My Lords, I speak to Amendment 42 in my name, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for signing it. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, also wanted to sign the amendment—unfortunately, she is not here today—but her email to the Bill office arrived a few moments too late. But to have two former Secretaries of State from different parties supporting the amendment demonstrates that this is in no way a party-political matter; it is a cross-party amendment.
It is, of course, a small amendment in that it applies only to a very limited number of specialist schools. The Bill in general affects thousands of schools, but at the moment I believe there are only about eight maths schools and a similar number of music and ballet schools in the music and dance programme. They are all centres of excellence; they take children purely on their talent in that specialisation. A high proportion of the children come from disadvantaged households and ethnic minorities. In the case of the maths schools, all the children get high grades at A-level and all go to leading universities. King’s Maths School, of which I am patron, recently celebrated being named by the Sunday Times state school of the decade. I was sorry that, in the end, the Minister was unable to come to that celebration. She would have seen how incredibly important it is to preserve that and other maths schools.
The music and dance school I know best is the Royal Ballet School where, for 10 years, my wife was chairman. I can tell you that all the students from there, on leaving the school, were offered places in leading ballet and dance companies both in the UK and abroad.
The point is that these specialist schools are really worth preserving. I put down a probing amendment in Committee and I have re-read this morning in Hansard the response from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, on behalf of the Government. She said,
“it would be wrong to exclude any schools in the maintained sector with a music, dance or maths specialism from the benefits of being part of a strong trust.”—[Official Report, 15/6/22; col. 1607.]
I realise that this statement was meant to reassure me and others, but I must respectfully disagree with two presumptions in it. First, it is not at all clear that there would be any benefit for those schools to be part of a multi-academy trust. Secondly, it is also far from clear that multi-academy trusts are all strong.
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Yesterday, the Minister wrote to Peers, saying that
“we will consider whether anything needs to be done to ensure that the Bill would not allow the Secretary to State to require a standalone academy to join”—
a multi-academy trust
“except in the very limited circumstances I have described above”.
May I politely suggest to the Minister that Amendment 42 will do just that, and could therefore be accepted by the Government, as it would ensure that a future Secretary of State could not act without the agreement of the governing body and, at maths schools, without the agreement of the sponsoring university?
In her letter, the Minister also refers to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben: that these schools could be forced to join multi-academy trusts by the threat of withholding funding. But the Minister then gives assurances only about the funding of mainstream academies, so it does not really meet the point.
We must be clear that these schools are very special. The music and dance programme was started by a Labour Government, but has been supported by subsequent Governments. The maths schools were started by the coalition Government when Michael Gove was Secretary of State. To alter their structure and governance would risk their ethos and their extraordinary record of achievement, professionally and socially.
The Minister and her officials appear to believe that the “halo effect”—her words—could be disseminated across many schools in a multi-academy trust. The Minister, as so many Members have said, is so respected in this House and, for that reason, I am sorry to disagree with her. These schools were created to produce excellent outcomes for gifted students. They have been a huge success and we should not risk this success so that government can place all schools in standardised structures, which may be beneficial for mainstream schools but not for these very few educational establishments which the country is so proud of.
When we get to it—unfortunately, I understand that it does not come for a while—I will move my amendment. I hope it will be supported; indeed, I hope it will be accepted by the Government before we get to a vote.