Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed and eloquent introduction of the Bill, and I am delighted to support my noble friend Lady Buscombe in her second piece of legislation on this brief and compliment her on such a comprehensive explanation of our approach to the Bill. I should also like to pass on our best wishes to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth. He played a large part in the last Education Bill, and we hope he is back soon with his customary big smile. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, is right: this has been a very good and wide-ranging debate. We have been entertained by World Cup metaphors, taken on an historical tour of education and touched on many subjects, including faith schools, admissions policies, school transport, teenage pregnancy, special needs, the enormous task facing HMCI and the challenges of post-14 education. We have also been treated to exceptional and powerful speeches, but, wherever we stand on the choice debate, there can be no doubt that everyone who has taken part wants the very best for all our children. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, said, it is how we go about it that may cause some differences of opinion. Time prevents me from commenting on all the speeches made, but the debate has been characterised by the expertise of those participating and the constructive tone that I value so highly in your Lordships’ House. It feels like only yesterday that I was standing at this Dispatch Box giving a Second Reading speech on the previous Education Bill. It is a bit like groundhog day. However, I am so pleased that today we are debating a Bill that enacts many of the points that we raised some 18 months ago. I was therefore pleased to note the inclusion of Part 4, which centres on schools causing concern. Although there is plenty of scope for improvement, I was nevertheless pleased to note that it will be easier to close failing schools, easier to tackle coasting schools and easier for schools to join with other schools in the same area to provide better standards for children let down by those schools. That is surely the main theme of today’s debate: the standard of education that our children are receiving. Many noble Lords have focused today on their great anxiety for local schools. They have expressed their concern that parents and members of the local community will lose their voice in the running of those schools. We believe that that is emphatically not the case. In fact, in Clause 3 noble Lords will note the duty of local authorities to consider parental representations and to issue an action plan in response. Clause 33 gives a voice to the parent by ensuring that where in a foundation school the majority of governors are foundation governors the school will have a duty to set up a parent council. The whole ethos of foundation schools is to give the community the chance to support their local schools. Members of the local community, whether they are parents, local business people or faith groups, can choose to make that most important investment in education. That freedom follows through to the schools, and that must be right. I found myself doing something that I do not do very often, which was nodding in agreement with the Prime Minister when, in his speech prior to the White Paper, he said:"““We need to see every local authority moving from provider to commissioner, so that the system acquires a local dynamism responsive to the needs of their communities and open to change and new forms of school provision””." I am sure that we all recognise that schools are the experts on schools. It is our job to support them so that all schools have the freedom to be good schools. The Prime Minister realised the benefit of competition between schools when he said that,"““test scores improved fastest where schools knew children were free to go elsewhere””." I commend the Prime Minister and support my noble friend Lady Buscombe in saying that I hope that we can go further. We do not need an ideological battle on the right approach to education when the evidence clearly shows what will work. The other Baroness Morris—the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley—said that she was happy to look at choice if it was found that it worked. There is a study by Caroline Hoxby, professor of economics at Harvard University, who found that substantially competitive districts in America produced a rise of four percentile points in overall academic achievement and spent 7.6 per cent less than districts with no competition. In her estimation, if every school in America were to face a high level of competition from both state and private sectors, the productivity of schools would be 28 per cent higher. My noble friend Lady Buscombe talked of pivots and catalysts, and she was right to do that. This is a Bill that, I hope, will effect real change. The Bill dares to go against the tide of the more traditional politics of this Government, so we on these Benches support it. The international evidence from Sweden and the US shows that choice really is working. That is crucial; the priority must be that no child is left behind. I am reminded in a more literal way of preventing children from being left behind—that is, on their way to and from school. The school transport provisions in the Bill seek to enact the School Transport Bill of January 2005 that never quite made it on to the statute book. I recall at the time raising objections to that Bill because I feared that it would be a ““Withdrawal of school transport Bill””. Part of that fear was that special needs children were not properly provided for and that free buses would effectively be abolished for those living two to three miles from school. I am pleased to see that Clause 70, an addition to the old School Transport Bill, illustrates a list of children for whom free school transport will be a right, including children with special educational needs, disability or mobility problems, those entitled to free school meals and those who cannot be reasonably expected to walk. But my central anxiety from the old Bill remains and that theme was picked up by my noble friends Lady Shephard and Lady Perry of Southwark: the provision of free school transport still imposes some limitation on choice for parents, in that eligible children will be able to have transport only to any of three suitable schools closest to their home. Although that maintains some element of choice, I will seek confirmation of the rationale behind that cap on choice and, most important, confirmation that, where a community school is closer to a child’s