Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to what everyone has said and do not disagree with much. I only ask what is wrong with the independent school standards, which all academies must follow. Surely this is a matter for Ofsted, not the DfE.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I regret missing Second Reading, which, according to some noble Lords we heard today, was the DfE version of “Apocalypse Now”. Even the noble Lord, Lord Baker —I am an admirer of UTCs—joined the doomsayers then, as he reminded us again today. I am an admirer of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose advice is that

“to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”

He is probably right about that.

I am an admirer of this House when it is at its best—for example, the debates on Ukraine or on the jubilee. However, as referred to by my noble friend—he is still my friend at the moment, but might not be at the end of this contribution—the debate on the then Health and Care Bill, which was an overcomplex and lengthy Bill, brought out the House of Lords at its worst. Every hobby-horse noble Lords could ride was ridden for hours, whether on modern slavery or organ transplants, but the real challenges facing the health service seemed a sideshow, in my opinion.

Before I contribute on this Bill, I want to give your Lordships a quotation. I am always indebted to my noble friend Lord Bragg, who continues to educate me in my quest for lifelong learning. A recent programme of his was about a philosopher of whom, I must admit, I had never heard—that is probably my ignorance—a man called John Amos Comenius. He was a

“philosopher, pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education”.

What he proposed was fascinating—and bear in mind that we are talking about the 17th century:

“Comenius introduced a number of educational concepts and innovations including pictorial textbooks written in native languages instead of Latin, teaching based in gradual development from simple to more comprehensive concepts, lifelong learning with a focus on logical thinking over dull memorization, equal opportunity for impoverished children, education for women, and universal and practical instruction.”


If that had been written today, we might think it a modern prescription for education, but he arrived at it in the 17th century and travelled around advising a number of countries, so Comenius has a lot to recommend him to us and others.

I turn to my noble friend Lady Chapman’s amendment. Perversely, if we remove “may” and insert “must”, the Bill will give the Government the power grab that noble Lords are concerned about. To me, “may” means exactly that. I ask noble Lords if you really believe that the DfE has the desire or capacity to intervene in every school in the UK. Come on—even if it wanted to, it could not. That is my view, and people are free to disagree. Is this a perfect Bill? Of course it is not; that is the purpose of our debating it today.

I will just say this to the Committee. I hope this will not be a debate that says, “Academies bad, maintained schools good”, or vice versa. Actually, we have not mentioned free schools, which have made a contribution. My view about schools is that variety is not only the spice of life but makes an enormous contribution to education. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Knight reminded us, it was a Labour Government who, having seen the appalling record of maintained schools in London that were failing, introduced academies. They did a good job of changing that environment. Let us remember how important that is, because children get only that one chance. If these schools are failing, then that chance is denied them.

I was also interested when my noble friend said to trust in teachers. I do, but I will tell your Lordships who I put a bigger trust in, who I regard as the key component of any successful school: the head teacher. If you have not got the head teacher right, that school will not flourish. I will give as an example a good friend of mine, Liz Wolverson. She has recently retired, but she was the diocesan director of Church of England academy primary schools in London, in really challenging areas such as Newham, et cetera. They have rescued 10 failing schools. I asked her what her prescription was for dealing with failing schools. She said, “I go into the school, I look around, I talk to the head, to parents, to teachers and to pupils. Then I go back to the head and I say, ‘You’ve got six months to turn the school around, and if you don’t succeed, goodbye. That’s it’.” That is a tough prescription, but it is a necessary one if we care about that one main chance for our children. I believe we should.

I looked at the report from the committee referred to by my noble friend Lady Chapman, which talked about the terrible Henry VIII powers. I took that into account. It is right that the committee should draw that to our attention, but I also looked at what the Minister said to us in her reply to the debate at Second Reading, where these concerns were expressed. She said:

“My noble friends Lord Nash and Lord Lucas, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, also were concerned about the impact on the fundamental freedoms of academies. These reforms will maintain the central freedoms and autonomy of the academy programme. Our ‘strong trust’ definition and standards will set out clearly what we expect all academy trusts to deliver, but trusts remain free to design, innovate and implement operating models that they believe will deliver the best outcomes for their pupils.”—[Official Report, 23/5/22; col. 740.]


I saw that as a serious statement from the Minister. I hope she will confirm that today.

For me, that is an important pledge by the Government. I welcome the coverage, investigation and analysis of the Bill, of course I do. I am sure there are parts of this Bill that can be improved, like any Bill, but I ask the Committee to consider carefully what it is trying to do with Amendment 1. Time is not on our side. I do not accept the argument that we should throw it all out, take our summer break and then come back again. I have never seen anything that appears in front of this House that we are completely satisfied with. If there is such a thing as a perfect Bill, no doubt it exists in some other version of the universe that we have not yet encountered.

I rarely give advice, because it is freely given and freely ignored, but I participate in the Lords outreach service. It is a great institution. This Friday, I am going to speak to a Catholic academy in East Finchley. I am looking forward to this. I will get an opportunity to talk to the pupils. I like to say to them “If you were Minister for Education, tell me where you would put the money.” That always gets them going because I remind them that politics is about the language of priorities.

