Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Spielman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

I would like to say a brief word about Amendments 430 and 436, in the name of my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes, which are aimed at bringing the inspection of independent schools by the Independent Schools Inspectorate into Ofsted. I find myself in an unusual position: I always agree with everything my noble friend says, but I am afraid I am going to have to make an exception to the rule on this occasion. I hope she will forgive me. The ISI, the creation of which was very much due to the work of my noble friend Lord Lexden, has worked well for 26 years, inspecting some 1,200 schools a year and covering around half a million children. It is also one of the approved inspectorates for overseas schools teaching a British curriculum. It is not, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, was implying, some form of cosy cartel; it is a fully fledged independent body, regulated by the DFE, with its board and leadership team wholly independent of the Independent Schools Council, its associations and the schools that ISI inspects. Ofsted itself produces an annual report on its work. It has never found evidence that ISI is any less strict than Ofsted in its inspections—something it would surely have reported on had it found that to be the case. That would certainly be true if it ever found an issue relating to safeguarding.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

Perhaps I could inform my noble friend that the oversight mechanism for ISI was first reduced a good many years ago when DFE asked it to remove the strand that involved monitoring a sample of inspections, and then it subsequently withdrew all the remaining elements. So, there is no longer any oversight model to my knowledge.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

That is not the case, as I understand it, but perhaps we could speak about that afterwards.

Most importantly, the regime is effective because inspection is best conducted by experts who know the sector. The ISI is made up of people who understand how it works. That is particularly true for boarding schools, which have a very different operational model from the vast majority of schools that Ofsted inspects. The noble Baroness rightly talked about accountability, which is an extremely important point. Peer review, in this case, is the best way to produce some form of accountability, but we will have to differ on that.

ISI is also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, said, self-funding. So it is no burden on the taxpayer, which is an important point, especially in the current economic circumstances. Changing this tried, tested and effective system would be costly, placing additional burdens on Ofsted; it would be disruptive; and above all, it would almost certainly weaken standards of inspection because inspectors would be unfamiliar with the types of schools they were looking at, and therefore what issues of which to be mindful and aware.

I hear what the noble Baronesses say, but I do not believe the case for such a significant and expensive change has been made; nor, indeed, is there any clamour within the sector, or from parents and teachers, as far as I know, for radical reform of this sort. I hope the Committee will reject these amendments.

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[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to what my noble friend has just said, and the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Blackstone. It is a matter of balance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, between the needs of the religion and the needs of the child to receive a broad and balanced curriculum sufficient that, when they are adults, they can make choices. Certainly, when I was a Minister there were a number of unregistered settings where the children were attending very full-time, and the organisations were pleading home education as their defence. There was no way, frankly, that there were enough hours in the dark day, or the energy, for that to plausibly be happening.

I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. Can the Minister say why it is necessary to have these powers and these changes in relation to academies in the Bill? In five years as the Academies Minister, at no time did I feel that I needed any more powers—either those in this group or those we will discuss later—to sort out problems. Of course, we now know why these powers are in the Bill, even if we do not know why they are necessary: because the unions want them. We know that because the Secretary of State for Education told us so yesterday at the TUC conference. I must say that I admire her honesty. The unions have made a number of excellent comments recently about the dangers of smartphones and social media, because they know that they are creating considerable problems in schools for children and for their members. The fact that they have been so current on this and so strongly outspoken is very impressive, and I commend them for that.

However, it is my perception that the unions are still very anti-academies, which I suggest is an out-of-date attitude. It is clear that a teacher in a good multi-academy trust has far greater career progression opportunities, far greater CPD and far more support than they could possibly have in a single school. I therefore invite the unions to consider their antipathy for academies a bit more in the context of career progression, and to support for their teachers.

