexia and dyspraxia. I should at least have referred to the fact that the amendment was as broad as possible and covered all children who, for whatever reason, need assistance with developing their speech and communication skills.

I hear what the Minister said about the guidance that is available. Again, the point is the same as with bullying: it is guidance. For those schools that abide by it, fine; but those that do not are the problem, and these are the areas where it has to be strengthened. That is why I think that a statutory position is necessary.

The Minister contradicted herself, because she said at one point, “We cannot really have statutory assessment at this stage”, in relation to the need to check on spoken and communication skills because, post-pandemic, that would put undue stress on teachers and school staff. That is basically saying, “It is a good idea, but this is not the time to do it”. If we say that, that means that the older children—the ones who will have moved on in three or four years, or however long it takes for us to be in a proper post-pandemic situation—have not benefited. Then the Minister said, in relation to my noble friend Lady Chapman’s amendment, that we need to concentrate funding now because the older pupils will have moved on by the time the funding reaches them. I understand her point about needing to make sure that older pupils get that consideration, but you cannot on the one hand say, “We cannot do it now” for one reason, but then say that older pupils have to get that consideration now in terms of the funding. I do not think it is an either/or situation.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise if I was not clear. What I was saying was that to introduce an additional assessment early on would put greater resource strain on the system. What I was saying in relation to investment in older children was not about assessment; it was just making sure that we prioritise them for greater funding because they have less time left in school, so we want to give them as much support as possible.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. I accept what she says about the differences as well, but I was drawing attention to the fact that older children, by definition, do not have much longer in school, so we need to ensure that they get every support that we can give them, either financial or through encouragement to improve their speaking skills. I also note what the Minister says about the current situation, so I invite her to bring forward an amendment on Report which might have a time-limited introduction of the sort of resources necessary for the suggestion I made in Amendment 171J.

I hope I have covered the points. I am not suggesting that the Minister is not taking these issues seriously—I know her well enough to know that she is and does—but there has to be some kind of step change, because the views and surveys I referred to earlier have pointed out that, however well meant things are, there are too many children who are not getting the assistance they need to make sure they have the skills that we discussed for many hours on the skills Bill not so long ago. To bring young people on to the jobs market, they need these skills—that is the key. There is no point in having a bit of paper that says “So-and-so has passed this qualification” if he or she is not really able to make the most of it by articulating in a way that helps them to do that job effectively. With those remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 171J withdrawn.