Education Bill

My Lords, I hope that the Committee will indulge me and perhaps give me a little more time than I have taken so far, because this amendment is very important. It is designed to try to get to the heart of the Government’s vision for education. While we have been diligently scrutinising the detailed proposals in the Bill, several noble Lords have reminded us along the way that we also need to lift our eyes from the page, look ahead to the future and ask, ““What will the education system look like if all these changes go through?””, and, more importantly, ““Will it work better for children and families?””. We have to understand from the Government what their vision is. Where are they trying to get to and what is the big picture? While Amendment 107A relates particularly to Clauses 34 and 35, on admissions, it is in fact a broad probing amendment that tries to bring together the collective impact of all the measures in the Bill that, taken together, will dramatically change the landscape of the schools system in England. In effect, this amendment asks whether the Government have a broader vision, whether the measures to free up individual schools will add up to a coherent education system and how that will work. Let us briefly remind ourselves of the broad themes of the Bill. First, the Government want to repeal many of the current requirements on schools and give individual schools the power to decide many issues for themselves—to choose the children they want to admit and whether to collaborate with other schools on children's services—without having to account to any external body except, directly and in theory, to the Secretary of State. Secondly, the Government are dismantling the structures and procedures that currently enable parents, local authorities or other schools to challenge on admissions, exclusions or school improvements while time centralising those powers in the Secretary of State. Thirdly, the Government are dissolving the local networks between individual schools, schools and local authorities, other children’s services, schools collectively and parents’ representatives, weakening the ability of local authorities to act on their behalf to resolve problems and to tackle schools that are behaving badly or failing their pupils. Finally—and this is the issue—all this is in the context of moving towards a completely different scale of free schools and academies. There will be tens of thousands of them, not hundreds. There will be 2,000 by the end of 2011. They are all to be supported and monitored directly by the Secretary of State in the Department for Education. We have noted the significant extension of centralising power in the Bill, but I question how the Secretary of State can exercise those powers effectively for so many schools from his office in the Department for Education. At the same time, it is not clear in the Bill or in previous legislation what measures will apply to academies, what will not or what can be applied via the funding agreements at the discretion of the Secretary of State, a point I will return to shortly. In a discussion with the Minister before the Bill came here, which I hope he will not mind me referring to, I asked what the Government’s vision of the future is, and he replied with the oft-misquoted Maoist view that it is to let a thousand flowers bloom. So I ask the Minister whether the vision for the future is of free-floating individual schools all doing their own thing, not connected to local networks and with no one locally holding the ring on behalf of parents and children; no one locally driving school improvement or ensuring fair access; no one looking across an area at reducing rates of teenage pregnancy, for example, or of persistent absence; no one identifying children missing from education, identifying where permanently excluded children are and finding them a place; and no one responsible for looking out for the children who may fall through the cracks between all these separate schools making their own decisions? I wonder whether there is a gaping void at the heart of government policy, a void where there should be a clear understanding of how the education system would address those important issues and for ensuring, as the White Paper promised, whole-system reform in which every child matters and, "““giving every child access to the best possible teaching””." The Minister has to try to explain to us how the system that will emerge from the Government’s changes will achieve those objectives, which I am sure we can all support. This is the challenge that Amendment 107A is designed to address. As we have already heard, the Bill represents large risks to fairness in admissions and exclusions. When we debated Clause 4, we heard how certain groups of children—those with special educational needs and those from minority ethnic groups—are already more at risk of exclusion than others, and we heard how the Bill is relaxing safeguards against unfair exclusions. In our debate on Clause 6 we heard about the risks arising due to the abolition by the Bill of the duty on schools to participate in behaviour and attendance partnerships and the duty to co-operate with other services. In the debate so far on this clause on admissions, we have heard that with a weakened admissions code, increased numbers of now independent-in-law admissions authorities—potentially up to 20,000 such authorities—no need for admissions forums and a weakened schools adjudicator, there is a real risk that fairness in admissions, which we have all long striven for and have achieved some progress in, will be undermined. Let us also consider the new EBacc, which was introduced retrospectively and picks an arbitrarily narrow curriculum to judge schools’ performance. That is already changing schools’ behaviour, with heads talking about EBacc streams, as my noble friend Lady Morris pointed out recently in an article. How can the Government ensure that this new narrow performance measure, added to the removal of safeguards, will not introduce selection by the back door? Given that after this Bill is enacted grammar schools will be able to keep their selective admissions if they become academies and will be able to expand by setting up satellite schools in neighbouring areas, is this not another means by which selection can be extended, as noted with approval recently by the Daily Telegraph? While the Bill, maybe commendably, wants to give power to schools, it is simultaneously weakening the essential counterpart of that freedom that is a strong system of co-ordination and accountability. Hitherto it has been the local authority’s duty to tackle failing schools and to drive school improvement. I would be the first to agree that not every local authority has done a good job. They have not been tough enough sometimes on schools. However, that does not mean that a good job does not need to be done at this level. This amendment proposes that there should be a new tier of accountability between schools and the Secretary of State, with the engagement of key local stakeholders: parents, parent-governors, head teachers, teachers and the proprietors of academies, as well as local authority representatives. I stress again that this is a probing amendment designed to draw out the level of the Government’s recognition of the need for, and support for, increased local accountability of schools to parents and the community. There are parallels in other countries. In Canada, district superintendents support continuous improvement in schools, influenced by local needs and priorities and parents’ concerns. In the model set out in the amendment, which is only one possible model, a schools commissioner, appointed by the local authority, would promote collaboration between schools, parental confidence in schools and fair access. They would advise schools’ admissions authorities on admission arrangements and other matters. They would advise the local authority, head and governing bodies on promoting good behaviour, on reducing persistent absence and identifying children who are missing completely from education and on parents’ views on admissions. They would also be able to direct a school to admit a child who is not on any school roll. That is happening now before we even get to an increase in the number of academies. The role would cover all schools maintained by the local authority and all academies and city technology colleges in the local authority’s area. Importantly, the schools commissioner would not act alone. They would represent the views of parents, pupils and the community by being required to be advised by a board made up of parent-governors—50 per cent of the membership—as well as representatives of head teachers, teachers, governors, proprietors and the local authority. The Government say in other places that they are committed to localism. This amendment would go some way towards a localised element in the system where parents, pupils and communities play an influential role, and it would ensure a local system—not atomised schools—that can work for pupils. When the Minister replies, and in conclusion, I would be grateful if he could address three specific issues. First, as the Government move towards thousands or tens of thousands of academies, are they clear about what legislation—in this and previous Bills—actually applies to academies? We asked him for such a list some time ago. It is not yet forthcoming and yet we are being asked to comment on legislation and schools are being asked to consider becoming academies without any clarity—including within his department, apparently—as to what laws will apply to academies and what will not. Secondly, can the Minister explain exactly how a system of thousands of in effect independent schools will deliver the aspiration of giving every child access to the best possible teaching, as stated in the White Paper? Finally, if the Government are not minded to accept the proposal for something such as a local schools commissioner, which person or body will undertake the responsibilities listed in this amendment for missing children, for finding places for children excluded and so on? I beg to move.