Of course, these powers are a power grab not just by the Secretary of State but by civil servants. I personally believe that academy, school and MAT leaders are far better placed to decide how to run their schools than officials micromanaging a system from Whitehall. We know that officials’ first pass at mass academisation after 2010 was not well managed. Having said that, there are currently a number of senior officials in the academies and regions teams in the DfE, as my noble friend Lady Berridge has alluded to, who are very experienced and for whom I have a great deal of respect, but they will not be there for ever. Given the Civil Service’s penchant for moving staff around far too much, such that they never build up any serious domain expertise, I believe that handing so much power to officials is dangerous. The Government would be far better off leaving things as they are because they are working perfectly well—we all have funding agreements and we all understand the deal—so that they can bask in the success of the academies programme, which, after all, was invented by the Labour Party.

I turn to Amendment 436B specifically. New subsection (2)(g) in Clause 39(5), to do with premises, appears to say that if a school wanted to change the use of a classroom from teaching pupils to a crèche or nursery, because of a drop in roll, it would have to ask the DfE. Really? Is that what is actually meant? I ask the Minister to clarify that, please.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s Amendments 428 and 429A to eliminate any potential confusion between two distinct regulatory regimes. I will not repeat what others have said, but I believe that academy funding agreements should continue to be the primary regulatory instrument for these schools.

I also support Amendment 423 from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, to strengthen the set of offences linked to operating illegal schools beyond the somewhat narrow conception of a “proprietor”. Illegal schools often operate in the context of a wider community where they are intentionally enabled by the support and action of others besides the proprietor. Alongside that, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for Amendment 432 and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, for her remarks. Both recognise the importance and difficulties of collecting evidence in relation to unregistered schools.

I support Amendments 430 and 436, proposed by my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes, relating to independent school inspection. Again, I will endeavour not to repeat what has already been said, but I have an additional couple of points to make. Things can and do go wrong in all kinds of schools for all sorts of reasons, and always will. There needs to be an inspection model that is rigorous and thorough enough to report fairly and honestly, even when the findings are profoundly uncomfortable for the school and its leaders. Such a model has existed for Ofsted inspections—so for all state-funded schools and the half of independent schools, mostly the smaller and less well-known ones, that are inspected by Ofsted—and I hope that will continue to be the case under the new Ofsted model.

However. it is hard for the ISI to provide a corresponding level of rigour when it finds real problems in a school. I think the ISI inspection model is best characterised as a form of peer review. Peer review is a wonderful way of providing support and advice on ways to improve at the margin, but it is not so good as a method of landing really tough messages. It is simply too hard not to soften your messages and pull your punches a bit when you are talking to your peers. I understand that the ISI has only two full-time inspectors who must also oversee its whole inspection programme. There was once a DfE oversight mechanism for the ISI and a sample of its inspections used to be monitored, but that one control was dropped some years ago.

So, while the ISI peer review model has real value, and I do not want to undermine that, it is not the ideal model to underpin an effective regulatory system. In my experience, the DfE now turns to Ofsted to inspect ISI-inspected schools about which serious regulatory concerns have arisen, and, with the broadening range of schools being inspected by the ISI, that is not surprising. I therefore think it is time to extend a clear and important principle that has long applied in the regulation of state schools. For all state schools, inspection and reporting are kept separate from improvement and support work as a matter of principle. That principle has been maintained under successive Governments and is being maintained by this Government, and it is a good one, provided that the dividing lines are correctly drawn.

I realise that I have not declared my interest as a previous chief inspector, for which I apologise. I took an extraordinary amount of flak from people who did not realise or want to acknowledge that for me to turn Ofsted into a school support model would have been to cut directly across settled government policy. There is a strong logic for looking at the independent schools that are not already inspected by Ofsted on the same principle that improvement and support should sit separately from the hard job of inspection and reporting. There is a strong logic for unbundling the ISI—putting its formal inspection functions with Ofsted and leaving the supportive peer review model to be carried forward by the ISI. This would be a sensible step in the direction of a coherent and effective regulatory system.

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It may be that the department has taken a view that, somewhere down the line, at an unspecified moment in time with an unspecified Bill, it might like to come back and have another go. The spirit of Britain at the moment, with our fractured and vexatious politics, gives us a very simple message: just do it—get on with it. I appeal to the Government to bring back on Report a simple amendment of their own, which I think we could unite around. The Government should do the sensible thing: if we are inspecting everything else in the system, inspect multi-academy trusts. I beg to move.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, first, I express my support for what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has put forward in his amendment. In many respects, the amendment that I am about to speak to and the twin amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran are an elaboration and development of the principle.