home, a local authority will not be able to influence choice for that school over a local foundation school. In respect of the piloting school travel schemes under Clause 71, a remnant of the old Bill, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that no child who currently receives free school transport will have that privilege removed and that no child who would have received free transport under the current scheme—in other words, one who is not at school at the moment—will lose out under any new pilot scheme. I, too, was pleased to see the inclusion in the Bill of the admission bias in favour of looked-after children. We know that up to 13 per cent of the 78,500 children currently in care were moved to a new placement at least three times last year. We also know that, in 2001, only 8 per cent of children in care achieved five or more A-star to C grades at GCSE, compared to half of all young people, and out of those only 1 per cent go to university. One of the most striking figures about looked-after children is the level of special educational needs. Some 27 per cent of looked-after children have a statement of special educational needs, compared to 3 per cent of all children. The figures on special needs cases for looked-after children clearly point to a correlation and, perhaps with greater consistency in their education, their educational needs may in some cases dissipate. I hope also that in your Lordship’s House we can ensure that appropriate provisions are in place for young carers—those who take on a lion’s share of responsibility at a very early age. They are such a valuable part of the community of care and need enhanced support. While the provisions in Clauses 6 and 80, which provide for consultation with children on providing leisure facilities and setting discipline policy, are welcome, I note that the Bill is otherwise silent on the welfare of the child. The Secretary of State’s Statement yesterday confirmed that we still faced a real problem. He has announced new measures that are welcome but demonstrate that we face a real challenge to implement safeguards and checks on the ground. Those issues cut to the core of freedoms for schools and, especially, teachers. We live in a culture that makes more and more demands on our teachers—in some cases that is necessary. It is most certainly necessary when it comes to ensuring that the safety of our children is preserved to the very highest level, but we need to strike the right balance or we risk losing the very best teachers from the profession—not just because of the pressure to conform to countless statutory requirements but because we do not afford them adequate protection. My noble friend Lady Buscombe has already raised with the Minister in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill the question of anonymity for teachers under investigation. I was glad that honourable friends in another place also pursued the issue. Teachers take on an extremely difficult job. They have simultaneously to support the needs of a child, ensure that behaviour is up to the mark and try to improve academic performance. From my experience, both as a trainee teacher and now as a governor of a school, I have seen how challenging but how very rewarding that is. The need to support teachers from the day on which they begin their training and for the rest of their career is key to achieving greater standards in the classroom. I believe that there is consensus on that across these Benches. We must also agree that much more can be done; but in the mean time, we need to ensure that teachers are protected from situations that no amount of training can prevent. Many of us will know or have heard of individuals whose careers have been ruined humiliatingly in public as a result of unfounded or mistaken accusations. I was alarmed, however, to find out how great that statistic is: of 1,782 accusations of abuse against members of the NASUWT in 2005, only 69 resulted in conviction—in other words, a 96 per cent margin of error. The DfES five-year plan of 2004 pledged to defend teachers from false allegations and to ensure that teachers were not subjected to damaging delays to clear their name. While I am disappointed that the Bill did not include such provision from the beginning, it was heartening to read the Minister’s positive response to my honourable friend David Willetts in another place. The Minister promised to hold a meeting to discuss the potential for an amendment in this House. I hope that we can follow that up in the coming weeks and produce a concrete safeguard for teachers who are threatened by wrongful trial by media. I have spent much of this speech thanking the Government for introducing common-sense measures. I am glad that, finally, as my noble friend Lady Buscombe said, we have begun the change of course away from politics and towards education. But the major challenge on our hands as a country is to raise the standards of schools, not only in tests and statistics, but in the attitudes that we foster towards and within our education system. The protection of children and cultivation of respect for teachers will help. My noble friend Lady Buscombe referred to the curriculum. She rightly argued for the entitlement to study three sciences and history and geography up to age 16. My noble friend Lord Pilkington of Oxenford spoke powerfully on that. Incidentally, in his pamphlet, End Egalitarian Delusion,written when he was still Canon Peter Pilkington, my noble friend was one of the first people to understand the importance of recognising talents other than academic talents and the need for technical qualifications to rival A-levels—a theme so passionately expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I was disappointed that the Bill makes no movement towards redressing the bias in the education system involving special needs schools. Special needs schools and special needs units and teachers in the mainstream are a vital part of education in this country. Their role is crucial to the success of all schools. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Rix and Lord Addington, that teachers in mainstream schools need to understand children’s needs. However, I support my noble friend Lady Buscombe in the belief that the needs of special educational needs children are not best served by assuming that the best place for them is in the mainstream. I recall setting the Government a challenge 18 months ago to be at their best and boldest, to encourage more schools to be foundation schools, to allow good schools to expand and to abolish surplus places. With this Bill, we are getting there.