Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

I come back again to the localism agenda. In Greater Manchester, and potentially Cornwall, the whole of health and social care is going to be handed over by central government to the combined authorities at local government level. So why is education being completely ring-fenced from any of those factors? It is a puzzle to me.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

As well as the fact that, on this particular point, the Education Department seems wholly out of step with the general direction of government policy—which, as my noble friend said, is transferring power from central government to the local combined authorities—the department’s stance undermines the very policy itself. The overarching remit of the combined authorities is to develop the economies of their city or region and translate that growth into opportunities for all their citizens, particularly the most disadvantaged. Surely education has to be part of that agenda of economic growth. Does my noble friend agree?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

This is another puzzle because the terms of the agreement with Greater Manchester focus on growth in the economy and specifically mention the skills agenda. I have listened to the Government talk about the issue of skills—albeit at the same time as destroying further education, which of course is where most of these skills are taught; but we will leave that aside for the moment—and I am absolutely amazed because the argument they put forward is that while skills are crucially important, the role of schools is to make sure that, when they come out, young people are ready to go into the workplace; that is, those who do not go into higher or further education, if any is left when they reach the age when they move on from school.

Why on earth is education being taken out of this really exciting development? I am enthusiastic about what is happening in Greater Manchester, and potentially it is hugely exciting, but I just do not understand why education is being left out of it. This is but one example of how, when the Department for Education says that it is consistent with the localism agenda, it is, frankly, completely unbelievable.

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[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

It does, and that is helpful, but it still leaves the question of accountability for finance and governance, which is very specialist, and accountability for educational practices, which is pretty specialist too but perhaps does not relate to some of the issues that we are concerned with.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

Before the noble Lord’s previous intervention, he seemed to me to be saying, and perhaps he could clarify whether this is his view, that all the schools that are bad or coasting are in the maintained sector, that the solution to dealing with that is to take them away from local authority control and relationships completely and that therefore, by implication, all the academies that have gone through the process of becoming academies are excellent. We know that that is not true. Is that what he is saying—that all the bad and coasting schools are only in the maintained sector?

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that that is not what I am saying. I have been an advocate of full inspection for academies ever since the last Bill was introduced, and I still take that position. That is the way in which academies should be judged; have no doubt about that. I do not think it likely that we will deal with that in this Bill but the noble Baroness asked me what my position was, and that is it.

What I am saying is that the Bill deals with coasting schools in the maintained sector and, if that is so, there is a bit of a problem if we are going to deal with the issue by simply recreating that. I simply record my reservations. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was right to say that as it stands the clause may not achieve all that it sets out to, and if it comes back again I would be very interested to have a look at it. Still, I have these reservations and wanted to put them on record.

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[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I shall speak briefly in support of the amendment. My noble friend said more eloquently than I can all that I have to say, so I shall keep my remarks brief.

I feel conflicted in listening to this debate because the Government have taken such an intransigent line on there being only one solution to improve the performance of schools—that is, to make them academies. Because of that, I feel pushed into a position that is not actually mine. I do not think that local authorities are the be-all and end-all. Like my noble friend, I, too, chaired improvement boards in many local authorities when I was a Minister—including in Manchester, which was not easy what with coming from there. I was quite clear what my responsibilities were: to call the local authority to account. I think many Ministers have done that, too. The dichotomies that are inevitably a result of the position that the Government have taken are very regrettable because they prevent us debating the real issues about how we can best put the ingredients into schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, identified them, that will help them all succeed.

I take issue with three points. The reason why I support the amendment is that it is trying to keep options open and to make the process of deciding the way forward, when a school is coasting or underperforming, one that must consider a range of options instead of going down only one route. The first point, as I said, is the Government’s assumption that academisation can be the only solution. My noble friend is quite right: you can sustain that position only if you think that that will in every single circumstance, 100%, improve every school. We know from the evidence, although the Government are reluctant to talk about it in any reasonable way, that that is not the case. Academisation, certainly over a period of time, does not necessarily produce the ingredients that we know are required for excellence in education.