We have a long-established regulatory model focused at school level and a much more recently established regime for academies and academy trusts. As the noble Lord said, there was a separate regime for local authority school improvement work, which was abolished some years ago—perhaps a good idea, perhaps not. The noble Lord said that the underlying model evolved in the 1980s and was one of high autonomy for schools, balanced by strong accountability. It is interesting that few in English education even recognise that this comparatively high level of autonomy continues today, relative to other countries.

There has been constant pushback on accountability for decades, whatever form it takes, and there have been important changes in recent years. A powerful model of autonomous school group operation has emerged with academy trusts. In these groups, some decisions and activities can sit at the centre or in schools, depending on the model adopted. There is a wide range of models, from the very highly integrated through to the highly devolved. Much good has flowed from this model—as well as, inevitably, problems from time to time—but regulation and oversight have not quite caught up. Let us remember that, for an academy, the legal entity is the academy trust, so it is the trust that carries the legal responsibility and is properly held accountable at group level, not just at school level.

On the other hand, inspection has been constrained by government policy to school level. Bizarrely, school leaders are increasingly being held accountable for decisions and actions that actually sit elsewhere in a MAT. It is unsurprising that some school leaders feel that they are bearing a disproportionate share of the accountability burden relative to their bosses.

Of course, the DfE has been extending and elaborating its oversight model for trusts, but this remains heavily reliant on self-reported and outcome data, and perhaps lacks some of the insight that comes from expert scrutiny of MATs’ central operations and professional dialogue with MAT leaders.

It is widely acknowledged that there has to be more scrutiny of MATs. Outcome measures alone do not give enough assurance that MATs are using their freedoms well to provide education with real substance and integrity and the support that enables all children to grow into resilient and competent adults.

My Amendment 436ZZB and the immediately preceding amendment from my noble friend Lady Barran are intended to draw together a somewhat disparate set of provisions to help create a coherent regime for the regulation of academy trusts. This regime would set out clear purposes and priorities for the regulation of academy trusts, although the interests of children, and parents on behalf of children, should still come first. It would recognise the varying structures of trusts and the divisions of responsibilities within them and be flexible enough to respond appropriately. It would draw on expert insights and judgments in arriving at rigorous and well-evidenced decisions and keep the various bodies involved in education regulation in alignment. DfE, Ofsted, the admissions adjudicator and others each have their own sphere, but there is further to go in thinking systemically about how to make sure that those levers fit together in the most effective and efficient way.

Finally, it is very important that there is the right level of transparency on this work—something to which the amendment from my noble friend Lady Barran draws our attention. Confidence in the system depends on making sure that people can see what is being done and understand the basis for it. Those transparency provisions are, therefore, also really important, and I hope they will be taken on board.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 435 in the name of my noble friends, led by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. In doing so, I remind the House of my interests, in particular as chair of the E-ACT multi-academy trust.

I have thought for some time that it is important that we bring forward the inspection of MATs. I was therefore delighted to see it as an election commitment from the Labour Party when it went into the last election, and I have been looking forward to the Government implementing it. It is right that the Bill is being used as an opportunity to introduce powers to do that. It would then be up to the department and the Government to do the necessary work with Ofsted to get ready for that, so that Ofsted has the expertise within its inspectorate on how MATs work—something that it currently does not consistently have. We therefore should not rush at this, and I have some nervousness about some of the other amendments that are arguing for a six-month implementation timeline. We should leave the timeline to the Government until they are confident that the expertise exists to do it.

I am also interested in whether we should define the proprietors of academies and local authorities as responsible bodies for schools, so that we can have a single inspection framework for both local authorities and academies in respect of their inspection and get more consistency across both forms of governance.