The other interesting thing about it is that it is a Catholic school. When I spoke to it and we got to the end of our discussion, I said, “By the way, what is your admissions policy?”, and I was told, “Anybody can come to our school. They do not have to attend a church service or anything else.” We will go on to debate faith schools, an area where I suspect there will be further disagreements. All I can say on that subject is that a large percentage of the public have faith in faith schools because they believe they deliver good education with good discipline, so they participate in them.

I hope I have not lost all my noble friends with this contribution. I seem to be the only person who has contributed so far who has given the Government the benefit of the doubt. I believe that what they are trying to do is in the interests of every Member of this House, which is to improve the quality of the education that we deliver to our children.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am puzzled about how the system proposed in the Bill produces good schools. I have spent the past 30 years involved with the Good Schools Guide. Schools die mostly because their governance goes wrong. Anything else you can put right, but the governors can take a school down irretrievably. To have a good governing body, you require motivation. You require people with real determination that the school will succeed, that it will get better. They have not got all the answers and they will look outside for them, they will listen and learn, talk to parents and work with outside experts to make things better.

In most cases, things turn out that way, but what we are producing here is a completely motiveless environment, and why is anyone going to want to run a MAT under those circumstances? What freedoms do they have left? What is left to them in terms of jurisdiction over the school? Why would anyone of any quality get involved with running a multi-academy trust? Would you really hang around just waiting to be beaten up by the Department for Education—or Ofsted, if it is allowed a part in multi-academy trusts? You have no ability to steer things, no ability to innovate, no ability to make things better or to show how good your pupils and your schemes can be. I remember this thing coming in. It was all about producing a system which would innovate and make itself better and which we could learn from; people would try new ideas. Things have not been perfect, but there have been a lot of good examples, and now we are going back to a system where none of this can happen. I am very puzzled.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I am moving Amendment 89, tabled by my noble friend Lord Storey, who regrets that he cannot be here today. This amendment seeks to increase the free school meals grant in 2023-24 to reflect the increase in inflation since September 2014, before pegging it to inflation thereafter.

I must admit that the Government’s announcements yesterday on free school meals came as a bit of a surprise and made me wonder whether this was an attempt to gazump our amendment, and even whether our amendment had pricked their collective conscience. I am sure that there were more external influences at play here.

Lib Dems feel very strongly about universal free school meals. They were introduced by us under the coalition Government, with the aim to provide free school meals to all pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2. However, since these meals were introduced seven years ago, the Government have increased the amount paid to schools by just 4p per meal. This is an increase of just 1.3%, from £2.30 per pupil in 2014 to £2.34 today, despite the latest ONS figures showing that food prices have soared by 7% since the introduction of the policy. Had the funding increased accordingly, it would currently stand at least at £2.46 per pupil.

Free school meals were introduced as a way of giving children a healthy lunch every day and saving parents hundreds of pounds a year. However, funding has been slashed in real terms, despite food prices going through the roof. While we welcome yesterday’s announcement of an uplift in infant free school meals funding, this does not go far enough. The effect of the Government’s announcement will be to raise the rate per meal to £2.41. This is still short of the £2.46 per meal that would be needed to increase funding in line with increased food prices.

Our amendment reflects the increase in inflation overall since September 2014 and calls for a 19% increase to reflect this, meaning that the rate per meal would increase to £2.74. Can the Minister clarify whether the Government’s new proposals also include a commitment to an annual increase in line with inflation and food costs?

The coronavirus crisis has shone a new spotlight on the issue of child hunger, with demand for food banks soaring and almost a fifth of households with children unable to access enough food in the first weeks of lockdown. Yesterday’s announcement is a sign that this Government know just how terrible their record is on free school meals. Too many children are going hungry under their watch, yet the Government still show complete unwillingness to expand this offer to some of the most disadvantaged children in the country on universal credit. It feels like a one step forward, two steps back approach from Ministers.

The Government cannot continue to ignore their own advisers, such as Henry Dimbleby, who recently published the National Food Strategy. In an Oral Question on 6 June, I asked if the Government would commit to extending free school meals to all children whose parents or guardians are on universal credit. These are the children who will be most impacted by the cost of living crisis. I believe the Government’s stance is that families on universal credit would still have to meet eligibility criteria or be in receipt of legacy benefits. Could the noble Baroness confirm this is still the case? We believe that every pupil whose parents or guardians are in receipt of universal credit should automatically qualify for free school meals. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I am inclined to support this on the grounds of the report in the Times on Monday on what schools are facing in early years. Children are coming to school who have not been potty-trained; they cannot even use a knife and fork and are still feeding out of a bottle. Those children have suffered during the pandemic. The one thing that gave them some influence and that made a difference, given that many come from a background where English is a second language and there are perhaps other serious challenges at home, was being at school. While I do not necessarily go along with every aspect of this amendment, the noble Baroness raises a valid point at its core.

