Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Lord Storey

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey]

I beg to move Amendment 23.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is not here—it is not a good start—I shall rise to speak to this group of amendments, which follow on in a different way from the concerns about consultation that were raised last week but with the added dimension of consultation on a proposed academy sponsor. I remain astonished at the requirement to consult if a school is undergoing a voluntary conversion but not if it is classed as being eligible for conversion—we discussed that last week—and I also remain astonished that the Government do not see the absolute necessity to consult those people who are most involved in the school, whatever the school’s type.

I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, who is here, thankfully—so she may correct me—previously in Committee raised the issue of what happened to schools in London when comprehensivisation took place. As she pointed out, there were many different types of school in London at that time: there were successful grammar schools and successful secondary modern schools, and there were failing grammar schools and failing secondary modern schools. There were also different ideologies about education and there were immense complications about land transfers. I was a parent and a governor in Inner London at that time, and I remember those battles. I also remember the consultations—with parents, teachers, governors, directors of education and the inspectorate—and I think that that consultation was valued and made for the successful re-establishment of many schools.

I assure the Minister that, like many colleagues, I have fought for high standards in education and for the welfare and rights of children. In this Bill, we are not trying to delay or disrupt; we are seeking the best for children, and I hope that the Minister will respect that. I also know that hurry is often the enemy of satisfactory results and that consultation processes are important. There seems to be some sort of air of desperation—“How dare parents and governors challenge so-called education experts?”. It is not a case of experts against the rest; any expert worth the name will accept that they might not have all the answers and will want to seek a diversity of opinion. Effective experts want to help others to understand their reasoning and proposals. I cannot go along with this hurry here.

The Minister will say, as Nick Gibb has said:

“We want the transformation of a failing school to begin from day one”.—[Official Report, Commons, Education and Adoption Bill Committee, 9/7/15; col. 288.]

Fair enough, but let us not go along the track whereby a pupil who is “languishing” in a failing school even for a day is suddenly whisked away into a different structure. It simply does not, and cannot, happen like that. It takes time—certainly longer than a day—to transform a system. Parents and teachers are very aware that some academy sponsors have actually failed. I argue that there is time for consultation to take place, and it cannot possibly happen in a day.

Moreover, I cannot go along with Nicky Morgan’s argument about sweeping away,

“the bureaucratic and legal loopholes previously exploited by those who put ideological objections above the best interests of children”.

I cannot believe, as Nick Gibb said, that,

“unnecessary debate, delaying tactics and obstruction of the process”—[Official Report, Commons, Education and Adoption Bill Committee, 9/7/15; col. 285.]

is a justification for cutting out consultation. This is a particularly unpleasant and aggressive way of polarising the argument. Everyone, especially parents, seeks the best interests of children. The parents and teachers know the children that we are talking about. They know the school and the community, and they need to be certain of an appropriate academy sponsor. That is what this is about—the appropriateness of the academy sponsor.

Ofsted is the obvious body to give an overall vision or view of an academy chain as well as of individual schools. The Secretary of State should surely listen to Ofsted giving its objective view. Surely the parents, teachers, governors and pupils have the right to know a great deal about a proposed academy sponsor from Ofsted and other reports: the sponsor’s track record, its philosophy, its ethos, and its experience in dealing with all types of pupil, including those with special educational needs. Websites and reports are useful, of course—and I have looked at many websites of academies—but what is more important is face-to-face consultation, where questions can be asked and reports considered. Academy schools and chains can fail, just as any school can fail. Some schools have had to be transferred to a new chain. Parents and governors, quite rightly, do not want to take unnecessary risks. This idea really does need to be looked at again.

[Lord Storey]

I will try a second time.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has a view that he has expressed a number of times: that there is not time for consultation with parents; that if a school is failing, we have to get on with putting it right; and that, the longer we delay doing something, the more effect it will have on the progress of a child and the success of the school. That is a view that I can understand, but I equally understand that parents play a hugely important part in the development of a child’s education. The notion that a school should close down and become an academy without any discussion among those parents is very strange. That does not seem the correct way we have viewed education over the last X number of years. We have always seen parents as pivotal—as part of that partnership.

