Education and Adoption Bill

My Lords, I rise to address the first group of amendments on the Marshalled List. In moving Amend...

My Lords, before I speak to the amendments, I must apologise to the Committee because I have to l...

My Lords, these amendments concern the idea of what is coasting. Somewhat late in the day, the Go...

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I offer my apologies for not speaking indepe...

I thank the noble Lord for his support and appreciate that even he cannot be in two places at onc...

I also give my apologies, as I have to go to a charity reception at 3.40 pm and will not be able ...

Briefly, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, has just said. It is practical common se...

Would the noble Baroness not accept that some schools do neglect sport, the arts and social skill...

Absolutely. That is why we have Ofsted, which picks these things up. It is my firm belief that sc...

My Lords, I was not planning to intervene at this stage but I would like to ask the Minister to a...

My Lords, as has become fashionable, I will start with an apology that I have to leave early and ...

My Lords, I enjoy listening to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, much more in opposition than I ever d...

My Lords, I would like to add a few words. I have been very sympathetic with quite a lot of what ...

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, reminds me that there are some very interesting variati...

My Lords, I will speak to the group containing Amendments 1, 2, 5, 7 and 9, which concern coastin...

How will the progress measure account for churn in schools that have a big churn in population be...

I think—although I will write to the noble Lord—that it will not be calculated; they will not be ...

My Lords, if the primary definition here is based on academic achievement, where does it place ot...

The reason why it is so important in primary—and it is again based on pupils making the right lev...

My Lords, I fully appreciate what the Minister says about clarity and transparency, but going bac...

Of course, Ofsted is focused heavily on a broad and balanced curriculum. As the noble Baroness, L...

The Minister has just outlined that the RSCs will take account of Ofsted judgments. Perhaps it wo...

I assure the noble Baroness that dialogue with Ofsted does take place. I know that at least one r...

I have to tell the noble Lord that the jockeys from that racecourse used to wine and dine at the ...

I knew the noble Baroness and I had a lot in common and now we have even more. As she knows, I ag...

My Lords, we are at the point of clarification and probing here, and sport is just an example. Th...

We should discuss this and I am very happy to do that. It is taken into account by Ofsted and wil...

The Minister said that the programme is going to be very focused on high-performing schools. Can ...

If you are a high-performing school with an APS of entry of 30 average pupils, and you are bound ...

If I may say so, high-performing schools achieve the five A* to C grades perfectly easily and wil...

The noble Baroness is completely right. I have not made myself clear. The progress measure comes ...

My Lords, that is not the way the draft reads. It says: if fewer than 60% of school pupils achiev...

It applies only to 2014 and 2015—and if it is not clear, we will make it clear in the future.

Will the department record the interventions made as they are made on coasting schools against th...

When we formally intervene, we already publish that information, so it will be in the public doma...

My Lords, despite my noble friend’s fine efforts, I have been unable to torture the words of the ...

We could go on like this for a long time, but I will talk to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, outside....

My Lords, the Minister is already writing me a letter full of statistics, so I hope that he can i...

Will the Minister send the letter round to everybody who has participated in the debate?

Yes.

3.30 pm

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to an excellent and very informed debate. ...

I would be delighted to write to the noble Lord.

I thank the Minister for that. I referred earlier to the fact that he talked about the need for c...

Moved by

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 15, leave out “may” and i...

My Lords, I have grouped Amendment 3 with Amendment 8, both of which concern parliamentary scruti...

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, primarily because, having looked at the end of my ...

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3 and 8 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hun...

I am grateful to the Minister for that response; he said that he would consider this between Comm...

Moved by

Lord Watson of Invergowrie

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

My Lords, Amendment 4 touches on an issue that I dare say will be explored in greater depth when ...

We had some banter on the floor of the House on the question of democracy. The democracy in this ...

I have to say that a number of people I have spoken to were concerned by the Minister’s comment o...

My Lords, the amendment asks that the governing body informs the parents that the school has been...

My Lords, I take a slightly different view. I shall be brief. I am quite sure that the Government...

My Lords, the noble Lord was right when he noticed that I would be responding to this amendment. ...

I note what the noble Baroness said about schools and Ofsted inspections but I have certainly com...

I hope that the noble Lord will be pleased to know that I was going to go on to say that, in view...

I am delighted to hear what the noble Baroness has said. She couched it in terms of “considering”...

I absolutely agree, and I said in my speech that I expected parents to be given the information a...

I take on board that point and, yes, there will be various levels of knowledge of education, or i...

Moved by

Lord Watson of Invergowrie

6: Clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

My Lords, I move Amendment 6, in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen. I...

My Lords, I have some sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said about teacher recruitm...

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is right that the recruitment and retention of high-qualit...

I welcome what the Minister has said. I am not suggesting that the two are mutually exclusive, bu...

Absolutely. We are seeing growing collaboration. The noble Lord is right that we are looking at t...

I thank the Minister for her remarks. I certainly welcome the fact that she has acknowledged the ...

Through the metric that we have discussed, when a school would be considered to be coasting, teac...

I think that we have covered the issues that I hoped we would cover. With that in mind, I beg lea...

Moved by

Lord Watson of Invergowrie

10: Clause 2, page 3, line 10, at end insert—

My Lords, we now move on to the question of performance standards and safety warning notices—in t...

My Lords, this amendment picks up an issue which we Liberal Democrats have been worried about som...

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 10 regarding the extension of local authority warning notices to a...

If they are going to apply the same standards to academies, why is that not in the Bill?

As I have said, academies are judged by a contract called a funding agreement, which sets out wha...

My Lords, I do not understand why the Government do not want to deal with the issue of maintained...

My Lords, my Amendment 16 addresses this later on. We might even be able to kill two birds with o...

We may bring this up again in Amendment 16, but I cannot really say more than I have already. I w...

The first thing that I have to say to the Minister is that I am amazed at his comment about the O...

They are failing because we took them over only very recently. As we have already discussed, you ...

I cannot imagine that they would be inspected that soon. If they have been moved into, effectivel...

If the noble Lord had come on Monday and met the regional schools commissioners, he might have be...

I look forward to getting that briefing when I am able to attend. That would be helpful. But that...

I have the Ofsted figures here, which show that for all the maintained mainstream schools the per...

I thank the noble Baroness for those remarks. The Minister referred to the contractual relationsh...

Moved by

Lord Addington

11: After Clause 3, insert the following new Clause—

“R...

My Lords, this is an attempt to try to gain a little more clarity about the role of the regional ...

My Lords, my Amendment 12 is in this group. The point the noble Lord has raised is highly appropr...

My Lords, the two new clauses proposed concern the role and remit of regional schools commissione...

But, my Lords, that is exactly what is happening in health and social care. Clearly, in governmen...

I am afraid that the noble Lord has lost me with a lot of political theory. I am interested in—