Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister not only for introducing the Bill but also for expressing the concern of the House at the absence of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth today. He would anyway have been prevented from being here by a happy family occasion in Scotland, but all of us regret the reasons that will now make it unlikely that he will be able to make the substantial contribution to the discussion of the Bill that we would have anticipated. I will certainly convey your Lordships’ good wishes to him in his present circumstance. I fear that I cannot match the right reverend Prelate’s inimitable style, but I hope to mention many of the points he would have wanted to raise today and to which we on these Benches will want to return through the stages of the Bill. Indeed, I know that there have been helpful conversations between the right reverend Prelate and the Government and that he has also discussed the proposals in the Bill with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham. As chairman myself of the Church of England’s Council for Christian Unity, it gives me particular pleasure to make several points with the interests of the Roman Catholic community and the Churches generally in mind. Before I raise one or two specific matters that affect Church schools, I should like to make two general points in welcoming the general thrust of the Bill. The Bill recognises that schools no longer need nannying. They have come of age and their ability to guide the development of good education needs affirming. That, it seems to me, is entirely consistent with the developments over the past 20 years or so during which better public scrutiny and accountability have gone hand in hand with greater freedom for schools to manage their own affairs. Head teachers now do not need to spend their time squeezing an extra member of staff or a refurbished science laboratory out of an apparently reluctant local authority. They may feel they manage less money than they would like but at least schools manage it for themselves. The steady improvement in the education service in general and the public perception of the profession of teaching have at the least coincided with those developments. Many would say that there was a connection of cause and effect. But this greater freedom has not extended in the same way to the curriculum, where schools have often felt, not always justly, very constrained. The Government are generally right to restore to our schools greater freedom over the curriculum, especially post-14, where there are still serious problems to be addressed. The second point is related in that it also concerns the role of the local authority. Great concern has been expressed in the past few months, and I imagine may be expressed in this House today, about the diminishment in the powers of the local authority if schools generally become trust schools—that is, foundation schools owned by a trust or group of trusts. Church schools have often been mentioned as a model for such schools. It is true that, whether they are voluntary aided, voluntary controlled or foundation schools, Church of England schools are all schools owned not by the local authority but by a trust or a group of trustees established or long designated for the purpose. Each of the 4,700 Church of England schools is of course unique, but that they all have this in common, even though the identity of the trust or the group of trustees varies considerably. It can be the vicar and church wardens acting ex officio, or the diocesan board of education or finance or a group of local people, usually including the incumbent, again acting ex officio. I shall return to this aspect of our schools in making more detailed comment, but in general the role of what has been the LEA as the maintaining authority has never been put at risk by this diversity of provision. I see no reason why that should not continue to be the case. In practice, in almost every area of the country, the relationship between the diocesan authority and the local authority, as together they have planned the provision of schools and their improvement, has been very effective, although it always requires attention on both sides. That has been my personal experience in the diocese where, in moving from a three tier to a two-tier system in one LEA area, we were able to publish joint proposals and work closely together in ensuring that they were successfully implemented. We see no reason why that should change with the current proposals in relation to Church schools, whether they are Church of England or Roman Catholic schools, and we would not want it to change. Nor should the role of the local authority in practice be diminished in relation to trust schools or the more diverse provision of schools in general. As a sign of the Churches’ commitment to working in strategic partnership with the local authority, we are not proposing to resist the abolition of the school organisation committees, where the Churches’ representatives have shared in making local decisions about the provision of schools in partnership with the local authority. Provided that the opportunity exists to refer disputed decisions to the school adjudicator, we are content that the local decision should be made by the local authority itself. That will bring coherence to the more diverse system that the Bill envisages. We are, though, seeking further embedding of the strategic partnership between the dioceses and local authorities. On the more detailed points to which we on these Benches will wish to return in Committee, a number of provisions in the Bill as currently drafted, that exist to protect the public interest in relation to new bodies of trustees owning the premises of schools, catch the interests of the Churches in education. That is, I understand and trust, accidental. But the Churches are not potentially untrustworthy new bodies, desperate to get our hands on public assets to advance our private or even our personal interests, despite the caricatures sometimes painted in print. There are long-accepted practices in relation to the recycling of public assets for educational purposes when closed Church school premises are sold, in relation to the identity of trustees, which need not necessarily be limited companies or registered charities, and in relation to the foundation, expansion and continuance of Church schools more generally. All these make it inappropriate to catch Church schools in the same toils as new trust schools. The same is the case with decisions that could be taken by a school in relation to its foundation. A Church school is created by its foundation, and not the other way round. It cannot therefore choose to change its foundation. None of this is distinguished in the Bill as it stands, as it applies new provisions equally to Church schools as to new trust schools. I hope that the necessary changes will be made to the drafting as we proceed. As it stands, it looks as though the Secretary of State will be granted powers to remove a member of a diocesan board of finance who had nothing directly to do with any Church schools in the diocese, except in a remote sense as a custodian trustee. I am sure the Minister will recognise that, although the exercise of such powers might occasionally be welcomed by Members of this Bench, for other and wrong reasons, it might raise wider difficulties. I turn to Part 3 of the Bill and in particular to school admissions. First, I welcome Clause 41, prohibiting interviews. Interviews could be used only to determine a family’s adherence to the faith of the school, and it has long been the official policy, both of the Church of England Board of Education and of the Catholic Education Service, to seek their abolition. Such interviews were unnecessary, not widely used and often misunderstood. Secondly, the board of education and the House of Bishops, encouraged by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, have been giving considerable attention to schools’ admissions policies and intend to issue revised guidance to diocesan boards of education. That should have the effect of making these policies simpler and clearer, and of promoting the further inclusion in Church schools of those of other faiths and none, in accordance with the policy clearly set out in the report in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, The Way Ahead. Diocesan boards of education currently have the power to give advice to school governing bodies in their capacity as admissions authorities, to which the governors have to have regard. In some cases, they do not and diocesan authorities are effectively powerless to make them do so. I note that the Bill will require admissions authorities to act in accordance with the Government’s code on admissions. It is a position common to the Church of England and the Catholic Education Service that diocesan authorities should have the power to refer a school’s admissions policy to the adjudicator when it is threatening to ignore the advice it has received. I shall mention two more matters that I shall no more than outline at this stage, one of which is in the Bill and one which is not. The first concerns home-to-school transport for pupils who do, or would like to, attend Church schools. In welcoming the proposals to extend choice to two or three schools within a six-mile radius, I must recognise that many local authorities are currently moving to restrict choice in relation to Church schools by denying free transport to the nearest Church school. In many rural communities, six miles is not very far. This means that children of poorer families who wish to attend our small number of very popular schools, particularly secondary schools, some miles from their homes are unable to do so. That runs directly against the Government’s policy of promoting diversity and inclusion. Finally, I know that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth has been discussing with the Government the appointment of suitable teaching and non-teaching staff for Church schools. While wishing our schools to be inclusive, I can see little value to Church or community if they are not also distinctively Christian. That means that they must have teaching and, sometimes, non-teaching staff who, personally and from conviction, support the ethos of the school. I welcome the Bill and look forward to further discussion on these matters in the Church’s continuing partnership in the vital matter of developing our children’s full potential.