I have said this before: where should we put our money in education? We should be putting it in the early years because we know that, if we do not get it right there, the cost—not only to individual children but to the state in remedying it in the future—will be much more significant.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for the amendment on the free school meals grant. My Amendment 90, also in the name of my noble friend Lord Storey, addresses the similar issue of inflation for the pupil premium.

I listened carefully to what the Minister said earlier about the extra financial support the Government were giving to the disadvantaged. I will read Hansard carefully tomorrow to recall the exact numbers, but the principle is that this amendment would increase the pupil premium in 2023-24 from the 2022-23 level by £160 per primary pupil and £127 per secondary pupil, before pegging it to the consumer prices index and the inflation rate thereafter. It would also increase the pupil premium plus sum made available to children in care by a similar amount. This is a probing amendment to ascertain the Government’s intentions in respect of the pupil premium, and of the free school meals grant and the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Humphreys.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I shall come in briefly on this because I did not put my name to my noble friend’s amendment on examinations. I am sorry to go back to a smaller point, but one thing that happens in education is that you usually need a certificate to carry on. It is your pathway to the next step. I have not been deaf to what has been said about the rights of home education but, to go back to one of the building blocks of our system, to gain access to the next stage of education, training or employment, you generally need the examination that proves you have done it. It does not prove much else; it just proves you have been through the process and reached a certain point. I hope the state will allow and support people to get the proof that says they have done the work to get through. If you do not have it, everything shuts down suddenly. You cannot do much else; it does not matter if you can quote Shakespeare fluently, you have still failed English if you do not have the qualification.

Think also about the home-schooling groups who have special educational needs, such as some of the groups I have met. They will sometimes need help and structure to be able to take that exam. It will be important to have some form of interaction around that; it is an important point in their process. The Government have been very keen on testing whether education is successful, usually using examination results, so if home education is to do anything, it needs that to go through.

I cannot resist making a comment about my noble friend Lord Shipley’s statement about having “expedient” in a Bill and not defining how it is used. If you wanted to cause trouble—I suspect somebody in the department was having a bad day when they drafted this—that was an excellent way of doing it; I congratulate them. Unless we get some clarification, and realise that we are trying to make sure that those who are doing things well are supported and those who are doing things badly are identified and stopped if necessary, we are going to have carnage when we come to Report.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the principle of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that there should be a right of appeal, but some of the language was not helpful. He constantly used the word “punitive” if any local authority intervenes in any way. As my noble friend Lord Soley said, this is a difficult balancing act to get right, and we have to be careful of the language that we use.

I know—to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Wei—of plenty of people, friends of mine, who are really good home educators. They have a different approach, and I do not think anyone would be opposed to that. They are not the people who worry me. As my noble friend Lady Whitaker said, we have a lot of experience in this area; there are unfortunately others who do not.

This House has a duty to do two things: to ensure that the legislation is fair and capable of not penalising people who understandably prefer their children to be home educated; but we also have a responsibility to protect those children, as children do have rights. I profoundly disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—of course children have rights. We cannot absolve ourselves of that responsibility.

It is a difficult one for the Government—they cannot duck it. I started to look up whether “expedient” was the right word, but that is not what concerns me. I am concerned that while there is a right for people to home educate their children, provided they act responsibly, there is nothing wrong with local authorities having a list and being able to assure themselves that it is taking place in an appropriate manner. It should not be seen as punitive—I agree with that—but it does not absolve them from asking some questions. I agree with my noble friend Lord Soley that a child has to be seen. I have had personal experience of cases where parents have deliberately tried to ensure that the children were not seen. These are real threats to children. We have a responsibility to protect them and to ensure that the way Government monitor home education is fair. On balance, I support the right of appeal. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I have listened to this debate carefully, and it has been extremely sensitively presented, but it has raised a lot of questions. I shall certainly not talk about home schooling, on which I have no expertise whatever, but I am going to make a comment about procedure, of which I have a learnt a little over the years.

This is not the first group of amendments where I have sensed there is serious need for proper discussion between Committee and Report. It has alarmed me, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, mentioned, that the date being pencilled in for Report is the week beginning 10 July. We will probably not finish Committee stage until Monday 27 June. The minimum period between Committee and Report is 14 days. We would be abusing Standing Orders, or require a special resolution, to reduce it further.

I do not want to inflame the conversation, but this badly prepared Bill is crying out to have a longer period between Committee and Report. The only excuse that the Government can make—it is not an excuse but a genuine problem that Governments face—is that towards the end of a parliamentary Session there is urgent time pressure to apply the minimum gaps between Committee and Report. However, that is not the case here, right at the beginning of a Session. When the Commons have tons of Bills to consider and we have a very small number, there is no pressing requirement for the Government to apply the minimum gap.

I hope that it does not sound like a threat when I give notice that I think that there are many people in this House, on all sides, who feel that it is important for there to be a proper gap. There are mechanisms with any Chamber for majorities, if a majority exists, to ensure that this happens. I hope that it does not come to anything like that, but I urge the Government to think carefully about doing as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, and allowing Report to take place in the autumn.