If we are inspecting those responsible bodies—MATs in this case—it is also interesting to look at whether there is an opportunity for rationalisation around inspection. Good, well-governed, well-run MATs have good school improvement capacity and good capacity to support the schools that are in their trusts financially, in procurement and in all the various aspects of running good schools. After Ofsted has carried out an effective inspection of the MAT, it then ought to be possible to use a risk-based approach to decide whether it needs to inspect all the schools in that trust. That rationalisation could then release capacity for more consistency within Ofsted. One of the main complaints about Ofsted in the school system is the consistency of the outcomes of inspections. I do not blame Ofsted; it has operated within considerable budgetary constraints and has had to take its fair share of resource cuts over the period, and that has an impact on the consistency of inspections. Anything we can do to increase capacity should be welcomed.

This goes to the importance of governance. When the noble Lord, Lord Gove—who is not in his place—was the Secretary of State and oversaw the rapid expansion of academies, to which my noble friend Lord Blunkett alluded, I do not think he properly appreciated that one of the core elements of the success of the academies that I oversaw when I was the Academies Minister under the previous Labour Government was around governance. It was from having individuals such as the noble Lords, Lord Nash and Lord Agnew, put their names to a multi-academy trust and their reputations on the line to ensure that the governance was strong. In those reforms from the noble Lord, Lord Gove, we had this rapid expansion without a serious focus on whether or not the governance was improving alongside it.

So I also encourage the Government, as part of thinking about this, to review the governance of multi-academy trusts to ensure that we have good consistency as we expand the number of MATs and seek to improve their improvement capacity. As part of that, I ask them to look at the appointment and term of office of the members of academies. The five members of E-ACT are wonderful people, and I thank them for their service, but they are self-appointed and appointed for as long as they want to do the job. It is a slightly odd arrangement in that they are the people I am accountable to as the chair of the trust, while their accountability—and to whom—is questionable.

I would be interested in a solution whereby the local authorities within which the MAT operates appoint the members, and then the trust board would be accountable through that route to the local authorities. In that way, the local authorities would not be operating schools through the trust, but the governance would be accountable to local authorities. That would bring better consistency and better accountability into the system. On that basis, I support my noble friend Lord Blunkett and his amendment.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Sater, in saying that physical education is one of those things that we all decry and think somebody else should be doing. The fact of the matter is that there are certain physical skills that you need. In racquet sports, for example, you need to know how to move your feet, how to hold the racquet and so on; I say that in front of the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, with, shall we say, a degree of fear. There are certain basic skills that you will need to get the best out of a sport and to see whether you have any potential for it—if you do not have them, you are not going to find out.

When it comes to how to integrate those abilities into PE lessons, you need some training and structure. If you turn around and say to your outside agency, “This is possible, so please make sure that it happens”, you are taking a step further forward. So a degree of knowledge is required.

We have just mentioned the fact that special educational needs are a factor. I have managed to make a couple of speeches without mentioning them, so I shall revert to the norm. If you have special educational needs but somebody who is trying to teach you does not understand what they are about, chances are you are going to fail. They may say, “Everybody take some notes”, but you may have one person who is dyspraxic so cannot do that easily and two people who are dyslexic so will not be able to read them back and will not get everything down in time. You have to have some degree of knowledge to reach them—and those are fairly commonly occurring conditions. You will need some training somewhere in this.

I do not say that the existing pathways are always there because, if they were, I would not be making this point in the first place. However, we need to have that degree of training—or at least the awareness to say, “Right, I don’t know how you do this. Can you defer and find me another pathway?” That would be very helpful. I look forward to exploring this matter, both in this Bill and in future Bills, to make sure that we get something in place that means that more teachers can become teachers of special educational needs—not just saying that they are, because more of the same does not work. What they have at the moment is failing them.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

I want to come in on this group to inject a note of pragmatism into the discussion. First, I observe that the current freedom does not seem to have created significant problems in practice. To ask that classic question, “What is the problem that the clause in the Bill is trying to solve?”

