Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, who made an impassioned speech earlier, but for every 200 lawyers whom he cites, I could probably cite 300 who would say something completely different, because, as he knows, it would be in their interests to do so.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He clearly agrees with me that we need to ensure that funds in individual constituencies for the purpose of delivering one particular result are brought under greater control. The Government have given a commitment, and I am prepared to accept it, but I want us to use the time that we have today to make absolutely certain that the fears and doubts about charities being chilled in their engagement in public debate can be dispelled. We want Ministers to assure us of that, and to confirm that they are utterly committed to it.

[Stephen McPartland]

That was a fantastic intervention. I said on Second Reading that a Committee stage debate on the Floor of the House would provide a great opportunity for Ministers to clear up some of our concerns, and we saw that earlier, when the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) responded to what was said by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.

Education Bill

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Graham Stuart

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

Conservative Members have found that artificial targets led to precisely the kind of mechanistic, cost-of-business approach that my hon. Friend speaks about so well. That is why we set up a body of experts such as Ofqual to work within a framework, also established, of different awarding bodies wherein together they come up with the right approach. I am not sure that it is necessarily right to set a percentage. If there were a consistent period in which the awarding bodies showed themselves to be careless, or if we found on international comparison that ours were not up to scratch compared with those elsewhere—whatever the aspiration of the Japanese examination system, I doubt that it delivers 100% accuracy in all exams—it would be better if we trusted Ofqual to work with the bodies without necessarily bringing more bureaucratic sanctions into the process. Given the terms of subsection (5) of the new clause, there seems to be little incentive for Ofqual to control the costs of this, and it may simply add further to the expense of our qualifications system.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

These awarding bodies are very large businesses; I believe that the largest is worth about a quarter of a billion pounds. Does my hon. Friend agree that they no doubt have legal insurance that would meet the cost of these interventions?

[Mr Stuart]

That may well be the case, but if they do have such insurance, the premium will reflect the cost of doing businesses. In all contexts, whenever anyone suggests that having insurance somehow means that there is not a problem, it usually means that there is a broad raising of costs across the piece, which is something that we should minimise. One of the changes that was made in the Lords and has now come before us recognises that some education awarding bodies are part of educational companies globally, that there should be a cap on how much they can be fined, and that that cap should be relevant to the amount of business that that organisation does in this country rather than in global operations. That is welcome.

We now have a repeal of the repeal of the duty to co-operate. The shadow Minister was right to say that we are glad to hear confirmation that this partnership working can continue. I am also glad to hear from the Minister, citing his noble Friend Lord Hill, that the Government are committed to that form of partnership. In all the high-profile cases, and others, of children who are found to be neglected, it turns out that people at the agencies have not talked to each other, and we need to ensure that they do. It may be possible that a particular duty to co-operate in a certain way leads to a mechanistic response. If there is another way of framing the whole conversation that encourages it without there being a bureaucratic or legislative solution, that is something that I would be open to, but until we have a convincing argument as to how the overall picture will work, it is a good thing that schools co-operate with the other bodies.

On admissions, we have the change whereby anyone can refer a case to the regulator. I assume that the impact assessment has taken account of this, but I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that. If anyone can refer to the regulator on admissions, how many more referrals do we expect? If other hon. Members’ caseloads are anything like mine, they will know that an awful lot of parents are concerned about admission arrangements and many of them go through the appeals process. I wonder how many would seek to question and make complaints to the admissions regulator using the power in the Bill.

Again referring back to the remarks of the shadow Minister, can the Minister give the House a reassurance on the time frame for an admissions body to correct itself? Is it really possible that we could have a 10-month delay? One of the dangers in this place is that so many Members are so high-minded. The Minister is one of the most high-minded, and there is a tendency to assume that all others in the system share his ethics, commitment and fairness. Perhaps I have led the wrong life, but I have met many people who are capable of spite. It would seem to me a mistake to have a system that allowed somebody who had appealed and won to be thwarted in an act of spite by a school because it could use the rules to avoid acting in time to provide justice to the person who had brought the complaint.

On Ofsted inspections, as I said earlier, I welcome the Government’s proportionate approach. I would be grateful if the Minister talked us through the implications of the reduction in Ofsted’s budget. Perhaps surprisingly for some Government Members, the previous Government brought in pretty strong reductions in Ofsted’s budget. It is greatly to the credit of the then chief inspector that Ofsted coped with that without a discernible drop in quality. The budget is now going down even further—from well over £200 million, it is dropping to about £143 million, from memory. I am interested to know how that will impact on Ofsted’s ability to provide inspections.

The noble Lord Hill said in the other place that 72 outstanding schools had had inspections triggered by Ofsted’s risk assessment process. That meant that about 2% of outstanding schools had been inspected in the period. He said that it had been agreed with Ofsted that the aim should be to inspect at least 5% of outstanding schools. I wonder how able Ofsted will be to deliver that 250% increase in workload just in the area of outstanding schools.

In winding up, the Minister might also like to comment on primary schools, because all schools are not the same. It has always been of concern to me, when talking about greater autonomy and academies, that primary schools are fundamentally more fragile than secondaries. The departure of a head or a chair of governors, both of whom might contribute to a school being outstanding, can lead very quickly to a school’s standards falling. I would like a reassurance that there are different approaches for primaries and secondaries, for example in the speed of reaction and the attention given to certain factors, such as a change of head at a primary school being given greater weight and being seen as more of a trigger to get Ofsted to come in and check that all is well.

With those remarks, I will leave it there. I hope that the Minister will respond in due course.