My Lords, I have grouped Amendment 3 with Amendment 8, both of which concern parliamentary scrutiny in relation to the regulations concerning definition of schools to be dealt with under the coasting provisions. We have had a very interesting first debate, and the Minister has been helpful in clarifying that the coasting provisions apply to selective grammar schools and high-performing comprehensive schools. That is welcome. It is also welcome that he has clarified, as I understand it, that RSCs, albeit using the funding agreements, will take the same approach to academies as they will to maintained schools.
My noble friend Lord Knight has now had to depart, but he raised a very interesting point, which relates to parliamentary scrutiny. We are all agreed about the need to tackle coasting schools—there is no doubt whatever about that. However, part of the resistance there has been to it has been due to a feeling that the Government are partly motivated by trying to create academies by the back door. My noble friend Lord Knight put the point to the Minister that, if in the end the Government want all schools to be academies, which it seems that they do, why on earth do they not say that they are going to do that and then deal with the democratic deficit that undoubtedly exists within academies?
I was involved in the thinking behind the establishment of the NHS foundation trusts, and you could argue, very loosely, that they were a parallel movement. However, with the foundation trusts we were absolutely determined to strengthen local accountability by setting up a governance structure that involved patients and members of the public in appointing the boards of directors. In some of the debates we are having around academies, the department is missing a very big trick; my noble friend will come back to this when later in the Bill we come to the issue of parental involvement in decisions about whether a school is an academy or not. That is why parliamentary scrutiny here is so important.
The Minister will have seen the report of the Delegated Powers Committee on the provisions in the Bill. Obviously, Governments normally respond by agreeing to the recommendations made, and it would be interesting to hear from the noble Lord what the Government’s response is. Essentially, the committee thinks that there should have been a definition of “coasting” in the Bill. It says in the report that it thinks it is too “wide and open-ended” and that the delegation is,
“inappropriate given the fundamental importance of the … operation of the new section, and the significant powers which become exercisable in relation to a school once it becomes eligible for intervention”.
The committee obviously received evidence from the Minister’s department, but it says that it finds,
“unconvincing the Department’s explanation for putting the definition of ‘coasting’ in regulations … based on the practical difficulties associated with setting out in primary legislation the data sets and measures required to assess whether a school is a coasting school”.
The committee goes on to say that the explanation given by his department,
“fails to distinguish between two entirely different matters: the criteria and other factors which should apply in determining whether or not a school is a coasting school, and the detailed measures and data which are to be used to decide whether or not those criteria or other factors are met”.
In other words, it argues that the latter quite rightly could be put into regulations, but the former could be in the Bill. What is the Government’s intention in relation to that?
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The second point is whether these regulations should be affirmative or negative. Having heard the debate, I am absolutely clear that they should be affirmative. Taking the comments made by noble Lords, there will have to be a great deal of discussion around the Government’s final determination on the regulations. From time to time, the Government will want to change them, which is absolutely right, but they should come to the attention of Parliament and we should be clear that there will be debates in both Houses. The Delegated Powers Committee has made clear that it thinks it should be by affirmative resolution. My advice to the Minister is to accept it because he would lose a vote in the Chamber. It is very rare for a Government not to accept the recommendations of the DPC. These regulations are so important, and I hope that he might even accept the proposals today. I beg to move.