Secondly, it is absolutely right that there are excellent programmes—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, described them—to encourage people to move from instructor and teaching assistant roles into qualified teacher status. Those are excellent—they should exist and people should be encouraged, of course—but the pragmatic point is to think about all the people who might choose to be teachers but choose instead, for example, to go off and be tutors, lavishing their skills and expertise in a very small subject on children whose parents can afford to pay. They are then lost to the state system because they simply will not go down that path.

For that reason, I support the amendments put forward by my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Agnew—as well as the pragmatic amendment proposed at the start of this group by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf of Dulwich—as a way of making sure that the potential impact of this clause is not the opposite of what I am sure the Government intend. It is absolutely right to want both to upskill teachers and to make sure that as much teaching as possible happens with qualified teachers, but it would be desperately sad if many subjects and a lot of the potential school experience for millions of children were diluted for that purity of principle.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I quite agree with my noble friend. The current system does not create a lot of problems because most schools are teams. If you really need a particular skill, so you bring in someone who has that skill but lacks the other skills that one needs to teach well, the community rallies round and makes sure both that everyone works together and that the experience for the children is good. What I would like to see is not a system that says, “Go away, we don’t want you unless you have QTS first”, but one that welcomes people in and says, “Let’s bring you on”—the sort of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, was describing. Such an attitude to bringing in the skills that we need seems to me to be the right one.

There are lots of people out there who could contribute their skills if it were made possible for them to do that in a way that works for them. As my noble friend said, there are a lot of young people who tutor and do it really well and who, therefore, develop an interest in the idea that they might be teachers although they want to get there in a way that suits them. There are lots of older people in their fifties and sixties who are coming to the end of their career and know that they are not going to go anywhere else. They may be consultants in IT and just do not want to sit down and write another computer system. They would love to get involved with young people and help to bring them on. You have to make it easy for them and find a way in for them. Creating something as inflexible as this Bill does seems destructive.

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Moved by

[Baroness Spielman]

440: Clause 47, page 111, line 13, at end insert—
“(5A) Subsection (1)(b)(ii) does not apply in relation to an educational institution that has received an OFSTED rating of Good or equivalent in the last three years.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment and another in the name of Lord Agnew seeks to ensure that academies which are rated as “Good” are not required to follow the National Curriculum.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 440 and 442 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. He tabled these amendments because of his concerns that the new national curriculum remains so uncertain. The interim report has given little indication of what might follow in the autumn or next year, and he believes that with that level of uncertainty these amendments are appropriate. I have taken this on at short notice and will listen to what the Minister has to say and respond.

Before I sit down, I want to give a warning. We have been here before. In 2004, the national curriculum obligation applied to virtually all schools, as very few schools were academies at that time. At that point, inspection was stripped down to remove subject-level scrutiny from most of the curriculum. English and maths in primary schools were specifically examined, but beyond that almost all subject-level inspection was removed.

What was the consequence? Over time, in primary schools and at key stage 3 there was a drastic reduction in what was taught. Various reports show that, such as Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? from Ofsted. Primary schools, especially once the science tests were dropped in 2009, taught less and less outside English and maths.

At key stage 4, this was compounded by the equivalence concept brought into performance tables at the same time. All manner of distortions and gaming emerged in the secondary curriculum, and the DfE had to play whack-a-mole for years each time a new game popped up—some people will remember things such as the European computer driving licence, equivalent qualifications that were worth four GCSEs, double entry and so on. It would be unfortunate if we went back to that world.

I understand that the Ofsted changes that have been announced will remove the very limited subject-level scrutiny that was reintroduced in 2019 to counteract this loss of real curriculum. My concern is that the national curriculum obligation included in this clause could become a dead letter, simply because there will not be effective scrutiny to make sure that is what actually happens in practice. We could once again be in a situation where only the things that are tested—which, especially in primary schools, is quite a limited set and at key stage 3 is nothing at all—will get taught. That is a warning.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s proposition that Clause 47 does not stand part of the Bill. Clause 47 as it stands strips academies of one of their key freedoms: the ability to innovate and tailor their curriculum approaches to meet the specific needs of the pupils and communities they serve. We have clear evidence that allowing schools this freedom, with clear accountability mechanisms in place, improves outcomes for pupils.