On my second point, again the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, resonated with me. On Second Reading, he talked about his own experiences in Pimlico, and I think he alluded to some of the abuse that he and his wife received when they were consulting to start up the school. As someone who closed more schools in Liverpool at the time of falling rolls than anyone else, I know those sort of pressures. Yes, some people will use consultation as a means of maintaining the status quo or for political reasons, but that does not make this the right thing to do. Surely we can look at this objectively and say that it can take place at an agreed period of time or if there is an agreed means of doing it. However, the principle of consultation must be enshrined as we go forward on this.

I do not have any objections to academies. I have come to the view, which I have expressed on two or three occasions, that I would rather see all secondary schools become academies than create a whole pattern of different types of schools. Therefore, I do not have any ideological view against academies. We should not be getting to the point where a school is failing and a pupil is languishing in it—we should be in there before that happens. I cannot understand why we get to a point where we suddenly say, “This school is failing, so let us close it down”, with all the trauma that the pupils face when that happens. We should be there before that happens. However, if a school is going to close, an academy is going to be established and an academy is going to be chosen for that school, we should consult with parents. I hope that the Minister will look creatively and objectively at how we might achieve that, with the minimum fuss and the minimum amount of time, but in the interests of that all-important partnership.

Once again, I apologise for getting the amendment wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his very detailed speech today. I think that we have become much more knowledgeable and sympathetic about adoption issues. We have had the excellent report from the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation. We have had the report chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, on childcare. To echo what the noble Earl said, this Government have expressed a great deal of concern and work has been done, particularly by Edward Timpson MP, who takes a real interest in this. The last Government also did a great deal of work on adoption. We therefore know what good practice should look like; we also know that the background of some adopted children has been horrendous, quite often from a very early age. We know that children in care are more likely to fail or do badly academically, are more likely to get involved with drugs and alcohol, more likely to become pregnant as teenagers and more likely to fall into a life of crime. This is immensely costly, not only to the welfare of those children, but financially to society. It costs a great deal to pull somebody up from being in the criminal justice system if they got there for one reason or another. I therefore welcome these amendments.

It would be good if the Government could, for example, examine some of the work done by the Thomas Coram Foundation, which I visited recently. It has a programme of working with prospective parents and children, taking on mental health issues on both sides to look at what might best make for a successful adoption. It follows that up with support for mental health and all kinds of other issues for parents and the children themselves.

[Lord Storey]

I am so pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, managed to get this amendment down. I tried, and could only get the wording to say “report”; he actually got a lot more, and I am very grateful for that. He obviously has charm and persistence that we need to learn from. I very much want to support the amendment.

There are moments in our lives that obviously have a profound effect on us and our personal circumstances. Some of those can be life-changing. I can remember one such occasion when, after being a bit blasé, thinking, “Do I really have to go?”, I went to meet a group of looked-after children in Liverpool. This was about five or six years ago. Liverpool Education Authority was the guardian of these looked-after children, and it had formed a committee that invited me to tea. It was one of the most life-changing moments for me because these young people talked about their problems: how they had been pushed from pillar to post, and how nobody had understood their concerns or needs. It made me realise that looked-after children had so many problems and concerns on their shoulders that you would not expect people of that age to have. We have the duty and responsibility to make sure that we do everything possible to help and support them.

I am glad to say that the whole issue of mental health is now moving much further up the political agenda: that is a good thing. The previous coalition Government, for the first time, made resources available for mental health. The present Government are carrying on with that commitment. I noticed that the Labour Opposition have appointed a shadow Minister for mental health, Luciana Berger, which shows how important mental health is. That is to be praised. Certainly in schools, it goes back—dare I be so bold as to say—to this teacher with incisive knowledge of physics, where the issue with the student in front of him might be a mental health issue. Unless that teacher has that knowledge or understanding, or somebody else in the school is able to pick up on this, it is to nought. Just as my noble friend Lord Addington went on and on and on about dyslexia—and probably all of us were waving the white flag and saying, “We give in”—we need the same focus on issues of mental health. We should keep at it like a dog with a bone. We talked about bullying in schools and the issue shot up the agenda. Many of the bullies have mental health problems. If we were able to identify them and deal with them at an early stage, they would not be bullies and some of the problems and the suffering that they and the people they bully face would not happen.

We also need to learn from others. I read about an interesting mental health project in the United States of America for young children. That is why I was nervous when the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was talking in a previous discussion about play—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly jumped up and asked about obese children—but this project looks at how you deal with mental health through role-playing. The results have been quite stunning. So we should be learning all the time from different projects as well.

Looked-after children need us to go the extra mile more than anyone else. I hope that we can all get behind and support this amendment.