Education and Inspections Bill

I now realise that I am in the customary position of Ministers speaking from this Dispatch Box of agreeing with all the substantive points about policy that have been made in the debate. Indeed, I very rarely disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, who speaks such great common sense in these matters. I should say that the Government share entirely the objectives that he set out in his speech, but point out that the law does not need changing to achieve those objectives; it achieves them already. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, suggests that the Bill duplicates existing legislation in many places. I stress, because this is a crucial point about the Children Act 2004, that, where the Bill duplicates existing provisions, it repeals them, and brings them together in one place for ease of reference or consolidation. I do not believe—this is crucial to the discussion—that the noble Baroness or any other noble Lord would wish to repeal Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 and incorporate it into an education Bill. I know exactly what the reaction would be if I put that proposition to your Lordships. It would be duplication. I have discussions with our lawyers all the time about what such duplication means. It means that, if these matters become matters of contention, you are asking the courts to choose between two different sets of duties laid out in different Acts, the wording of which is very similar but not precisely the same because they are in different contexts in the two Acts. So that is, in substance, my answer, but it is not to do with the objectives set out by the noble Lord, which we entirely share. Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, seek to tease out the relationship between the duties placed on a local authority acting in two different but inextricably linked capacities: first, in its capacity as a local education authority carrying out functions in relation to the provision of education; and, secondly, in its capacity as a children's services authority, carrying out its functions in relation to improving the well-being of children. The objective of these amendments is to ensure that there can be no confusion between the duties placed on local authorities in this Bill and the Every Child Matters agenda. Educational standards and well-being go hand in hand and this Bill has been consciously framed—as I said in response to a previous amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe—to reinforce the Children Act 2004 in respect of the Every Child Matters agenda, which is central to all that we seek to achieve for young people. For local authorities to fulfil their Every Child Matters and educational duties effectively, they need to be as joined-up as possible in their various complementary activities. That is why we have brought together education and children’s social services departments into children’s services departments, as noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, each with a single director of children’s services. That is a major development on the past situation where there were separate directors of the two services. It is also why we want to see one set of complementary statutory duties to apply to local authorities. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, would support that objective. It is why Clause 153 enables us to eliminate entirely the terms ““local education authority”” and ““children’s services authority””. They would be replaced throughout legislation with the single term ““local authority””, which would encompass the educational and the social services roles. That is the whole purpose of this later provision in the Bill. We therefore are not attracted to the juxtaposition proposed in Amendment No. 4 of different duties assigned to local authorities in relation to the provision of education, on the one hand, and the provision of children's services, on the other. We want a single set of duties on authorities acting in a far more joined-up way than has often been the case, which, again, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, would support. The key issue is that local authorities take all of those duties seriously. We can put them as much as we like in Bills, but they must be taken seriously. We seek to achieve that with the reforms that I have just mentioned; that is, the creation of single children’s services departments, supplemented by the development of children’s trusts, which seek to instil more services in a complementary relationship with local authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, tabled Amendment No. 5, which would add a duty of well-being. This issue, again, is of vital importance, which is why we have already made provision in legislation for it. Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 already places a duty on local authorities which is far more powerful than that set out in this amendment. Every local authority which has education and social services functions under Section 10 is required to promote co-operation between the authority, its relevant partners and such other persons or bodies as the authority considers appropriate in order to improve well-being, as defined by the five Every Child Matters outcomes, one of which is education. Re-stating aspects of that duty in the Education and Inspections Bill would serve to weaken the existing duty in the Children Act, as it could lead the courts to question why it was felt necessary to add it again and, in particular, whether we were seeking to qualify or circumscribe the existing wide-ranging duty by relating it mainly to educational provisions. In any event, to have the same duty expressed in two pieces of legislation is undesirable for the reasons that I have given. As I said earlier, Section 10 of the Children Act obliges every local authority in England to promote co-operation between the authority, its relevant partners and such other persons or bodies as the authority considers appropriate. Those five outcomes are very clear: the physical and mental health, and emotional well-being, of children; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution that children make to society; and social and economic well-being. It goes without saying that these five outcomes promote not only the well-being of children, but also the best interests of the child, which is the second half of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. So we believe that Section 10 also meets this objective. Taking Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 together with the provisions of this Bill will, we believe, meet the objectives which have been so well made in the course of the debate.