This summer, free schools outperformed other non-selective state schools in both GCSE and A-level results, playing an important role in driving up standards, particularly in areas of significant deprivation and low educational attainment. One of the strengths of free schools has been their diversity, representing a varied range of educational philosophies and high-quality curricula.

In a recent report, New Schools Network set out a number of principles that it had identified across high-impact free schools—those with a strong track record, outstanding Ofsted ratings, strong exam results and high levels of participation, engagement, progression and achievement. Among them was a relentless focus on the fundamentals of learning, which often drew on international and well-evidenced school and curriculum models and practices, from Teach Like a Champion to Expeditionary Learning, KIP and High Tech High. Drawing on the best evidence and proven ideas of what works, schools have used the flexibility in the current system to adapt their curriculum to suit their students. They, after all, know their pupils best.

The NSM report sets out a number of examples where free schools have used their curriculum freedoms to the benefit of their pupils. Marine Academy Plymouth has developed its own curriculum around marine themes relating to the city’s coastal tradition. School 21’s curriculum is project-oriented, with curriculum and pedagogical practices allowing pupils to choose personalised opportunities for growth which fit in with their passions and interests. For children with special needs, the Lighthouse School in Leeds, the first special free school, has supported a growing network of similar institutions. Lighthouse has shared its unique curriculum with more than 50 other school leaders and demonstrated how its innovative approach has allowed it to design provisions specifically aimed at pupils with autism, while spreading best practice across the system.

Allowing this flexibility does not and should not mean a free-for-all, and that is certainly not the case now. While academies are not required to follow the national curriculum, they are required by their funding agreements to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, and of course there are further safeguards via the Ofsted inspection framework and exam system. Again, the Government are proposing changes to dilute the autonomy of academies when it is not clear what the systemic problem is that this clause is trying to solve.

As we have heard, the national curriculum itself is currently under review, which is creating more uncertainty. As a result of provisions in the Bill, academies will be forced to sign up to a new curriculum, the content of which the Government have not decided yet, without knowing if there will be suitable flexibilities within it for them to appropriately tailor their curriculum to the specific needs and contexts of their communities.

As has previously been explained by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the breadth of powers included in the Bill would allow a Secretary of State in future to potentially be much more prescriptive and expansive in relation to the detail of any new national curriculum if they were so inclined—again, a further reduction in academies’ autonomy.

I do not believe this is the right approach. Our education system as a whole has benefited from the ability of teachers to be creative, to innovate and to adapt their curriculum to respond to the unique needs of their pupils. Unfortunately, Clause 47 as it stands is a retrograde step.

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I hope that, in giving those assurances and responding to amendments, I have convinced noble Lords to withdraw or not move their amendments.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comprehensive answer. I have heard much about good intentions and a great deal of hope being hung on the curriculum and assessment review, but not much acknowledgement of how a number of noble Lords have pointed out that this clause could backfire, especially without better controls and guards. My noble friend Lady Evans laid out particularly lucidly how academy freedoms have enriched and strengthened education. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, echoed my noble friend Lord Agnew’s concerns about the undetermined curriculum and reminded us about the essence and purposes of education and the risks of limiting the scrutiny of what is taught. We had a good case study from my noble friend Lord Sewell.

There are a couple of interesting points. Design and technology GCSE entries started dropping off in the late 1990s. Most of the decline has been the result of schools using their autonomy to structure timetables to teach less of it and to have fewer people taking those GCSEs. The safeguards were not there around design and technology for a very long period, so thinking about those controls and incentives really matters.

My fear remains that this clause may encourage lip service to the detail of the new curriculum, whatever it is. But if that comes at the expense of the intellectual energy and dynamism that have been generated in the school sector in recent years, it will drag English education inexorably backwards and, in a few years’ time, we might find ourselves languishing with Scotland and Wales in the international league tables, wondering what on earth we have done and why we ever thought that it was a good idea. Nevertheless, I understand where we are and that the curriculum and assessment review needs to report. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 440 withdrawn.