Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I welcome this Bill because I believe it brings much-needed reform to our education system. As a product of state education myself, a parent of five children in all with four grandchildren, all having been through or are going through the state education system, and a school governor in my local primary school, I think I can lay claim to a little expertise and a great deal of experience of our state education system—some good, some bad. My eldest daughter suffered from my dogmatic insistence that she attend the local comprehensive, a very large school where unfortunately she languished in the D stream. It was a painful experience for her, and one I reflect on as not a good decision. As we know, this Bill was presaged by a controversial White Paper that certainly stimulated debate into what appeared to be an ideological divide: if you support independence, diversity and choice, you are in favour of marketisation—a horrible word—and if you oppose that, you are in favour of improving all schools. I am exaggerating a little to make the point, but, I believe, only a little. I reject the ideological analysis, because I do not believe there is only one true path to enlightenment or improved state education. I believe in diversity. Just as I believe in a woman’s right to choose, I believe in parental choice and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, the children’s right to choose. When you hear the phrases ““There’s no real choice”” or ““Parents don’t want choice; what they want is a good local school””, I ask myself: What do people mean when they say this? One model of mixed comprehensive school? No faith, single-sex or specialist schools? No academies? Thirty or 40 years ago that recipe might have been accepted as part of the ““Government knows what’s good for you”” approach, or perhaps in an ideal world, or in Finland. But we inhabit the real world where there are 4,800 faith schools, and we all know they are not going to be abolished, whatever our views, whether we be humanists or secularists. Some parents and children prefer single-sex schools, and some like the idea of specialist schools where their children’s special aptitudes are catered for. Some, because there is a very good community comprehensive, favour that environment, but we know there are far too many failing schools which especially impact on deprived and disadvantaged children. I am currently the proud parent of two teenagers, both of whom visited their nearest comprehensive and decided they did not like the atmosphere of the school. Without any parental persuasion they opted for, in my daughter’s case, a Church of England girls’ school, and, in my son’s case, a boys’ comprehensive. Neither of those would have been my first choice, but, seared by my previous experience of dogmatic insistence, I decided it was best to let them make up their own mind. I am pleased to say that they are both happy and doing well as they progress through various stages of their A-levels. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, who unfortunately is not with us, criticised the Bill because he said it is nothing like the White Paper. Well, what’s new? White Papers are consultative documents, and he knows that to succeed in politics you have to practise the art of compromise. I believe that the Government have rightly responded to criticism and adjusted the Bill accordingly on admissions, selection, the nature and control of trusts, and on community provision. I heard one noble Lord say that there would be no local authority provision, which rather puzzled me because the Government have laid down criteria for such provision. Their response says that local authorities with a high annual performance assessment, or APA, score,"““would be allowed to propose a community school without the need for the Secretary of State’s consent . . . Conversely, some local authorities will not be permitted to propose a community school. That group comprises local authorities with an APA score of 1 and those local authorities with an APA score of 2 with either low levels of diversity or high levels of inadequate schools””." That seems a reasonable compromise in the circumstances. I do not understand why we should promote local authorities that are clearly failing in some ways. The Government have responded on the question of trust safeguards. All trusts must meet the legal requirements set out in the Bill. They must be incorporated charities, and there must be adequate consultation. Trust schools will remain local authority maintained schools, with the budget delegated to the governing body, not the trust. The trust’s functions will be to appoint governors. There was a comment about ballots—why not have parental ballots for all trust schools?—as though somehow ballots were outlawed. Yet the Government have again responded, saying:"““Parents must be consulted on proposals for new schools and for the acquisition of Trusts—this could be through a ballot if that is what is decided at the individual school level. If there has been inadequate consultation or if the governing body has not had regard to consultation responses, the local authority will be able to refer the Trust acquisition proposal to the Schools Adjudicator to determine. We think the issue of ballots is something best decided at the individual school level and not something that we should make compulsory””." I think they are probably right. On the question of discipline, where there was some criticism, I think the provision to increase school power is a good one—we know the problems schools have had with some difficult children—but safeguards are built into the proposed legislation. I agree with something said by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. I have some concerns about exclusive faith schools. However, we live in a multi-racial, multi-cultural society. Is it really tenable to deny one religious group the option? I doubt it. Along with state funding, though, I believe there should be safeguards. I hope that the Minister will deal with that issue. I was interested to hear the informed comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, on the question of SEN children, an area where opinion is changing. We should examine the range of provision. We know that inclusivity alone is not the answer; indeed, in some schools the provision has been poor. That is an area the Government would do well to examine. On the question of the curriculum, I share with others the view that PSHE should be dealt with in every school. I conclude with a couple of points. My noble friend Lady Morris, for whom, like the rest of the House, I have a great deal of respect given her vast experience, spoke with real passion and knowledge, but I am afraid I did not agree with her analysis that the Bill is harmless. I take the view that it is a necessary development of our education system. She also said—I hope I am not paraphrasing her incorrectly—that the success of trust schools may well be at the expense of other community schools. I do not believe that that is so. Indeed, I was fascinated by the example of Thomas Telford city technology college in Shropshire, one of those heading up the league tables. As importantly, it decided that it would assist a failing school in the locality. As a result of a very successful on-line course that it has developed in information technology, selling it to other schools, it was able to put about half a million pounds into this school in Walsall. It is the type of federation and assistance that surely all noble Lords would welcome. The Bill is clearly not perfect, as we have seen from the debate, and no doubt there will be extensive debate and discussion in Committee. On balance, however, I believe that the Government have it right. The Bill is an important step forward and I welcome it.