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.