Education Bill

I wish briefly to discuss a couple of aspects of the amendments, touching on Ofsted and outstanding schools, the anonymity of teachers and Ofqual. I wish to start where my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) so eloquently left off: on the duty to co-operate. I agree wholeheartedly that we should celebrate co-operation, teamwork, playing to strengths and so on. I accept that the Government think it necessary to retain the duty to co-operate, as was, but I hope the Minister will agree that it is not always best to systematise and design processes; free co-operation can frequently be more effective. In a different but closely connected arena, the Select Committee, on which I sit and of which my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) is Chair, is examining the broader issue of child protection. In that area, the number of flow charts, systems, fall-back plans and required times by which something must happen provide what appears to be a very impressive system, but in many ways more questions are created than are answered. There is much to be gained from schools co-operating, so that we get more than the sum of the parts. The education improvement partnership in my constituency brings together all 44 schools—nobody forced them, and it was not the result of any duty—to work on a range of things, including the gifted and talented programmes; the provision of pupil referral units; nurture for primary children at risk of exclusion; and training for emotional literacy support assistants. That makes the biggest difference. The second thing I wish to talk about is Ofsted, outstanding schools and triggers. I accept that there is an honest and reasonable difference between the parties on this, which reflects a difference that we see on lots of subjects. Labour Members would like codified exactly what will trigger the re-inspection of a school previously judged to be outstanding, whereas Ministers are keen to think of a range of things that might make that happen but do not wish to be quite so specific and accept that, to an extent, the system is organic. The Select Committee closely examined whether a change of head should automatically trigger a re-inspection. I think that there is a strong argument to say that such a big personnel change, perhaps when combined with one or two other changes, might be a good reason for so doing, but there might be counterbalancing arguments against.