Secondly, we have heard a lot of comments about this Bill handing responsibility and accountability for performance back to professionals, and away from local authorities who have not held schools to account. Let us just be clear that when schools underperform, the first people responsible are the head teacher and the teachers in that school. They are responsible for that. Yes, local authorities have had a duty to call those schools to account but not all professionals are good ones; not all head teachers are good, either. I do not want that point to be lost because so far in this debate it has been.

Thirdly, I feel very strongly that the provisions in the Bill that would completely cut out parents from any say in the process of what happens to an underperforming or coasting school that their child attends is completely wrong and cannot be justified. My children are now well grown up and I am into a generation of grandchildren. However, if I was directly responsible for children in such a school I would be absolutely incensed that I could have no say and would not be called to a meeting. That is wrong in principle. In terms of the outcomes that such a process would achieve, it would be regrettable.

I support the spirit of this amendment for those reasons. We need a much more nuanced debate and to retain the possibility that there are other ways forward for some schools. We certainly should involve parents.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the Minister replies, I want to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, if she might help with a bit of clarification. Before asking her that question, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for his helpful comments earlier. Perhaps I should have said that I have an interest in this area: I am a landowner and I am interested in property development.

I think the noble Baroness also attended the meeting at the beginning of the week with the head teachers and regional schools commissioners. What I found most interesting about that was the impact on governance that academisation seems to have. The noble Baroness will be aware that the Chief Inspector of Schools has been concerned for quite some time about the variability in the quality of governance in schools. There was quite a discussion of governance in that meeting. What struck me listening to that discussion was that perhaps the academy process is a little like Teach First—or, for social work, Step Up—because it suddenly gives the opportunity to bring a whole new pool of talent, drive and expertise into the governing bodies. It seems possible that one justification for the Government’s process is that as a systemic approach it is a way to bring a whole slew of expertise into the governance and leadership of schools that is not so easily available by the normal process. I have not had experience as a school governor. Would the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, care to comment?

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[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I remind the noble Earl that schools receive extra resources for those young people—especially now, with the pupil premium. However, there is an overlap between the two groups and, although we have to be careful to ensure that the pupil premium resources are not spent exclusively on those with special educational needs, there is a reason to use some of those resources for some of the activities.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

Before my noble friend Lord Watson speaks, perhaps I may ask a question. This is an important amendment and it made me realise that I did not know terribly much about what academies have to do in relation to children with special educational needs and disabilities. Can the Minister tell us—if not today then in writing after the Committee—what information schools have to provide, when they are to become academies, about the arrangements that they will make for children with special educational needs and disabilities? Secondly, what statistics does the department have on the numbers of children with SEND who are currently in academies, compared with those elsewhere in the education system?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I am not sure which Minister will respond to this debate—I see it will be the noble Baroness. I am sure that she will tell us that the amendment is not necessary, but I hope she will say that that is because the two requirements in it are already in place. She is nodding—and if that is the case, it is most welcome.

The issue of special educational needs is much underestimated and is not fully appreciated by many people. Like other noble Lords, I have been in contact with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, which provided an interesting briefing with some rather worrying statistics. Two in particular stood out for me. First, one in five of all pupils has a special educational need of some sort; that represents about 1.6 million people in England. Secondly, 50% of children in areas of social deprivation have significant language delays, which of course have all sorts of other spin-off effects, not least the fact that children with vocabulary difficulties at five are significantly associated with poor literacy, mental health and employment outcomes in adult life. So it is important that schools deal with those issues as far as possible.

While the noble Baroness’s initial response is encouraging, we need to be clear whether there is any tendency—I am not aware that there is one and perhaps I could ask whether figures are available—by academies to exclude more children with special educational needs, like for like, than maintained schools. I would be concerned if that were the case. Certainly, the last part of the amendment, proposed new paragraph (b)(ii), which talks about,

“children with special educational needs and disabilities who do not have an education, health and care plan”,

is the most important because those children are most at risk. The school itself has to decide, in place of the plan that exists for other children, what it will do and how it will care for those children. I suppose it is self-evident that some schools do it better than others. This is not a division between maintained schools and academies. It is obviously more challenging to deal with children with special educational needs if there are only a few of them than if there is a significant group of them within the class and perhaps teachers can specifically be there full time to care for their needs.

With those points and the particular question about the comparison between academies and maintained schools, I await the Minister’s response with interest.